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://ehrintelligence.com/news/how-to-leverage-health-information-standards-to-boost-ehr-usability
How to Leverage Health Information Standards to Boost EHR Usability
Researchers utilized health information standards, such as FHIR, to improve EHR usability in the emergency department.
March 05, 2021 - Developing and implementing a human-centered design (HCD) into the EHR can boost EHR usability and aid clinicians when reviewing patient data charts, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA).
Furthermore, leveraging new health information standards, such as Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), could help accelerate this approach.
Reviewing relevant patient data, especially in a fast-paced environment such as the emergency department (ED), is challenging for clinicians. EHR users are forced to find and read specific information that could be scattered across multiple EHR workflows. This information is often displayed in a spreadsheet format that makes it difficult for a clinician to recognize patterns or trends.
Although healthcare organizations have successfully implemented human-centered design (HCD) approaches to combat this issue, many designs aimed to track patient care or resource allocation across the ED, wrote the study authors.
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https://www.cyberscoop.com/covid-vaccine-scam-phishing-barracuda-check-point/
Scammers exploit COVID-19 vaccine confusion for fraud efforts
Written by Tim Starks
A confusing, chaotic rush to deliver COVID-19 vaccinations is making cyberspace a more fertile place for pandemic-related scams.
Researchers at Barracuda Networks said on Thursday that vaccine-related spearphishing emails rose 26% from October to the end of January. That roughly coincides with the time Pfizer and Moderna announced vaccine availability, and represents a 12% uptick from up from the one-month period of October to November.
“We hope it’s the last phase of the lifecycle of this pandemic” for vaccine-related spearphishing attacks, said Fleming Shi, chief technology officer at Barracuda. ” These are just as potent as the ones earlier in the pandemic, probably even more so, because there’s an urgency for people. They’re racing for the openings.”
Also Wednesday, Check Point Research said that vaccine-related domain registrations rose by 300% over the past eight months, with a large spike beginning in November and continuing through January. Of those Check Point deemed dangerous and potentially scam-related, the company saw a 29% increase over the same time period, with a big jump in December in particular.
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Walgreens expands digital services with Hinge Health, Abbott
Mar 4, 2021 8:30am
Walgreens is expanding its digital health partnerships so consumers can try on glasses virtually, take an at-home COVID-19 test and access mental health services.
The pharmacy retail giant is broadening offerings on the Walgreens Find Care platform to include 15 new or expanded collaborations with providers, offering easier access to care during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The digital health services span regional health systems and companies in diabetes healthcare technology, hearing, vision, at-home COVID-19 testing, colon cancer screening, lab testing, mental health, musculoskeletal pain, and nonsurgical back and neck rehabilitation, Walgreens said.
The new and expanded partnerships include BetterHelp and Sanvello for mental health support, Lexie Hearing, virtual musculoskeletal company Hinge Health, Cologuard for colon cancer screenings and For Eyes for virtual eye care.
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International healthcare research groups create common model to share data
International research groups Health Level Seven International and Observational Health Data Sciences Informatics will collaborate to improve data sharing and tracking. The collaboration will integrate HL7's interoperability resources with OHDSI's observational medical outcomes partnership to create a singular common model.
In a March 3 news release, the organizations said they will use a singular model to capture data, allowing clinicians and researchers to pull data from multiple sources and compile it to one system.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the need to share global health and research data," HL7 International CEO Charles Jaffe, MD, PhD, said. "Collaboration with OHDSI is critical to solving this challenge and will help our mutual vision of a world in which everyone can securely access and use the right data when and where they need it."
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/patients-robots-care-delivery-mit-and-bwh-researchers-find
Patients like robots for care delivery, MIT and BWH researchers find
Results suggest that individuals are open to robotic systems performing routine tasks such as checking vital signs and turning patients in bed.
By Kat Jercich
March 05, 2021 03:39 PM
A study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open found that most participants believed that using a robotic system for facilitating healthcare tasks is acceptable.
Researchers from MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital first conducted an online survey of around 1,000 people asking about the acceptability of robots in healthcare.
