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.
A former life sciences minister has reportedly spoken of the ‘horror’ of being awarded significant money to create a digital NHS with no plan as to how to do it.
Hanna Crouch. 9 October 2018
Despite being responsible for promoting the use of technology in healthcare, George Freeman told a fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference last week that he was frozen out of the spending talks in which new investment in a paperless NHS was agreed.
Instead, Freeman and his civil servants were told to set out how they would spend the money once it had already been allocated.
A flaw in 34,000 Medtronic CareLink devices could allow an unauthorized user to change the programmer’s functionality.
The Food and Drug Administration issued a cybersecurity alert on two Medtronic devices that could allow a hacker to hijack the software update process to change the device’s function. Medtronic disabled the online software update to eliminate the flaw.
Following a review of potential security vulnerabilities around the internet connection, the FDA found 34,000 CareLink cardiac implantable electronic devices are at risk. If exploited, a hacker could change the programmer’s functionality or the device itself during the implantation or follow-up visits.
The flaw is found in the internet connection between the CareLink 2090 and Encore 29901 Programmers, used for downloading software from Medtronic’s Software Distribution Network. The programmers are used by providers to adjust the cardiac device settings and collect locally stored data.
UK Biobank contains a wealth of data on genetics, health and more from 500,000 participants. A detailed overview of the biobank and an analysis of its brain-imaging data show the value of this resource.
A new initiative at Penn Medicine aims to transform EHR systems into more streamlined, interactive, and intuitive tools.
“We recognize that EHRs are no longer just part of how clinical care is documented, but they are central to how clinical care is delivered,” said University of Pennsylvania Health System Executive Vice President J. Larry Jameson, MD.
“Increasingly, health information technology plays a foundational role in each domain of our work: patient care, educating the next generation of physicians and scientists, and biomedical research,” he continued. “Electronic health records innovations are key to advancing our impact in each of those missions.”
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HIT Think How blockchain can solve some of healthcare’s ills
Published October 12 2018, 5:29pm EDT
In its
2018 Global Blockchain Survey , Deloitte found that 74 percent of respondents see a compelling business case for blockchain technology, and of those respondents, more than half expect their organizations to deploy a blockchain application during the next year.
This underscores industry analyst firm IDC’s prediction that
worldwide spending on blockchain solutions will reach $2.1 billion this year alone, and potentially reach $9.7 billion by 2021.
Interestingly, despite growing interest and investments, the Deloitte survey also found that a significant percentage of respondents believe that blockchain is overhyped.
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3 Ways Health Systems Can Prepare for Natural Disasters
All eyes on disaster preparedness as Hurricane Michael approaches.
As Hurricane Michael spins toward the Florida Panhandle, health systems in Florida and neighboring states are scrambling to prepare for the storm. Here are three things to consider to ensure your health system is properly prepared should a natural disaster strike close to home.
1. Use Telehealth Services to Provide Service to Patients During and After Disasters
If you have direct-to-consumer telehealth services, make sure your patients and community are aware that this is an excellent way to address routine healthcare needs during and after the storm when offices may be closed, transportation limited, and some roads possibly impassable.
Nemours Children's Health System discovered the power of telehealth last year when Hurricane Irma hit Florida. Calls to
Nemours CareConnect , the system's 24/7 direct-to-consumer app, increased by 2,000% over the same period the previous year. Busiest times? The days before and after the storm. The reasons for the televisits were no different than the calls Nemours typically receives: fevers, skin infections, GI complaints, and respiratory illnesses.
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mHealth Devices Are Changing Chronic Care Management Standards
New research suggests that healthcare providers who use mHealth devices in chronic care management programs could be treating their patients better than current standards of care.
October 09, 2018 - New research suggests that mHealth is changing the way physicians treat patients with chronic conditions – an outcome that may merit an adjustment in how healthcare providers measure standards of care.
Researchers from the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children's Hospital Colorado, working with digital therapeutics company Propeller Health, have found that providers are more likely to get an accurate accounting of a patient’s health by using remote patient monitoring tools – such as digital sensors – than in surveying the patient during regular checkups.
