Here are a few I came across last week.
Note: Each link is followed by a title and few paragraphs. For the full article click on the link above title of the article. Note also that full access to some links may require site registration or subscription payment.
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GAO: Lack of security controls put Medicare beneficiary data at risk
Published April 06 2018, 7:19am EDT
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services needs to improve its oversight of security controls for Medicare beneficiary data used by research organizations and qualified entities, according to an audit by the Government Accountability Office.
While CMS has developed guidance for Medicare Administrative Contractors (MAC), GAO says the agency has not developed similar guidance for research organizations such as colleges, universities and non-profit institutes, which is putting Medicare beneficiary data at risk.
“Without providing comprehensive, risk-based security guidance to researchers, CMS increases the risk that external entities possessing agency data may not have applied security controls that meet CMS standards,” states the audit.
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Almost 14m patients using online GP services across England
Hannah Crouch
3 April 2018
Almost 14 million patients across England are now using online GP services to book appointments, order repeat prescriptions and view their records.
According latest figures from NHS England, there has been a 42% increase in the number of people who are signed up for online services compared to the same time last year.
This means 24 per cent of patients (13.9 million) in England are now registered, which NHS England hopes will ease pressure on GPs and their staff and save patients time.
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UK can be ‘world leader in AI’ if NHS data can be tapped
3 April 2018
The parliamentary under secretary for the Department of Health and Social Care has said the UK could be a world leader in AI research and “unlock a wake of innovation throughout the NHS” by harnessing patient data sets.
Speaking at the Spectator Health Summit on Monday 26 March, Lord James O’Shaughnessy suggested that citizen data held by the NHS was “an asset that no other country can bring together”, further claiming that it was the key to transforming Britain’s healthcare industry and making it “the global centre for life sciences trials, genomics and personalised medicine”.
However, O’Shaughnessy said the public first needed to be convinced about the benefits of data collection and assured that their information would be used safely and responsibly.
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69% of providers plan to move more patient data to the cloud: 6 survey insights
The majority of healthcare providers — 84 percent — store sensitive data in the cloud, according to a Netwrix survey.
For the survey, the data security company asked 853 IT professionals from a range of industries, including roughly 90 participants from the healthcare sector, about cloud adoption and security practices at their respective organizations.
Here are six things to know about cloud adoption in the healthcare industry.
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Study: Restricting EHR notifications saves VA providers 1.5 hours per week
Four researchers affiliated with various Veterans Affairs facilities across the U.S. developed a program to reduce "low-value" EHR notifications, according to study results published in BMJ Quality & Safety.
Seventy percent of primary care practitioners at VA facilities cite EHR inbox notifications, which communicate a range of clinical information, to be of "unmanageable volume," the study authors wrote. The researchers opted to create a national quality improvement program to address the challenges associated with EHR-related information overload and alert fatigue.
To develop the program, researchers assessed primary care practitioners' daily notification load at 148 VA facilities. Based on their review, the researchers restricted mandatory notification types to one standardized list across all VA facilities and provided hands-on training for primary care practitioners on how to customize and process notifications more effectively.
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Patient safety check-up: Promise, progress and a need for vigilance
Healthcare leaders Robert Wachter, David Bates, Leah Binder and Tejal Gandhi take the pulse of how far patient safety has come in recent decades – and point toward the work that lies ahead.
April 06, 2018 06:09 AM
Long-time patient safety advocate Tejal Gandhi, MD, has seen the U.S. health system improve when it comes to patient safety over the past 15 to 20 years. But it's harder to nail down just how fast, she said.
Gandhi, president and CEO of the National Patient Safety Foundation, the NPSF Lucian Leape Institute and the Certification Board for Professionals in Patient Safety, recognizes the advances that have been achieved in patient safety over the past several years.
"I don't think we necessarily know the trajectory of how fast we're moving," she said. "We've absolutely improved, but the researcher in me says, 'Do I know last year, versus this year?'"