Next, they tested one of their robots – a doglike robot developed by Boston Dynamics – in the emergency department at Brigham and Women's Hospital last spring.
"We’re actively working on robots that can help provide care to maximize the safety of both the patient and the healthcare workforce," said MIT assistant professor Giovanni Traverso, who was the senior author of the study, in a statement.
"The results of this study give us some confidence that people are ready and willing to engage with us on those fronts," he said.
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The New Health Information Exchange from Cloudticity: NLP, Catalogs, and Standards
March 5, 2021
Rapid exchange of patient data is crucial not only for coordinating care, but for research and public health. Data sharing is even more fundamental to accountable care organizations (ACOs), but it has become more and more complex as the health care field embraces new forms of data, such as genomics and messages from fitness devices. I recently talked with Gerry Miller, Founder and CEO of Cloudticity, to learn how they see health information exchange today.
It’s a very different matter from the unlamented Health Information Exchanges of the late twentieth century. These HIEs rarely had a viable business model–nor should they have. They were slow-moving, bureaucratic, expensive, and geographically limited (heaven forbid you should experience a medical event out of state). Let’s take a look at what the HIE of the twenty-first century is like.
Cloudticity helps health care organizations use cloud technologies, but their services go far beyond that. They harmonize, structure, and catalog the data to create a supple repository known in computing circles as a data lake, suitable for machine learning.
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Should you pay up when hit by ransomware? There are several things to consider first
Whether paying ransom for data held hostage makes sense depends on many variables. Experts define the variables and why they're important.
Whether to pay ransom in order to unlock hijacked data or stop a Distributed Denial of Service attack is a hot topic right now. Like many other issues, on the surface it appears to be a simple yes or no decision. However, if you take in the whole picture, making that decision is anything but simple.
"On the one hand, I am sympathetic with the calls to ban such payments outright," said Richard Hummel, threat-intelligence lead at Netscout. "The transnational nature of cyber-extortion makes it very hard to use traditional law enforcement techniques. On the other hand, the damage of not paying could sometimes be too harmful for sensitive sectors. I'm thinking of healthcare in particular. If a hospital isn't able to access records, which in turn jeopardizes patients' lives, it's hard to justify not paying up."
What to consider when deciding whether to pay a ransomware demand
As mentioned earlier, the big picture must be considered. "The decision to pay a ransomware demand must be made carefully, with acknowledgement and acceptance of risks and in concert with various stakeholders: Legal counsel, law enforcement, cyberinsurance carrier, and security experts," wrote Kris Lovejoy, global advisory cybersecurity leader at Ernst & Young Global Limited, in her EY.com article Ransomware: To pay or not to pay. "Furthermore, paying of ransom by either the organization or insurer could trigger questions as to whether payment constitutes funding criminal groups, terrorism, rogue states, and/or violating anti-money laundering laws."
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Amazon Care's health provider signaling potential expansion, says STAT
Care Medical, which provides services for Amazon Care, has reportedly filed paperwork to start doing business in 17 more states.
By Kat Jercich
March 04, 2021 09:40 AM
Care Medical, which provides medical services for the app-based Amazon Care, appears to be preparing to expand throughout the country, raising questions about the tech behemoth's future in the healthcare space.
Currently, Amazon Care connects Washington state Amazon employees with Care Medical providers via an app for a wide variety of primary and urgent care services. Individuals in the greater Seattle area can also have a nurse dispatched to their homes for follow-up needs like blood draws.
According to reporting from Erin Brodwin at STAT, Care Medical has filed paperwork to start doing business in 17 more states. Amazon representatives declined to respond to requests for comment for this story.
WHY IT MATTERS
The exact relationship between Care Medical and Amazon Care is not clear. Amazon has described Care Medical – which shares much of its branding, like the signature arrow, with the retail giant – as "an independent medical practice licensed in Washington state."
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Health systems, care delivery groups, Amazon launch hospital-at-home initiative
With Moving Health Home, Amazon Care, Ascension, Intermountain, Landmark Health and others say they want to "change the way policymakers think about the home as a site of clinical service."
