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://www.digitalhealth.net/2021/02/tributes-paid-national-data-guardian-dame-fiona-caldicott/
Tributes paid to National Data Guardian Dame Fiona Caldicott
Tributes
have been paid to Dame Fiona Caldicott, the first National Data Guardian (NDG)
for Health and Social Care, who has passed away aged 80.
Hanna Crouch
- 16 February 2021
Dame Fiona,
who celebrated her 80th birthday in January, was appointed to the office of the
National Data Guardian in November 2014 and was confirmed as the first
statutory holder of the position in April 2019.
A tribute
written by John Carvel on behalf of the NDG panel and office team was
posted on the gov.uk website on February 15.
“As members
of the team who supported Dame Fiona in her work as National Data Guardian for
Health and Social Care, we are full of sorrow at losing our inspirational
colleague,” Carvel wrote.
“She
led us with unswerving integrity, modesty and a commitment to doing her best
for patients and service users. Her name is well known across our sector and
beyond, but we had the added privilege of knowing her personally and holding
dear the thoughtful, compassionate person behind the public profile.”
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https://www.managedhealthcareexecutive.com/view/interoperability-is-coming-at-last
Interoperability is Coming — at Last
February
16, 2021
By
Jared
Kaltwasser
MHE
Publication, MHE February 2021, Volume 31, Issue 2
Enforcement
of rules to encourage the freer flow of healthcare data were delayed because of
the COVID-19 pandemic. They are now scheduled to go into effect this year.
Perhaps no
industry better straddles the dichotomy between cutting-edge technology and inefficient
obsolete devices than the healthcare industry.
In one
corner of a hospital, a physician in another room (or another state) can
perform precision surgery using state-of-the-art robotics, while just down the
hall a nurse receives the patient’s medical records via fax machine and the
patient’s spouse uses a pen to fill out paperwork.
Those
throwbacks exist for many reasons, but perhaps the most important is the Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), which requires
providers and health plans to protect a patient’s health data. Say what you
will about fax machines, but they are sturdily HIPAA-compliant.
But if
government regulation to protect patient privacy is the root cause of the
vestigial methods for transferring healthcare data, then new regulations might
pull them into the 21st century.
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https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/946100
CDC Chief Lays Out Attack Plan for COVID Variants
Marcia
Frellick
February 18, 2021
Editor's
note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource
Center.
Rochelle
Walensky, MD, MPH, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), on Wednesday walked through a multiagency attack plan for halting the
spread of three COVID-19 variants.
As part of
the Journal of the American Medical Association's (JAMA's) Q&A series with
JAMA Editor-in-Chief Howard Bauchner, Walensky referenced the blueprint
she coauthored with Anthony Fauci, MD, the nation's top infectious disease
expert, and Henry T. Walke, MD, MPH, of the CDC, which was published on
Wednesday in JAMA Network.
In
the viewpoint article, they explain that the Department of Health and Human
Services has established the SARS-CoV-2 Interagency Group to improve
coordination among the CDC, the National Institutes of Health, the US Food and
Drug Administration (FDA), the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development
Authority, the US Department of Agriculture, and the US Department of Defense.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/experts-underestimated-ehrs-impact-burnout-after-hitech-act
Experts underestimated EHRs' impact on burnout after HITECH Act
With the
benefit of hindsight, policy experts say the magnitude of the current burnout
crisis was largely unforeseen when the law enabling the meaningful use program
was passed in 2009.
By Kat Jercich
February 19,
2021 02:41 PM
A
study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical
Informatics Association found that policy experts underestimated
the impact of widespread electronic health record use on clinician burnout at
the time of the HITECH Act's passage in 2009.
The
retrospective look examined the discussions at the AMIA's 2009 Annual Health
Policy Meeting, which focused on the unanticipated consequences that could
occur with the large-scale, national implementation of health IT – especially
EHRs – following the HITECH Act.
That
policy meeting included many fellows from the American College of Medical
Informatics, which met in the winter of 2020 to discuss those 2009 predictions
(among other issues).
"The
collective opinion of the ACMI fellows participating in this session was that,
while many consequences of the HITECH act were foreseen in 2009, the magnitude
of the current burnout crisis largely was not," wrote the JAMIA
paper authors.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/using-natural-language-processing-unlock-sdoh-unstructured-ehr-data
Using natural language processing to unlock SDOH in unstructured EHR data
Social
determinants of health can make a big difference in health outcomes. A physician
expert in NLP highlights how the AI technology can unearth gold in EHRs.
By Bill Siwicki
February 19,
2021 01:26 PM
Medical
care is estimated to account for only 10-20% of healthcare outcomes. As a
result, healthcare executives who wish to deliver high-quality care have to
consider other elements that impact patient health, including income,
access to healthcare, racial discrimination, adequate medication and dietary
intake.
These
are social determinants of health. They offer a wealth of
information about non-clinical factors that have an impact on a patient's
wellbeing. But identifying a patient's SDOH can be challenging because details
aren't always easily accessible, especially at the time when clinicians make
key treatment decisions.
SDOH
data often reside in EHRs, but are essentially trapped as unstructured text
within clinical notes, patient-reported data, secure e-mail exchanges, patient
portal messages and other places.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/how-north-dakotas-immunization-database-supporting-its-covid-19-vaccine-rollout
How North Dakota's immunization database is supporting its COVID-19
vaccine rollout
Good data
management is essential to success in a major public health endeavor.
By Healthcare
IT News
February 19,
2021 10:00 AM
With
a small population distributed over a large geographical area, North Dakota
doesn't lend itself to the easiest vaccine rollout. But the state has a secret
weapon: a robust database called the North Dakota Immunization Information
System (NDIIS).
