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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Electronic prescription error lead to woman’s death, coroner finds
A woman died after a mix-up with an electronic prescription caused her to continue taking the wrong medication for an infection, a coroner has found.
Andrea Downey – 15 January, 2020
David Urpeth, assistant coroner for South Yorkshire West, said “there is a risk that future deaths will occur unless action is taken”.
Sandra Dawne Scott was prescribed the drug trimethoprim for a urine infection by clinicians at Royal Hallamshire Hospital.
On the same day, 18 April 2019, her GP saw the results of an earlier urine test she had taken that showed an infection that would not have responded to trimethoprim, and was instead prescribed amoxycillin.
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Principled Artificial Intelligence
Mapping Consensus in Ethical and Rights-based Approaches to Principles for AI
Published
The rapid spread of artificial intelligence (AI) systems has precipitated a rise in ethical and human rights-based frameworks intended to guide the development and use of these technologies. Despite the proliferation of these "AI principles," there has been little scholarly focus on understanding these efforts either individually or as contextualized within an expanding universe of principles with discernible trends.
To that end, this white paper and its associated data visualization compare the contents of thirty-six prominent AI principles documents side-by-side. This effort uncovered a growing consensus around eight key thematic trends: privacy, accountability, safety and security, transparency and explainability, fairness and non-discrimination, human control of technology, professional responsibility, and promotion of human values. Underlying this “normative core,” our analysis examined the forty-seven individual principles that make up the themes, detailing notable similarities and differences in interpretation found across the documents. In sharing these observations, it is our hope that policymakers, advocates, scholars, and others working to maximize the benefits and minimize the harms of AI will be better positioned to build on existing efforts and to push the fractured, global conversation on the future of AI toward consensus.
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Op-Ed: Using artificial intelligence to diagnose cancer could mean unnecessary treatments
Adewole S. Adamson and H. Gilbert Welch
Jan. 12, 2020 3 AM
The new decade opened with some intriguing news: the journal Nature reported that artificial intelligence was better at identifying breast cancers on mammograms than radiologists. Researchers at Google Health teamed up with academic medical centers in the United States and Britain to train an AI system using tens of thousands of mammograms.
But even the best artificial intelligence system can’t fix the uncertainties surrounding early cancer diagnosis.
To understand why, it helps to have a sense of how AI systems learn. In this case, the system was trained with images labeled as either “cancer” or “not cancer.” From them, it learned to deduce features from the images — such as shape, density and edges — that are associated with the cancer label.
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Better Technical Services Needed to Improve EHR User Satisfaction
A Black Book Research survey showed that poor technical services and support are hampering EHR user satisfaction
January 16, 2020 - Eighty-four percent of EHR users are dissatisfied with the technical service and basic software account support from current EHR and HIT vendors, according to a 2020 Black Book Research survey.
Since the HITECH Act was signed into law in 2009, EHRs have not only been more prevalent, but they have continued to change and evolve. However, technical service from EHR vendors hasn’t kept up with the constant change, according to high-level hospital tech managers.
“Healthcare software support is on the cusp of change, and as healthcare technologies evolve and improve, they are reshaping the very nature of what client services and tech support are,” said Doug Brown, president of Black Book Research.
“Adding real value through proven, forward-thinking customer service will guarantee vendor success as opposed to selling flashy bells and whistles to hide past issues,” explained Brown.
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AI approach to identifying stroke risk from CT scans gets FDA nod
January 17, 2020, 3:30 p.m. EST
An artificial intelligence solution has received federal approval for use in analyzing brain CT scans for a significant cause of strokes.
Aidoc says its AI solution for radiologists for identifying potential large-vessel occlusion (LVO) received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration for use in treating patients.
Previously, the FDA cleared Aidoc’s module for flagging and prioritizing intracranial hemorrhages in CT scans. The company says the use of the two modules “provide a comprehensive package for the identification and triage of both ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke in CTs.”
The use of the technology holds the promise of speeding identification of problems and thus treatment. This is important in stroke treatment, because every minute in which treatment can be accelerated means more brain cells could be saved, which can positively impact treatment and recovery times, as well as patients’ quality of life.
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Algorithm assesses CT scans to find patients at risk for bone fractures
January 16, 2020, 11:38 p.m. EST
An algorithm is being paired with existing CT data to identify patients with bone fragility who would be at high risk for bone fractures.
A medical study to determine the viability of the approach makes the case that the results can be used to find patients who could benefit from preventive treatment, researchers say.
The study was conducted at the Clalit Research Institute and Ben-Gurion University, using an osteoporosis algorithm developed by Zebra Medical Vision, an Israel-based artificial intelligence company.
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Google Health VP on Ascension partnership: 'The press has made this into something it's not'
In a candid conversation on stage at the Startup Health Festival, Dr. David Feinberg said his company was doing good and playing by the rules.
January 17, 2020 09:00 AM
SAN FRANCISCO — This past year, Google found itself in the spotlight of a nationwide debate on health data privacy when a Wall Street Journal scoop brought to light its data sharing deal with Ascension Health. Subsequent reporting, however, confirmed that Google had done nothing wrong legally, even as conversations about the ethics of this kind of data sharing continue.
At the Startup Health Festival on the outskirts of the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference here this week, Google Health VP Dr. David Feinberg opened up to Startup Health CMO Dr. Howard Krein about the debacle, speaking candidly about the company’s dealings with Ascension, as well as his disappointment with the media’s handling of the news.
“The press has made this into something that it's not,” Feinberg said. “This is not us mining somebody’s records to sell ads, to learn from it, to do machine learning, to develop products. We developed this on de-identified data. We brought this to Ascension. We're piloting with them.
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USC Partners With AT&T To Build ‘Smart’ Cancer Hospital
January 17, 2020
USC has announced plans to partner with AT&T to build a ‘smart’ cancer facility integrating a bunch of cutting-edge communications and data management technologies. The new facility is expected to open in winter 2020 and will be based in West Los Angeles.
The Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC plans to incorporate tech such as 5G, multi-access edge computing, AI and other emerging solutions to operate the facility, which will offer treatment and wellness education along with conducting cancer research.
In its announcement, USC says the program is being driven by the Institute’s “collaborative think tank,” which brings together not only medical researchers, but also experts in physics, engineering and mathematics. The university said that by developing a technologically advanced research facility, its team will be able to pull together the kind of data which can fuel future success.
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Four technologies that have got the biggest potential to change your healthcare for the better
Implementing leading-edge systems and services in the NHS is a complicated task but NHS CIOs must use the power of cloud, AI, IoT and big data to boost patient care and operational effectiveness.
By Mark Samuels | January 13, 2020 -- 11:47 GMT (22:47 AEDT) | Topic: CXO
While it's exciting to think of the long-term impact of brain-computer interfaces and virtual reality in healthcare, digital leaders in the NHS face the much more immediate challenge of using constrained budgets to help improve administrative processes and patient outcomes.
NHS CIOs need to maintain a careful balance between structural investment and leading-edge innovation – and in many cases, the priority is still basic infrastructural IT. So given the challenging mix of legacy systems and constrained budgets, what technology has got the biggest potential to change healthcare for the better? Four NHS CIOs give us their views.
1. Using cloud-based platforms to boost collaboration
Lisa Emery, CIO at Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, is particularly excited about the impact of collaboration on healthcare. She says her excitement about the potential for collaboration is replicated across her team and out into the trust's non-IT workforce.
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A doctor’s advice on why that computer portal can make you healthier
Updated: January 14, 2020 - 6:00 AM
Jeffrey Millstein, For the Inquirer
Last week, as we were finishing up a visit, I noticed that my patient had not signed up for our patient portal, a way he could view his electronic chart and communicate directly with me and our office staff. When I asked why, I got a typical answer.
“Doc, I’m really not much of a computer person.”
“Can you type?” I asked.
“With one finger,” he replied.
“Do you have an email account?”
“Yep. That’s about as much computing as I do,” he said.
“Then you’ve got all it takes to use the portal,” I assured him.
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Confusion and hype over ‘digital health’ overshadows J.P. Morgan health conference
Published Wed, Jan 15 202012:47 PM ESTUpdated Thu, Jan 16 20202:30 PM EST
y Points
- This week, thousands of health executives descended on San Francisco for the annual J.P Morgan Healthcare conference.
- Many said that confusion over the definition of “digital health” could hold back the sector.
- Other big topics at JPM Health included the lack of diversity at the executive ranks, drug pricing, big tech’s march into the sector, and the missing patient voice.
Thousands of health executives descended on San Francisco this week for the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference to pitch their companies, forge deals and discuss the future of the $3.5 trillion health sector.
Conversations unfolded in coffee shops and bars, and at a slew of unofficial events, but also in public presentations, where executives talked up their businesses.
Here are some of the biggest themes so far:
What is digital health?
Some attendees felt the lack of a clear definition for “digital health” might be hurting the sector.
Digital health is broadly considered the intersection of health and technology, but the term is so over-used and over-hyped, it’s no longer clear what it means.
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Probiotics: Don't Buy the Online Hype
By Serena Gordon
HealthDay Reporter
HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, Jan. 15, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Many people turn to the internet with health questions, but how reliable is the information you find? When it comes to probiotics, a new study urges caution.
The research found that of 150 websites that came up with a search of probiotics, most were commercial sites, hoping to sell a product. Others were news sites or health portals (providing links to other sites). Many of these sites mentioned potential benefits of probiotics, though not all had scientific evidence to back up those claims. And just 1 in 4 of the websites mentioned any potential side effects from taking probiotics.
"This study demonstrates that a number of online claims on the health benefits of probiotics are not supported by scientific evidence," said study co-author Dr. Michel Goldman, a professor of immunology at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium.
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Climate crisis, epidemics and drug resistance among next decade's urgent health challenges, WHO says
Updated 2023 GMT (0423 HKT) January 14, 2020
(CNN)Climate change, infectious diseases, anti-vaxxers and antimicrobial resistance all made their way onto the World Health Organization's list of health challenges facing the next decade.
The list, published on Monday, was developed with input from experts around the world and presented "urgent, global health challenges," according to WHO, the United Nations' public health agency.
"The list reflects a deep concern that leaders are not investing enough resources in core health priorities & systems, putting lives & economies in jeopardy," WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote in a Tweet on Monday.
"We need to realize that health is an investment in the future. Countries invest heavily in protecting their people from terrorist attacks, but not against the attack of a virus, which could be far more deadly & far more damaging economically & socially," he wrote. "We face shared threats & we have a shared responsibility to act."
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Europe considering tough new rules for artificial intelligence
January 16, 2020, 3:20 p.m. EST
Bloomberg—The European Union is considering new legally binding requirements for developers of artificial intelligence in an effort to ensure modern technology is developed and used in an ethical way.
The EU’s executive arm is set to propose the new rules apply to “high-risk sectors,” such as healthcare and transportation, and suggest the bloc updates safety and liability laws, according to a draft of a so-called “white paper” on artificial intelligence obtained by Bloomberg. The European Commission is expected to unveil the paper in mid-February, and the final version is likely to change.
The paper is part of the EU’s broader effort to catch up to the U.S. and China on advancements in AI, but in a way that promotes European values such as user privacy. While some critics have long argued that stringent data protection laws like the EU’s could hinder innovation around AI, EU officials say harmonizing rules across the region will boost development.
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ONC releases draft Federal Health IT Strategic Plan
January 15, 2020, 11:49 p.m. EST
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology on Wednesday released a draft 2020-2025 Federal Health IT Strategic Plan for public comment.
