Bradley Merrill Thompson, a Member of the Firm in the Health Care and Life Sciences practice, in the Washington, DC, office, was quoted in an article titled "Federal Task Force Recommends Stepped up Role for FCC in mHealth Policy."
Following is an excerpt:
Recommendations from a federal task force to the Federal Communications Commission call for the agency to play a stepped up role in developing policies for mobile health (mHealth) and other information technologies. ?...
In addition, the FCC will recruit a permanent health care director. ?...
Attorney Bradley Merrill Thompson, with Epstein Becker & Green PC in Washington, told BNA that the health care director role at FCC is a welcome one because there has not been a key point person at FCC to address operational issues with FDA staff.
"The lack of a person over at FCC has been a barrier," he said. ?...
"The thought is, I think, they can work with FDA in only the way another government agency can," Thompson said.
He explained that FCC's statutory authority to promote technologies for public benefit makes it an ideal partner for FDA in ensuring innovation in the mHealth field is not stifled while also considering necessary government controls.
FDA has said that communication technology is not really its bailiwick, Thompson noted, but it has oversight of therapeutic and diagnostic devices that rely on a robust communication infrastructure with appropriate standards and interoperability mechanisms in place to ensure they work correctly. "If FCC takes that role aggressively, then FDA can do what it does best," he said.