NDIIS
manager Mary Woinarowicz joins host Jonah Comstock to talk about the early days
of the COVID rollout, and how having a robust data management system has helped
the state to make the most of its allocated COVID-19 vaccine doses.
Talking
points:
- The NDIIS and its pre-COVID
function
- How NDIIS is supporting the
COVID-19 vaccine rollout
- Logistical challenges to vaccine
administration, especially in rural areas
- How data analytics help smooth out
the rollout
- The challenges of launching a
state-level response that’s part of a national rollout
- How NDIIS has responded to strong
vaccine demand
- Patient-facing tools to improve
the vaccine rollout
- Additional challenges related to
the second dose
- The NDIIS’s Immunization
Forecasting tool
- The slip in non-COVID vaccination
during the pandemic
- What still lies ahead for COVID-19
vaccination
- Should people who have had COVID
get the vaccine?
- How to decide which vaccine
patients get which vaccine
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2021/02/19/patients-are-hooked-on-telehealth/
Patients Are Hooked On Telehealth
February 19, 2021
Anne Zieger
Prior
to the onset of the pandemic, many consumers had little interest in using
telehealth services. However, having done so throughout the COVID-19 crisis,
many Americans seem to be hooked.
A
new survey
by Telehealth.com surveying 1,000 Americans ages 18 to 54 and older has
concluded that while uptake of telehealth-based services was already growing
prior to the pandemic, acceptance by consumers has shot up since COVID-19
forced providers to shift their practice largely to virtual visits. (Here’s a
look at why I personally want
to stick with telehealth to access my own care.)
According
to the survey, 60% of Americans were aware of telehealth services prior to the
rise of the coronavirus pandemic, while 30% percent said they weren’t aware.
(Another 10% weren’t sure or didn’t answer.)
Of
the 30% of those not previously aware of telehealth services, 48% said they
became aware of virtual care since the start of the pandemic, while 38% still
haven’t heard of them.
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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/innovation/mayo-clinic-and-google-take-relationship-next-level-google-opens-rochester-office
Mayo Clinic and Google Take Relationship to Next Level; Google Opens
Rochester Office
Analysis
| By Mandy Roth |
February 19, 2021
Collaboration
to transform patient care has already resulted in enhanced radiotherapy
delivery processes, development of an AI factory, and moving 10 million patient
records to the cloud.
KEY
TAKEAWAYS
·
Collaboration accelerates innovation and
movement towards data-centric care delivery.
·
AI factory enables innovators to progress from
an idea to a breakthrough more quickly.
·
AI and machine learning are expected to deliver
insights to accelerate and deliver more personalized care, and improve the
patient and clinician experience.
In a move
that further cements the growing relationship between Mayo Clinic and Google, the Mountain View,
California-based tech firm announced it is opening a permanent office in Mayo
Clinic's hometown of Rochester, Minnesota.
Since forging
a partnership in 2019, "We've been hard at work laying the technical
groundwork for a lot of innovation, with security and privacy foundational to
everything we do," said Cris Ross, MBA, chief information officer, Mayo
Clinic, during a press briefing on Thursday. "Having this new space to
facilitate our collaboration will really help us accelerate innovation and work
towards a shared vision of a data-centric future, which we think can transform
patient, care, and provider experiences and reduce the cost of care."
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/mitigating-specialty-clinician-burnout-with-a-customizable-ehr
Mitigating Specialty Clinician Burnout with a Customizable EHR
With
clinicians across different specialties encountering separate issues, a bespoke
EHR can mitigate clinician burnout.
By Christopher Jason
February 17,
2021 - A bespoke EHR system optimized around a clinician-centered,
specialty design can mitigate clinician burnout, according to a study published in JMIR Publications.
EHRs are one
of the top clinician
burnout drivers, and especially so among specialists who might need
different EHR functions. The study authors said this difference should reflect
in EHR implementation and optimization.
“Specialty-specific
or bespoke EHR is a promising approach to overcoming the limitations of
general-purpose EHR and mitigating physician burnout,” explained the study
authors. “A bespoke EHR is an EHR custom designed to meet the unique needs of
providers in a specific specialty or care setting. Bespoke EHR can prevent
clinicians from spending a significant portion of their workday sifting through
large amounts of clinical data for the specific data elements they need.”
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https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/don-rucker-reflects-on-highs-and-lows-of-tenure-as-onc-head-and-the-future/594880/
Don Rucker reflects on highs and lows of tenure as ONC head and the future
of health IT
Rucker has
been national coordinator since 2017, and in this exit interview looked back
and forecast what industry might expect from the Biden administration.
Author Rebecca Pifer @RebeccaMPifer
Published
Feb. 17, 2021
The U.S.
healthcare industry is notoriously slow to change, a fact evident in the
country's outdated and clunky IT system. Patients' health data is siloed in
various provider and payer databases, making it often extremely difficult to
access and control.
Modernizing
this system is spearheaded on the the federal side by the Office of the
National Coordinator for Health IT, an HHS agency that regulates the nation's
health information technology framework. Since April 2017, ONC has been led by
longtime medical informatician and emergency physician Don Rucker.
Rucker's
tenure has been characterized by efforts to leverage data standards to free up
market forces in healthcare, hopefully triggering greater transparency and
lower prices for care. The apogee of this work were two HHS regulations
released in March prohibiting information blocking and revamping how providers,
payers and other health companies exchange data, with the goal of making it
easier for patients to control their health information.
The
rules, which HHS worked on for more than half a decade, are largely bipartisan,
but threaten entrenched business models and have faced industry pushback as a
result, along with deadline
delays during COVID-19. Proponents agree they've laid the groundwork for a
freer IT infrastructure, but there's still room for additional growth.
