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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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/how-big-data-analytics-can-mitigate-covid-19-health-disparities
How Big Data Analytics Can Mitigate COVID-19 Health Disparities
During the COVID-19 pandemic, big data analytics have helped organizations pinpoint and reduce health disparities among patient populations.
By Jessica Kent
September 15, 2020 - While the rapid spread of COVID-19 has exposed many unflattering healthcare truths, the glaring health disparities highlighted by the pandemic are perhaps the most detrimental to patient health.
The virus has had a disproportionate impact on minority and underserved communities, shining a spotlight on existing clinical and non-clinical inequities.
“Minorities are more likely to suffer from chronic conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. Additionally, these patient populations typically lack access to adequate healthcare, or have a limited understanding of the healthcare system,” said Sampson Davis, MD, an emergency medicine physician.
“These individuals also tend to work in the service industry – transportation, the food industry, or airports. In these jobs, there's no work-from-home possibilities that can allow people to distance themselves socially. In that sense, there’s a heighted risk of exposure to COVID-19.”
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/how-telehealth-accelerated-post-acute-digital-transformation
How Telehealth Accelerated Post-Acute Digital Transformation
September 17, 2020 - Telehealth and interoperability solutions enable TriHealth’s digital transformation and give providers more time for patient care.
Lori Baker, MSOL, MSW, director of ambulatory care management, senior services, and post-acute network at TriHealth highlights her health system’s digital transformation process in a recent episode of Healthcare Strategies, an Xtelligent Healthcare Media podcast,
“We have had a lot more patients who have engaged in seeing their doctors through telemedicine visits,” Baker said. “It has been amazing to see that transformation and how, as we continue to move forward, we try to engage more patients in preventative care.”
TriHealth is leveraging multiple telehealth solutions to push forward the digital transformation including telemonitoring programs for various patient populations.
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Professional ransomware: how to deal with these new corporate criminals
By Geraint Williams 17 September, 2020
A new wave of criminal is making themselves known
The opening lines read like your typical product launch press release: “We created Darkside because we didn’t find the perfect product for us. Now we have it.”
However, this is not your typical company press release – this is a group of cyber criminals who have created the latest strain of ransomware designed to hunt down and target big-game organisations for millions. But instead of dealing with back alleyway and flick-knife criminals, these crooks practically wear a suit and shake your hand with attacks that are shroud with an unnerving manner of professionalism.
They’ll break into your systems, steal and encrypt your files, lock you out, and then threaten to publicly expose your sensitive data unless you pay the ransomware fee. Very much like your typical ransomware attack, except that these criminals will pleasantly deal with the negotiator with a smile on their face and a helpful, can-do attitude. They offer real-time chat support, guaranteed turnaround times and discounts if payment is received in a timely manner. Darkside even have a corporate responsibility pledge – they promise not to attack schools, non-profits, governments or hospitals, and will only target those who they know can pay based on their net worth.
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https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20200911.401376/full/
Ethical Considerations In The Use Of AI Mortality Predictions In The Care Of People With Serious Illness
September 16, 2020 10.1377/hblog20200911.401376
Predicting prognosis is as old as medicine itself. Recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning have led to algorithms that promise to answer one of life’s ultimate questions: When will I die? Analyzing electronic health record (EHR) and other data, different algorithms now exist to predict mortality, seemingly with unprecedented accuracy and without the direct input of clinicians or patients.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has arguably further stoked the fire of this desire to know patient prognoses. Accurately predicting mortality due to COVID-19 would supposedly offer a technological way out of vexing resource allocation decisions. Patients could be ranked by likelihood of survival, and scarce resources (such as ventilators) could be allocated accordingly to maximize lives saved. Having prognostic information in hand could spur patients, families, and health care professionals to have advanced care planning discussions, and avoid non-beneficial or unwanted interventions, such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
Well-intentioned though these efforts are, the rapid dissemination of mortality algorithms by EHR software raises serious ethical concerns, such as the potential use of AI to reduce use of services rather than align care with patient goals or to unintentionally worsen health disparities, and raises questions about how these models should be used in practice.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/ransomware-hacking-groups-post-data-from-5-healthcare-entities
Ransomware Hacking Groups Post Data from 5 Healthcare Entities
NetWalker, REvil, SunCrypt, and Pysa, or Mespinoza, ransomware hacking groups posted data allegedly stolen from five healthcare entities in recent weeks to blackmail them into paying the ransom.
September 17, 2020 - The hacking groups behind Pysa, or Mespinoza, SunCrypt, REvil, and NetWalker ransomware variants posted data allegedly stolen from five separate healthcare entities on the dark web for sale, in an effort to force the organizations into paying their ransom demands.
Double extortion – where hackers gain a foothold onto a network, proliferate to connected, vulnerable devices, and exfiltrate sensitive data before launching a ransomware payload – was first made popular by the Maze hacking group.
The hackers notoriously targeted healthcare providers, and other hacking groups soon followed the trend: with NetWalker and REvil actors quickly taking advantage of the profitable technique. The FBI has warned NetWalker has continued to target healthcare entities throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
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At RWJBarnabas Health, EHR user experience tool helps reduce clinician burden
Its Cerner EHR is now able to anticipate the most relevant information to display to the clinician to deliver a better experience, increase their productivity and reduce burnout.
