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.
-----
https://www.digitalhealth.net/2020/06/nhs-digital-transformation-remains-tough/
NHS digital transformation remains tough
Following on from the publication of a National Audit Office (NAO) report into digital transformation across the NHS, Digital Health’s editor-in-chief, Jon Hoeksma reflects on healthcare IT over the last two decades.
Jon Hoeksma – 15 June 2020
The Government’s ambitious digital transformation goals for the NHS, which underpin service modernisation plans, are extremely unlikely to be met without very significant increases in funding, much stronger governance, and far clearer national priorities and standards.
These were the key messages from May’s National Audit Office report on ‘Digital Transformation in the NHS’, which simply states “the track record for digital transformation in the NHS has been poor” for at least the past two decades.
Surveying the daunting landscape of NHS digital transformation efforts in the decade since NPfIT, the report doesn’t dissect the detail of individual programmes like GDE and LHCRE, but instead paints a broader canvas of the cumulative impact of multiple overlapping digital initiatives and programmes and identifies recurring themes.
The huge challenge of NHS digital transformation
The report bluntly states that digital transformation of the NHS remains a huge challenge.
“The need for large-scale process and behavioural change and for substantial investment in IT systems mean that digital transformation is inherently difficult,” it states.
-----
https://healthitanalytics.com/news/all-of-us-precision-medicine-program-to-collect-covid-19-data
“All of Us” Precision Medicine Program to Collect COVID-19 Data
NIH is expanding the scope of the All of Us precision medicine research program to better understand the impact of COVID-19.
By Jessica Kent
June 17, 2020 - The All of Us precision medicine research program announced that it will evaluate the spread and effects of COVID-19 through antibody testing, a survey about the pandemic’s impact, and EHR data.
All of Us will collect COVID-19 antibody data by testing blood samples from 10,000 or more participants who joined the program most recently. The team will start with samples from March 2020 and work backward until positive tests are no longer found. These tests will reveal the prevalence of COVID-19 exposure among All of Us participants, and will help researchers assess patterns across regions and communities.
This effort will look for a certain kind of antibody produced in response to infections, called IgG antibodies, using a test approved by the FDA. Researchers will potentially conduct further testing on positive samples to determine if the positive finding is the result of COVID-19 specifically, and to test the level of the immune system’s response.
Additionally, All of Us has implemented a new online survey to better understand the effects of COVID-19 on participants’ physical and mental health. The 20- to 30-minute survey is designed both for participants who tested positive for COVID-19 and those who haven’t. The survey asks questions about COVID-19 symptoms, stress, social distancing, and economic impacts.
-----
https://patientengagementhit.com/news/83-of-patients-predict-long-term-telehealth-care-access
83% of Patients Predict Long-Term Telehealth Care Access
More patients are interested in telehealth care access than ever before, likely sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic.
By Sara Heath
June 18, 2020 - Most patients are expecting to use telehealth care access even after the COVID0-19 pandemic subsides, according to new data from Doctor.com. This underscores a significant cultural shift around the technology in recent months.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic mandated stay-at-home orders and increased patient fears they may contract an illness inside a health clinic, patient sentiment for telehealth was more tepid. An August 2019 Harris Poll revealed two-thirds of patients were open to the idea of telehealth, but only 8 percent had actually tried it.
But this latest report from Doctor.com is turning that trend on its head. Half of the 1,800 patients polled said they have used telehealth within the past three months, and 71 percent are willing to use it today if needed. Eighty-three percent of patients said they expect to use telehealth even after the COVID-19 pandemic dies down.
Of the half who have not yet used telehealth, that is largely because patients have not perceived a need to use it. Fifty-eight percent said they have not had a healthcare issue that warranted a telehealth visit, while 32 percent had cost concerns and 18 percent were worried they may not be able to work the technology.
-----
FDA Approves 'Prescription Video Game' for Kids With ADHD
TUESDAY, June 16, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- The first video game to help treat kids with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
EndeavorRx is a prescription-only game designed to help improve attention in 8- to 12-year-olds with ADHD who have confirmed attention problems.
It is the first game-based treatment authorized by the FDA for any condition.
The game from Akili Interactive is meant to be part of a treatment plan that may include health care provider-directed therapy, medication and/or education, according to the FDA.
"The EndeavorRx device offers a non-drug option for improving symptoms associated with ADHD in children and is an important example of the growing field of digital therapy and digital therapeutics," Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, director of the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said in an agency news release.