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertpearl/2021/02/16/how-ai-can-remedy-racial-disparities-in-healthcare/?sh=2f0c96b330f6
Feb 16, 2021,05:00am EST|1,242 views
How AI Can Remedy Racial Disparities In Healthcare
Robert Pearl, M.D.Contributor
The
story of American medicine is one of incredible scientific advancements, from
the use of penicillin to treat syphilis and other bacterial infections to the
countless biomedical breakthroughs made possible by cell-line research.
Too
often, however, these stories ignore an uncomfortable truth: Some of our
nation’s most significant medical discoveries were made possible through the
mistreatment of Black patients—from the exploitation of African American
farmers during the Tuskegee
Syphilis Experiments to the tragic case of Henrietta Lacks, a
black patient whose cells were stolen by doctors and used for decades of
cell-line research.
Racism
is woven into our nation’s medical past but is also part of our present, as
evidenced by the Covid-19 crisis. From testing to treatment, Black and Latino
patients have received a lower quality and quantity of care compared white
Americans.
As
a country, we now have the opportunity to reverse course. Rather than advancing
medicine through racist actions, we can combat racism in medicine with the use
of science and technology. Artificial intelligence and data-based algorithms
can help address health
disparities and break down the barriers to healthcare equity, like these:
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/cta-intros-new-trustworthiness-standard-healthcare-ai
CTA intros new trustworthiness standard for healthcare AI
ANSI/CTA-2090
puts the focus on three must-haves, according to the Consumer Technology
Organization: human trust, technical trust and regulatory trust.
By Mike Miliard
February 18,
2021 11:05 AM
The
Consumer Technology Association on Wednesday unveiled a new ANSI-accredited
standard that it says represents the "baseline to determine trustworthy AI
solutions in health care."
WHY IT
MATTERS
More than five dozen healthcare and technology organizations helped develop the
consensus-driven standard, according to CTA, which says the
aim is to identify "the core requirements and baseline for AI solutions in
health care to be deemed as trustworthy," as artificial intelligence and
machine learning become "pervasive" across healthcare.
"Additionally,
it explores the impact of the trustworthiness of AI in health care through the
lens of the end user (e.g., physician, consumer, professional and family
caregiver, public health, medical societies, and regulators) and will identify
the unique challenges and opportunities for AI in the health care sector,"
according to CTA.
Known
as ANSI/CTA-2090, "The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Health Care:
Trustworthiness" – considers what the association says are the three key
areas relating to how trust is created and maintained across stakeholders.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/telehealth-used-less-disadvantaged-areas-health-affairs-study-finds
Telehealth used less in disadvantaged areas, Health Affairs study finds
Although
weekly telemedicine visits shot up twenty-three-fold during the first few
months of the COVID-19 pandemic, overall visit volume decreased by 35%.
By Kat Jercich
February 18,
2021 12:45 PM
A
Health
Affairs study found that telemedicine use during the COVID-19
pandemic was lower in communities with higher rates of poverty – suggesting
that the industry must address the digital divide in order to ensure widespread
access to virtual care.
The
study, which was conducted by researchers from Harvard and
the RAND Corporation, examined the variation in total outpatient visits and
telemedicine use among 16.7 million commercially insured and Medicare Advantage
enrollees from January through June 2020.
"Although
the increase in telemedicine use during the pandemic is widely recognized, it
is unclear how the use of telemedicine and in-person care has varied across
patient demographics, clinical specialties, and medical conditions," wrote
the research team.
During
the COVID-19 period of the study, researchers found that 30.1% of total visits
were provided via telemedicine – with a whopping twenty-three-fold increase in
weekly number of telemedicine visits, compared to the pre-COVID-19
period.
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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/telehealth/covid-19-prods-employers-explore-virtual-directed-health-plans
COVID-19 Prods Employers to Explore Virtual-Directed Health Plans
Analysis
| By John Commins |
February 18, 2021
The rapid
rise of telehealth has led a growing number of employers to explore a
virtual-directed health plan model with an online primary care platform.
The nation's
employers are increasingly adding coverage for virtual and mental healthcare
benefits in their employee insurance plans, Aon plc says.
The move is
largely a response to the tremendous increase in virtual care visits during the
coronavirus public health emergency, according to Aon's new report released Thursday.
That shift in
consumer behavior has led 36% of employers to say they are interested in
exploring a virtual-directed health plan model with an online primary care
platform that directs all care, including coordination with traditional health
providers.
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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/telehealth/3-actions-health-systems-should-take-now-bolster-telehealth
3 Actions Health Systems Should Take Now to Bolster Telehealth
Analysis
| By Mandy Roth |
February 16, 2021
In the
rush to quickly deploy virtual care programs during the pandemic, basic
processes were sometimes overlooked. Experts say now is the time to take
corrective action to ensure long-term success.
KEY
TAKEAWAYS
·
Health systems should revisit telehealth
training and education for physicians and consumers.
·
To position telehealth for long-term success,
it's essential to determine how virtual care fits into the overall care
delivery model.
·
It is paramount to build consumer trust,
particularly as concerns about privacy and data breeches are growing.
In the quest
to roll out telehealth initiatives to meet the needs of patients during the
pandemic, many health systems rapidly launched solutions. There is nearly
universal agreement that 2020 catapulted virtual care several years beyond
strategic timelines.