By Bill Siwicki
September 18, 2020 11:46 AM
RWJBarnabas Health is the largest health system in New Jersey. It serves more than five million patients annually across nine counties and employing 33,000 people – making it the state’s largest private employer. As a national health system leader, RWJBH recognizes clinician burnout as a complex workplace syndrome affecting not only physicians, nurses and staff who deliver care to patients, but also patients and their families.
THE PROBLEM
The health system’s clinicians are the lifeblood of the organization and help it deliver the best possible care to its patients. They should be empowered with the right tools and technologies that allow them to do their jobs as efficiently as possible.
But electronic health record systems require clinicians to click through dozens of screens to find the information they need to make treatment decisions for patients. Clinician burnout is a national problem, and the EHR has been shown in many studies to be a significant contributor.
PROPOSAL
“EHR systems are largely static, displaying information in the same way to every healthcare provider for each patient,” said Dr. Stephen O’Mahony, vice president and chief health information officer at RWJBarnabas Health. “This contributes to frustration and inefficiency, because users are required to search across many screens with numerous clicks to find the information they need.”
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Proximity Matters: Using Machine Learning and Geospatial Analytics to Reduce COVID-19 Exposure Risk
September 18, 2020
The following is a guest article by Manjula Julka, MD, MBA, PCCI’s Vice President, Clinical Innovation and Albert Karam, MS, PCCI’s Director of Data Governance and Analytics.
Since the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the biggest challenges for health systems has been to gain an understanding of the community spread of this virus and to determine how likely is it that a person walking through the doors of a facility is at a higher risk of being COVID-19 positive.
Without adequate access to testing data, health systems early-on were often forced to rely on individuals to answer questions such as whether they had traveled to certain high-risk regions. Even that unreliable method of assessing risk started becoming meaningless as local community spread took hold.
Parkland Health & Hospital System (the safety net health system for Dallas County, TX) and PCCI (a Dallas, TX based non-profit with expertise in the practical applications of advanced data science and social determinants of health) had a better idea. Community spread of an infectious disease is made possible through physical proximity and density of active carriers and non-infected individuals. Thus, to understand the risk of an individual contracting the disease (exposure risk), it was necessary to assess their proximity to confirmed COVID-19 cases based on their address and population density of those locations. If an “exposure risk” index could be created, then Parkland could use it to minimize exposure for their patients and health workers and provide targeted educational outreach in highly vulnerable zip codes.
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https://patientengagementhit.com/news/good-patient-provider-relationship-proves-to-boost-outcomes
Good Patient-Provider Relationship Proves to Boost Outcomes
When the patient-provider relationship improved, as did patient-reported functional health status, researchers found.
By Sara Heath
September 16, 2020 - A good patient-provider relationship has long been understood as the foundation of a high patient satisfaction score, but new evidence suggests these relationships can have greater impacts. A study in the Annals of Family Medicine has found that a better patient-provider relationship can mean better patient health outcomes.
The pursuit of a good patient-provider relationship is not exactly new, the researchers acknowledged. Positive relationships can help improve patient satisfaction and yield patient loyalty. And when a patient has a regular source of healthcare, data has shown health outcomes can improve, the researchers reported.
But patient-provider relationships may go beyond improving the patient experience, the researchers said.
“Whereas consistent access to a provider is important, the quality of each clinical encounter is equally important in shaping a patient’s experience and overall health outcomes,” the investigators, hailing from Case Western Reserve University, explained. “Specifically, the quality of the physician-patient relationship warrants closer research. The physician-patient relationship is a valued primary care process on which other primary care processes depend.”
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/could-customer-reviews-give-transparency-into-health-it-tools
Could Customer Reviews Give Transparency into Health IT Tools?
ONC and researchers developed a crowdsourcing website aimed to rate and review interoperability solutions.
September 16, 2020 - Crowdsourced ratings face three key barriers to providing transparency for interoperability and health IT products, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA).
From Yelp to Glassdoor, crowdsourced consumer ratings are a common and essential avenue to show transparency in product quality. However, in the healthcare industry, crowdsourced ratings have yet to see similar or substantial results.
That is about to change as developers become subject to new health IT policies and regulations.
Following the 21st Century Cures Act, health IT developers will now collect consumer performance data. The law specifically calls for limits on, gag clauses and rules against sharing screenshots and videos of product performance.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/ahima-joins-forces-with-meditech-to-develop-ehr-training-program
AHIMA Joins Forces with MEDITECH to Develop EHR Training Program
Healthcare professionals are beginning to value the importance of EHR training early in a career to help ease the transition to the next level.
September 16, 2020 - MEDITECH and its health IT solutions partner teamed up with AHIMA to develop a new EHR training program for 16,000 students at over 300 colleges and universities across the country.
AHIMA will deliver a custom, virtual EHR training curriculum for associate, baccalaureate, and graduate degree programs. The organization will also offer certificate level and continuing education unit programs to qualifying students.
Quality EHR training is essential to users, especially those new to the technology. Research shows it is the highest prognosticator of EHR user satisfaction. Researchers recommend a minimum of four hours of EHR training to boost EHR satisfaction.
The AHIMA VLab, an online portal that features several health information software applications and courses, will offer the training on MEDITECH Expanse EHR.
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Iranian Hackers Targeting, Exploiting VPN Flaws of US Healthcare, IT Orgs
FBI and CISA warn Iran-backed hackers are targeting US federal agencies and businesses, including those in healthcare and IT, exploiting known vulnerabilities in VPN connections.