The plan, developed by ONC in collaboration with more than 25 federal organizations, lays out the government’s goals and objectives to ensure that patients have access to their electronic health information.
“Thanks to provisions enacted by Congress, the U.S. Government is working to bring more robust health information into patients’ hands and ensure that technology and smartphone applications (apps) will help them better manage their health and enable them to shop for care,” writes National Coordinator for Health IT Don Rucker, MD, in the plan.
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HIT Think
Why a new decade should be the end of the line for old operating systems
January 16, 2020, 3:36 p.m. EST
Slightly more than five years ago, one of the most popular operating systems in history was retired, and this major end-of-life (EOL) event still has a major impact on IT and information security.
There were countless discussions on the best way to keep XP on networks past the official EOL from Microsoft. However, there were far too few discussions about actively removing XP.
Most of IT had not previously dealt with anything like this: a manufacturer officially deprecating a popular operating system. This lack of experience led many (if not all) organizations to make decisions that have since had a lasting, negative effect.
One of the biggest mistakes was made because of a false sense of security provided by “extended support”. This concept left most organizations feeling confident keeping the OS online well past its expiration date.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/policy-changes-ai-consumerism-top-interoperability-trends-2020
Policy changes, AI, consumerism, top interoperability trends for 2020
Vendors offer their perspective on the opportunities and challenges for healthcare data exchange in the year ahead.
By Nathan Eddy
January 16, 2020 12:50 PM
The new consumer-driven health information ecosystem is transforming the way health systems deliver care. As always, interoperability – be it among care teams or across disparate settings – is a key challenge.
While major strides are being taken to improve the way medical data and electronic health records can be transferred, analyzed and shared, major hurdles to full interoperability remain, and will be a key development point in healthcare IT this year.
"I see the barriers being the way standards are defined and implemented, James Lloyd, co-founder and CTO of Redox, told Healthcare IT News.
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Investors looking toward healthcare IT innovators in 2020
A new KPMG report finds that 76% of respondents think the health IT market would grow faster than the overall healthcare and life sciences sector.
By Nathan Eddy
January 16, 2020 09:56 AM
Healthcare information technology will be the focus of investors in 2020, with interest in the pharmaceutical and biotech sector, home and hospice care and managed care companies also high on the list, according to a KPMG report including survey results from 333 investment professionals.
WHY IT MATTERS
The study projected the healthcare and life sciences industry would likely continue to be an attractive investment target for the foreseeable future, as national healthcare spending rises to $6 trillion by 2027.
The study projected the healthcare and life sciences industry would likely continue to be an attractive investment target for the foreseeable future, as national healthcare spending rises to $6 trillion by 2027.
Overall, more than three-quarters (76%) of respondents thought the health IT market would grow faster than the overall healthcare and life sciences market.
Healthcare analytics, cloud-based EHRs and workflow applications, revenue cycle management software, and telemedicine are among the IT products of greatest interest to investors.
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In Shrewd Move, Amazon Quietly Captures Huge Store Of UK Health Information
January 16, 2020
Amazon has quietly struck a data-sharing deal with England’s National Health Service giving it free access to a range of health data from British consumers. While the trove of data Amazon captured may not be as rich as those gathered by, say, Google or Apple, it’s still a pretty sweet deal, especially given that few in the US seem to have even noticed.
According to the terms of the agreement, Amazon has been given access to all NHS healthcare information other than patient records. While the data gathering is being paid for by the taxpayer-funded entity, Amazon is accessing the information free of charge.
The data Amazon is accessing comes from a contract it signed with the NHS, which wanted to give patients sound health advice via the Alexa voice assistant. As it turns out, however, Amazon might be getting far more than it’s giving. As written, the agreement gives Amazon access not only to virtually all NHS healthcare and related copyrightable data, according to an analyst quoted in the Digital Journal.
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Improving Outcomes with Medication Adherence
January 16, 2020
The following is a guest article by Erin Benson, senior director, market planning, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Health Care.
Healthcare stakeholders agree: the solution to medication non-adherence is a “$100 billion opportunity.” About three in five of us have a daily recommended regimen, so taking medications as prescribed is vital for successful health outcomes.
The burden of chronic illness, in particular, becomes much heavier as treatments lose their effectiveness due to non-adherence. CMS’ 5-Star Quality Rating System makes it clear that we should do better to help patients manage diseases like hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol with improved adherence strategies. However, our support solutions rely almost entirely on clinical protocols. Care managers, providers and data professionals should work together to understand reasons behind regimen non-compliance and take proactive steps to help patients overcome adherence obstacles. Insights into social determinants provide an innovative means to drive medication adherence for optimal health outcomes, and, for healthcare organizations to earn pay-for-performance bonuses as a result.
Predictive and proactive
Research has shown that medical care alone has a very limited effect on overall population health. It’s time we branch out beyond the one-dimensional approach. Clinical information that healthcare professionals collect can be paired with social determinants of health (SDOH) data to determine the best care plan possible. Health plans and providers can identify factors that get in the way of medication adherence by analyzing environmental, economic and community attributes of each patient.
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MDLIVE Launches Virtual Primary Care Platform; Cigna Will Offer Patients Virtual Annual Wellness Screenings
By Mandy Roth | January 16, 2020
Virtual care is making the leap from urgent care to primary care, a move that could lead to lower cost plans from payers.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· The platform enables patients to build an ongoing relationship with a virtual primary care provider.
· Cigna will offer virtual annual wellness visits to many of its members beginning next quarter.
· Payers could create plans with less expensive premiums if members chose a virtual primary care provider, says MDLIVE's CEO.
Virtual care just took a giant leap into the realm of primary care. As MDLIVE rolls out a new primary care platform, Cigna signed on to make the service available to 12.5 million of its members. The initiative was announced at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference taking place this week in San Francisco.