-----
https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/JAMA-why-patients-choose-telehealth-study/580112/
Female, younger patients more likely to choose telehealth visit pre-pandemic, study finds
Author Hailey Mensik
Published June 18, 2020
Dive Brief:
- Female patients and younger adults aged 18 to 44 are more likely to choose a telemedicine visit than male patients or patients of other ages, according to new research published in JAMA Network Open conducted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The study, which analyzed data from 1.1 million patients with primary care appointments through Kaiser Permanente Northern California's online patient portal between January 2016 and May 2018, found just 14% of appointments were conducted via telemedicine, primarily via telephone.
- However, though the majority of patients preferred an in-person visit, people with greater access to technology and those facing transportation or logistical barriers to care were more likely to select a virtual visit. Similarly, patients were more likely to choose a telemedicine visit if it was with their personal primary care clinician, opposed to a new doctor.
Dive Insight:
The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting stay-at-home orders led to a rapid adoption of telehealth services among both providers and patients. The new findings, however, offer a glimpse of behaviors before the novel coronavirus surfaced.
-----
Mass General algorithm optimizes EHR data for predictive analytics
– 19 June 2020
Massachusetts General Hospital researchers have found a way to maximize patient information in EHRs to predict likelihood of developing diseases.
The study,
published in Cell Patterns, details how researchers used machine learning to
track patients' medical records over time and proposed an algorithm for exploiting
the temporal information in EHRs for predictive analytics. The algorithm
connects EHR information about patients' medications and diagnoses over time
instead of based on independent health records to compute the likelihood that
patients could have an underlying disease.
"Our study doesn't rely on single diagnostic codes but instead relies on
sequences of codes with the expectation that a sequence of relevant
characteristics over time is more likely to represent reality than a single
element," said Hossein Estiri, PhD, of the Mass General Laboratory of
Computer Science and lead author of the study. "Additionally, the computer
sorts through thousands of patients and can find sequences that a physician
would likely never identify on their own as relevant, but actually are
associated with the disease."
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/europe/covid-19-digital-spring-facing-italy
COVID-19: 'The digital spring' facing Italy
The coronavirus emergency has improved digital health in the Italian healthcare system, but many fear a rude awakening unless major strides are made to advance digitisation, as discussed in a recent HIMSS Italian Community webinar.
June 19, 2020 09:19 AM
How long will the 'digital spring' that the Italian healthcare system is experiencing last? This was the basic question addressed in a recent webinar 'Healthcare after the COVID emergency: from clinical needs to digital evolution', hosted by the HIMSS Italian Community. The webinar, moderated by Paolo Locatelli, scientific director of Digital Innovation in Healthcare Observatory - Politecnico of Milan, raised awareness of the true potential that digital tools have, but also the many challenges that still exist - and the need to confront these before a potential second wave of the coronavirus arrives.
“COVID-19 has highlighted that medicine needs to change," said Sergio Pillon, member of the Digital Health Working Group - European Public Health Alliance (WG-DH EPHA) and medical director of CIRM. He continued: "The emergency has shown our patients have a yearning for digital. What about local health authorities? They send faxes. This is not prehistory. Today, photocopied paper cards are still used for COVID triages.”
There are, however, digital tools and platforms available. A multidisciplinary group headed by ALTEMS - Catholic University Sacred Hearth, for instance, has developed a 'teleconsultation manual in virtual outpatients' training on how to use existing remote medicine tools in a healthcare facility. Moreover, the 'Innova Italia' Call was launched by the Agency for Digital Italy (AgID) to pool technologies and innovation in the fight against coronavirus and has resulted in gathering two thousand initiatives.
-----
Geisinger Monitors COVID-19 Cases Post-Discharge Using Basic Tools and Epic MyChart
June 19, 2020
Geisinger Health System has put together a program to monitor COVID-19 patients in their homes, using basic tech tools available to virtually any health system.
According to an article in FierceHealthcare, Geisinger set up the program to see that patients testing positive for the virus are tracked and cared for without their undergoing needless primary care or ED visits.
To participate, patients can use either an app-based system available through Epic’s MyChart Care Companion or a telephonic app addressing their specific needs. MyChart Care Companion offers access to physician care plans and helps patients follow the plan, in part by providing medication reminders, health tracking tasks, and access to periodic check-ins.
As part of the initiative, Geisinger sends patients discharged from inpatient or outpatient care back with a home care kit including masks and other items that can help them manage their condition.
-----
Millions of IoT Medical Devices Impacted by Ripple20 Vulnerabilities
Researchers discovered 19 vulnerabilities called Ripple20 impacting the TCP/IP communication stack found in hundreds of millions of connected devices, including IoT medical tech.