While
many health systems are looking into the future to determine how to continue
acceleration of virtual care, experts say it is also essential to hit the pause
button. To ensure long-term success, organizations should assess whether they
are delivering the best experience, determine how telehealth fits into the
overall care delivery model, and examine the role trust plays in their
endeavors.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/175-covid-19-vaccination-sites-tap-cerner-ehr-solution
175 COVID-19 Vaccination Sites Tap Cerner EHR Solution
EHR vendor
Cerner said its solution streamlines the COVID-19 vaccination process by
helping its users identify, register, and vaccinate patients across the
country.
By Christopher Jason
February 16,
2021 - Cerner has announced
175 COVID-19 vaccination sites have leveraged its Mass Vaccination EHR solution
to help clinicians identify, register, and vaccinate patients.
When COVID-19
began to spread in early 2020, the EHR vendor reached out to its customers
across the country to ensure they had the necessary health IT to prepare for a
large-scale COVID-19 vaccination effort.
Since many
hospitals and health systems worked together to deploy the vaccination at
community-based locations, Cerner leaders knew these vaccination sites would
need a patient-first strategy that could work outside of each users’ EHR
platform.
The
EHR vendor compiled a list of various recommendations for its clients to
utilize its health
IT to boost billing, clinician administration best practices, patient
outreach, scheduling opportunities, and both reporting and analytics following
each vaccination.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/health-experts-misjudged-ehr-clinician-burnout-at-hitech-act-passage
Health Experts Misjudged EHR Clinician Burnout at HITECH Act Passage
Clinicians
and healthcare experts did not fully grasp the high potential of EHR clinician
burnout at the time of the HITECH Act passing in 2009.
By Christopher Jason
February 17,
2021 - Following the passage of the HITECH Act in 2009 and the subsequent
increase in EHR adoption, clinicians and healthcare experts significantly
underestimated the degree of clinician burnout and its contributing factors,
according to a study published
in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA).
On the
contrary, healthcare professionals overestimated the concern over patient
privacy and fraud.
After
the HITECH
Act passed, clinician burnout has run rampant across the country
amidst poor EHR usability, unintuitive EHR design, and high clinician workload.
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https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/who-should-stop-unethical-ai
Who Should Stop Unethical A.I.?
At
artificial-intelligence conferences, researchers are increasingly alarmed by
what they see.
By Matthew Hutson
February 15,
2021
In computer
science, the main outlets for peer-reviewed research are not journals but
conferences, where accepted papers are presented in the form of talks or
posters. In June, 2019, at a large artificial-intelligence conference in Long
Beach, California, called Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, I stopped to
look at a poster for a project called Speech2Face. Using machine learning, researchers had
developed an algorithm that generated images of faces from recordings of
speech. A neat idea, I thought, but one with unimpressive results: at best, the
faces matched the speakers’ sex, age, and ethnicity—attributes that a casual
listener might guess. That December, I saw a similar poster at another large A.I. conference, Neural
Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), in Vancouver, Canada. I didn’t pay it
much mind, either.
Not long
after, though, the research blew up on Twitter. “What is this hot garbage,
#NeurIPS2019?” Alex Hanna, a trans woman and sociologist at Google who studies
A.I. ethics, tweeted. “Computer scientists and machine learning people, please
stop this awful transphobic shit.” Hanna objected to the way the research
sought to tie identity to biology; a sprawling debate ensued. Some tweeters
suggested that there could be useful applications for the software, such as
helping to identify criminals. Others argued, incorrectly, that a voice
revealed nothing about its speaker’s appearance. Some made jokes (“One fact
that this should never have been approved: Rick Astley.
There’s no way in hell that their [system] would have predicted his voice out
of that head at the time”) or questioned whether the term “transphobic” was a
fair characterization of the research. A number of people said that they were
unsure of what exactly was wrong with the work. As Hanna argued that
voice-to-face prediction was a line of research that “shouldn’t exist,” others
asked whether science could or should be stopped. “It would be disappointing if
we couldn’t investigate correlations—if done ethically,” one researcher wrote.
“Difficult, yes. Impossible, why?”
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=0471d58c-7ec0-4214-953a-4173b4482c3e
Privacy in a Pandemic - the Conundrum of COVID-19 Check-in Solutions
FTI
Consulting Asia Pacific - V. Scott Foster, Tim de Sousa, Christopher
Hatfield and Min
Cai
Australia February 16 2021
In
the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when we were all grappling with the
avalanche of concepts like ‘social distancing’ and ‘personal protective
equipment’, the idea of contact tracing had many scratching their heads. In the
age of automation, a manual process involving a team of people making calls and
conducting interviews to find those exposed to the virus can seem almost
counter-intuitive. Perhaps this is part of why, in 2020, we saw a dedicated
push to find digital solutions to the challenges of COVID-19. This has included
digital contact tracing solutions such as the Australian Government’s COVIDsafe
app. However, the adoption of visitor registers that record which individuals
have visited specific locations, and their contact details, have been far more
helpful to contact tracers.
After
the initial lockdowns, in an effort to get businesses like retailers, bars and
restaurants back to work, a flurry of digital check-in solutions emerged to
help businesses comply with contact tracing requirements. These systems provide
QR codes, enable customers to sign in, maintain records and, if needed,
disclose personal information to contact tracers. Many also request consent for
direct marketing, either as an option or by bundled consent (that is, the
customer must agree to receive marketing or they can’t check in). In some
states, such as New South Wales (NSW), electronic check-in services are now mandatory.
But
what about privacy? A recent study conducted by the Consumer Policy Research
Centre found that 94 per cent of Australians are concerned about how their
personal data is shared online. Can users trust the cavalcade of new app
providers? Are these providers regulated? What happens to the data? Does
keeping each other safe mean giving up our right to privacy – to not be tracked
unnecessarily or receive unwanted marketing? And how do organisations that
are using check-in apps manage the risks created by this new genre of service
providers?