When treating patients living with asthma, for example, a physician who relies on a patient’s memory of inhaler use won’t get an accurate care management profile, thus affecting how that doctor maps out a care plan. A physician who combines patient perceptions with data from an mHealth sensor that measures inhaler use, however, will have a much better idea of how that patient is doing.
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Efforts to begin to create a governance structure for FHIR
Published October 11 2018, 5:19pm EDT
The Carequality unit of Health Level 7 is seeking help in developing a governance structure for the FHIR data exchange standard.
The unit, which develops international standards for transferring clinical and administrative data between software applications, is asking for participation from the healthcare community on the endeavor.
Carequality has established FHIR Implementation Guide Technical workgroups to focus on specifications and security, as well as policy workgroups that will focus on creating the “rules of the road” for data exchange.
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HIT Think Why analytics is key to success in population health management
Published October 11 2018, 5:13pm EDT
Healthcare organizations involved in value-based care are trying to bend the cost curve by aggressively managing high-cost, high-need patients while eliminating waste and inefficiency without sacrificing quality.
To achieve these goals of population health management, these organizations need accurate, timely data and robust analytics that show providers where to place their efforts and how to improve their performance.
At the highest level of population health management, HCOs must use analytics to categorize their populations by health risk or disease burden. This enables them to identify the patients who will generate most of their health costs in the near term.
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How leading health systems customize EHRs, leverage analytics to improve opioid prescribing
As part of National Health IT Week, two HIMSS Davies Award winners share advice and best practices for putting technology to work fighting the abuse epidemic.
October 10, 2018 03:41 PM
As the opioid crisis continues to spread nationwide, it's requiring an all-hands-on-deck effort to turn the tide. Health information technology – electronic health record customizations, predictive analytics algorithms, e-prescribing tools – is proving to be a valuable weapon in the fight.
While both are large health systems, the lessons they've learned in putting data science and EHR optimization to work point to some strategies and best practices for other hospitals facing the same battle: the largest drug epidemic in U.S. history, with opioid overdoses having more than quadrupled over the past 20 years.
"We're in the midst of the most challenging public health concern facing healthcare professionals and first responders today," said Jedediah Tuten, director of acute pharmacy operations at Bon Secours Mercy Health.
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HIPAA and data sharing: Rethinking both for the Digital Age
As HIPAA was written when most providers still used paper charts, the framework today has plenty of room for improvement.
October 10, 2018 11:15 AM
Ironically, HIPAA was written at a time when most providers were on paper charts and submitting paper claims. It established a framework for protecting patient information and focused heavily on the way providers shared patient information.
The subsequent HITECH (Health Information for Economic and Clinical Health) Act of 2009 focused on the promotion of electronic medical records and “meaningful use” in the health information technology sector.
Health Information Trust (HITRUST) Alliance
The rule:
Where to improve:
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Allscripts to add PDMP access to all EHR systems
Written by Jessica Kim Cohen | October 10, 2018 | Print | Email
Allscripts plans to
integrate information from various state-regulated electronic prescription drug monitoring programs into its EHR systems through a partnership with Appriss Health.
Appriss Health, a provider of clinical decision support and analytics platforms related to substance use disorder, currently works with nine states to sponsor PDMP integrations for prescribers and pharmacists.
Under the agreement with Allscripts, Appriss Health will integrate its PMP Gateway managed service platform and its NarxCare substance use disorder platform into Allscripts' EHRs, so providers can access PDMP data and related clinical decision support.
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Why The Tech Industry Wants Federal Control Over Data Privacy Laws
October 8, 20185:00 AM ET
New laws in Europe and California are forcing tech companies to protect users' privacy or risk big fines.
Now, the industry is fearing that more states will enact tough restrictions. So it's moving to craft federal legislation that would pre-empt state laws and might put the Federal Trade Commission in charge of enforcement.
Europe enacted a tough law in May which requires, among other things, that companies make data breaches public within 72 hours of discovering them.
That's why Facebook had to promptly announce last month that its systems had been hacked and at least
50 million user accounts were compromised.
