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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Year-Long Study Validates Telehealth Use in Diabetes Prevention Efforts
Supporters of digital Diabetes Prevention Programs say the PREDICTS trial proves that telehealth and mHealth tools can improve clinical outcomes for people at risk of developing the chronic disease.
November 04, 2020 - A year-long study conducted by the University of Nebraska and Wake Forest University has found that a telehealth platform can help reduce the risk of diabetes in people with a high likelihood of developing the chronic disease.
Participants in the Preventing Diabetes with Digital Health and Coaching for Translation and Scalability (PREDICTS) trial “achieved a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement” in health and wellness, officials said in a press release. The trial centered on a digital Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) created by San Francisco-based Omada Health.
“The results clearly demonstrate the clinical effectiveness of the Omada program, and compare quite favorably to other studies of digital approaches to diabetes prevention,” Jeffrey Katula, PhD, an associate professor of health and exercise science at Wake Forest and the study’s co-principal investigator, said in the press release. “Our results should certainly inform policy decisions regarding the rapidly changing world of digital preventive health at a time when remote delivery of services is essential.”
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/machine-learning-tool-may-combat-outpatient-antibiotic-resistance
Machine Learning Tool May Combat Outpatient Antibiotic Resistance
A machine learning algorithm can analyze EHR data to predict antibiotic resistance, potentially leading to improved antibiotic stewardship in outpatient settings.
By Jessica Kent
November 05, 2020 - Machine learning tools can predict the likelihood that a patient with a urinary tract infection (UTI) won’t respond to antibiotics, which could reduce antibiotic resistance in outpatient clinical care.
Antibiotic resistance is a global health and development threat, cautions the World Health Organization (WHO). Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines, making infections harder to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, illness, and death.
In a study published in Science Translational Medicine, researchers noted that the issue of antibiotic resistance is particularly significant with UTIs. These infections impact half of all women and add almost $4 billion per year in unnecessary healthcare costs.
To treat UTIs, doctors often prescribe antibiotics called fluoroquinolones, which are inexpensive and generally effective. However, these treatments have also been found to put women at risk of contracting other infections like C. difficile and staph infections. The antibiotics are also associated with a higher risk of tendon injuries and aortic tears, which can be life-threatening.
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NHS Covid-19 App error ‘left thousands unaware they need to isolate’
A reported error with the NHS Covid-19 App has left potentially thousands of people unaware they may have been exposed to coronavirus.
Andrea Downey – 2 November, 2020
The contact-tracing app was set at the wrong sensitivity level, meaning many users were not sent self-isolation alerts after they came into contact with infected people.
The error meant users whose “risk score” should have triggered an alert were not notified, The Sunday Times first reported.
The app, launched a month ago on 24 September, has been downloaded more than 19 million times. It was updated last week to improve accuracy and notifications which was “expected to increase the number of people asked to self-isolate by the app”.
Since its launch “shockingly low” numbers of people had been sent warnings about potential exposure to the virus, a government official told The Sunday Times.
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https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/02/alphabet-x-project-amber-uses-eeg-to-monitor-depression.html
Google sister company X is working on monitoring depression using the brain’s electrical signals
Published Mon, Nov 2 20202:48 PM EST Updated Mon, Nov 2 20203:30 PM EST
Key Points
- Alphabet’s experimental projects group, X, has been working for three years on a mental health moonshot called Project Amber.
- The idea is to use electroencephalography, or EEG, to better monitor people’s changing mental health state over time.
- The prototype measuring device, which resembles a swim cap, is not approved by the FDA.
Alphabet’s experimental research group, X, has been quietly working on an experimental project to monitor symptoms of depression.
A blog post published on Monday details how a team of neuroscientists, hardware and software engineers and product experts have been working on a series of prototypes for three years under the name “Project Amber.” The goal is to come up with a more objective way to monitor symptoms of depression.
Nearly half of the 60 million people living with mental health conditions in the United States go without any kind of treatment thanks to high costs and insufficient medical providers, and tech companies see an opportunity to help. Venture-backed companies including Mindstrong and Ginger have raised millions of dollars in financing to use a variety of methods, including monitoring how users interact with a smartphone keyboard, to provide a window into their mental health.