While the platform offers broad capabilities, including the opportunity to select and develop an ongoing relationship with a virtual primary care physician (PCP), Cigna will begin using it in the second quarter of this year to enable certain members to conduct virtual annual wellness visits. Cigna has been using MDLIVE to provide urgent care services to its members since 2014 and expanded the relationship this month to include virtual behavioral health services.
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Health care data-sharing rules touch off intense lobbying fight
The looming release of data-sharing rules for health care have sparked an intense lobbying fight, with hospitals, digital health firms and patient access groups joining a battle that pits the promise of care coordination and streamlined research against nightmares over compliance and privacy.
On Tuesday, former HHS Secretary and Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson jumped into the fray with an op-ed denouncing the rules on behalf of a hometown company, health records giant Epic, which is based outside Madison.
The proposed rules, currently under White House review, would allow patients to access their health information and share it with third-party apps, require hospitals to send notifications of admits, discharges or transfers, penalize information blocking and allow researchers and doctors to share screenshots of software to promote safety.
HHS wants to finalize the rules early this year, a person familiar with the regulatory process told POLITICO. Don Rucker, who leads HHS’ health IT office, had previously said he wanted a roll-out late last year. The rules originated in his office, known as ONC, as well as CMS.
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The dark side of IoT, AI and quantum computing: Hacking, data breaches and existential threat
World Economic Forum report once again lists cyberattacks as one of the top threats facing the world in 2020 - alongside climate change, extreme weather and natural disasters.
By Danny Palmer | January 15, 2020 -- 10:41 GMT (21:41 AEDT) | Topic: Security
Emerging technologies like the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and quantum computing have the potential to transform human lives, but could also bring unintended consequences in the form of making society more vulnerable to cyberattacks, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has warned.
Now in it's 15th year, the WEF Global Risks Report 2020 – produced in collaboration with insurance broking and risk management firm Marsh – details the biggest threats facing the world over the course of the next year and beyond.
Data breaches and cyberattacks featured in the top five most likely global risks in both 2018 and 2019, but while both still pose significant risks, they're now ranked at sixth and seventh respectively.
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UPMC Enterprises commits $1B investment towards life sciences
January 14, 2020, 11:42 p.m. EST
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s venture capital and commercialization arm will invest $1 billion over the next five years to advance promising new therapeutics, diagnostics and devices.
According to UPMC Enterprises, which is focused on solving problems in healthcare and driving innovation, its Translational Sciences team of 20-plus investment professionals is “looking globally for investments and partners that complement the scientific and commercial work already underway in Pittsburgh.”
UPMC, a $20 billion healthcare provider and insurer, has to date invested more than $800 million in data-driven digital health solutions, which it contends have resulted in a return on investment of more than $1.5 billion.
“This is a commitment that we’re going to continue for the next five years and get deeper,” says Tal Heppenstall, president of UPMC Enterprises, who made the announcement on Tuesday at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco. “Digital health will actually be in addition to this investment. So, we’re going to continue to deploy capital into the digital solutions space. But, this billion-dollar investment is specifically focused on translational sciences.”
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AHRQ to establish division, fund opportunities to enhance digital health
January 15, 2020, 2:46 p.m. EST
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality is launching a new Division of Digital Healthcare Research and offering funding opportunities, starting with supporting care transitions.
The new initiatives will support efforts to improve the use of data, among other healthcare opportunities.
“We are at the beginning of a digital revolution in healthcare, and it’s an exciting time with the potential for innovative whole-person care, data-and evidence-based solutions and improvements in health system performance,” says Gopal Khanna, director at AHRQ, in a blog posting.
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Mayo Clinic launches first platform initiative
Its new analytics project will apply AI to deidentified data from across Mayo and other health systems, and comb scientific literature to gain insights into new medical advances.
By Mike Miliard
January 15, 2020 01:53 PM
Mayo Clinic has launched its new Clinical Data Analytics Platform as the first venture under its new data-driven Mayo Clinic Platform initiative.
Mayo Clinic Platform was announced this past year as coordinated approach to create new platform projects and harness emerging technologies – artificial intelligence, connected health devices, natural language processing and more – for care innovations.
The initiative aims to build out an ecosystem of partners that will complement Mayo Clinic's clinical capabilities and provide access to scalable solutions.
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Amazon Web Services at HIMSS20: Three key trends to watch
AWS says conference attendees should consider predicting patient health events, personalizing the health journey, and promoting interoperability.
By Bill Siwicki
January 15, 2020 02:54 PM
Amazon Web Services (AWS) will have a large presence at the big HIMSS20 event (Booth 858), and it will be discussing a variety of technologies and issues with attendees. Among other things, AWS will be discussing three trends it has identified as important for HIMSS20 attendees: predicting patient health events, personalizing the consumer health journey, and promoting interoperability in healthcare.
Trend 1: Predicting patient health events
AWS says there is a renaissance in healthcare as more of its clients leverage machine learning technologies to uncover new ways to enhance patient care, improve health outcomes and, ultimately, save lives.
“As the country moves toward value-based care, artificial intelligence and machine learning, paired with data interoperability, will improve patient outcomes while driving operational efficiency to lower the overall cost of care,” said Dr. Shez Partovi, director of worldwide business development for healthcare, life sciences and genomics at AWS. “By enabling data liquidity securely and supporting healthcare providers with predictive machine learning models, clinicians will be able to seamlessly forecast clinical events, like strokes, cancer or heart attacks, and intervene early with personalized care and a superior patient experience.”
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‘Interfering’ with hackers before they can disrupt or steal
A cybersecurity expert explains for healthcare CIOs and CISOs her firm’s proactive approach and describes a technology for dealing with threats, from within and without.
January 15, 2020
The cybersecurity frontier in healthcare remains a Wild West of threats – and involves a wide variety of technologies and strategies to combat those threats. Healthcare CIOs and CISOs have their hands full.