She does not. Gandhi takes a longer view of progress.
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6 things keeping CIOs up at night
CIOs are acutely aware of the security complications medical devices and telehealth bring.
April 06, 2018 07:00 AM
Last month, LexisNexis brought together 30 high-level executives, most of whom were CIOs from hospitals, nursing homes and health plans of all sizes from across the county to find out what data-related issues are weighing on them most as we get further into 2018. Ed Domansky, LexisNexis manager of media and analyst relations, and Erin Benson, Director of market planning, said six major themes emerged from their responses.
It seems merger and acquisition activity and sent waves through the information security sector as well, adding complexity in several areas. Also, innovation continues to be a multifaceted undertaking in that while it can yield clinical and operational gains it also means adding another dimension of risk, especially where security is concerned.
Here are six areas CIOs said they are focused on in 2018.
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Vanderbilt creates AI and natural language processing voice assistant for its Epic EHR
Caregivers can interact with the EHR using natural language queries and more quickly get the answers they need in an unobtrusive manner.
By Bill Siwicki
April 05, 2018 06:23 AM
Vanderbilt University Medical Center has developed a voice assistant for caregivers to use navigating the hospital's Epic electronic health record.
The new tool processes requests using natural language processing and understanding technology, and not just macros, officials say – noting that it could represent an important paradigm shift in how providers interact with their EHRs in more natural and intuitive ways.
The name of the voice assistant is V-EVA, which stands for Vanderbilt EHR Voice Assistant. The Vanderbilt University Medical Center Department of Biomedical informatics and Health Information Technology Innovations developed it.
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Seeking 'transformation,' health systems hire chief digital officers
By Rachel Z. Arndt | March 31, 2018
Hoping for nothing short of transformative change, more healthcare executives are adding a new member to their teams: the chief digital officer. Whereas the chief information officer might focus on implementing and managing electronic health records, the chief digital officer may concentrate on moving everyone in the organization to a digital mindset to engage consumers.
Last week, Ascension CEO Anthony Tersigni announced his health system would be hiring a CDO later this year. Tersigni intends the CDO to streamline clinical practices, unify the billing system and make costs more transparent.
"The chief digital officer is really more business-focused," said David Chou, chief information and digital officer of Children's Mercy Kansas City. "The CIO is more about keeping the lights on and the CDO is about driving organizational change through technology."
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Report: Healthcare excels in data optimization, lags in customer engagement
The healthcare industry continues to lag in customer engagement compared to other major industries, according to a Virtusa Corp. report.
Virtusa, an IT outsourcing services company, tapped Forrester Consulting to develop the report on digital maturity. For the report, Forrester surveyed 606 executives from six industries — banking, healthcare, insurance, media, retail and telecommunications — about customer experience, company operations and business innovation.
Forrester determined healthcare ranked as the third-highest industry on digital maturity, based on responses from 101 executives from provider, payer, pharmaceutical and device-maker organizations.
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CMS hints at Blue Button 2.0 mandates for Medicare Advantage plans in 2020
by Evan Sweeney
Apr 4, 2018 7:38am
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is considering a mandate for Medicare Advantage plan sponsors to adopt data-sharing platforms that can interact with Blue Button 2.0 beginning in 2020.
For now, the agency “encourages” health insurers to use data release platforms for members that “meet or exceed the capabilities of CMS’s Blue Button 2.0,” according to an announcement (PDF) this week that raised MA payment rates 3.4% in for fiscal year 2019.
Unveiled at the HIMSS18 annual conference last month, Blue Button 2.0 uses Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standards to allow app developers to deliver Medicare claims to beneficiaries. Following a speech in which she called on insurers to “give patients their claims data electronically,” CMS Administrator Seema Verma told a group of reporters that the agency would be “evaluating every single relationship” with insurers, including changes to the Medicare Advantage star-rating program.