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https://consumer.healthday.com/a6-computerized-preventive-emb-2648626745.html
November 5, 2020
~65 Percent of Office-Based Doctors Can ID Patients in Need of Follow-Up
More primary care physicians and those with an EHR system have computerized capability to ID patients due for preventive, follow-up care
THURSDAY, Nov. 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Almost 65 percent of office-based physicians have the computerized capability to identify patients due for preventive or follow-up care, and having an electronic health record (EHR) system is associated with the ability to send electronic reminders to increase receipt of this care, according to research published in the Nov. 6 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Noting that electronic reminders can improve types of preventive and follow-up care, including immunizations and screening, but computerized capability must exist to make use of these reminders, Damon F. Ogburn, Ph.D., from the CDC in Atlanta, and colleagues examined computerized capability among U.S. office-based physicians using data from the National Electronic Health Records Survey for 2017.
The researchers found that an estimated 64.7 percent of office-based physicians had the computerized capability to identify patients who were due for preventive or follow-up care. Overall, 72.9 percent of primary care physicians and 71.4 percent of physicians with an EHR system had this capability, compared with 54.8, 58.5, and 23.4 percent of surgeons, non-primary care physicians, and physicians without an EHR system, respectively. Having an EHR system correlated with the ability to send electronic reminders to increase preventive or follow-up care receipt.
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CDC seeks to create centralized reporting system for COVID-19 test results
– 6 November, 2020
The CDC says it is looking to create a centralized, cloud-based platform for COVID-19 testing sites to use to report results to public health departments to make the process easier.
"CDC is seeking information from companies and other organizations about their capability, proven past performance and capacity to leverage a secure and scalable cloud-based platform to accept and transmit testing data from testing entities to relevant state and large local health departments, with a focus on multistate, large regional, and statewide reporting entities," the agency said Nov. 2.
The CDC said that more than 200 testing sites, including chain drugstores, pharmacies, private labs and healthcare providers, have inquired about options for centralized reporting of results instead of individual reporting systems.
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https://www.csoonline.com/article/3331981/how-to-protect-backups-from-ransomware.html
How to protect backups from ransomware
Ransomware is getting smarter, attacking backups to prevent recovery. Prevent this from happening by taking a few simple steps.
Contributing Writer, CSO | 2 November 2020 22:00 AEDT
Despite a recent decline in attacks, ransomware still poses significant threats to enterprises, as the attacks against healthcare organizations demonstrated this month. It is also becoming more capable. In particular, ransomware writers are aware that backups are an effective defense and are modifying their malware to track down and eliminate the backups.
[ Read our blue team's guide for ransomware prevention, protection and recovery. | Get the latest from CSO by signing up for our newsletters. ]
Ransomware targeting backups
Ransomware will now delete any backups it happens to come across along the way, says Adam Kujawa, head of malware intelligence at Malwarebytes. For example, a common tactic for ransomware is to delete automatic copies of files that Windows creates. "So, if you go to system restore, you can't revert back," he said. "We've also seen them reach out to shared network drives."
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https://www.kentucky.com/news/coronavirus/article246984932.html
Lexington has more than 150 new COVID-19 cases. Contact tracers being ignored
By Jeremy Chisenhall and Beth Musgrave
Updated November 05, 2020 05:28 PM
As the number of new coronavirus cases in Fayette County continues to climb, more people are not cooperating with contact tracers tasked with tracking and preventing the highly contagious illness from spreading, Lexington health officials said.
The Lexington-Fayette County Health Department reported 152 new COVID-19 cases Thursday morning, the third-most the city has ever reported in a single day. There was one new death, pushing the city’s fatalities to 101. Since March, Lexington has had 11,824 cases, 704 hospitalizations and 101 deaths.
Fayette County Health Commissioner Dr. Kraig Humbaugh said the health department is monitoring daily 1,000 Lexington residents who have the virus and are in isolation. With 100-plus new cases a day, contact tracing has been stretched thin, he said.
Lexington has 125 contractors doing contact tracing along with other COVID-19 work, according to the health department.
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NHS and DHSC have 'long way to go' to deal with repeated failed IT programmes
A report on digital transformation in the NHS says both bodies need to move on from the track record of two decades' worth of failed IT programmes.
By Sara Mageit
November 06, 2020 09:51 AM
A report published today by the Public Accounts Committee says the NHS and the Department for Health & Social Care (DHSC) have a long way to go to deal with and move on from, the legacy of their track record of failed IT programmes.
The report also highlights the absence of achieving its paperless target by 2018 and adds that, "This target has now been watered-down and moved back by six years."
This follows the DHSC's “expensive and largely unsuccessful” previous attempt, between 2002 and 2011, at introducing an integrated IT system with patient records available electronically.