-----
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferhicks/2021/02/14/how-hardware-data-and-artificial-intelligence-are-changing-diabetes-care/?sh=6336012e1a77
Feb 14, 2021,03:06pm EST|2,229 views
How Hardware, Data And Artificial Intelligence Are Changing Diabetes Care
Jennifer Kite-Powell Senior Contributor
Consumer
Tech
According
to Søren Smed Østergaard, Vice President, Digital Health of Novo Nordisk, the
most significant innovations in the diabetes space centered around hardware,
artificial intelligence (AI) and data. He believes that having access to more
accurate data on individual behavior and medication usage could positively
impact people living with diabetes.
"We
know there is a huge discrepancy between how people should use medication and
how they're using it," said Østergaard. "In 2003, the World Health
Organisation (WHO) said improving medication adherence will have a more
significant impact on the population's health than improvements to specific
medical treatments.
"With new digital health devices, we will be able to get accurate
data on how people are taking their medication," added Østergaard.
"Healthcare
data today is often incomplete and too sparse to use for effective
decision-making; we need to solve that first, but with this comes a plethora of
ethical implications," said Østergaard. "People must have confidence
that their data is being kept secure and used responsibly. Data sharing –
creating a complete picture using data from different parties and devices – has
the potential to revolutionize healthcare and outcomes, but robust data privacy
policies must underpin it.
-----
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/public-health/who-to-develop-agreed-clinical-description-for-long-covid-19-diagnosis.html
WHO to develop 'agreed clinical description' for long COVID-19 diagnosis
Erica Carbajal - Monday, February
15th, 2021
Print | Email
The
World Health Organization is working to establish a clinical description for
the lingering symptoms, known as long-COVID, some people experience months
after being cleared of their initial COVID-19 illness, CNBC reported Feb. 13.
WHO
recently held a global meeting that involved "patients, clinicians and
other stakeholders" to gain a clearer picture of long-COVID, Tedros
Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, the organization's director-general, said during a Feb. 12 news conference.
The
global meeting was the first in a series of upcoming meetings which will focus
on "working towards an agreed clinical description of the condition,"
Dr. Tedros said. WHO also released a case reporting form meant to standardize
data collection on post-COVID, he added.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/cybersecurity-pandemic-year-one-cisos-perspective
Cybersecurity in a pandemic year: One CISO's perspective
Christiana
Care Chief Information Security Officer Anahi Santiago says she's drawn
some lasting lessons from the hectic past 12 months, which offered a
powerful reminder that "the human component is integral to the success of
information security."
Bill Siwicki
February 17,
2021
In
a recent Healthcare
IT News feature story, health IT leaders talked about some of the lessons they've
learned from a very busy and tumultuous year – and how they're applying
those lessons for 2021 and beyond.
Among
the many lessons they described – many having spent 2020 waging a two-front
battle against the COVID-19 pandemic itself and a related cyber pandemic – was
the need for a renewed focus on cybersecurity.
We
recently spoke with a prominent chief information security officer to get some
of her takeaways from the busy past year – a time when telehealth was scaled up
at rapid pace, whole workforces went remote and ransomware ran rampant – and
asked how she's applying those lessons today and beyond.
Here's
what Anahi Santiago, CISO at Wilmington, Delaware-based ChristianaCare, had to
say.
Q.
What is a cybersecurity lesson you have learned during the past year, which was
so disruptive for the healthcare industry?
A.
Even in the face of elevated threats, information security teams have risen to
exceptional levels to support their organizations. The speed at which our team
had to move to support virtual care and pandemic-related activities while
meeting pre-pandemic operational demands demonstrated agility and commitment to
the mission. It also enabled us to assert our position as a true partner to our
business and clinicians.
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2021/02/17/more-healthcare-data-means-growth-for-switch/
More Healthcare Data Means Growth for Switch
February 17, 2021
Colin Hung
Healthcare
applications are increasing in complexity. Health data continues to grow
exponentially. To avoid being drowned in this technology deluge, healthcare
providers and health IT vendors are turning to 3rd party
infrastructure providers for their systems + data needs.
IDC predicted that healthcare data would grow 11,000% from
an estimated 153 exabytes of data (153,000,000 terabytes) in 2013 to over 2,314
exabytes in 2020. They also predicted that by 2025 healthcare would be the
fastest growing source of data worldwide. The healthcare industry currently
generates 30% of the world’s data volume.
With
this expected growth, it is no surprise that data center providers are putting
more focus on healthcare. Switch, a data
center and technology solution provider based out of Las Vegas, Nevada is one
of the companies placing a big bet on healthcare.
Healthcare
IT Today sat down with Dr. Quinn Pauly, Chief Medical Officer at
Switch to talk about the need for better technology infrastructure in
healthcare and why the company chose to have a CMO.
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2021/02/17/health-systems-come-together-en-masse-to-gather-health-insights-from-anonymized-patient-data/
Health Systems Come Together En Masse to Gather Health Insights from
Anonymized Patient Data
February 17, 2021
Anne Zieger
Demonstrating
once again that for health systems, it’s the data, stupid, fourteen US health
systems have come together to sell anonymized versions of the vast stores of
patient information they collect and maintain.
The
group, which is led by the Providence system, also includes AdventHealth,
Advocate Aurora Health, Baptist Health of Northeast Florida, Bon Secours Mercy
Health, CommonSpirit Health, Hawaii Pacific Health, Henry Ford Health
System, Northwell Health, Novant Health, Sentara Healthcare, Tenet Health and
Trinity Health.