Hundreds of millions of connected devices, including IoT medical devices, are impacted by a group of 19 vulnerabilities known as Ripple20, found in the devices’ TCP/IP communication stack, according to research from JSOF.
For the healthcare sector, these vulnerabilities add to a host of other risks plaguing its medical devices: legacy systems and patch management.
The Department of Homeland Security followed the report with an alert to these vulnerabilities, providing details into potential exploits. Officials warned that a remote hacker could exploit some of these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected system.The flaws are found in the widely used low-level TCP/IP software library developed by Treck and include multiple remote code execution vulnerabilities. Treck is a developer of low-level network protocols for embedded devices, based in Ohio.
-----
https://ehrintelligence.com/news/epic-systems-tool-to-boost-ehr-data-exchange-for-payer-providers
Epic Systems Tool to Boost EHR Data Exchange for Payer, Providers
For the first time, Epic Systems aims to navigate the difficult payer-provider relationship and facilitate EHR data between the two.
June 17, 2020 - Epic Systems has announced a partnership with Health Care Service Corporation, a Mutual Legal Reserve Company (HCSC), to create an interoperable information exchange between providers, payers, and patients on the Epic and HCSC platform.
The secure Payer Platform, which is the first of its kind between the EHR vendor and a large payer, aims to improve patient care, patient interaction, and reduce administrative burden.
“Sharing data between payers and providers at the point of care is a great way to make a real difference in patient care and lower health costs,” Krishna Ramachandran, vice president of provider performance at HCSC, said in a statement.
“This agreement will help advance access to a truly integrated value-based care delivery system, while giving our providers and members actionable information to make more informed care decisions.”
-----
https://ehrintelligence.com/news/what-is-a-national-patient-identifier-and-why-is-it-important
What is a National Patient Identifier and Why is It Important?
Patient matching has been a hot button issue for over two decades and the National Patient Identifier could be the final answer.
June 16, 2020 - Patient matching issues have surrounded the healthcare industry for decades. Patient matching, or the ability to connect the correct medical data to the appropriate patient, is a key patient safety issue made complicated by limited interoperability and data governance. One potential fix that has been particularly controversial, yet brought up on occasion, is the National Patient Identifier (NPI).
Patient matching aims to connect patient records across different medical providers or facilities. The same patient visiting two different doctors or two different hospitals should always have the correct medical record brought up. However, this does not always happen, and a mistake can be both lethal to the patient and it can carry a heavy financial burden for the health system.
In a recent survey of roughly 120 healthcare providers and HIE leaders, researchers identified patient NPI barriers, how to improve patient matching rates, and the need for government support as top patient matching issues.
-----
Many Medical Decision Tools Disadvantage Black Patients
Doctors look to these digital calculators to make treatment decisions, but they can end up denying black patients access to certain specialists, drugs and transplants.
By Gina Kolata
· June 17, 2020
Unbeknown to most patients, their race is incorporated into numerous medical decision-making tools and formulas that doctors consult to decide treatment for a range of conditions and services, including heart disease, cancer and maternity care, according to a new paper published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The unintended result, the paper concludes, has been to direct medical resources away from black patients and to deny some black patients treatment options available to white patients.
The tools are often digital calculators on websites of medical organizations or — in the case of assessing kidney function — actually built into the tools commercial labs use to calculate normal values of blood tests. They assess risk and potential outcomes based on formulas derived from population studies and modeling that looked for variables associated with different outcomes.
“These tests are woven into the fabric of medicine,” said Dr. David Jones, the paper’s senior author, a Harvard historian who also teaches ethics to medical students.
-----
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/covid-19-security-reducing-risk-of-temporary-hospitals-remote-care
COVID-19 Security: Reducing Risk of Temporary Hospitals, Remote Care
The rapid deployment of remote tech, telehealth, and temporary hospitals amid COVID-19 has significantly increased vulnerabilities in healthcare, which could have lasting impacts beyond the crisis.
June 10, 2020 - The COVID-19 pandemic has fueled the pace of change in the healthcare sector, from telehealth expansion to the rapid deployment of temporary hospitals. But the increase in telework, mobile tech, remote care, and temporary hospitals has also expanded the threat landscape, which could have lasting consequences.
Indeed, cybercriminals have rapidly worked to take advantage of the new landscape, targeting virtual private networks (VPNs), cloud service platforms, and remote workers in an effort to financially benefit from the pandemic.
Given the pace and scope of the deployment of remote technologies and temporary sites, healthcare organizations should be closely monitoring its systems to ensure they’re protected from these new threats.