The report notes that despite publishing its in 2018, the DHSC still does not have an implementation plan for how this will be delivered in practice.
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Telehealth Assessments Slash Emergency Department Lengths Of Stay
November 6, 2020
A new study has concluded that by using telehealth tools to screen low-risk patients with suspected COVID-19 had a dramatic effect on emergency department lengths of stay.
The study focused on a telehealth-enabled evaluate-treat-disposition workflow in the ED. During the study, nurses handling in-person triage presented patients with suspected COVID-19 who appeared well and seemed to be at low risk to a remote provider. That provider did the follow-up evaluation, testing as needed, and possible discharge.
Three weeks after the program was implemented, researchers did a retroactive chart review to examine what effects this new approach might have had. The review found that 153 of the 302 patients managed through telehealth were evaluated and discharged by a provider who was also using telehealth tools.
They found that the patients targeted by this study had 62.5% shorter ED lengths of stay compared to other patients of equal severity seen in the same time period. The effort also saved 413 sets of PPE. In addition, just 3.9% of such patients returned in 72 hours, a rate similar to that seen with other patients.
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50% of Ransomware Attacks Lead to Data Exfiltration; Payments Hit $234K
Ransom demands rose 31 percent from Q2 to Q3 2020, with an average of $234,000, while hackers threaten victims with extortion using exfiltrated data in nearly 50 percent of ransomware attacks.
November 04, 2020 - Threat actors are increasing threats to breach victims through extortion attempts, as data exfiltration now occurs in nearly 50 percent of ransomware attacks. Meanwhile, ransom payments rose 31 percent in the last quarter, at an average of $234,000, according to the Coveware Quarterly Ransomware Report.
The medium ransom payment averages $110,532. Researchers explained payment costs have increased, as hackers increasingly target larger enterprises and “large, big game payments continue to drag the averages up.”
Improperly secured Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) continues to be the primary vulnerability exploited by these attackers. The number of compromised RDP credentials has drastically increased in recent months, spurring a decrease in the price of dark web postings.
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Video Visits Supported Family Visits, Pandemic Patient Satisfaction
Video visits as a form of family visits in the hospital are slated to continue, some experts assert, as a key method for driving patient satisfaction.
By Sara Heath
November 04, 2020 - At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, clinicians at Orlando Internal Medicine were faced with an impossible situation. The organization was going to have to shut down family visits for the sake of patient safety, but leadership knew this was going to tank patient satisfaction.
“We deal with some really sick patients and we had to shut everything down overnight,” Pradeep Vangala, MD, an internist at Orlando Internal Medicine, told PatientEngagementHIT. “It was a very difficult decision, both for us and our patients, as well as families who could not see the loved ones. And then we had a big problem. More of a consequence of that, which is inability or difficulty communicating with family members, which obviously is a really important aspect of the patient care, so that got severely interrupted as well.”
Vangala and his team at Orlando Internal Medicine, which treats patients across the care continuum from acute settings to long-term care to outpatient practice, were not alone in this decision. Data shows that most organizations had to make some sort of change to their family visitation policies as part of the COVID-19 lockdown in March.
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What Is the Best Strategy for Social Determinants of Health Screens?
Using community-based data does not provide a granular view of social risk, whereas individualized social determinants of health screens do.
By Sara Heath
November 04, 2020 - Relying simply on community-level data rather than conducting an individual social determinants of health screening increases the risk a patient will fall through the crack in social services interventions, according to new data published in JAMA Network Open.
In other words, conducting a social determinants of health screening with individual patients provides more granular information about patient needs than looking at overarching risk factors in a certain geographic region.
These findings come as healthcare organizations increasingly zero in on the social determinants of health as critical influences in patient health outcomes. Organizations recognize that certain factors like food security, housing security, and access to transportation can determine a patient’s ability to achieve and maintain wellness.
To that end, organizations are working to identify which patients experience social determinants of health and best practices to mitigate those risk factors.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/e-consultation-adoption-negatively-impacts-clinician-workload
E-Consultation Adoption Negatively Impacts Clinician Workload
Clinicians noted e-consultations as a positive to patient care, but it did have a negative impact on workload.
November 04, 2020 - Primary care clinicians say electronic consultation (e-consultation) programs can aid patient care but they can also increase workload, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open.
Health systems are adopting more e-consultation programs to boost access to specialty care services and the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) prioritized these programs over the past decade.
Past research shows primary care clinicians believe e-consultation improves clinician communication but it can result in burden, and this latest data corroborates those findings.