The
health system partners will structure, normalize and de-identify their data
using a new platform leveraging AI and machine learning technology. (The group
doesn’t identify a technology vendor in its announcement, so it’s likely that
the platform will be proprietary.)
To
sell the data, the systems have formed a new venture,
dubbed Truveta, which according to a Bloomberg
article will bring together records representing roughly 13% of all US
hospitals. If this stat is anywhere near correct, it represents that kind
of volume that could truly be a game-changer for the industry. The group says
the sheer scale of its efforts is one of its key benefits, as its combined
population – which cuts across 40 states – will better represent diverse
populations than other data-sharing efforts.
-----
https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/covid-19/linkedin-unveils-vaccine-distribution-features
LinkedIn Unveils Vaccine Distribution Features
Analysis
| By Jack O'Brien |
February 17, 2021
LinkedIn's
effort to help the troubled rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines comes shortly
after the Biden administration announced that it had secured another 200
million doses.
LinkedIn
announced Wednesday morning that the company is now using its platform to
connect vaccination volunteers with "paid support opportunities" in
an effort to mitigate the damage of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The San
Francisco-based technology stated that its rollout will follow a two-pronged
approach as healthcare organizations, pharmacies, and government agencies that
support vaccine distribution can post jobs for free through May 15.
Some
healthcare roles that can be posted for free:
- Registered nurses
- Nurse managers
- Patient service specialists
- Medical assistants
- Health services managers
- MAs
- LPNs
- Urgent care techs
- Patient access representatives
- Pharmacy technicians
- Certified nursing assistants
LinkedIn
stated that the most in-demand jobs for vaccine administrators are pharmacists,
registered nurses, vaccine support staff, and medical assistants.
-----
https://hitinfrastructure.com/news/humana-taps-ibm-watsons-ai-solution-to-improve-member-care
Humana Taps IBM Watson’s AI Solution to Improve Member Care
An
artificial intelligence-enabled virtual agent from IBM Watson will provide
Humana Employer Group members with accurate information about benefits and
costs.
By Samantha McGrail
February 16,
2021 - Humana recently
tapped IBM Watson’s artificial intelligence (AI) solution to provide its
members with an improved member experience and greater transparency around
overall benefits.
Under the
agreement, Humana will deploy IBM Watson Assistant for Health Benefits, an
AI-enabled virtual assistant built in the IBM Watson Health cloud.
The IBM
Watson Assistant for Health Benefits solution is designed to uncover the logic
of health plan eligibility and include it in the member conversation, an IBM
Watson spokesperson explained.
-----
https://hitinfrastructure.com/news/fda-approves-clew-medicals-artificial-intelligence-icu-solution
FDA Approves CLEW Medical’s Artificial Intelligence ICU Solution
The
artificial intelligence ICU solution monitors and categorizes patient risk
levels, helping providers identify patients whose health conditions are likely
to deteriorate.
By Samantha McGrail
February 09,
2021 - CLEW Medical recently announced
that FDA granted clearance and authorization for the use of its artificial
intelligence-based ICU solution, used to predict hemodynamic instability in
adult patients.
The solution,
CLEWICU, continuously monitors and categorizes patient risk levels. This
information provides clinicians with physiological insight into a patient’s
likelihood of future hemodynamic instability.
The clearance
follows FDA's emergency use authorization for CLEWICU's respiratory
deterioration model granted
in June 2020. The solution has been used for the predictive screening of
COVID-19 and other ICU patients.
“We
are proud to have received this landmark FDA clearance and deliver a
first-of-its-kind product for the industry, giving healthcare providers the
critical data that they need to prevent life-threatening situations,” Gal
Salomon, CLEW CEO, said in the announcement.
-----
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/cdt-ehi-share-proposed-consumer-health-data-privacy-framework
CDT, eHI Share Proposed Consumer Health Data Privacy Framework
The
proposed consumer health data privacy framework from eHI and CDT builds on a
previous release and is designed to protect health information not covered
under HIPAA regulations.
By Jessica Davis
February 12,
2021 - The Center for Democracy & Technology and the eHealth
Initiative & Foundation (eHI) released
a newly proposed consumer health data privacy framework, which aims to
better secure the privacy of health information that falls outside of HIPAA
regulations.
The guidance
outlines much-needed standards for the collection, disclosure, and use of
consumer health data that falls outside of HIPAA. As previously
explained by the Department of Health and Human Services, HIPAA does not apply
to apps that aren't directly connected to or recommended by providers
for use of data sharing, health outcomes, and the like.
Developed
with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the proposed guidance
builds on an earlier release
and is meant to address the increasing concerns around underprotected health
data in lieu of federal privacy legislation.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/cerner-ai-expert-discusses-important-misconceptions-about-technology
Cerner AI expert discusses important 'misconceptions' about the technology
Dr. Tanuj
Gupta, vice president at Cerner Intelligence, talks gender and racial algorithm
bias, whether AI could replace clinicians, and how machine learning should be
regulated.
By Bill Siwicki
February 16,
2021 12:24 PM
Dr.
Tanuj Gupta, vice president at Cerner Intelligence, is an expert in healthcare
artificial intelligence and machine learning. Part of his job is explaining,
from his expert point of view, what he considers misconceptions with AI,
especially misconceptions in healthcare.
In
this interview with Healthcare IT News, Gupta discusses what he says
are popular misconceptions with gender and racial bias in algorithms, AI
replacing clinicians, and the regulation of AI in healthcare.
Q. In
general terms, why do you think there are misconceptions about AI in
healthcare, and why do they persist?
A.
I've given more than 100 presentations on AI and ML in the past year. There's
no doubt these technologies are hot topics in healthcare that usher in great
hope for the advancement of our industry.