-----
https://healthitanalytics.com/news/predictive-analytics-model-forecasts-covid-19-risk-outcomes
Predictive Analytics Model Forecasts COVID-19 Risk, Outcomes
The tool is the world’s first predictive analytics model to forecast the risk of testing positive for COVID-19.
By Jessica Kent
June 16, 2020 - Cleveland Clinic researchers have developed a predictive analytics model to determine an individual patient’s likelihood of testing positive for COVID-19, as well as their potential outcomes from the disease.
In a study published in CHEST, the researchers noted that the tool could provide a more scientific approach to testing, which will be essential as the healthcare industry faces increased demands for testing and limited resources.
“The ability to accurately predict whether or not a patient is likely to test positive for COVID-19, as well as potential outcomes including disease severity and hospitalization, will be paramount in effectively managing our resources and triaging care,” said Lara Jehi, MD, Cleveland Clinic's Chief Research Information Officer and corresponding author on the study.
“As we continue to battle this pandemic and prepare for a potential second wave, understanding a person's risk is the first step in potential care and treatment planning.”
-----
How Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Can Determine COVID-19 Severity
NYU researchers have developed an app that uses artificial intelligence and big data to detect which patients are likely to have severe COVID-19 cases.
By Jessica Kent
June 15, 2020 - When COVID-19 first started spreading across the country, hospital capacity and the allocation of resources were among the top concerns for healthcare leaders.
In other countries, overcrowded ICUs, limited numbers of ventilators, and short-staffed facilities were the unfortunate reality, and a similar situation threatened to erupt in the US.
“In Northern Italy, doctors were put in awful, medically saturated situations where healthcare resources were over tapped, and that led doctors to have to make decisions about which patients get the ventilators or who gets the ICU beds, and that didn’t lead to good outcomes,” John McDevitt, PhD, professor of biomaterials at NYU College of Dentistry, told HealthITAnalytics.
“Our lab understood that we had to find a better way. The virus was soon going to be in America, and we knew we were going to be pushed in our resources here as well. The clinicians who have finite resources now need the ability to look into the future and prioritize their patients,” added McDevitt, who is also a professor of chemical and molecular engineering at NYU Tandon School of Engineering.
-----
NIH Unveils Centralized Resource for COVID-19 Patient Data
June 16, 2020
Insiders hope it will “serve as the foundation for addressing
The National Institutes of Health on Monday unveiled a centralized platform that approved users can tap into to contribute, access and analyze data derived from COVID-19 patients’ electronic health records, as part of a dedicated effort to more quickly convert clinical information into insights that can accelerate research against the novel coronavirus.
Funded by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, or NCATS, NIH recently developed the National COVID Cohort Collaborative—or the N3C—effort. According to a news release regarding the work, N3C will systematically capture clinical, diagnostic and laboratory data from participating health care providers nationwide, aggregate that data into a more standardized, easily-accessible format, and swiftly enable users to leverage new, collaborative research insights from that harmonized information via the NCATS N3C Data Enclave.
“NCATS initially supported the development of this innovative collaborative technology platform to speed the process of understanding the course of diseases, and identifying interventions to effectively treat them,” NCATS Director Christopher Austin said in a statement. “This platform was deployed to stand up this important COVID-19 effort in a matter of weeks, and we anticipate that it will serve as the foundation for addressing future public health emergencies.”
-----
June 16, 2020
EHR-related fatigue may lead to inefficient use among physicians
Continuous electronic health record use was associated with fatigue among physicians, which may lead to inefficient and suboptimal EHR use, according to results of a study published in JAMA Network Open.
“Our goal was to identify and evaluate the effect of EHR use on physician’s fatigue levels ,” Saif Khairat, PhD, MPH, of Carolina Health Informatics Program at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told Healio Psychiatry. “Previously, studies investigated that relationship using mostly qualitative methods, such as interviews and satisfaction. This study utilized novel eye-tracking methods to quantify, for the first time, the fatigue levels of physicians while using the EHR system.”
In the current cross-sectional, simulation-based study, Khairat and colleagues aimed to evaluate the association between fatigue and EHR use through pupillometry — the measurement of pupil dilation, which has been used to assess engagement with advanced interfaces and website design. Further, they measured efficiency using mouse clicks, time and number of EHR screens. They collected data of 25 intensive care unit physicians and physician trainees at a southeastern U.S. academic medical center. Participants completed four simulated patient cases in the EHR involving task execution and information retrieval while wearing eye-tracking glasses. Physician fatigue and EHR efficiency were the primary outcomes.