Through a series of interviews with VHA primary care clinicians with e-consult experience in 2017, researchers concluded that providers do see the potential for e-consults, but that system can increase burden.
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Highly potent nanoparticle COVID-19 vaccine designed using computer
Developers suggest that the potency, stability and manufacturability of the nanoparticle vaccine candidate could enable vaccination against COVID-19 on a global scale.
By Hannah Balfour (European Pharmaceutical Review)
3 November 2020
Artist's depiction of an ultrapotent COVID-19 vaccine candidate in which 60 pieces of a coronavirus protein (red) decorate nanoparticles (blue and white). The vaccine candidate was designed using methods developed at the UW Medicine Institute for Protein Design. The molecular structure of the vaccine roughly mimics that of a virus, which may account for its enhanced ability to provoke an immune response [Credit: Ian Haydon/ UW Medicine Institute for Protein Design].
Researchers have developed a self-assembling nanoparticle vaccine candidate for COVID-19. According to the team, the vaccine produced 10 times the amount of SARS-CoV-2-specific neutralising antibodies in mice than a soluble SARS-CoV-2 Spike (S) protein vaccine did. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
The vaccine candidate was developed using structure-based vaccine design techniques invented at University of Washington School of Medicine (UW Medicine) in Seattle, US. The self-assembling protein nanoparticle displays 60 copies of the SARS-CoV-2 S protein’s receptor-binding domain in a highly immunogenic array. The molecular structure of the vaccine roughly mimics that of a virus, which may account for its enhanced ability to provoke an immune response.
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Sony expands medical imaging platform to include remote monitoring
The company's NUCLeUS platform includes new telestration capabilities that allow multiple users to annotate live stream videos or still images simultaneously.
By Kat Jercich
November 05, 2020 02:43 PM
Sony announced this week that it would update its vendor-neutral medical-imaging platform NUCLeUS to include remote patient monitoring and recording functionalities.
The new features include wireless video streaming that allows clinical staff to access images with an iPad from any modality virtually in real time, according to the company.
"Sony is committed to developing NUCLeUS to suit the needs of patients and medical staff at all times," said Theresa Alesso, pro division president of Sony Electronics, in a statement shared with Healthcare IT News.
"The remote patient monitoring capabilities within NUCLeUS are a primary example of this and were developed to help hospitals manage day-to-day requirements through the COVID-19 pandemic," Alesso continued.
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New platform aims to unite the global health and care community during COVID-19
The Meaningful Connections Community platform will provide networking opportunities, online training and resource tools.
By Tammy Lovell
November 05, 2020 02:19 AM
Health and social care consultancy group Meaningful Care Matters is launching a platform that aims to empower people through an international network of like-minded care communities.
The Meaningful Connections Community platform will offer individuals and care providers an opportunity to share, collaborate and debate issues impacting person-centred care cultures.
To coincide with the platform’s launch today (5 November), a free live webinar will take place at 3pm UK time.
Members of the Meaningful Care Matters team and international care providers will reflect on how the pandemic has impacted the sector and individuals.
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Hospitals said to tighten email security in response to CEO spear phishing attempts
Amid pointed recent ransomware warnings from federal agencies, some Massachusetts health systems have ramped up filtering for external emails or temporarily blocked them altogether.
By Kat Jercich
November 05, 2020 12:39 PM
Some hospitals in Massachusetts reportedly received emails this past week claiming to be the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services seeking information about COVID-19 statistics – raising fears about spear phishing attempts aimed at top executives.
According to a report in the Boston Business Journal, UMass Memorial Health Care CEO Dr. Eric Dickson, Holyoke Medical Center CEO Spiros Hatiras and Signature Healthcare CEO Kim Hollon, among others, said they or staff members received such messages, triggering tighter email security protocols throughout the systems.
The suspicious emails came alongside warnings from the FBI, the HHS and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency about ramped-up attacks against the U.S. healthcare sector.
"Threats against the U.S. healthcare system continue to be a long-running issue, made undoubtedly worse as the COVID-19 pandemic's spread continues," said Kelvin Coleman, executive director at the National Cyber Security Alliance, in a statement to Healthcare IT News.
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MIT Researchers Use mHealth Tools to Identify COVID-19 in a Cough
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed an mHealth tool that can reportedly identify evidence of COVID-19 in a person's cough, even if they're asymptomatic.
November 03, 2020 - Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are developing an mHealth tool that can detect evidence of COVID-19 in one’s cough.
