Over the last five years, the technology sector developing and marketing remote patient monitoring systems has changed dramatically. Once dominated by entrepreneurs and startups, today nearly every name is a globally recognized one. Another landmark step in that direction was announced this week when General Electric's U.K.-based healthcare division (NYSE:GE) signed a technology and distribution agreement with Living Independently Group, Inc.

With this partnership, GE joins Bayer, Honeywell, Intel, Panasonic and Philips in a remote patient monitoring and home telehealth marketplace originally built by small, regional startups, two others of which have already been absorbed into the empires of a member of the first group.

At the NAHC Annual Meeting this month in Ft. Lauderdale, HCAR will once again borrow online rich media equipment from sister company Home Care Information Network and use it to produce live and near-live news broadcasts directly from the exhibit hall. Check this page frequently Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, October 12, 13 and 14 as we will upload links to interviews and major breaking news as they become available throughout the meeting.

To whet readers' appetites for this form of online video news reports, we offer an interview with one of the industry's home telehealth vendors. After reading a brief summary of the story, sit back and enjoy our conversation with Dan Cosentino of Cardiocom.

It is called the "New Freedom Initiative," a federal effort to keep the elderly infirm and veterans in their homes and out of care institutions. 28 States will be getting $36 million to promote the initiative. Simultaneously, a new survey sponsored by MetLife Mature Market Institute® indicates that in-home aide costs can vary more than 500% from state to state.

ICD-10 will expand ICD-9 code set by more than 9 times. Healthcare providers undoubtedly have at least as many questions. CMS will attempt to answer them in a series of national provider calls. See details here about the one for Part A and Part B providers on November 12.

This month, we launch our HCAR Career Center, where home care employers and job-seekers can find each other. Perhaps this is a good time to remind both that personal resumes are not peer-reviewed, though perhaps they should be. When CareerBuilder.com asked hiring managers whether untruths are ever found on resumes, they had outrageous examples at their fingertips.

Briefly stalled by the Wall Street greed crisis, resulting in Lehman Brothers' failure, the AllScripts-Misys merger is back on track. Shareholders to vote on 10/6.

Some contract signings are more hype than relevance to the industry but this week it is the other way around as giant Bayada Nurses makes its vendor selection for 150 sites and a staff of 12,000.

Software as a Service, with data safely stored and backed up far away from hurricane zones, saves thousands of dollars and hours for home care agencies disrupted by Hurricane Ike, even if they cannot return to their offices. We found two software vendors who are reassuring their Houston and Galveston customers that their patient data is intact.