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ONC Releases Resource to Guide Consumers on Accessing, Using their Health Data
April 4, 2018
by Rajiv Leventhal
To further support its recently-announced MyHealthEData initiative, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has just released a new online resource to help consumers make better use of their digital health records.
The resource, the “Guide to Getting & Using Your Health Records,” supports both the 21st Century Cures Act goal of empowering patients and improving patients’ access to their electronic health information, according to an April 4 announcement from federal health IT officials.
Last month at the HIMSS18 conference in Las Vegas, Seema Verma, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS Administrator, announced the launch of a new initiative called “MyHealthEData,” aimed at revolutionizing the relationship of U.S. healthcare consumers to their patient data.
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ONC issues new guide to help patients access their medical data
by Evan Sweeney
Apr 4, 2018 1:25pm
The federal government’s health IT agency has released a new resource to help patients access their health data, following a new initiative to give consumers more control of their medical information.
The new guide, released by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) builds on provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act that requires the agency to improve patient access to electronic health information, and also supports the MyHealthEData initiative unveiled last month by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma.
New data released (PDF) by ONC shows 52% of consumers were offered online access to their medical records in 2017, up from 42% in 2014. Of those that were offered access, 28% viewed their medical record in the last year.
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Digital health funding continues its strong trajectory in 2018 as providers eye strategic investments
by Evan Sweeney
Apr 4, 2018 10:35am
After a historic year of digital health funding, investment dollars continued to pour in during the first quarter of the new year.
Across the U.S. digital health funding reached $1.62 billion in Q1, according to data compiled by Rock Health. It was the largest first quarter on record, surpassing the $1.41 billion in venture funding in the first three months of 2016. Digital health investments reached $5.8 billion for all of 2017.
StartUp Health, which analyzes digital health deals across the globe, reported a record 191 deals during Q1 totaling $2.8 billion, identical to Q1 funding totals the previous year.
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HHS Offers Online Guide for Accessing EMRs
John Commins, April 4, 2018
More Americans are accessing their personal electronic medical records, and find the data helpful and easy to use, but policymakers say half of the nation doesn’t see a need to do so.
The federal government today released a new online guide to help patients and their caregivers access personal electronic health records.
The guide, put out by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, is designed to support the 21st Century Cures Act goal of improving patient access to electronic health information, and the MyHealthEData initiative , HHS said.
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Can the EHR be fixed by eliminating typing and clicking?
Robert Wachter, MD, and healthcare futurist Jeff Goldsmith make a case for addressing physician burnout.
April 02, 2018 12:40 PM
In a recent Harvard Business Review article, two prominent healthcare experts call for fixing what is wrong with electronic health records. And they find a lot wrong.
As they see it, if an array complexities were eliminated, it would not only alleviate physician burnout, it would also dramatically improve healthcare.
Robert Wachter, MD, who heads the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and Jeff Goldsmith, national adviser to Navigant Consulting and an associate professor of public health sciences at the University of Virginia, collaborated on the article.
"Clinicians are spending almost half their professional time typing, clicking and checking boxes on electronic records," they write.
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Was Shulkin fired or did he resign? Why the distinction matters for the VA's EHR contract
The distinction between termination and resignation may pose a legal hurdle for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' $10 billion-plus EHR contract with Cerner, the Politico Morning eHealth newsletter reports.
President Donald Trump revealed plans to replace former VA Secretary David Shulkin, MD, with White House physician Rear Adm. Ronny L. Jackson, MD, March 29. Dr. Shulkin claims he was fired from his post, while the White House reports he resigned.
Robert Wilkie, an undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Defense, will assume the role of acting secretary. However, Mr. Wilkie may not have the ability to sign the VA's long-running EHR contract with Cerner, which Dr. Shulkin first announced in June 2017.
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How much do EHRs impact heart failure patient care?