September 16, 2020 - Hackers with ties to Iran are exploiting flaws found in commonly used Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) across a range of federal agencies and businesses, including those in the healthcare and IT sectors, according to a joint alert from the Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency and the FBI.
It appears the threat actors are connected to a hacking group known as Pioneer Kitten and UNC757, based on an analysis of indicators of compromise (IOCs) and tactics, techniques, and procedures. The group is actively exploiting several known vulnerabilities in Pulse Secure VPNs, Citrix NetScaler, and F5 network solutions.
CISA and the FBI have repeatedly warned throughout the year that hackers are actively targeting these vulnerabilities. In fact, threat actors have successfully exploited Pulse Secure VPNs using stolen credentials, even if the organization has applied the patch.
In the latest widespread campaign, officials observed the threat actor using these vulnerabilities to gain access to a victim’s network and maintaining persistent access on successfully exploited networks for several months using a variety of techniques.
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Americans Want Federal Government to Make Sharing Electronic Health Data Easier
Survey shows clear majorities support better patient matching and access to records
September 16, 2020
Ben MoscovitchHealth CareHealth Information TechnologyRead time: 5 min
A survey released Sept. 16 shows that clear majorities of Americans support efforts to improve how their medical information is shared among doctors and clinicians, and that they want greater access to their own health data.
A majority said they are comfortable with the use of technologies such as smartphone applications to access their own electronic health records (EHR), but they voiced significant concerns about privacy when federal health data protections are not in place. Likewise, respondents expressed support for several methods to improve the accuracy of how their medical records are linked from place to place—including the use of biometrics like fingerprints.
The survey, commissioned by The Pew Charitable Trusts, included a nationally representative sample of 1,213 adults (ages 18+). It was conducted online and by phone between June 1 and July 3, 2020, with a margin of error of +/- 3.49%. Public Opinion Strategies and Hart Research Associates designed and administered the survey in conjunction with Pew. The survey was conducted using NORC at the University of Chicago’s AmeriSpeak panel, a nationally representative, probability-based panel of the U.S. household population.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/patients-want-download-their-own-health-data-report-shows
Patients want to download their own health data, report shows
With compliance requirements for ONC's info blocking rule just around the corner, a poll from Pew Charitable Trusts finds a big appetite for patient access, and widespread support for providers to do better information sharing between EHR systems.
By Kat Jercich
September 17, 2020 03:03 PM
With the deadline quickly approaching for healthcare providers to implement the new information blocking rules put in place under the 21st Century Cures Act, a new survey suggests that patients are on board with the changes to come.
The survey commissioned by Pew Charitable Trusts found that the majority of patients want easy access to their health data, specifically via applications on mobile devices. Patients also generally support allowing different healthcare providers to share data between electronic health records systems when caring for the same patient.
"Generally, respondents support sharing key information that federal interoperability policies don’t currently prioritize," noted Ben Moscovitch, health IT director at Pew Charitable Trusts, in a blog post about the findings.
"For example, more than two-thirds want their different doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers to share advanced care plans or end-of-life preferences, images, and family medical histories," Moscovitch continued.
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Hospital ransomware attack leads to fatality after causing delay in care
A German woman died after Düsseldorf University Clinic's servers were encrypted, which necessitated that she be relocated to a hospital 20 miles away.
By Mike Miliard
September 17, 2020 03:21 PM
Prosecutors in Germany are eyeing negligent manslaughter charges as they seek the person or persons who launched a large-scale ransomware attack on Düsseldorf University Hospital – freezing up 30 of its clinic's servers. The data loss required patients to be moved to different facilities – including a critically-ill woman who died before she could be treated.
WHY IT
MATTERS
According to an ABC News report, the patient had to be relocated to another
hospital in Wuppertal, more than half an hour away, after Düsseldorf's IT
system was encrypted in the cyberattack. The hour-long delay in care proved
fatal.
The attack that locked clinicians out of critical data on September 10 – necessitating that operations be postponed and emergency patients be relocated to other sites – appeared to exploit a vulnerability in a piece of "widely used commercial add-on software," ABC reports.
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4 Essential Data and IT Articles To Read During the Time of COVID-19
By Mandy Roth | September 17, 2020
Healthcare systems share how they are fueling innovation, plus organizations report key political and regulatory updates, as well as insights into future IT priorities.
Information technology (IT) departments play a key role in helping hospitals and healthcare systems fight COVID-19 by supplying the technology and data powering many innovative initiatives. Here's a look at initiatives underway at organizations in Illinois and Oregon. In addition, we share insights from the Health Information and Management Systems Society's government relations team about relevant political and regulatory issues that may impact IT work, as well as findings from LexisNexis Risk Solutions research that shines a light on CIO priorities moving forward.
1. The Hospital IT Department That Could
As the coronavirus pandemic began to impact Illinois, the department of decision sciences at Memorial Health System in Springfield went into overdrive. Using standard data management and visualization tools, within a matter of weeks the 11-person team of data scientists and engineers developed a dashboard that gave executives an at-a-glance recap of key COVID-19 indicators including case counts, bed tracking, lab turnaround times, personal protective equipment (PPE) "burn rates," and more. In addition, without adding to their workforce, the team devised an internal contact tracing system, local surveillance system to predict COVID-19 surges, and geospatial tools to identify community "hot spots."
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/google-gives-8.5m-to-fund-covid-19-data-analytics-ai-projects
Google Gives $8.5M to Fund COVID-19 Data Analytics, AI Projects
The donation will support 31 organizations around the world in using artificial intelligence and data analytics to better respond to COVID-19.