-----
Four Types of Healthcare IT Systems and Their Integration Challenges
June 17, 2020
At work, most of us rely on a grab-bag of computer systems. Certain environments are especially burdened with complex, diverse systems; the military comes to mind. Health care certainly falls into that category, teeming as it is with systems to deal with scheduling, resource allocation, billing, security, and–of course–patient information. Many environments spend millions of dollars trying to get these systems to work together in order to save time and avoid errors.
Let me start with a small horror story (most people in the health care field could supply others). A psychiatrist friend of mine at a major, supposedly advanced Boston-area hospital had to issue a prescription for a patient. Even though the patient’s address was in one system, the psychiatrist had to fill out the address by hand on the prescription. You can guess what happened–she put in the address of the neighbor who lived next door to the patient. The neighbor was very polite and delivered the medication to the patient, but I can think of a dozen scary things that could have gone wrong.
Recently, I had a discussion of trends in integrating health care systems with Cheryl Rodenfels, CTO of Healthcare at Nutanix. With a strong background in finance and healthcare, Rodenfels previously worked at Scripps Health and then became CIO of Presence Health, a large Chicago integrated delivery network with 12 hospitals and 300 clinics. She divides clinical IT systems into four types, each of which gets a section below.
-----
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/breach-of-telehealth-app-babylon-health-raises-privacy-concerns
Breach of Telehealth App Babylon Health Raises Privacy Concerns
While Babylon Health is UK-based, its recent breach that allowed patients to view appointments of other patients raises a host of privacy concerns in light of telehealth expansion in the US.
June 11, 2020 - UK-Based telehealth app Babylon Health recently experienced a breach of its general practitioner platform, where users were able to access videos from other patients’ appointments, first reported by the BBC.
On June 9, a patient announced on Twitter that he was able to view videos from about 50 other patient appointments. Babylon Health later issued a statement that confirmed that just three of its patients were able to access other patient appointments due to a “software error” and not a malicious attack.
Babylon Health’s investigation found the breach was limited to those few patients that “were incorrectly presented with…recordings of other patients’ consultations through a subsection of the user’s profile within the app but had not viewed them.” The company has since notified regulators.
-----
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/email-critical-enterprise-risk-as-impersonation-attacks-increase
Email Critical Enterprise Risk, as Impersonation Attacks Increase
Mimecast’s latest State of Email Security report shows a rapid increase in phishing, ransomware, and impersonation attacks, with a need for organizations to bolster cyber resilience programs.
June 11, 2020 - More than half of global IT decision makers have seen a drastic increase in the number of phishing, ransomware, and impersonation attacks, as email continues to be a critical security risk to the enterprise, according to the latest State of Email Security report from Mimecast.
Notably, in just the first 100 days of 2020, impersonation fraud attempts increased by nearly one-third, which researchers believe is tied to hackers targeting the spike in remote workers amid the COVID-19 crisis.
Mimecast surveyed 1,026 global IT leaders from across all sectors between February and March 2020. The data is coupled with data gathered from screening 1 billion daily emails. According to researchers, email remains the most popular attack vector among hackers.
The findings mirror an earlier healthcare-specific report from Corvus that found phishing is one of two key attack vectors leveraged by hackers, alongside open ports. Mobile phishing has also increased during the first half of 2020 throughout the crisis, according to Lookout.
-----
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-social-media-poll-idUSKBN23N12N
June 16, 2020 / 6:06 PM /
Social media companies distrusted by most Americans on content decisions: Poll
(Reuters) - Most Americans do not trust social media companies to make the right decisions about what should be allowed on their platforms, but trust the government even less to make those choices, according to a poll released on Tuesday by Gallup and the Knight Foundation.
The debate over online content moderation, already in the spotlight during the COVID-19 pandemic and run-up to the U.S. election, has intensified in recent weeks as Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) and Facebook Inc (FB.O) diverged on how to handle inflammatory posts by President Donald Trump.
Here are some key poll findings:
WHAT SHOULD BE ALLOWED?
The new poll found nearly two-thirds of Americans favor letting people express their views on social media, including views that are offensive.
However, 85% of respondents favored removing intentionally false or misleading health information and 81% supported removing intentionally misleading claims about elections or other political issues.
Respondents were more critical of companies doing too little than too much in policing harmful content. Seventy-one percent of Democrats and 54% of independents thought companies were not tough enough, whereas Republicans were more divided.
-----
Bringing Healthcare AI Down to Earth: Small Actions Lead to Real Results
June 16, 2020
The following is a guest article by Ori Geva, Co-Founder and President, Medial EarlySign.