In a study recently published in the IEEE Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology, the team of researchers used tens of thousands of samples of [people coughing and talking, and were able to create an AI tool that could accurately identify coronavirus symptoms 98.5 percent of the time among those who’d tested positive for the virus and in every asymptomatic case.
“The sounds of talking and coughing are both influenced by the vocal cords and surrounding organs,” Brian Subirana, a research scientists in MIT’s Auto-ID Laboratory and co-author of the study, said in a press release published by the university. “This means that when you talk, part of your talking is like coughing, and vice versa. It also means that things we easily derive from fluent speech, AI can pick up simply from coughs, including things like the person’s gender, mother tongue, or even emotional state. There’s in fact sentiment embedded in how you cough.”
The idea of detecting illness in coughs isn’t new. In 2014, ResApp Health developed an mHealth app at the University of Queensland in Australia that could help clinicians identify respiratory distress, such as pneumonia, bronchitis, croup and asthma, in children and adults who coughed into a smartphone.
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Vaccine Hesitancy Still Salient in Push for COVID-19 Vaccine Fix
Survey data showed that only 35 percent of Americans are currently committed to plans to get an eventual COVID-19 vaccine, highlighting growing vaccine hesitancy.
By Sara Heath
November 03, 2020 - Sixty-one percent of patients said they plan to “wait and see” what comes of a COVID-19 vaccine before committing to getting one, new survey data shows, underscoring the bleak picture of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.
The survey out of the non-partisan COVID Collaborative revealed that only about 35 percent of US patients definitively plan on getting an eventual COVID-19 vaccine, while most patients are more tepid on the vaccine.
These survey findings are not necessarily indicative of ambivalence about the virus. Results showed that 88 percent of Americans see the novel coronavirus as a serious problem and that the worst is yet to come. Eighty-seven percent agreed that COVID-19 is worse than the flu, and a whopping 91 percent are worried a family member will become sick with the virus.
Most respondents agreed a COVID-19 vaccine is an essential part of reopening the US economy.
But patients have some concern about how that vaccine was developed, whether there were political influences in the development process, and whether the vaccine will be safe and adequately tested.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/pediatricians-averaging-roughly-7-hours-of-ehr-use-per-day
Pediatricians Averaging Roughly 7 Hours of EHR Use Per Day
EHR documentation and patient record reviewing make up most of the 6 hours and 40 minutes that pediatricians are utilizing the EHR.
November 03, 2020 - Pediatricians are averaging roughly 16 minutes of EHR use per patient visit, with EHR documentation and patient record reviewing accounting for 62 percent of that time, according to a study published in the Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Researchers also found chart reviews accounted for roughly 30 percent of the total EHR time. As a result, researchers said this variation creates opportunities for EHR optimization targeting documentation and EHR use.
While there’s been extensive research on physician EHR use, there’s been little information on pediatrician EHR use.
Researchers dissected EHR log entry data from January to December 2018 by all pediatricians or adolescent physicians in the roughly 2,100 health organizations on the Cerner Lights On database.
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Over 80% of Health Execs Have Artificial Intelligence Plans in Place
Healthcare executives are increasingly adopting artificial intelligence tools, with many planning to use the technology to automate business processes and accelerate research.
By Jessica Kent
November 02, 2020 - Eighty-three percent of healthcare organizations have implemented an artificial intelligence strategy, while another 15 percent are planning to develop one, according to a recent survey conducted by Optum.
Fifty-nine percent of leaders said they believe AI will deliver significant cost savings within three years, a 90 percent increase since 2018.
The results of the survey show that the healthcare industry’s increase in AI adoption is driven by executives seeing more tangible benefits from the technology – including improved business performance and patient outcomes.
“These insights demonstrate that as those in late-stage AI implementation grow more familiar with AI — as well as the benefits it yields — they in turn become more comfortable and confident, generating momentum in which AI grows more beneficial more quickly,” researchers stated.
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Healthcare is ramping up AI investments during COVID. But the industry is still on the fence about Google, Amazon. Here's why
Nov 4, 2020 12:56pm
More than half (56%) of healthcare organizations are accelerating or expanding their AI deployment timelines in response to the pandemic, demonstrating the importance of this business tool during the most stressful times. (WrightStudios/Shutterstock)
Healthcare organizations are ramping up their investments in artificial intelligence in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to recent surveys.
But they are not turning to tech giants like Google and Amazon to deploy these technologies.