By Jessica Kent
September 14, 2020 - Google.org is donating more than $8.5 million to 31 universities, nonprofits, and other academic institutions that are using artificial intelligence and data analytics to combat COVID-19.
The funding is part of Google.org’s $100 million commitment to COVID-19 relief and focuses on four key areas where new information and action is needed to mitigate the impact of the pandemic.
These areas will include projects centered around monitoring and forecasting disease spread, which will lead to a better understanding of where the virus is likely to spike.
“Understanding the spread of COVID-19 is critical to informing public health decisions and lessening its impact on communities,” Mollie Javerbaum, program manager of Google.org, and Meghan Houghton, university relations program manager wrote in a recent blog.
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Providers Plan a Post-Pandemic Future With Telehealth Strategies
They’ve tried the technology and tested the workloads. Now that telehealth is here to stay, providers are looking closely at what telehealth strategies do and not work for them.
September 14, 2020 - With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in March, healthcare providers across the country launched or expanded telehealth platforms with the goal of moving as much care as possible into the virtual realm.
Half a year later, the pendulum is swinging back in the other direction, with access to in-person care on the rise and telehealth visits declining. But while some critics suggest the shift marks a death knell for virtual care, others feel the healthcare industry is just looking for firm footing in an uncertain landscape. Providers are sifting through changing patient demands and a still-uncertain payer landscape to find out what can – and should – be done via telehealth and what still needs to be done in person.
The variable in the equation is reimbursement. With the COVID-19 crisis creating a public health emergency, federal and state regulators issued a string of directives aimed at expanding telehealth coverage. They opened the door to new types of care providers and services, and added coverage for new modalities, such as the audio-only phone, but only for as long as the nation is in a public health emergency.
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Patient Engagement Technology Is a Doorway to Care at AdventHealth
At AdventHealth, building a patient engagement technology isn't enough. The health system responded to COVID-19 by creating virtual pathways to care.
By Sara Heath
September 14, 2020 - Like so many hospitals and health systems across the country, the emergence of the novel coronavirus forced AdventHealth to go from zero to sixty launching consumer-focused patient engagement technology.
While before March the health system, which has over 80,000 employees enabling medical care in nine states, was behind the scenes building its digital front door, the COVID-19 outbreak forced AdventHealth to unlock it for patients, and fast.
“Our work plan for the whole year got stood up in probably a period of a month to six weeks,” Tricia Smith Edris, senior vice president and chief consumer officer at AdventHealth, told PatientEngagementHIT. “And we just started adding to it as we started to understand more of the patient needs and phases that we were going to experience.”
From the get-go, AdventHealth quickly needed to prop up some sort of communication channel to help patients seeking information. In March, there was so little information about the coronavirus — even less of it accessible for the layperson — and AdventHealth knew it would need to be a contact point for worried patients.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/how-to-optimize-and-keep-up-with-the-evolution-of-interoperability
How to Optimize and Keep Up with the Evolution of Interoperability
Cerner says the evolution of technology has helped it maintain and facilitate interoperability and patient data sharing over the last 40 years.
September 15, 2020 - From the early-eighties to now, interoperability, its definitions, and the scope of it has evolved tremendously. Whether it’s data integration or data interfacing, interoperability is all about data sharing.
Not only is interoperability the exchange of patient data, but at Cerner, it’s the process of making patient data accessible for health systems and ensuring the data is always relevant to patient care.
However, while Cerner consistently looks forward and adapts to various evolutions in technology, EHR vendors, throughout history, have faced several interoperability challenges.
“Getting to a common understanding of the data that needs to be exchanged and the increase in the number of stakeholders that we are able to connect to is a challenge,” Hans Buitendijk, director of interoperability strategy at Cerner, said in an interview with EHRIntelligence.
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Cerner senior exec: Amazon cloud partnership is driving Cerner's shift to become digital platform company
Sep 16, 2020 7:15am
As part of a new deal with Amazon, Cerner is letting users of Amazon's new Halo fitness tracker share wearable data directly with their providers. It's just one example of how the health IT company is expanding beyond its traditional medical records business as part of a broader strategic partnership with Amazon.
A year ago, Cerner announced a collaboration with Amazon's cloud business, Amazon Web Services (AWS). Cerner plans to tap into Amazon's expertise in customer experience and its artificial intelligence capabilities to drive future growth for its health IT business.
The tie-up with Amazon includes migrating many of the health IT company's solutions to the public cloud.
But, more broadly, it's also driving Cerner's strategic shift from being an EHR-centric company to a digital platform organization, according to Dan Devers, Cerner's senior vice president of cloud strategy.
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MassMutual Explores Health Data from Wearables
Life insurance giant MassMutual is exploring the use of health data from wearables to further refine its data science-created underwriting models.
9/16/2020 08:00 AM
Your Apple Watch or your FitBit can tell you how many steps you've taken in a day, what your resting heart rate is, and a range of other measurements about your daily habits and how they contribute to your overall health. You can take this information and make positive changes to your habits. Or you can monitor your own progress with goals.
But you aren't the only one who is interested in these data points such as your step count and hours of sleep per night. Just like car insurance companies offer discounts to drivers who allow monitoring of their safe driving habits, health and life insurance companies may one day offer discounts to those who comply with good health habits.
Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company or MassMutual is one of them. This century-plus old company is looking to pioneer the analytics of health data from wearable devices to predict long term mortality risk -- whether someone will die in 20 years or 30 years or more. Those with healthy habits could earn a health discount on their premiums.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/hipaa-compliance-onc-updates-security-risk-assessment-tool
HIPAA Compliance: ONC Updates Security Risk Assessment Tool
The Security Risk Assessment (SRA) tool was designed in collaboration between ONC and OCR and is designed to help healthcare entities ensure compliance with HIPAA safeguards.
September 15, 2020 - The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) in collaboration with the Office of Civil Rights released an update to the Department of Health and Human Services Security Risk Assessment Tool designed to support small- and medium-sized healthcare providers ensure HIPAA compliance.
Updates to the SRA tool include various new features, such as improved navigation throughout the assessment sections, export options for reports, and enhanced user interface scaling.
Under HIPAA, covered entities and their business associates are required to perform a risk assessment to assess compliance with HIPAA’s administrative, physical, and technical safeguards. An effective analysis will reveal potential security gaps that could put protected health information at risk.
Industry stakeholders have also reminded organizations that risk assessments and analyses are crucial to any resilient healthcare information security program.
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September 15, 20201:24 PM
COVID-19 has set global health progress back decades - Gates Foundation
LONDON (Reuters) - The knock-on effects of the coronavirus pandemic have halted and reversed global health progress, setting it back 25 years and exposing millions to the risk of deadly disease and poverty, a report by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation warned on Tuesday.
Because of COVID-19, extreme poverty has increased by 7%, and routine vaccine coverage - a good proxy measure for how health systems are functioning - is dropping to levels last seen in the 1990s, the report said.
“It’s a huge setback,” Bill Gates, co-chair of the Foundation and a leading philanthropic funder of global health and development, told a media briefing on the report’s findings.
The Foundation’s Goalkeepers report, which tracks progress on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of reducing poverty and improving health, found that in the past year, by nearly every indicator, the world has regressed.
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Study finds that 94% of care environments benefit from going digital during lockdown
The study is particularly critical as the government urges the health industry to be prepared for potential COVID-19 second wave.
By Sara Mageit
September 16, 2020 04:42 AM
Provider of digital care systems, Person Centred Software, is calling on the health sector to utilise agile technology to prepare for a potential second wave.
A study found that 94% of users found its coronavirus-specific features beneficial.
WHY IT MATTERS
Over the last four months, its software has been used in 2,000 care homes across the UK to evidence care interactions via innovative icons.
It has seen the implementation of eight new features to help protect the elderly and vulnerable.
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Here's what primary care clinicians say they need to effectively implement telehealth
Researchers surveyed hundreds of primary care providers in the New York City area about the hurdles they're still facing to integrating telemedicine into their practices.
By Kat Jercich
September 16, 2020 01:53 PM
Primary care providers in New York City, one of the U.S. epicenters of the COVID-19 crisis, were some of the first to feel the brunt of the disease's effects. With patients afraid to seek care in person and social distancing necessitating as little face-to-face contact as possible, many clinicians pivoted to telehealth – some with more success than others.
"It made sense that all eyes were on the hospitals, because they were overwhelmed with sick patients," said Dr. Donna R. Shelley, a professor in the Department of Policy and Public Health Management at the New York University School of Global Public Health. "But primary care doctors are the front line of healthcare in this country, and their patients still needed care."
In partnership with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's Bureau of Equitable Health Systems, the research team surveyed hundreds of area primary care providers from April to July about the impact of COVID-19 on their practices.
Their findings, published this past week in Health Affairs, demonstrate the positive impact that temporary federal changes to telehealth-related regulations have had on virtual care adoption. At the same time, the researchers noted, several hurdles remain for primary care providers when it comes to integrating telemedicine.
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Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS FT awarded Stage 7 O-EMRAM
The UK hospital is the first health institution in England to achieve the validation.
By Tammy Lovell
September 16, 2020 10:33 AM
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS FT (GOSH) in London has been awarded Stage 7 on the O-EMRAM by HIMSS this week, making it the first hospital in England to achieve the validation.
O-EMRAM, or the Outpatients Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model, measures the adoption and maturity of a health facility’s outpatient EMR capabilities from 0 to 7. It tests for clinician documentation, including orders, e-prescribing, patient engagement and population health analytics.
Shankar Sridharan, paediatric cardiologist, chief clinical information officer at GOSH, said that achieving the validation was “a marker that we are using data and analytics to improve the care and outcomes for our patients and their families”.
He added: “We have a really driven and passionate hospital that is committed to applying digital solutions, data and analytics to drive safer, better and kinder care. The NHS is amazing; COVID has shown that it is the heart of the nation. Digitally augmenting the NHS allows us to truly leverage the NHS’ potential and allow us to do more, better.”
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/two-digital-health-experts-predict-whats-around-corner-it
Two digital health experts predict what's around the corner for IT
Christopher Lee and Babak Movassaghi said artificial intelligence and augmented reality will soon occupy much larger roles in the digital healthcare landscape.
By Kat Jercich
September 16, 2020 09:28 AM
It's no surprise at this point that the COVID-19 pandemic turned the digital healthcare world (and the rest of the world) inside-out, accelerating the use of telemedicine while throwing a wrench into the plans of anyone depending on a somewhat predictable 2020.
"Back in January, I had friends who were reading reports about how telehealth had reached its apex" and the height of its expansion, said Christopher Lee, cofounder of the virtual second opinion platform InfiniteMD (recently acquired by ConsumerMedical). "The investment sphere was looking elsewhere."