One major cybersecurity problem the health IT sector currently is facing is analogous to the evolutionary changes in how the U.S. has approached healthcare itself, said Neill Sciarrone, president and co-founder of Trinity Cyber, a threat prevention technology and services company.
Treating root causes, not symptoms
“Historically, doctors only treated symptoms before later learning that it was necessary to focus on preventive measures that address the root causes of ailments,” said Sciarrone.
“In the same way, healthcare cybersecurity has been focused on treating the symptoms rather than prevention,” she explained. “Cybersecurity teams respond to attacks – potential and successful – by monitoring alerts and countless endpoints on their networks. But they have not focused on taking measures to prevent these attacks from reaching their IT infrastructure in the first place.”
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ONC releases five-year federal health IT roadmap pushing data access through smartphone apps and APIs
Jan 15, 2020 10:56am
Federal health IT officials released on Wednesday a draft strategic plan that outlines priorities over the next five years with a focus on pushing the industry to make more patients' health data accessible through smartphone apps and application programming interfaces (APIs).
The draft plan outlines federal health information technology goals and objectives to ensure that individuals have access to their electronic health information to help enable them to manage their health and shop for care, according to officials with the Office for the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) within the Department of Health and Human Services.
The strategic plan was developed by ONC in collaboration with more than 25 federal organizations. The draft plan is open for public comment until March 18.
The draft federal strategic plan (PDF) supports the provisions in the 21st Century Cures Act that will help to bring electronic health information into the hands of patients through smartphone applications, Don Rucker, M.D., National Coordinator for Health IT, said in a statement.
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ONC unveils draft Federal Health IT Strategic Plan
The 2020-2025 plan aligns with the 21st Century Cures Act's interoperability and patient access provisions.
By Mike Miliard
January 15, 2020 11:53 AM
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has published the draft 2020-2025 Federal Health IT Strategic Plan, developed for HHS by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, and is making it available for public comment until March 18.
WHY IT MATTERS
The draft lays out goals and objectives for federal health IT efforts to ensure patients have access to their electronic health information.
The draft lays out goals and objectives for federal health IT efforts to ensure patients have access to their electronic health information.
The final 2020-2025 plan will serve as a roadmap for federal agencies and drive private sector alignment, officials say. Agencies will use it to allocate resources, coordinate health IT efforts across agencies, signal priorities to the private sector and benchmark progress over time.
Tthe strategic plan explains how the U.S. government will use technology to:
- Promote health and wellness;
- Enhance the delivery and experience of care;
- Build a secure, data-driven culture to accelerate research and innovation; and
- Connect healthcare and health data through an interoperable health IT infrastructure.
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Ransomware attack on eHealth forces 31 cancer patients to re-schedule radiation treatment
Six patients booked for chemotherapy also affected
A ransomware attack on the computer system that stores confidential medical data for Saskatchewan residents ended up affecting almost 40 patients getting cancer treatment in Saskatoon and Regina.
The attack on eHealth Saskatchewan began Jan. 6. Antivirus software immediately began sending alerts to staff.
When eHealth officials attempted to open files on affected servers they received a message that the files had been encrypted and would remain inaccessible until a payment was made.
The Saskatchewan Cancer Agency oversees the two cancer clinics in Saskatoon and Regina. It disconnected from the eHealth network after learning of the assault on the system.
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Interoperability Standards Advisory Adds 6 Key Updates
In an effort to achieve the ultimate goal of semantic interoperability, the ONC added new updates for the 2020 version of the Interoperability Standards Advisory.
January 14, 2020 - After receiving feedback from stakeholders, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) made updates across the sixth edition of the Interoperability Standards Advisory (ISA).
ISA is utilized as a coordinated catalog of health IT standards and implementation specifications intended to help providers, health IT developers, and other stakeholders to meet their interoperability needs.
Although there were a handful of significant updates for this year, a Health IT Buzz blog post highlighted the top six changes for the 2020 version of the ISA.
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HIT Think
How the latest HIPAA events show the complexity of protecting data
January 14, 2020, 3:37 p.m. EST
The start of a New Year represents new opportunities to refocus on HIPAA compliance efforts.
Ransomware and phishing attacks seem to be drawing the majority of recent headlines, but a couple of human-based incidents have also come out recently. The insider or individual-based issues offer a good reminder that security can only be as strong as the weakest link, and some unexpected activity will always occur.
The first recent example came from a hospital in Chicago. The hospital revealed that an employee snooped through patient records over a year-long period, and the access did not relate to any official or necessary business purpose. As should be well known, randomly looking through patient records is not permitted under HIPAA. Any access and use must be justified and necessary for a valid job function. A valid job function is not curiosity or any other self-driven idea.
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Strategic Change and How to Make it Stick with Security
January 14, 2020
Conferences are great places to learn about new technologies and their applications, and how other health systems are applying them to address length of stay, cost reduction, lowered risks, or increased efficiency.
Where we get into trouble is when we attempt to build and execute on strategies, and leave out critical components. What I mean by this is when an executive goes to a conference or reads an article, and hears that X technology is going to be the wave of the future, and that organizations who do not implement this as part of their strategy are going to be left behind. This often comes with little to no support or evidence for this statement, however they act anyway.
First of all, Healthcare is a highly competitive market, with multiple local, regional, and national players all fighting for dominance and limited resources. It’s an industry where the first-mover advantage is considered absolutely critical to achieve dominance, and the marketing of every healthcare provider emphasizes that.
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Physicians Increasingly Interested In Use of Patient-Generated Health Data
January 14, 2020
A new report from Stanford Medicine suggests that after years of holding it at arms’ length, physicians are becoming more comfortable with the use of patient-generated health data.
According to a survey conducted for Stanford’s 2020 Health Trends Report, which polled more than 700 physicians, residents and medical students, the industry is seeing the rise of data-driven care.