Post a comment / Apr 2, 2018 at 12:40 PM
A new study from the Journal of the American Heart Association found there was not an association between a hospital’s degree of EHR implementation and improved quality of care and outcomes for heart failure patients.
The research examined participants in the Get with the Guidelines—Heart Failure program who were admitted to the hospital with heart failure in 2008. Get With the Guidelines is a national registry of hospitalized patients with heart failure.
The hospitals involved had differing degrees of EHR implementation, categorized as “no EHR, partial EHR and full EHR.”
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Machine learning, EHR data helping to combat hospital infections
Published April 03 2018, 7:20am EDT
Hospitals continue to grapple with clostridium difficile infections, caused by bacteria that are resistant to many common antibiotics and that kill about 30,000 Americans each year. However, machine learning can help predict patient risk in developing C. difficile much earlier than current methods of diagnosis.
Using electronic health records for nearly 257,000 patients, researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT and Michigan Medicine have built hospital-tailored machine learning models that they contend are an improvement over a “one-size-fits-all” approach that ignores important factors specific to medical facilities.
“When data are simply pooled into a one-size-fits-all model, institutional differences in patient populations, hospital layouts, testing and treatment protocols, or even in the way staff interact with the EHR can lead to differences in the underlying data distributions and ultimately to poor performance of such a model,” says Jenna Wiens, assistant professor of computer science and engineering at U-M. “To mitigate these issues, we take a hospital-specific approach, training a model tailored to each institution.”
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HIT Think Why big data initiatives are spurring cloud adoption in healthcare
Published April 03 2018, 5:14pm EDT
As data analytics continues to transform the healthcare industry, many health IT executives are being tasked with implementing the right data governance structures, identifying the most suitable technology and employing the appropriate IT skills that will help them facilitate successful big data projects.
Producing metrics that support value-based payment programs, population health management initiatives, evidence-based medicine and many other healthcare efforts depends on identifying accurate, actionable information that will improve treatments and patient outcomes while driving costs down.
There has been a huge uptake in big data projects, but gathering meaningful data with direct correlation to a wide patient demographic against multiple use cases can be challenging. Organizations increasingly look for actionable information that will help them improve care for patients with chronic illnesses, identify higher-risk patients for hospital readmissions or find several other patient trends around medication consumption. Electronic patient records continue to increase in size. To harvest best results, healthcare organizations need to utilize highly integrated systems that enable not only swift computing but also offer infinite scalability.
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https://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/3-large-health-insurers-2-vendors-begin-test-of-blockchain
3 large health insurers, 2 vendors begin test of blockchain
Published April 02 2018, 7:37am EDT
Three of the nation’s largest health insurers and two health information technology vendors have launched a collaborative pilot program to use blockchain technology in a cross-industry initiative designed to improve and validate the information in provider directories.
Participants in the initiative include insurers Humana, MultiPlan and UnitedHealthcare, as well as vendors Optum and Quest Diagnostics.
The insurers’ listings of providers are crucial for consumers who are looking to choose a doctor, but ensuring the information contained on the lists has been a vexing problem for insurers; participants in this pilot program acknowledge that they spend about $2.1 billion annually chasing and maintaining provider data.
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Device able to quickly and accurately detect stroke
Published April 02 2018, 7:30am EDT
A new visor-like device worn by patients can help providers and emergency medical personnel detect a stroke that requires comprehensive care within seconds and with greater than 90 percent accuracy.
The volumetric impedance phase shift spectroscopy (VIPS) device, made by neurotechnology vendor Cerebrotech Medical Systems, identifies patients having a stroke by sending low-energy radio waves through the brain that assess fluid volume differences (asymmetry) between the cerebral hemispheres—which are indicative of stroke.
The radio waves change frequency when passing through fluids and are reflected back through the brain, with small changes and asymmetries in electrical properties detected by the VIPS device.