The driving force of innovation – from vacuum cleaners and washing machines, to telephones, typewriters and computer processors – has been to simultaneously increase productivity and efficiency while saving time. And nowhere is this more true than with the advent of AI and machine learning, in which sophisticated computer systems are able to not only analyze vast amounts of complex data faster and more efficiently than their human counterparts, but can learn and provide insights based on this information.
Therefore, there is somewhat of a dichotomy when it comes to the application of artificial intelligence to healthcare, an industry where speed and efficiency can often be the difference between life and death.
Enabling computers to perform much of the costly and time-consuming work previously done by healthcare professionals is expected to pave the way for improved patient care when it comes to earlier diagnosis, more effective treatment, lowered rates of readmission, and ultimately improving patient outcomes. However, AI health implementations are often very large multi-million dollar projects which may take several years to implement successfully and prove their worth.
-----
Change Healthcare Works With Microsoft, Adobe To Create Patient Engagement Platform
June 16, 2020
Change Healthcare has partnered with Microsoft and Adobe to build a platform that walks patients through the process of getting care and ties their interactions into providers’ revenue cycle management tools.
The new platform, the Connected Consumer Health suite, is delivered as a SaaS tool. The suite offers tools that help patients make healthcare choices across their care process.
One tool allows consumers to access provider pricing and reviews, schedule appointments and pre-pay for the services they’ve selected.
Another feature of the service is its virtual front desk app, which allows patients to move through a touchless check-in experience. The app supports queue management, online check-in and forms, along with communicating when patients should enter the facility.
-----
ATA Conference Sets Stage for Continued Telehealth Acceleration
By Mandy Roth | June 16, 2020
Virtual conference offers an opportunity for health systems to prepare for next evolution of virtual care.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· The virtual conference will explore how organizations are using virtual care and showcase technologies to help hospitals and health systems prepare for the next phase of telehealth.
· ATA has launched a campaign to ensure that certain telehealth waivers become permanent, including scheduled testimony at a Senate hearing on Wednesday.
· Front-end chatbots, remote monitoring, and asynchronous care are next-level tools that will create greater efficiencies in the use of telehealth, saving physicians time.
Long touted as an essential mechanism to transform healthcare delivery, yet underutilized due to regulatory and reimbursement barriers, telehealth has become an "overnight" sensation, and a silver lining in the coronavirus pandemic. Suddenly, it has become the go-to vehicle for providers to deliver care to patients, and innovative uses for virtual care are popping up in hospitals and healthcare systems across the nation. As the COVID-19 crisis abates, the healthcare industry is holding its collective breath, wondering what government waivers will be made permanent and whether telehealth will be allowed to thrive.
-----
https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/telehealth-will-continue-to-grow-after-coronavirus-pandemic
Telehealth Will Continue to Grow After Coronavirus Pandemic
The coronavirus pandemic sparked the growth of telehealth across the healthcare industry. This growth will continue after the pandemic, industry experts said at the Value-Based Care Summit | Telehealth20: Virtual Series.
June 12, 2020 - The healthcare industry saw an unprecedented rise in telehealth amidst the coronavirus pandemic. This trend will continue, according to industry leaders at the Value-Based Care Summit | Telehealth20: Virtual Series.
Various panels at the event highlight strategies and best practices across the industry. And attendees weighed in on their organization’s strategies to combat COVID-19 and plans to move forward in a post-coronavirus world.
Speakers from the Center for Telehealth and Connected Care at Dartmouth-Hitchock Medical Center, Boise State University, and St. John’s Health discussed how to reduce care disparities in rural populations using telehealth.
-----
Payer COVID-19 Healthcare Spending for 2020, 2021 May Hit $546.6B
Although the payer COVID-19 healthcare spending estimates are still uncertain, experts projected that delayed care might decrease costs.
June 10, 2020 - Experts slightly lowered their estimate for payer COVID-19 healthcare spending to a high of $546.6 billion based in part on adding delayed care savings, a study by Wakely Contracting Group found. America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) contracted the company to assess potential healthcare costs and to update a previous study published in late March 2020.
The present report lowered the hospitalization rate from the March report’s assumption, increased the cost of hospital admission, and added deferred care costs.
The new report states the cost could be anywhere from $30 billion to $546.6 billion for benefit years 2020 through 2021.
The out-of-pocket healthcare spending for members and beneficiaries could be between $2.8 billion and $48.6 billion.