In an Optum survey of 500 healthcare executives at hospitals, life sciences companies, health plans, and employer organizations, more than half (56%) say they are accelerating or expanding their AI deployment timelines in response to the pandemic. It demonstrates the importance of this business tool during the most stressful times.
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Watch App Identifies Sounds for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing People
By Sarah
McQuate
Futurity
November 2, 2020
People found the app was useful for letting them know if there was something that they should pay attention to.
A new smartwatch app called SoundWatch offers a way for deaf, Deaf, or hard-of-hearing people to know when sounds—such as alarms, bird song, or a microwave beep—occur.
When the smartwatch picks up a sound the user is interested in, SoundWatch will identify it and send the user a friendly buzz along with information about the sound.
“This technology provides people with a way to experience sounds that require an action—such as getting food from the microwave when it beeps. But these devices can also enhance people’s experiences and help them feel more connected to the world,” says lead author Dhruv Jain, a doctoral student in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington.
“I use the watch prototype to notice birds chirping and waterfall sounds when I am hiking. It makes me feel present in nature. My hope is that other d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing people who are interested in sounds will also find SoundWatch helpful,” Jain says.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/emea/uk-use-ai-covid-19-vaccine-side-effects
UK to use AI for COVID-19 vaccine side effects
Software company Genpact UK has been paid £1.5m for an AI tool that will be used to process the adverse reactions of the COVID-19 vaccines.
By Sara Mageit
November 04, 2020 09:16 AM
The Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority (MHRA) has paid Genpact UK a tender of £1.5m to develop an AI tool to sift through the high volume of reports of adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines.
The government contract states that the AI tool will “process the expected high volume of Covid-19 vaccine adverse drug reaction (ADRs) and ensure that no details . . . are missed.”
WHY IT MATTERS
As the UK prepares for a widespread inoculation programme of monumental scale in the months ahead, the need for an effective and powerful tool to process a large number of reports is critical in managing the high volume of reports.
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https://patientengagementhit.com/news/using-twitter-to-assess-patient-takes-on-patient-experience
Using Twitter to Assess Patient Takes on Patient Experience
A qualitative study of Twitter hashtags revealed power hierarchies can damage the patient experience and clinician relationship.
By Sara Heath
October 29, 2020 - Twitter may be becoming the new online provider review, with patients flocking to the social media website to offer their takes on clinician relationships. In many cases, these Tweets can tell providers a lot about the patient experience, according to research published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.
In an analysis of a popular Twitter hashtag, researchers found that patients largely take umbrage when they feel their doctor does not believe their ailment or knowledge about their how healthcare, and when they perceive a power hierarchy between themselves and their clinician.
Over the past decade, the internet has become a common place for patients to provide their feedback on their healthcare experience. Most healthcare organizations host a place on their websites where they can provide clinician reviews, while third-party websites like Healthgrades have sprung up to elicit patient reviews. In many cases, patients will take to social media websites like Facebook, Yelp, Google, or Twitter to leave a review.
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Artificial intelligence and covid-19: Can the machines save us?
November 2, 2020 at 1:00 a.m. GMT+11
Early this spring as the pandemic began accelerating, AJ Venkatakrishnan took genetic data from 10,967 samples of the novel coronavirus and fed it into a machine. The Stanford-trained data scientist did not have a particular hypothesis, but he was hoping the artificial intelligence would pinpoint possible weaknesses that could be exploited to develop therapies.
He was awed when the program reported back that the new virus appeared to have a snippet of DNA code — “RRARSVAS” — distinct from its predecessor coronaviruses. This sequence, he learned, mimics a protein that helps the human body regulate salt and fluid balance.
Venkatakrishnan, director of scientific research and partnerships at AI start-up Nference, wondered whether this change might allow the virus to act as a kind of Trojan horse. Could this explain its high infection and transmission rates? And perhaps even why people with cardiovascular disease were experiencing more-severe cases, since sodium can impact blood pressure?
“It was a surprise, completely accidental,” he recalled. “The machine just spotted that.”
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https://journal.ahima.org/fail-safe-him-experts-are-essential-early-in-the-it-adoption-cycle/
Fail-Safe: HIM Experts are Essential Early in the IT Adoption Cycle
Healthcare technology systems promise the world but fail at astonishing rates. Including HIM experts early in the IT adoption cycle is critical to a successful go-live.
By Mary Butler
The COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders that swept the country this spring compelled many healthcare organizations—some, for the first time ever—to quickly adopt and scale virtual services solutions.