Lee, along with one of his InfiniteMD cofounders, Babak Movassaghi, told Healthcare IT News that the surge in telehealth use is just one facet of the changes the digital health sphere will see over the next few years.
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https://hitinfrastructure.com/news/dod-taps-google-cloud-for-ai-enabled-digital-pathology-solution
DoD Taps Google Cloud for AI-Enabled Digital Pathology Solution
The project will deliver an AI-enabled digital pathology solution to DoD’s medical facilities to help improve the accuracy of patient diagnoses and lower overall healthcare costs.
September 10, 2020 - Google Cloud recently announced it was chosen by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), part of the Department of Defense (DoD), to prototype an artificial intelligence-enabled digital pathology solution to help detect cancer on multiple disease areas.
The project will leverage artificial intelligence to help doctors and researchers identify potentially cancerous tissues through an augmented reality microscope. They can then study the cancer tissues more in depth.
Augmented reality includes information in the form of texts, graphics, audio, and other virtual enhancements that are integrated with real-world objects.
Google noted that early access to the digital pathology platform is intended for research use only, and will only be available at select Department of Defense facilities.
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Cyber Resilient Vendor Relationships for Healthcare’s Threat Landscape
A healthcare third-party vendor breach can have a devastating impact on multiple entities, which means it’s crucial to have cyber resilient vendor relationships to keep pace with these threats.
September 14, 2020 - The threats targeting healthcare continue to increase in both their frequency and sophistication. And if the latest third-party vendor security incident is any indication, the need for developing a cyber resilient vendor management process will be crucial to reducing risks to the enterprise.
The 2020 Blackbaud incident is one of the best examples of just how great an impact a seemingly simple breach can have when it impacts a vendor. The cloud computing vendor provides services to a range of nonprofits, healthcare systems, and hospitals.
The ransomware attack in question occurred between February 7 and May 20, 2020. Much like other double extortion incidents reported this year, the hackers exfiltrated a subset of data from a self-hosted environment belonging to Blackbaud’s clients before the hackers were locked out of the system.
What’s worse, the vendors paid the ransom demand “with confirmation that the copy they removed had been destroyed.”
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/google-gives-8.5m-to-fund-covid-19-data-analytics-ai-projects
Google Gives $8.5M to Fund COVID-19 Data Analytics, AI Projects
The donation will support 31 organizations around the world in using artificial intelligence and data analytics to better respond to COVID-19.
By Jessica Kent
September 14, 2020 - Google.org is donating more than $8.5 million to 31 universities, nonprofits, and other academic institutions that are using artificial intelligence and data analytics to combat COVID-19.
The funding is part of Google.org’s $100 million commitment to COVID-19 relief and focuses on four key areas where new information and action is needed to mitigate the impact of the pandemic.
These areas will include projects centered around monitoring and forecasting disease spread, which will lead to a better understanding of where the virus is likely to spike.
“Understanding the spread of COVID-19 is critical to informing public health decisions and lessening its impact on communities,” Mollie Javerbaum, program manager of Google.org, and Meghan Houghton, university relations program manager wrote in a recent blog.
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Taskforce on Telehealth Policy releases final report on safeguarding virtual care
Its recommendations include lifting limitations on originating sites, allowing telehealth for various types of conditions and reinstating the HIPAA provisions temporarily lifted during the public health emergency.
By Kat Jercich
September 15, 2020 02:01 PM
The Taskforce on Telehealth Policy released a final report on Tuesday outlining its findings and recommendations around safeguarding the future of telehealth after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The task force, which was convened by the National Committee for Quality Assurance, the Alliance for Connected Care and the American Telemedicine Association, represented a broad spectrum of stakeholders who spent the summer building consensus around the challenges and opportunities for virtual care.
"We pulled together an incredible group of people who really can see the potential for telehealth and want to make sure that it's not going to be a thing that just happened during COVID-19 and goes away again," said NCQA President Peggy O'Kane in an interview with Healthcare IT News. "People do see the potential here for a better experience for patients, better outcomes."
"For years, many of us in healthcare have been trying to promote telehealth and the advantages of it," said Dr. Regina Benjamin, founder and CEO of the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic and former Surgeon General of the United States, to Healthcare IT News.
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Image Sharing, File Transfer, Screen Image Capture, and Screen Sharing – Telehealth Features Series
September 15, 2020
In this Telehealth Feature Series, we’re going to cover the long list of potential telehealth features available today. As you’re considering your own approach to telehealth, we will provide you a look at all the possible features telehealth companies are offering on the market. Plus, we’ll offer our insight into the nuances of each feature so you can select the right telehealth company or companies you use. Not all telehealth is created equal, so taking the time to understand all the possible features and options is worth the effort.
The next feature we’re going to cover is Image Sharing, File Transfer, Screen Image Capture, and Screen Sharing.
While this isn’t the perfect grouping, this highlights some of the interesting add on features that many telehealth vendors offer to make the telehealth experience more than just a video call. This list is also an illustration of why telehealth needs to be more than Facetime with your doctor. Let’s dive into each.
Image Sharing and File Transfer
We’ll group these two into one since in many ways this is the same thing. An image is just a specific type of file that can be transferred to the doctor. There are a lot of use cases for this, but the most common is a patient uploading a high quality picture of whatever issue they have (wound, rash, etc). The beauty of sharing the image is that the image is generally higher quality than video is going to be. With wounds and many rashes, the higher quality is needed for a doctor to make an appropriate diagnosis.