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Doctors give Medicare’s proposal to pay for telemedicine poor prognosis
Oct 10, 2018 3:18pm
The Trump administration wants Medicare to embrace telemedicine across the country for the first time by paying doctors $14 for a five-minute “check-in” phone call with their patients.
But many physicians say the
proposed reimbursement will cover a service they already do for free. And the Medicare reimbursement—intended to motivate doctors to communicate with patients outside the office—could have a chilling effect on patients because they would be required to pay a 20% cost-sharing charge.
Medicare said the call would be used to help patients determine whether they need to come in for an appointment. But doctors and consultants said the virtual sessions could cover a broad array of services, including monitoring patients starting a new medicine or those trying to manage chronic illnesses, such as diabetes. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, which provides guidance to Congress, panned the proposal last month, saying it could lead to excess spending without benefiting patients.
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Health information exchanges prepare for patient displacement as Hurricane Michael gains steam
Oct 10, 2018 2:50pm
As Hurricane Michael touched down on the Florida panhandle on Wednesday, health information exchanges (HIEs) in the surrounding states were readying their emergency plans to allow clinicians to access medical records for displaced patients.
HIEs have carved out an increasingly important role in disaster response in preparation for when hospitals are evacuating patients to surrounding states and residents fleeing their homes seek medical care in surrounding regions.
Recent storms, including Hurricane Harvey in Texas, Irma in Puerto Rico and Florence in North Carolina, have helped HIEs refine their approach. In the days ahead of Michael, HIEs in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, the Carolinas, Virginia, Texas, Tennessee, and Oklahoma were coordinating a response to the storm. Thanks to prior partnerships, most of those states easily activated existing data exchange infrastructures in the days leading up to the storm.
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CHOP uses EHR data to identify cancer patients for malnutrition
Published October 10 2018, 7:00am EDT
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has developed what it says is the first automated pediatric malnutrition screening tool using electronic health record data.
In a
study , published in the
Journal of Nutrition and Dietetics , the tool analyzed anthropometric measurements in the hospital’s Epic EHR—including body mass index, height, length and weight—for inpatients in the pediatric oncology unit at CHOP for a little more than a year, representing about 2,100 hospitalizations.
Researchers used software to take note of changes in the anthropometric measurements to assess each hospitalized patient’s risk of malnutrition. For those pediatric cancer patients determined to be at risk, the automated program categorized their risk as either mild, moderate or severe.
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HIT Think The pros and cons of cloud-based vs. on-premises email
Published October 10 2018, 5:20pm EDT
It’s no secret that cloud-based email is becoming attractive to many organizations for a variety of reasons. It comes with significantly lower costs than on-premises email, and end-users tend to love it.
But, protecting cloud-based email from cybercriminals has its own unique set of challenges. While the style of cyberattack is largely the same—primarily phishing and business email compromise (BEC) campaigns that are designed to deliver ransomware, cryptomining and other types of malware—migrating to popular platforms such as Microsoft Office 365 and Gmail can have major security ramifications.
It’s extremely important for organizations to understand the cybersecurity-related pros and cons of both cloud-based and on-premises email before making the transition.
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Physicians Disillusioned by How EHR Systems, Value-Based Care Changing Profession
Nearly three-quarters of physicians in a recent survey would not recommend the profession to family members, citing the lost 'art of being a physician.'
Physicians are increasingly discouraged about their profession, largely because of electronic health records (EHRs) and value-based reimbursement, according to the results of a recent survey.
They are so disillusioned that 70% are unwilling to recommend the profession to their children or other family members, according to the nationwide
Future of Healthcare Survey of more than 3,400 physicians by liability insurer
The Doctors Company .
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KLAS: Behavioral Health EHR Vendors Perform Poorly
The behavioral health EHR market segment has shown poor performance, customers say, citing usability challenges and lackluster customer support.
October 08, 2018 - EHR vendors in the behavioral health space demonstrated low performance rates in areas such as customer satisfaction and system updates, according to
a new report from KLAS.
The average overall score for these vendors was 70.8 out of 100, placing the segment in the second percentile of all software types.