Many see the emergence of such care as more or less a given, with respondents projecting that almost a third of their duties may end up being automated by technology over the next 20 years.
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Mayo Clinic Designs Novel Data Privacy Model; Announces Venture to Accelerate Drug Discovery
By Mandy Roth | January 14, 2020
From the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, the healthcare system shares details about balancing innovation with the need to protect patient privacy.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· Patient's privacy comes first in all business ventures.
· Novel model deidentifies data, employs a federated learning model to retain data control.
· Reidentification is prohibited, and Mayo data cannot be combined with data from other sources.
As the healthcare industry struggles to find a balance between the desire for innovation and the need to protect patient data, Mayo Clinic has figured out a novel formula that it plans to employ with its first third-party partnership under the Mayo Clinic Platform.
Today, from the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, the Rochester, Minnesota-based healthcare system announces a partnership with nference to accelerate drug discovery and development across the biopharmaceutical ecosystem. Yet before embarking on this initiative, Mayo Clinic hammered out a multi-layered plan designed to create a vault around patient identity, says Andy Danielsen, chair of Mayo Clinic Ventures.
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January 14, 2020
Physicians Spend 16 Min. per Patient Encounter on the EHR
By Amy Orciari Herman
Edited by David G. Fairchild, MD, MPH, and Jaye Elizabeth Hefner, MD
Physicians in ambulatory care settings spend about 16 minutes per patient encounter actively using their electronic health record (EHR), according to an analysis in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Using national EHR activity log data, researchers studied roughly 100 million adult patient encounters with some 155,000 physicians from 2018. Most of the 16 minutes was spent on three areas — chart review, documentation, and ordering. Some 11% of EHR time was after hours.
Time spent on the EHR varied widely by specialty. Gerontologists and primary care providers spent the most time, while sports medicine and critical care specialists were among those who spent the least.
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Pioneering new ways to protect privacy
Heather Stringer January 1, 2020
Vol. 51, No. 1
Psychologists are developing new strategies to protect users’ personal data
Psychologists are developing new strategies to protect users’ personal data
With more of psychologists’ work going digital, the chances of inadvertently revealing people’s private information is also escalating. Social media, smartphones, GPS tracking systems, wearable cameras and other tools allow researchers to collect real-time data that was previously unavailable, such as an individual’s movements, moods or sleeping patterns. At the same time, patients are using smartphone apps for monitoring and treating conditions including depression, substance use disorders, obesity and schizophrenia—but few read the terms and conditions to understand whether their data are protected.
Now, a growing number of psychologists are tackling these digital privacy challenges. “We need to be thoughtful about the potential downstream repercussions,” says Camille Nebeker, EdD, MS, an associate professor in the department of family medicine and public health and director of the Research Center for Optimal Digital Ethics Health (ReCODE Health) at the University of California, San Diego, who is among the psychologists taking the lead on privacy protection in psychology research. “My goal is to get people to start talking about the issues and support one another to improve the current practices.”
Uninformed consent
A study by Nebeker and her colleagues sheds light on how researchers can inadvertently unmask personal details. In a search for articles published on PubMed in 2015 and 2016 that included the words “Twitter” and either “read,” “coded” or “content,” they found that 72% quoted at least one participant’s tweet, and the researchers could identify the participant by searching online for the quoted content 84% of the time. Significantly, only one study had obtained consent from participants to disclose identifying information (npj Digital Medicine, Vol. 1, 2018).
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After three years of growth, digital health funding declined in 2019 to $8.9B: report
Jan 13, 2020 4:22pm
After a record-setting 2018, global venture capital funding in digital health declined in 2019 with $8.85 billion raised in 615 deals, according to a new report.
That's a 6% drop compared to $9.5 billion in 698 deals in 2018, according to a new report from Austin, Texas-based communications and research firm Mercom Capital Group. Total corporate funding for digital health firms, including venture capital, debt, and public market financing, reached $10.1 billion in 2019.
In 2019, debt and public market financing for digital health companies decreased by half from the previous year, with approximately $1.7 billion raised in 20 deals in 2019, compared to $3.5 billion in 21 deals in 2018, Mercom Capital reported.
"After three consecutive years of growth, venture deals, and dollars for digital health companies declined in 2019. After a long dry spell, there were four U.S. IPOs (initial public offerings), but their performance so far has been underwhelming," Raj Prabhu, CEO of Mercom Capital Group, said in a statement.
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Executive Spotlight—John Halamka on his move to Mayo Clinic and what excites him about the future of health IT
Jan 10, 2020 1:01pm
John Halamka, M.D., has got to be the busiest person in healthcare.
He's a recognized health IT executive, a practicing emergency room physician, a public policy expert, a Harvard professor, a speaker and an advocate for the industry.
He leads technology initiatives at some of the most respected healthcare organizations in the country—at Beth Israel Lahey Health for 20 years and now at Mayo Clinic.
On Jan. 1, Halamka took on the job of president of Mayo Clinic Platform in Rochester, Minnesota, to lead the hospital's digital health and artificial intelligence projects.
He also runs a farm, like a real, working farm. Along with a cidery and a winery.
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Consumer Tech Association Unveils A Consumer’s Guide to mHealth Wearables
With CES 2020 attracting a record number of mHealth companies and healthcare providers, CTA has partnered with the Heart Rhythm Society to develop best practices for consumers using mHealth wearables.
January 10, 2020 - Consumer-facing mHealth is a thing now, and the organization overseeing the vast consumer technology landscape wants to make sure people know how to use their wearables.
The Consumer Technology Association has partnered with the Heart Rhythm Society to develop best practices for consumer use of mHealth wearables, including the growing array of smartwatches, fitness bands, eyeglasses and sensor-embedded clothing measuring cardiovascular activity.
The document, unveiled during CES 2020 this week in Las Vegas, aims to give those who are using mHealth and digital health devices guidance on how to understand and manage the capture, storage and use of personal health information.