-----
https://healthitanalytics.com/news/addressing-the-social-determinants-of-health-with-ai-partnerships
Addressing the Social Determinants of Health with AI, Partnerships
UVA Health System is leveraging artificial intelligence and community partnerships to address individuals’ social determinants of health.
By Jessica Kent
June 11, 2020 - In the healthcare industry today, it is widely understood that optimal health outcomes require addressing patients’ clinical and non-clinical needs – their social determinants of health.
So much of individuals’ health is determined by factors beyond the doctor’s office. Where someone lives, works, and plays has a direct impact on her well-being, and it’s critical for health systems to gather and understand their patients’ social determinants data.
However, for many healthcare organizations, it can be challenging to know where to start with addressing patients’ social determinants. A lack of industry standards makes it difficult to collect and share this essential information, and healthcare entities may not be equipped to address unmet social needs.
These obstacles have been highlighted even more as the industry has increasingly understood the important role social determinants play in overall health, Amy Salerno, MD, MHS, Director of Community Health and Well-Being at the University of Virginia (UVA) Health System, told HealthITAnalytics.
-----
Startup using AI to solve EHR usability problems lands series A funding round
Jun 15, 2020 10:55am
Could artificial intelligence and machine learning help solve some of the most intractable usability problems with medical record systems?
Craig Limoli, CEO and founder of startup Wellsheet, believes they can.
Investors are betting big on the technologies, and the company is gaining support from physicians and health IT leaders.
Studies have found physicians are spending a lot of time on electronic documentation. Case in point: Primary care physicians spend more than half of their workday interacting with electronic health records (EHRs), according to a study from the American Medical Association.
Doctors have complained that data entry tasks associated with EHR systems are significantly cutting into the time they can spend with patients.
-----
https://hbr.org/2020/06/its-time-for-a-new-kind-of-electronic-health-record
It’s Time for a New Kind of Electronic Health Record
by John Glaser
June 12, 2020
The Covid-19 pandemic presents the U.S. health care system with a mind-boggling array of challenges. One of the most urgent is coping with a simultaneous glut and dearth of information. Between tracking outbreaks, staying abreast of the latest information on effective treatments and vaccine development, keeping tabs on how each patient is doing, and recognizing and documenting a seemingly endless stream of weird new symptoms, the entire medical community is being chronically overwhelmed.
Sorting through large amounts of information and finding the nuggets that apply to a particular patient’s situation is something that computers ought to be good at. But we still have problems of knowing what data is important and what is the right treatment and prevention plan for each patient.
During the Obama administration, the federal government supplied billions of dollars — and providers kicked in billions more — to speed the adoption of electronic health records. But even though up to 96% of hospitals and 86% of physician offices have adopted them, we still don’t have EHRs that can rise to the information challenges that clinicians face every day, let alone those posed by Covid-19.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/interoperability-groups-are-evolving-expanding-during-covid-19
Interoperability groups are evolving, expanding during COVID-19
Leaders from CommonWell Health Alliance, DirectTrust and Quality Health Network offered updates on their pandemic response during a recent HIMSS20 Digital event.
By Mike Miliard
June 15, 2020 04:07 PM
As it has in so many other areas of the U.S. healthcare system, the coronavirus crisis has highlighted some fundamental challenges with regard to interoperability, data exchange and public health surveillance and reporting.
But there have been some bright spots too, as health information exchange organizations have pivoted to meet the unique needs of this moment – and have often seen a marked uptick in participating organizations, according to a recent HIMSS20 Digital presentation.
The discussion, Striving Toward an Open Ecosystem: Expanding Interoperability Across Care Settings, offers a broader overview of how stakeholder groups are enabling broade use case-driven data exchange, and how they're working to help address gaps and shortfalls in different areas of the healthcare ecoysystem. But during the chat, leaders from CommonWell Health Alliance, DirectTrust and Quality Health Network also offered some insights into how COVID-19 has changed their offerings in recent months.
During the presentation, moderator Ben Moscovitch, manager of health IT at The Pew Charitable Trusts, asked the panelists how the pandemic has affected them – which opportunities for partnerships has it opened up, and which challenges has it exposed?
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/3-patient-experience-trends-it-leaders-should-act
3 patient experience trends that IT leaders should act on
An expert with 20 years’ experience working with healthcare organizations discusses some recent trends and describes what healthcare leaders can do to help ensure patient loyalty.
By Bill Siwicki
June 15, 2020 11:27 AM
As consumerism has become a powerful force in the healthcare industry, the patient experience has become more important than ever. Patients want to be treated right and treated well or they will do their research and switch caregivers and provider organizations.