However, despite insufficient vendor performance, most organizations plan to stay with their behavioral health EHR vendor due to a lack of resources or viable alternatives, KLAS said, indicating that providers may feel as if there are few available options better than what they have already.
Behavioral health issues are an underfunded and underemphasized sector of the healthcare industry, prompting the need for
more comprehensive software solutions.
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New study identifies top 11 clinical decision support vendors
Standalone CDS solutions can be hard to integrate with EHRs, the report shows, but better-integrated tools may not offer the most robust functionality.
October 09, 2018 01:10 PM
Seventy-four percent of healthcare provider organizations use clinical decision support technology, according to a new study from Reaction Data relying on CDS to make more informed medication orders (30 percent), lab orders (24 percent), medical imaging orders (20 percent), choosing wisely (13 percent) and other (13 percent).
The report polled interviewed 180 clinical, quality and IT healthcare leaders at in providers nationwide (91 percent were acute care facilities and 9 percent were ambulatory) to assess the state of clinical decision support technology in the U.S. healthcare industry today.
WHY IT MATTERS
Clinical decision support systems are used to help providers make better, safer and quicker decisions at the point of care.
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HIMSS Analytics delivers a state of the health IT industry report
The research firm examines where EHRs, cloud, blockchain, telehealth, security and other technologies are today – and where they might be headed.
October 09, 2018 09:59 AM
For National Health IT Week 2018, HIMSS Analytics delivered new research exploring some key trends, looking closely at established software infrastructure and emerging technologies alike.
"What we're seeing as far as a state of the market is acceleration beyond the EMR," said Blain Newton, executive vice president of HIMSS Analytics. "We're seeing it manifest in a few different ways."
Those post-EHR technologies and trends include blockchain, cloud computing, security, precision medicine, supply chain, telehealth and, of course, network infrastructure.
Electronic health records.
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Study links dementia-related brain changes to hospital stays for critical illness
Published October 09 2018, 7:25am EDT
An analysis of electronic health records and MRI scans by Johns Hopkins researchers indicates that hospitalization, infection and critical illness influence changes in brain regions that underlie dementia.
Researchers leveraged data from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study, a rich dataset that included MRI scans showing brain structure as well as social, demographic and hospital information for a large cohort of participants who were followed over a 24-year period that included five medical exams.
Their
study , published recently in the
Journal of the American Geriatrics Society , focused in particular on a subset of more than a thousand ARIC patients who received a brain MRI during the final medical exam in the study to look at evidence of atrophy and damage to so-called white matter—the part of the brain responsible for transmitting messages.
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HIT Think Why organizations need to demonstrate the value of IT progress
Published October 09 2018, 5:36pm EDT
Just prior to National Health IT Week, I spent time with more than 500 clients at our Allscripts Client Experience event for hospitals and health systems.
New approaches to healthcare delivery require innovative thinking and action and should support the
Four Points of Engagement that we recognize in National Health IT Week. One of the points is focused on the importance of health IT in increasing economic opportunity, which is valuable, but it’s the other three points where healthcare organizations are showing evidence of progress.
Supporting healthcare transformation
Painstaking quality metric data collection has helped demonstrate performance to regulatory bodies, and forward-thinking organizations are using this information to continuously improve. When the accountable care organization (ACO) model was first introduced in 2011, the goal was to tie payments to quality metrics and the cost of care. Coastal Carolina in New Bern, N.C., and its associated ACO, Coastal Carolina Quality Care, have used data from the EHR to monitor and demonstrate quality performance since its first performance year in 2013. The ACO consistently ranks among the top performers nationally in CMS public quality reports for achieving exceptional clinical outcomes, such as reducing the number of hospital admissions by 22 percent since joining the program.
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Mayo Completes Systemwide Epic EHR Rollout
All sites now use the same, integrated electronic health record and revenue cycle management systems.
The final Mayo Clinic sites to migrate to an Epic-based electronic health record (EHR) system finally made the jump over the weekend, bringing the Rochester, Minnesota–based nonprofit's systemwide rollout to a close.