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Allscripts Population Health Deal to Triage High-Risk Patients
Allscripts EHR providers will now be able to promote population health through MyndYou’s care portal, app platform, and virtual care manager, which identify and monitor triage high-risk patients.
January 13, 2020 - Allscripts has announced a partnership with MyndYou Inc., a science and AI neuroscience solution, to promote better population health management, monitor high-risk triage patients and reduce their chances of hospitalization.
The partnership between the two companies will work to identify patient health risks in the home and then relay this information to the care team to intervene and prevent hospitalization.
“By partnering with MyndYou, we can create additional touchpoints between Allscripts clients and their high-risk patients,” said Tina Joros, general manager of Open Business Unit at Allscripts. “MyndYou’s cognitive-driven solution empowers care management teams to reduce hospitalizations and achieve improved outcomes by passively and precisely identifying those in need of extra attention at the right time.”
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Doctors, Students Expect and Embrace Many Tech Advances: Survey
Ken Terry
January 10, 2020
Physicians, residents, and medical students all expect new technologies — such as telemedicine, artificial intelligence, and wearables — to transform healthcare and are preparing to integrate health data of various kinds into the clinical setting, according to a new national survey by Stanford Medicine.
However, the survey shows, the majority of respondents felt ill-prepared for the technological future just over the horizon.
To compile its report, The Rise of the Data-Driven Physician, Stanford Medicine polled 523 physicians, 77 medical students, and 133 medical residents.
One indication of the respondents’ engagement in new technologies was their interest in learning more about them. Forty-seven percent of the doctors and 73% of the medical students said they were seeking additional training or classes to prepare themselves for future innovations. Residents were not asked this question.
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Fitbit looks to expand healthcare partnerships in 2020
January 12, 2020, 11:43 p.m. EST
Wearable devices will become more accessible to Americans to help them lead healthier lives, thanks to Fitibit’s efforts to grow its partnerships with both government-sponsored and private health insurers.
In 2020, Fitbit devices will be included in Medicare Advantage plans offered by three insurers. In addition, the wireless-enabled activity trackers will be an embedded benefit in 59 plans offered by UnitedHealthcare in 27 states—an increase from 42 plans in 2019. And, for the first time, Fitbit has partnered with a Medicaid plan.
Starting January 1, WellCare Health Plans is offering Georgia Medicaid adult members with Type 2 diabetes a Fitbit Inspire device if they complete their annual diabetic retinal exam. WellCare's Fitbit Diabetes Program is designed to incentivize members to adopt healthy behaviors—such as walking and physical activity—to better manage their condition through educational materials as well as activity challenges.
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Supreme Court declines to consider medical diagnostic patents
January 13, 2020, 3:34 p.m. EST
The U.S. Supreme Court stayed out of the debate over what types of medical diagnostic tests can be patented, leaving in legal limbo companies that discover ways to diagnose and treat diseases based on patients’ unique characteristics.
The justices rejected an appeal by Quest Diagnostics’s Athena unit that sought to restore its patent for a test to detect the presence of an autoimmune disease. A lower court had ruled in favor of the nonprofit Mayo Clinic that the test wasn’t eligible for a patent because it merely covered a natural law—the correlation between the presence of an antibody and the disease.
Justices also rejected appeals to clarify the rules regarding software patents. The Supreme Court’s action leaves it to Congress to resolve an issue that’s created a legal gray area for such discoveries.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/ai-platform-helps-diagnose-prostate-cancer-lancet-report-shows
AI platform helps diagnose prostate cancer, Lancet report shows
The findings suggest AI systems can be trained to detect and grade cancer in prostate needle biopsy samples with an accuracy rate equal to that of prostate pathology experts.
By Nathan Eddy
January 10, 2020 12:18 PM
A team of researchers in Sweden has discovered that an artificial intelligence platform is capable of accurately diagnosing prostate cancer in tissue samples, offering the potential to speed up diagnostics and reduce costs for healthcare services
The findings, published in The Lancet Oncology in December, suggest AI systems can be trained to detect and grade cancer in prostate needle biopsy samples with an accuracy rate equal to that of international prostate pathology experts.
Furthermore, the study noted that the use of AI technology could help reduce the workload of oncologists by reducing the assessment of benign biopsies and by automating the task of measuring cancer length in positive biopsy cores, as well as providing a second opinion.
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2020 outlook: predictive analytics, AI, enhanced security, telehealth and more
Five health IT experts from patient experience and patient engagement IT vendor GetWellNetwork open up about what they are seeing as important trends this year.
By Bill Siwicki
January 13, 2020 02:16 PM
Predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, personalization, consumer-centric services, enhanced security and telehealth all will affect the delivery and business of healthcare in big ways in 2020, according to five health IT experts from GetWellNetwork, a digital health company that focuses on the patient experience and patient engagement.
Healthcare IT News interviewed the CEO, CSO, CISO, CTO and vice president of strategy at GetWellNetwork to get their perspectives on where health IT is headed this year. Their answers ran the gamut, and are good indicators for where healthcare provider organization CIOs and other provider IT leaders need to keep their eyes on.
Predictive guidance, fueled by AI, improves patient workflows, care
In 2020, predictive guidance will enhance patient workflows, leading clinicians to increasingly deliver the right modality of treatment, adjust treatment recommendations as needed and triage patients to the right location throughout their care journey, whether it is the ER, urgent care or an at-home video consultation, said Robin Cavanaugh, chief technology officer at GetWellNetwork.
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The AI Revolution Is Coming in Emergency Care
Artificial intelligence is poised to have a transformative impact on emergency department teams and the broader world of medical diagnostics.
There are now more than 145 million emergency department visits nationwide in the U.S.
Today, despite expansion in health insurance coverage, ERs are seeing a larger and aging population, sicker patients who arrive in immediate danger with more chronic conditions, physician shortages as we expand care, a need for more expensive technical tools, and an unsustainable trend in costs and expenditures.