Some providers looped their health information management (HIM) teams into the process early, as they should whenever new health IT applications are implemented.
Lori L. Richter, MA, RHIA, CPHIMS, CHPS, system director for health IT regulatory oversight and corporate responsibility at CommonSpirit Health, who played a key role in her organization’s telehealth vendor selection process, says HIM’s involvement—at every stage of the implementation—was key to the project’s success.
“Telehealth or virtual care is something that we need to make very clear that HIM should be involved in, to make sure practitioners don’t forget that we’re still capturing information for the legal medical record,” Richter says.
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Predictive models can help stratify patient risk during and after COVID-19
Clinical decision support and hospital resource-management are particularly important as patient numbers begin to increase again, two new JAMA studies show.
By Kat Jercich
November 03, 2020 12:38 PM
A pair of studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association show how predictive models can assist with risk stratification when it comes to treating patients with COVID-19 and scheduling elective procedures after the pandemic.
The first study, which focused on 2,511 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in eastern Massachusetts, examined how laboratory studies, in conjunction with sociodemographic features and prior diagnosis, helped identify individuals at particularly high risk.
The second study, a Duke University study that developed predictive models from the electronic health records of 42,199 elective surgery patients, found that modeling, along with other factors, can be used to inform how to recommence elective inpatient procedures.
"The novel coronavirus disease 2019 has changed the provision of hospital- and clinic-based surgical care," noted the authors of the Duke University study.
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COVID-Related Investments In Advanced Tech May Position Hospitals For Future Success
November 3, 2020
Stuck between a rock and a hard place, over the last several months, healthcare organizations have made investments in cutting edge tech despite the job COVID was doing on their finances. Fortunately, these investments may have set the stage for future growth as well, according to a new research study.
Research firm Frost & Sullivan recently conducted a study of digital hospitals, which it describes as facilities addressing limitations of traditional delivery models using emerging advanced technologies.
The researchers found that digital hospitals are using a wide range of tools, including hospital navigation, intelligent imaging platforms, medical robots and remote patient monitoring to improve upon these models. Among the biggest areas of demand for digital hospitals are, not surprisingly, those which make the hospitals more flexible and data-driven.
For example, Frost & Sullivan expects to see hospitals invest more heavily in smart patient tracking systems to manage patient flow, treatment progress, and discharge. Not only do these technologies streamline hospital operations, they have the potential to improve patients’ satisfaction.
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Why does Walmart think it has a right to play in healthcare? Top health exec Osborne explains
Nov 2, 2020 12:01am
The healthcare industry has been an attractive one for outside disrupters of late.
In 2019, Amazon, JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway shook up the traditional landscape by unveiling their still-mysterious joint venture Haven. Tech giants like Apple and Google have thrown their hats in the ring to chip off a piece of an industry that accounts for nearly 20% of the U.S. gross domestic product.
And then there's Walmart, the largest retailer in the world, which made a splash a year ago when it opened the first of its clinics in Dallas, Georgia.
The health center now offers a slew of services there ranging from primary care to dental care to behavioral health care at a flat fee regardless of insurance status, along with on-site lab testing and imaging.
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https://www.techspot.com/news/87392-mit-researchers-develop-ai-model-can-detect-covid.html
MIT researchers develop an AI model that can detect Covid-19 in asymptomatic individuals
Slight changes in coughs can reveal the virus' presence
By Cohen Coberly on November 1, 2020, 11:07 AM
The potential good that such a model could do is probably pretty obvious. Suppose the model was refined and rolled out to the general public somehow, perhaps in the form of a free mobile app.
In that case, it could help people screen themselves for the infection and either get tested or avoid contact with others, if necessary.
Teachers, for example, could use it every day before heading into class, as could other individuals that work in close proximity to strangers -- front-line retail employees are another key audience for such a tool.
Fortunately, porting the model to an app is precisely what researchers are working toward now. The team still needs to finish developing it and, of course, obtain FDA approval before it can be distributed widely, though.
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https://apnews.com/article/technology-virus-outbreak-dc762ec0fd60f363adc8e5d4ce42b7ff
More US patients to have easy, free access to doctor’s notes
More U.S. patients will soon have free, electronic access to the notes their doctors write about them under a new federal requirement for transparency.
Many health systems are opening up records Monday, the original deadline. At the last minute, federal health officials week gave an extension until April because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Britta Bloomquist of Duluth, Minnesota, has been reading her clinical notes for years, first struggling through red tape and more recently clicking into a secure online patient website.