Wrapping up the years-long process—which is part of a broader technology upgrade projected to cost $1.5 billion—marks " a historic milestone " that brings about 52,000 employees across 90 hospitals and clinics onto the same system, the organization said.
While the final cost of the Epic installation has not been disclosed, it's clearly a significant investment that Mayo leaders expect to pay dividends.
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GDPR four months in – what has changed?
As compliance continues to be a point of concern, we take a look at the implications of GDPR for UK health and care.
October 08, 2018 11:13 AM
More than four months have passed since the European Union began enforcing its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). But nearly one-fifth of organizations aren't confident they could pass their first GDPR audit, according to a recent
survey from cybersecurity company Imperva.
Although the incident happened before GDPR came into force and was under the UK Data Protection Act 1998, it once again raised the question: What would have happened if that wasn't the case, as ICO now has the power to issue fines of up to €20m or four percent of a firm’s global turnover for the previous year (whichever is greater) under GDPR?
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National Health IT week enters a new era
NHITWeek 2018 moves beyond proving the value of HIT to focus on showing successes of using information and technology.
October 08, 2018 07:30 AM
This is a transformational year for National Health IT Week. The annual weeklong campaign is stepping out of its traditional mode proving that health IT is valuable and now shifting focus to demonstrate what has already been accomplished by harnessing information and technology.
“Now is the time to talk about what we’ve achieved, not just what’s possible but what we’ve already done,” said Samantha Burch, senior director of Congressional Affairs for HIMSS.
NHITWeek 2018 is also more virtual than ever, with a focus on advocacy at the state level relative to ask state legislatures to take action on state HIT roadmaps, include tech objectives in health improvement plans that are not necessarily about technology, and build bridges by embedding data sharing opportunities.
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Provider executives say one-third of their medical devices are unpatchable
Oct 8, 2018 1:03pm
Medical device cybersecurity remains a chief concern for health IT executives who say manufacturers are largely to blame for vulnerabilities, particularly with older legacy devices.
Nearly one-third of health IT executives at provider organizations are concerned a lack of medical device cybersecurity will lead to disruptions in patient care, according to a new
survey by KLAS and the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) that included responses from nearly 150 provider organizations.
According to the survey, each provider organization has an average of 10,000 connected medical devices, one-third of which are deemed unpatchable.
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Why providers, lawyers and community-based workers are the public health dream team
Oct 8, 2018 4:15pm
PHOENIX—The things we generally view as determinants of health—genetics, personal choices, and access to high-quality care—really only play a supporting role. In fact, social, economic and environmental factors determine as much as 60% of an individual’s health status.
Those factors can make it difficult for vulnerable populations to improve their health, but with the help of medical-legal partnerships (MLPs), it’s not impossible, according to presenters at the Public Health Law Conference on Friday.
MLPs give legal and community-based professionals a voice in the healthcare realm, paving the way to remedy health disparities through civil law.
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Hospitals make it challenging for patients to access medical records
Published October 08 2018, 7:17am EDT
Under HIPAA, patients have the right to obtain a copy of their medical records. However, hospitals are making it difficult for them.
That’s the conclusion of a research team led by the Yale University School of Medicine that evaluated the current state of medical records request processes at 83 top-ranked U.S. hospitals located in 29 states.
Their
study , published on Friday in
JAMA Network Open , showed “discrepancies” in the information provided to patients regarding hospitals’ respective medical records release processes as well as noncompliance with federal regulations.
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Individuals’ use of online medical records is on the rise
Published October 08 2018, 6:30am EDT
Individuals’ use of online medical records is on the rise
It’s taken years, but healthcare consumers are now becoming comfortable with the notion of accessing their medical records online. In fact, the use of portals and other mechanisms to access medical records is rising, according to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
And the pressure will rise in coming years, with the 21st Century Cures Act including provisions intended to improve patients’ access to and use of their electronic health information. Using data from the National Cancer Institute’s 2017 Health Information Trends Survey, ONCHIT earlier this year analyzed consumer access and use of online medical records and the use of technology such as smartphones, tablets and electronic monitoring devices for health related needs.
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Enjoy!
David.
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