To help healthcare organizations in the patient experience realm, Allison Esenkova, vice president at technology and management consulting firm Pariveda Solutions, who has 20 years’ experience working with healthcare organizations, recently offered her perspective on three patient experience trends and what healthcare CIOs and other health IT leaders can do to capitalize on them.
Eyes on me
The first patient experience trend is what Esenkova calls “eyes on me.”
“Relationship quality is a major predictor of patient loyalty,” she said. “There is an increasing wave of competition with nontraditional players, such as workplace health centers and retail-based clinics, and retention through direct experience with the provider is becoming more important. This relationship-focused experience is what motivates and retains doctors and other clinicians, as well – it is the fulcrum of the ecosystem.”
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/what-sort-staying-power-does-telehealth-really-have
What sort of staying power does telehealth really have?
The coronavirus pandemic has acted as an "unexpected experiment" for telehealth, but despite its huge promise and the hopes of many that it will become the new normal, experts say it's difficult to predict what's next.
By Kat Jercich
June 15, 2020 10:48 AM
This past week, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma said she "can't imagine going back" to making beneficiaries return to in-person visits after the agency's relaxation of telehealth regulations in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Verma's comments came as industry leaders pushed for two-dozen federal regulatory waivers surrounding telehealth to become permanent, and other new studies have shown notable patient appreciation for what it could mean for their healthcare experience.
All this hope for telehealth's staying power, given the current momentum behind it, raises the question: What will telehealth look like in the long term for both providers and patients?
"I think it's difficult to predict right now," said Heather Alleva, attorney at Buchanan Ingersoll and Rooney.
Alleva, who focuses on the federal regulation of healthcare providers, payer enrollment and HIPAA compliance, told Healthcare IT News that it's still too soon to tell how patients will react to loosening coronavirus restrictions.
-----
Healthcare’s Failures in the Time Of COVID-19: It is Time to Completely Rethink Patient Care in a Digital Age
June 15, 2020
The following is a guest article by Dr. Steven Steinhubl, Director of Digital Medicine at Scripps Research Translational Institute and a cardiologist for the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and Karen Larimer, PhD, ACNP-BC, FAHA, Acute Care Nurse Practitioner, Fellow of the American Heart Association.
Plato wrote “necessity is the mother of invention”. The COVID-19 crisis has surfaced far too many unmet necessities in our current systems of care. Healthcare’s traditional dependence on face-to-face encounters for evaluation and management of patients risks the health of both patients and the clinical team. It also artificially distills a patient’s health trajectory into one of two potential interactions: 1) I feel bad or 2) I have an appointment. This limited level of engagement allows only reactive, or sickness care. This paradigm does not meet patient needs pre-COVID-19 and is set up to fail at a frightening scale during the COVID-19 crisis.
To address this crisis head-on and into the future, the solution lies in reengineering systems of care built around the capabilities of novel digital technologies. Digital technologies can be utilized to keep people well, recognize as early as possible when that changes, and then monitor their response to therapeutic interventions, all within the patient’s home. Inconceivable even five years ago, we now have the technologies (personal sensors, machine learning, and digital connectivity) to make this shift, and the COVID-19 crisis provides the impetus to do so.
----
Key Considerations for Reopening Healthcare Facilities Amid COVID-19
Safety precautions, telehealth, testing, data analytics, and compliance should be core to a healthcare facility’s strategy for resuming in-person case during the next phase of the pandemic.
June 11, 2020 - Under the direction of federal and local governments, healthcare providers locked down their facilities to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, shutting down key clinical service lines and canceling patient appointments. But with the pandemic subsiding in some areas, providers are now starting to unlock their doors.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases are falling in about half of the states, with another eight states reporting no statistically significant change, according to data compiled by The New York Times at the time of this article’s publication.
According to the Trump administration’s criteria for reopening the economy, communities in these states may be ready to engage in some activities prohibited during shelter-at-home periods, including in-person care for non-COVID-19 symptoms and conditions.
However, healthcare facilities cannot flip the switch and resume normal operations.
-----
https://histalk2.com/2020/06/12/weekender-6-12-20/
Weekly News Recap
- A new investment in workforce management software vendor QGenda values the company at $1 billion.
- Conversa, PatientPing, Wellsheet, and Kyruus announce significant new funding.
- Only three states have committed to using COVID-19 contact tracing apps from Apple and Google.
- GAO says the VA is doing a good job of getting clinicians involved in its Cerner implementation, but suggests choosing broader representation at its local workshops.
-----
Enjoy!
David.
No comments:
Post a Comment