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NYC Surveys Identify Five Strategies to Boost Telehealth Adoption
The five strategies, laid out in a recent Health Affairs blog, target barriers to telehealth adoption that go beyond reimbursement issues.
September 11, 2020 - While federal and state regulators are developing strategies to give telehealth room to grow after the coronavirus pandemic, a recent series of surveys among New York physicians suggests that growth must be tied to efforts beyond reimbursement changes.
The surveys, conducted by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Bureau of Equitable Health Systems and researchers from the New York School of Global Public Health, identify five strategies beyond current policy to foster telehealth growth in primary care. They’re featured in a recent blog in Health Affairs.
According to the blog, healthcare access is typically defined by five qualities – affordability, availability, accommodation, accessibility and acceptability – yet current telehealth policies only address the first two, and that’s not enough to compel connected health integration in primary care beyond the COVID-19 crisis.
“Other policies … can optimize telehealth access and quality by promoting ‘accommodation,’ ‘accessibility,’ and ‘acceptability’ for telehealth, to complement increased reimbursements,” the blog concludes. “Failing to address these barriers - which affect the least resourced primary care practices that are primarily serving the most vulnerable patients - will only serve to widen patient-level disparities in access to quality telehealth care. These gaps offer actionable opportunities for public and private insurers and policy makers to intervene and improve the integration of telehealth into primary care.”
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/using-an-ai-powered-chatbot-to-meet-patient-needs-during-covid-19
Using An AI-Powered Chatbot to Meet Patient Needs During COVID-19
A chatbot powered by artificial intelligence is helping UCHealth to support patients during COVID-19 and beyond.
By Jessica Kent
September 10, 2020 - Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, artificial intelligence has helped the healthcare industry navigate the novel and unknown.
From the early stages of the virus’s spread, to the later months of looser social distancing practices, AI has shed light on the impact of particular policies, accelerated potential treatments, and forecasted future infection rates.
For some organizations, AI-powered chatbots have played a significant role in managing patients’ needs during the pandemic. With nearly everything going virtual, people suddenly had to get used to the idea of communicating with providers digitally – an optimal situation for chatbots and AI.
“Conversational artificial intelligence has been around for quite a while, and the technology gets better year over year,” said Nicole Caputo, senior director of experience and innovation at UCHealth.
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Fitbit's ECG app gets FDA nod to track heart rhythm irregularities
Sep 14, 2020 2:04pm
Getting up to speed with competitor Apple, Fitbit has gained medical device clearances in the U.S. and Europe for its smartwatch electrocardiogram app.
The wearables giant announced Monday its ECG app got a green light from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Union's CE mark. The regulatory approval opens up the capability for its ECG app to track users' heart rhythm for signs of atrial fibrillation.
It follows in the footsteps of the Apple Watch receiving FDA clearance in 2018 for its ECG feature. Samsung got an FDA nod in August for its ECG monitoring app as part of the Galaxy Watch 3.
Amazon also recently jumped into the wearables space with its Amazon Halo fitness tracker. That device, which does not offer heart rhythm tracking, monitors activity and sleep trends and has tools to measure body fat and tone of voice as an indicator of overall well-being.
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AI can successfully predict ESRD in diabetes patients, finds study
By Medha
Published On
11 Sep 2020 12:30 AM | Updated On 11 Sep 2020 5:31 PM
Netherlands: A machine-learning model can help in the successful prediction of
end‐stage renal disease (ESRD) in patients with nephropathy and type 2
diabetes, suggests a recent study in the journal Diabetes, Obesity and
Metabolism. The prediction of long‐term renal risk in type 2 diabetes patients
holds importance in clinical trials and clinical practice. Sunil Belur Nagaraj,
University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands, and colleagues
hypothesized that machine learning models can accurately predict end‐stage
renal disease by using multiple baseline demographic and clinical
characteristics.
The study included a total of 11 789 patients (with type 2 diabetes and nephropathy) from three clinical trials: RENAAL (N = 1513), IDNT (N = 1715), and ALTITUDE (N = 8561). Eighteen baseline demographic and clinical characteristics were used as predictors to train machine learning models to predict ESRD (doubling of serum creatinine and/or end‐stage renal disease). The area under the receiver operator curve (AUC) was used to assess the prediction performance of models and compared against traditional Cox proportional hazard regression and kidney failure risk equation models.
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Technologies and strategies to maintain productivity during telehealth transition
Los Angeles-based Executive Mental Health has not laid off a single provider or staff member since its shift to virtual care. Its CEO explains how.
By Bill Siwicki
September 14, 2020 12:16 PM
In early March, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of skilled nursing facilities restricted access to residents. These restrictions included, but were not limited to, essential care providers, such as neuropsychologists and psychologists.
THE PROBLEM
For Executive Mental Health in Los Angeles, California, and the clients served by Executive Mental Health, these restrictions created two significant problems related to the continuation of patient care and the safety of clinicians and ancillary staff.
“With regard to patient care, Executive Mental Health primarily provides mental health care to skilled nursing facility residents, and that care was abruptly cut off,” said Dr. Ari D. Kalechstein, president and CEO of Executive Mental Health.
“That was problematic because 40%-60% of skilled nursing facility patients are diagnosed with a mental state condition, such as depression and/or anxiety. Moreover, these are statistics that were generated prior to the onset of COVID-19; hence, it would be reasonable to assume that the prevalence of mental state conditions was similar to or greater than these numbers after the onset of the pandemic.”