Partial rescue from these challenges may be coming from the most unlikely of sources: artificial intelligence. These aren't robots, but smart apps and tools that can reduce cognitive ER burdens, while increasing diagnostic speed, precision and accuracy.
The arrival of AI is poised to have a transformative impact on emergency department teams and the broader world of medical diagnostics.
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Physicians Spend About 16 Minutes Per Outpatient Encounter Using EHRs
By Christopher Cheney | January 13, 2020
Within specialties, researchers found wide variation in the distribution of time spent by physicians using EHRs, indicating significant potential for improvement.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· Three clinical functions dominated time spent on EHR use in the outpatient setting: chart review (33% of time using EHRs), documentation (24%), and order writing (17%).
· To reduce administration burden on physicians, documentation should be a prime target for EHR improvement.
· The times of EHR use by specialty provide a valuable benchmarking tool for physicians, health system leaders, payers, and policy makers.
A new research article provides details about the time physicians spend working with electronic health records (EHRs) for outpatient encounters.
At most outpatient practices across the country, EHRs have replaced paper-based systems for documenting and retrieving patient data. Among physicians, primary complaints about EHRs include their impact on physician burnout and conversion of clinicians to data entry clerks. Earlier research has found that EHRs are strongly associated with physician job dissatisfaction.
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Inside Google’s Quest for Millions of Medical Records
The company has struck deals that grant it access to troves of patient data; ‘We want to be helpful’
Jon Krause
By Rob Copeland, Dana Mattioli and Melanie Evans
Jan. 11, 2020 12:15 am ET
PALO ALTO, Calif.—Roughly a year ago, Google offered health-data company Cerner Corp. an unusually rich proposal.
Cerner was interviewing Silicon Valley giants to pick a storage provider for 250 million health records, one of the largest collections of U.S. patient data. Google dispatched former chief executive Eric Schmidt to personally pitch Cerner over several phone calls and offered around $250 million in discounts and incentives, people familiar with the matter say.
Google had a bigger goal in pushing for the deal than dollars and cents: a way to expand its effort to collect, analyze and aggregate health data on millions of Americans. Google representatives were vague in answering questions about how Cerner’s data would be used, making the health-care company’s executives wary, the people say. Eventually, Cerner struck a storage deal with Amazon.com Inc. instead.
The failed Cerner deal reveals an emerging challenge to Google’s move into health care: gaining the trust of health care partners and the public. So far, that has hardly slowed the search giant.
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Weekly News Recap
- EHR/PM vendor CareCloud, which has raised over $150 million from investors, sells itself for $17 million in cash and $41 million in total consideration.
- Premier delays efforts to find a buyer for the company while it sorts out how its health system shareholders will respond under a new owner.
- A high-profile project in which healthcare super-utilizers are given more aggressive care is found to have no impact on the readmission rate when studied in randomized controlled trials.
- Healthgrades acquires Evariant.
- Non-profit accreditor URAC acquires the programs of ClearHealth Quality Institute.
- Nurses top Gallup’s annual list of most honest and ethical professions by far in Gallup’s annual poll of most honorable professions, with doctors, pharmacists, and dentists also finishing in the top five spots.
- AMIA fires President and CEO Doug Fridsma, MD, PhD after five years.
- England’s NHS receives $50 million in funding to implement single sign-on in its facilities to save clinician time.
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A billion medical images are exposed online, as doctors ignore warnings
This story was reported in partnership with health news site The Mighty.
Every day, millions of new medical images containing the personal health information of patients are spilling out onto the internet.
Hundreds of hospitals, medical offices and imaging centers are running insecure storage systems, allowing anyone with an internet connection and free-to-download software to access over 1 billion medical images of patients across the world.
About half of all the exposed images, which include X-rays, ultrasounds and CT scans, belong to patients in the United States.
Yet despite warnings from security researchers who have spent weeks alerting hospitals and doctors’ offices to the problem, many have ignored their warnings and continue to expose their patients’ private health information.
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Enjoy!
David.
Re: Doctors spend 16 mins in each patient's e-health record
ReplyDeleteIf they only track what the computer can see and not real-world activity then the numbers are not reliable.
How much time is spent with a record on screen but the doctor is NOT interacting with it (ie. not reading/writing what's on screen): talking with a patient or colleague; physical examination of the patient; on the phone; reading paper version of correspondence/results/articles/book; on another device; any other real world activity while ignoring the screen.
Web sites could say I was on their site all day, but I actually only spent 15 minutes reading. You can't tell unless you have a camera/person watching me.
Time spent per patient would greatly vary between roles/location/patient/software/implementation.
A doctor’s advice on why that computer portal can make you healthier
ReplyDelete“Then you’ve got all it takes to use the portal,” I assured him.
You won't understand a thing that's in it, but you can use it. It's the technology that matters.
Agree I don’t think that Doctor quite read between the lines - yeah whatever doc I have a life thanks and that portal is not exactly a must go to app, anyway that’s your job to explain medical conditions.
ReplyDeleteGP practices should be mindful, each account is a potential vulnerability, unused and forgotten accounts are threats that once compromised can be used unnoticed for long periods.
By all means promote safe use of online information tools, just make sure it is for those who will care for it and use it.
What is the role of the GP?
ReplyDeleteTo advise the patient on managing their health, their health information (in myhr), to educate them about medical terms, too record their health status, to curate a version of their health record that is externally available (to other healthcare professionals and patients) etc?
Or just diagnose and treat ASAP?
The way GPs are remunerated suggests the latter. We have a conveyor belt system which does not accommodate myhr, even though at the moment GPs are paid to upload some data to myhr, it is a bare minimum to get paid.
The myhr is unacknowledged and unintended behavioural economics. I hope the irony is not lost on Brendan Murphy