While
they have the potential to transform patient care, quality and outcomes, there
also are concerns about the negative impact this technology could have on human
interaction, as well as the burden they could place on clinicians and health
systems.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/new-wearable-patch-can-monitor-blood-pressure-caffeine-levels
New wearable patch can monitor blood pressure, caffeine levels
The device is
said to be the first that can track cardiovascular signals and multiple
biochemical levels in the body at the same time.
By Kat Jercich
February 16,
2021 03:50 PM
University
of California San Diego engineers have developed a skin patch that can be worn
on the neck to track blood pressure and heart rate while monitoring the user's
glucose, lactate, alcohol or caffeine levels.
"Intertwined
with concepts of telehealth, the Internet of medical things, and precision
medicine, wearable sensors offer features to actively and remotely monitor
physiological parameters," wrote the research team in a study
published in Nature
Biomedical Engineering this week.
"Wearable
sensors can generate data continuously, without causing any discomfort or
interruptions to daily activity, thus enhancing the self-monitoring compliance
of the wearer and improving the quality of patient care," they continued.
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2021/02/16/allow-lists-and-aligned-communications-why-cios-cant-turn-a-blind-eye-to-companies-that-want-to-send-all-emails-without-security/
Allow Lists and Aligned Communications – Why CIOs Can’t Turn a Blind Eye
to Companies That Want to Send All Emails Without Security
February 16, 2021
Mitch Parker, CISO
One
of the calls that a CISO hates getting is the one from a customer who just
received documentation from a vendor they have contracted to allow all of their
emails coming from a certain domain through to an allow list so they don’t end
up in the spam folder. The reason why we dislike these calls is because
we have invested significantly in adding protection. This is because a
significant amount of the Phishing, Business Email Compromise, and Malware
emails come from computers that don’t have email security controls or are set
to bypass them.
Asking
us to remove protection for a domain is asking us to give an avenue to allow
phishing emails in from it that put the entire network at risk. Many of
us discuss disciplining team members who click on the links in phishing email
tests. However we don’t hold the team members who bring in third parties
to send bulk messages to the workforce that bypass security controls
accountable. These messages often have links to click in them that go to
web sites that are indistinguishable from real phishing sites. This is an
incongruence we have to also address.
Any
message that comes from these allowed domains instantly bypasses security
controls, even if they come from a malicious source.
-----
https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/technology/cyber-security-report-finds-30-popular-mobile-health-apps-are-vulnerable-api-attack
Cyber-Security Report Finds 30 Popular Mobile Health Apps are Vulnerable
to API Attack
Analysis
| By Scott Mace |
February 15, 2021
Patient
records, including x-rays, pathology reports, and full PHI are vulnerable to
these attacks.
Each of 30
popular mobile health applications are vulnerable to attacks via their
application program interfaces (APIs), according to findings released last week
by a security hacker and author, working with a threat protection technology
company.
The study, All That We Let In,
raises concerns that increasing reliance on mobile health apps during the
pandemic is drawing threat actors to mobile health applications as their
preferred attack surface.
The attacks
described can permit unauthorized access to full patient records, including
protected health information (PHI) and personally identifiable information.
-----
https://healthitanalytics.com/news/real-time-data-dashboard-tracks-quantity-of-vaccines-administered
Real-Time Data Dashboard Tracks Quantity of Vaccines Administered
The
real-time data dashboard tracks and updates the number of COVID-19 vaccines
administered at the region, state, and country levels.
By Jessica Kent
February 12,
2021 - The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and PathCheck
Foundation have
developed an interactive, real-time data dashboard to track the quantity of
COVID-19 vaccines administered in the US and around the world.
The vaccination dashboard is maintained using
completely anonymous data collected from more than 60 governmental agencies and
other publicly available data sources. The dashboard tracks and updates the
quantity of vaccines administered on a state level, as well as on an
international level.
The dashboard
also breaks down the quantity of specific brands of vaccines
administered, inoculated population percentages, and data broken down into
first- and second-dose categories.
“As
we shift from focusing on the spread of COVID-19 to balancing the return of our
lives to normal, vaccinations are one of the key components. The vaccination
dashboard provides information to everyone, regardless of who you are or where
you live,” said Sue Feldman, PhD, professor and director of graduate programs
in health informatics in UAB’s School of Health Professions.
-----
https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/nasas-new-mhealth-program-tracks-employee-health-through-wearables
NASA’s New mHealth Program Tracks Employee Health Through Wearables
NASA is
partnering with Fitbit on a new program aimed at monitoring the health of 1,000
employees - including 150 astronauts - with mHealth wearables and a telehealth
platform.
By Eric Wicklund
February 12,
2021 - NASA is launching an mHealth program to help its employees –
including astronauts – identify and treat illnesses like COVID-19 as quickly as
possible.
The
organization is giving 1,000 employees at six locations across the country
Fitbit Charge 4 wearables and access to a corresponding telehealth platform. In
the pilot program, those employees will log their temperature and other
health metrics and access resources that include identifying COVID-19 symptoms.
With evidence
growing that mHealth wearables can spot early biometric signs of viruses like
COVID-19, health systems, businesses, schools, police, fire and EMS companies
and other organizations are using connected care platforms to monitor employees
and staff in a bid to curb outbreaks.
Projects
like these also have long-term implications. While most are being tested on
COVID-19 now, telehealth advocates see a day when these types of platforms can
be used to spot any irregular health trend, or to identify warning signs –
either internally or externally – for people with chronic conditions or other
health concerns.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/mit-researchers-use-ai-find-drugs-could-be-repurposed-covid-19
MIT researchers use AI to find drugs that could be repurposed for COVID-19
The research
team noted that lung tissue gets stiffer as a person gets older, showing
different patterns of gene expression than in younger people.