Without appropriate mental health interventions and given the facility restrictions that precluded patients from seeing loved ones and all of their usual healthcare providers, it is likely that at least a subset of these residents would experience a worsening of their mental state symptoms, he added.
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Launch date announced for England and Wales’ contact tracing app
UK government announces that a new COVID-19 contact tracing app will be launched across England and Wales on 24 September.
By Sara Mageit
September 14, 2020 05:58 AM
A new COVID-19 contact tracing app will be launched across England and Wales later this month and will use Apple and Google’s method of detecting other smartphones.
The app will let individuals scan QR codes to register visits to hospitality venues.
Businesses are being encouraged to display QR code posters in support.
WHY IT MATTERS
Last week, public health officials warned of “worrying signs” of infection among the elderly, as the R number was raised between 1 and 1.2 for the first time since March.
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Info blocking compliance date nears: Legal experts offer toolkit to help
Attorneys from Davis Wright Tremaine LLP have put together a resource to help providers navigate the requirements of ONC's 21st Century Cures regs as the Nov. 2 due date approaches.
By Mike Miliard
September 14, 2020 11:09 AM
With more and more of its healthcare clients seeking help understanding the detailed requirements for implementing the new information-blocking rules put in place under the 21st Century Cures Act, law firm Davis Wright Tremaine decided to create a new Information Blocking Toolkit to help others manage their compliance.
WHY IT MATTERS
The info-blocking final regs, published March 9 by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT as a way to enable more widespread access, use and exchange of patient data, go into effect on November 2.
Healthcare providers, vendors, health information exchanges and other organizations could be subject (once an enforcement mechanism is in place) to penalties as high as $1 million per violation should they interfere with the access, exchange or use of electronic health information.
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Kaiser Permanente launches 'virtual-first' health plan in Washington
The plan will make telehealth a foundational modality of care, with the option for patients to follow up with in-person visits if necessary.
By Kat Jercich
September 14, 2020 12:59 PM
In response to increasing patient demand for telehealth, Kaiser Permanente this week announced the launch of a new "virtual-first" healthcare plan in Washington state.
The plan, which will be available January 1, 2021, through Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of Washington's direct to employer groups and consumers, will center telehealth as a foundational modality of care for patients with nonurgent issues.
"Virtual care is the health care of today and tomorrow," said Dr. Paul Minardi, president and executive medical director of Washington Permanente Medical Group, in a statement.
"The pandemic has reinforced the need to provide care in the most convenient, accessible, and safe way for our members, and that’s what Virtual Plus does," he said.
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https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1042-x
· Comment
· Published: 09 September 2020
Welcoming new guidelines for AI clinical research
Nature Medicine volume 26, pages1318–1320(2020)Cite this article
With only a limited number of clinical trials of artificial intelligence in medicine thus far, the first guidelines for protocols and reporting arrive at an opportune time. Better protocol design, along with consistent and complete data presentation, will greatly facilitate interpretation and validation of these trials, and will help the field to move forward.
The past decade ushered in excitement for the potential to apply deep-learning algorithms to healthcare. This subtype of artificial intelligence (AI) has the ability to improve the accuracy and speed of interpreting large datasets, such as images, speech and text. However, for deep learning to be accepted and implemented in the care of patients, proof from randomized clinical trials is urgently needed.
Randomized clinical trials became commonplace in the early 1980s to provide the basis of evidence for medical practice, but it was not until nearly two decades later that the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) were developed in 1996 (ref. 1). In contrast, the use of AI in medicine, and specifically the use of deep neural networks, is still in the early stages — clinical trials using AI have been initiated only in the past two years. Two new companion pieces in this issue of Nature Medicine are devoted specifically to clinical-trial guidelines for protocols (SPIRIT-AI Extension) and publication (CONSORT-AI extension)2,3.
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/telehealth-needs-payer-support-for-continued-growth
Telehealth Needs Payer Support for Continued Growth
The use of telehealth has exploded as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. For it to continue gaining momentum, private and public payers must appropriately reimburse for telehealth, according to the latest report from Insights by Xtelligent Healthcare Media.
September 08, 2020 - Healthcare leaders will continue to invest in telehealth tools and infrastructure. But organizations need support from public and private payers for the technology to continue to grow after the pandemic, revealed Insights by Xtelligent Healthcare Media’s latest report.
The Future of Healthcare: Moving Beyond 2020 surveyed 363 healthcare stakeholders to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted organizations across the healthcare industry from payers to providers. Building off of earlier work at the start of the pandemic, the report articulates how industry leaders plan to move forward and adjust to the new normal of care delivery.
A key piece of the industry’s response to COVID-19 was telehealth.
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https://histalk2.com/2020/09/11/weekender-9-11-20/
Weekly News Recap
- Hyland will acquire Alfresco.
- Amwell’s IPO plan values the company at $3.6 billion.
- Zocdoc’s former CEO sues the company, claiming his co-founders and the CFO ousted him in a coup.
- A federal court dismisses a patient’s lawsuit against University of Chicago Medical Center and Google for using his data for machine language training.
- HIMSS confirms that a HIMSS20 exhibitor has filed a class action lawsuit against it over refund policies for the cancelled conference.
- VA accelerates its Cerner implementation plan for VISN10 in the Midwest.
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Enjoy!
David.
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