“It means information about your care can no longer be hidden from you. And you have a say in your care,” said Bloomquist, 32, who has a rare type of arthritis that took years to diagnose.
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https://medcitynews.com/2020/11/scripps-study-suggests-wearables-could-predict-covid-19-infection/
Scripps study suggests wearables could predict Covid-19 infection
The virtual study, which included wearable data form more than 30,500 participants, found that changes in sleep, activity and heart rate levels, along with self-reported symptom data, could be used to identify potential cases of Covid-19.
By Elise Reuter
Nov 1, 2020 at 11:00 AM
Could wearables be used to detect potential Covid-19 cases? A group of researchers at the Scripps Research Translational Institute found that changes in sleep, activity levels and heart rate, paired with symptom data, could be used to identify Covid-19 cases. Their results were published in Nature on Thursday.
The idea behind the study was to provide a more effective way to detect potential cases of Covid-19 than the mix of temperature screenings and symptom checklists that many businesses and schools currently use. Temperature alone is not a good indicator — according to a study of hospitalized Covid-19 patients in New York, less than a third of them had an elevated temperature when they were admitted.
“We want to do something more than is done now — checking temperature and symptoms. We think that is not enough,” said Giorgio Quer, the study’s first author and director of artificial intelligence at the Scripps Research Translational Institute. “The goal here is really early identification of Covid-positive to slow down the spread.”
More than 30,500 people enrolled in the app-based study between late March and early June. They reported symptoms and test results in the app, and consented to sharing anonymized data on their heart rates, sleep and activity levels from their wearable devices.
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https://apnews.com/article/fbi-ransomware-healthcare-system-7531ca8d2742d855cd374213d111821c
FBI warns ransomware assault threatens US health care system
BOSTON (AP) — Federal agencies warned that cybercriminals could unleash a wave of data-scrambling extortion attempts against the U.S. health care system, an effort that, if successful, could paralyze hospital information systems just as nationwide cases of COVID-19 are spiking.
In a joint alert Wednesday, the FBI and two federal agencies said they had credible information of “an increased and imminent cybercrime threat” to U.S. hospitals and health care providers. The alert said malicious groups are targeting the sector with attacks aiming for “data theft and disruption of healthcare services.”
The impact of the expected attack wave, however, is difficult to assess.
It involves a particular strain of ransomware, which scrambles a target’s data into gibberish until they pay up. Previous such attacks on health care facilities have impeded care and, in one case in Germany, led to the death of a patient. But such consequences are still rare.
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Experts showcase digital health solutions that help tackle COVID-19
A panel of global experts pondered how digital tools could help tackle COVID-19 and showcased initiatives that have contributed to manage the pandemic during the recent Barcelona Health Summit.
November 02, 2020 05:53 AM
The speakers were Roger Lim, senior policy officer at the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport of the Netherlands; Dr Carolina Garcia-Vidal, senior specialist at the Infectious Diseases Department of Hospital Clínic, Barcelona; Sameer Pujari, vice chair of the World Health Organisation (WHO) ITU Focus Group; Dr Miguel Muñoz, head of business development of Mediktor; and Dr Jordi Serrano-Pons, founder of EpidemiXs & UniversalDoctor.
WHY IT MATTERS
Several technological solutions have been launched to help manage the COVID-19 pandemic, notably to detect the first symptoms, track the virus, carry out tests and support the population in accessing and receiving healthcare.
But using these technologies has also brought regulatory and privacy challenges and has consequences on the global healthcare systems and citizens.
ON THE RECORD
Roger Lim, Dutch government, said principles of privacy and data minimisation were central to building the national contact tracing app: “We opened transparent processes on the technical choices made, because it’s essential to build trust for people to use this app.”
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https://histalk2.com/2020/10/30/weekender-10-30-20/
Weekly News Recap
- HHS/ONC extend the dates for Cures Act compliance.
- Several US hospitals report cyberattacks as the federal government warns that Russian hackers are targeting 400 of them for ransomware, with payment demands of $10 million and more.
- Allscripts and Cerner report quarterly results, with both beating earnings expectations but falling short on revenue.
- HHS releases a final rule that requires insurers to report their negotiated provider rates and patient out-of-pocket costs for 500 shoppable services.
- Blank check company Health Assurance Acquisition Corp., formed by departing executives and backers of Livongo, prepares for an IPO of up to $500 million.
- The VA goes live on Cerner at its first site.
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Enjoy!
David.
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