By Kat Jercich
February 15,
2021 12:07 PM
The
Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced this week that researchers had
used machine learning to identify medications that may be repurposed to fight
COVID-19.
"Making
new drugs takes forever," Caroline Uhler, a computational biologist in
MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the
Institute for Data, Systems and Society, said in a press statement. "Really, the only expedient
option is to repurpose existing drugs."
The
research from Uhler's team, which appears in the journal Nature
Communications, notes that the novel coronavirus tends to have much
more severe effects in older patients.
"Since
the mechanical properties of the lung tissue change with aging, this led us to
hypothesize an interplay between viral infection/replication and tissue
aging," wrote the researchers.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/ecri-ehr-association-put-forth-safety-practices-behavioral-health-it
ECRI, EHR Association put forth safety practices for behavioral health IT
Their five
recommendations and strategies for integration with primary care focus on new
approaches to patient screening, clinical documentation and data sharing.
By Mike Miliard
February 15,
2021 11:25 AM
ECRI's
Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety is working with the HIMSS Electronic
Health Record Association to chart some of the common challenges involved in
integrating behavioral health systems with primary care EHRs.
WHY IT
MATTERS
In a recent white paper, Optimizing Health IT for Safe Integration of Behavioral Health
and Primary Care, the two groups outline some recommendations to help
support and improve such IT integrations.
Among
the EHR challenges explored in the report, ECRI and EHRA focus on use of
consistent terminology standards for documentation; incorporation and
integration of screening tools; segregation of behavioral health records from
other medical records (due, for instance, to regulatory requirements or privacy
considerations); and barriers to information sharing between primary care and
behavioral health providers.
A
joint ECRI-EHRA workgroup developed five recommendations – with practical
strategies for achieving them – focused across three areas: screening,
documentation and information sharing.
- Ensure integration and easy
accessibility of validated and clinically accepted behavioral health
screening tools in the EHR
- Enable decision support triggers
associated with those screening tools to link behavioral health and
primary care
- Optimize clinical documentation
for behavioral health and primary care integration
- Enable easier data sharing across
care settings, via patient portals, secure messaging and HIEs
- Enable EHRs to segment patient
data consistent with organizational policies, patient requests and state
and federal laws and regulations
"While
technology cannot solve every issue, its development and implementation has the
potential to better facilitate the integration of behavioral health and primary
care," said workgroup co-chair Patricia Giuffrida, RN, senior patient
safety and health IT safety analyst at ECRI, in a statement.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/epic-cerner-offer-updates-covid-19-vaccine-rollout-efforts
Epic, Cerner offer updates on COVID-19 vaccine rollout efforts
The electronic
health record giants began preparing their systems to assist with COVID-19
vaccination efforts this past year.
By Kat Jercich
February 15,
2021 02:44 PM
Cerner
and Epic each announced this past week that they've hit milestones in their
efforts to assist with COVID-19 vaccinations.
On
Friday, Cerner announced that 175 clients across 11 countries had installed its
Mass Vaccination solution.
Epic,
meanwhile, said on Thursday that it was supporting 100 community-based
vaccination locations across the country, with the capacity to administer
300,000 shots a day.
"We
are proud to help the health systems supporting the national goal of
vaccinating 100 million Americans in the [Biden] administration's first 100
days," said Judy Faulkner, founder and CEO of Epic, in a statement.
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2021/02/15/healthcare-security-success-requires-engagement-and-mutual-understanding-of-risk-tolerance/
Healthcare Security Success Requires Engagement and Mutual Understanding
of Risk Tolerance
February 15, 2021
John Lynn
We
all know that security attacks are at an all-time high. While there was some
talk of hackers giving healthcare a break amidst COVID, it’s clear that hackers
are calling
fair game on healthcare institutions now whether they took a slight break
or not. Is your healthcare organization ready for these attacks?
The
unique security challenges healthcare organizations face was highlighted really
well on a recent CIO and CISO roundtable with a wide variety of healthcare
organizations we hosted with Dell
Technologies and VMware.
Whether it’s the need to share data in healthcare that’s opened us to new
vulnerabilities, or the explosion of new endpoints being used by patients and
staff, there’s an important learning curve healthcare’s going through to
securely allow for these new modes of providing care.
Plus,
it was aptly pointed out that healthcare clinicians largely got into healthcare
because they want to help people. When a phishing email gets sent to a
nurse or doctor, their natural instinct is to want to “help” by clicking on
that link. Needless to say, securing a healthcare organization is a
challenge.
Everyone
in the roundtable agreed that you can’t create a completely fail-safe
environment. In fact, one CISO suggested that you kind of have to choose
the punches you are going to take since you can’t block everything. In
fact, he took it one step further and offered a great framework for discussing
and building a mutual understanding of risk tolerance when it comes to your
security efforts.
-----
https://histalk2.com/2021/02/12/weekender-2-12-21/
Weekly News Recap
- Fourteen large health systems form
Truveta to provide anonymized patient data for research.
- Value-based care coordination and
payments vendor Signify Health prices its IPO at a valuation of $5.3
billion.
- Cerner meets Q4 earnings
expectations, beats on revenue.
- CPSI misses Wall Street’s
expectations for both revenue and earnings.
- HHS OCR enters its 15th settlement
involving providers that failed to provide patients with timely copies of
their medical records.
- Nuance acquires Saykara.
- A security researcher finds
problems with 30 popular health apps and their APIs.
- Duke spinout Clinetic, which
monitors EHR activity to identify patients for clinical trials and next
care steps, raises $6.4 million in equity.
-----
Enjoy!
David.