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http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/aneesh-chopra-urges-innovators-embrace-digital-hippocratic-oath
Aneesh Chopra urges innovators to embrace 'Digital Hippocratic Oath'
The former U.S. CTO and speaker at the upcoming HIMSS Dev4Health event explains why innovators should include the perspectives of patients, clinicians and patients when building apps.
By Laura Lovett
April 02, 2018 09:45 AM
Aneesh Chopra said that the healthcare industry needs to start looking at privacy and ethics, especially in the midst of recent Cambridge Analytics and Facebook problems.
That is as true among upstarts and innovators as anywhere else. Chopra, who is the president of Care Journey and formerly served as White House CTO under President Barack Obama, explained that it is important for digital health developers to embrace regulation, and to get out ahead of the problem and hold apps up to a standard of conduct — what Chopra is calling a “Digital Hippocratic Oath.”
Part of the oath includes bringing in three perspectives: patient, providers and payers.
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Four Reasons Why Data Breaches Continue
Sue Marquette Poremba | Data Security | Posted 30 Mar, 2018
One of my predictions with GDPR is that data breaches are going to be in the spotlight more than ever. Right now, unless you regularly follow security news or have contact with security experts like I do, a lot of data breaches go under the wire. We tend to hear about the mega-breaches (Yahoo, Equifax, OPM), but not the smaller breaches that affect a lot of smaller businesses and communities.
This is why when James Stickland, CEO of Veridium, offered to talk to me about the four major reasons why breaches continue to happen, I jumped at the chance. I think we need to continue to look at what we’re up against. The better we understand the why behind data breaches, the better we’ll be able to plan and budget our defenses.
Here are Stickland’s thoughts on the reasons why data breaches will continue. Do you agree?
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GE Healthcare sells off health IT unit for $1B
by Evan Sweeney
Apr 2, 2018 3:09pm
GE Healthcare has sold a suite of IT tools that make up its value-based care division to private-equity firm Veritas Capital for $1.05 billion in cash.
The deal includes GE Healthcare’s revenue cycle, workforce management and ambulatory care EHR solutions, according to a joint announcement. It is expected to close by the end of the third quarter.
The divestiture comes as GE is making an effort to slim down its offerings under new CEO John Flannery and refocus its work. Kieran Murphy, president and CEO of GE Healthcare, indicated the company would continue investing in “core digital solutions” including “smart diagnostics, AI and enterprise imaging.”
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27 more health systems join Apple Health Records platform
by Evan Sweeney
Mar 30, 2018 12:08pm
Two months after Apple launched a beta version of its Health Records platform with a dozen partners, 27 more healthcare providers have jumped on board.
Nearly 40 health systems are now sharing their medical records with patients through the Health Records app on the iPhone, using Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standards to pull data from the EHR, Apple announced on Thursday.
NYU Langone Health, Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, Adventist Health System and Stanford Medicine are among the new participants.
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http://www.timesofisrael.com/despite-privacy-concerns-israel-to-put-nations-medical-database-online/
Government is 'running too fast,' warns one critic
Despite privacy concerns, Israel to put nation’s medical database online
Government hopes research and commercial use of info will provide $600b. injection to digital health sector; PM stresses that 'consent of each and every person' will be required
25 March 2018, 5:57 pm 4
The Israeli government on Sunday approved a National Digital Health plan, which, despite mounting privacy concerns, plans to create a digital database of the medical files of some 9 million residents and make them available to researchers and enterprises.
The government has vowed to protect the privacy of individuals and is touting the NIS 1 billion ($287 million) program as a huge boon to the medical research industry. But critics pointed to risks of a massive breach in patient confidentiality and urged the government to slow down.
To promote the initiative, Israel will unify the existing database of the digital medical records it has collected over a period of 20 years — which holds the medical files of more than 98 percent of the population — to create a single database, in which one’s participation is optional, that will help attract researchers and industry leaders from across the globe, the Prime Minister’s office said Sunday.
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Enjoy!
David.
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