By Mike Miliard
March 04, 2021 09:03 AM
A new advocacy group called Moving Health Home launched on Wednesday, bringing together some heavy hitters – major health systems, care delivery services and technology vendors – who say they want to effect a shift in thinking about treating patients at home, and want to adjust reimbursement models accordingly.
WHY IT
MATTERS
Founding members of this coalition include Amazon Care, Ascension, Dispatch
Health, Elara Caring, Intermountain Healthcare, Home Instead, Landmark Health
and Signify Health.
Together, these organizations want to "fundamentally change the way policymakers think about the home as a site of clinical service," they said in announcing Moving Health Home.
They noted that the upsurge in virtual adoption over the past year has shown not only that Americans have an appetite for at-home care, but that the data has borne out its feasibility, safety and efficacy.
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A Look At DirectTrust’s Work in Healthcare Interoperability
March 4, 2021
After hearing about DirectTrust passing the 2 billion message mark, we thought it would be valuable for readers to learn more about DirectTrust and the healthcare interoperability work their non-profit is doing. Plus, they have their DirectTrust Summit coming up on June 9-10, 2021 which might be of interest to many of our readers as an attendee or as a speaker.
In the following interview, we sat down with Kathryn Ayers Wickenhauser, Director of Communications at DirectTrust where she shared details on DirectTrust and what people can expect at their upcoming event.
Tell us a little bit about DirectTrust.
DirectTrust is a non-profit membership alliance bringing together 100+ organizations and individuals across the healthcare spectrum who believe in secure and trusted health information exchange for improved patient care.
We came about as a result of “The Direct Project”, a grassroots public/private partnership focused on creating a simple and low-cost mechanism for healthcare interoperability. The goal was to enable both secure health data exchange and reliable communication among EHRs and other systems. This effort resulted in the Direct Standard™ for exchange, which was included as Direct Secure Messaging in the government incentive program referred to as “Meaningful Use” as well as EHR certification criteria in 2014 and beyond. A trust community was needed to support the Direct Standard, and thus, DirectTrust was born in 2012, and entered into a cooperative agreement with the ONC in 2013 and 2014.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/va-health-information-exchange-implementation-barriers
VA Health Information Exchange Implementation Barriers
Health IT leaders at US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Indiana’s statewide health information exchange pointed at training and sustainability as two key implementation hurdles.
March 03, 2021 - Health IT leaders at the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) said the complex interrelationship correlation between local and national VA entities is a more significant technical obstacle than the interoperability between the two health IT systems, according to a study published in JMIR Medical Informatics.
In 2009, VA launched the Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record Health interoperability program, which was later rebranded to the Veterans Health Information Exchange (VHIE) program.
Veteran patient records are available to the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and outside providers. This interoperable patient record also allows the patient to seek care and bring her EHR to providers outside of the Veterans Health Administration system, a main goal of the 2018 MISSION Act.
The policy enabled VA to share EHR data with outside providers “for the purpose of providing health care to patients or performing other healthcare-related activities.”
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New Coalition to Push Telehealth, RPM as a Mainstay for Home Care
Moving Health Home aims to "change the way policymakers think about the home as a site of clinical service" by supporting programs and policies that highlight telehealth, remote patient monitoring and other care pathways.
March 03, 2021 - A new coalition of healthcare providers aims to make the home a more acceptable – and permanent - site for care, including telehealth and remote patient monitoring.
Moving Health Home announced its formation today with an action plan to “change the way policymakers think about the home as a site of clinical service.” Its founding members are Intermountain Healthcare, Ascension, Landmark Health, Amazon Care, Signify Health, Dispatch Health and Elara Caring.
“Moving Health Home works to advance home as a clinical site of care through federal and state legislative advocacy, education, research, and evidence to educate policymakers about new clinical models involving the home and new payment models that focus on high-value in-home care that meets patients where they are and leverages technology to drive efficiency and continuity of care,” the group says on its website.
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https://www.medpagetoday.com/columns/focusonpolicy/91392?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2021-03-01
Healthcare Technology's Digital Dilemma
— Should digital connectivity be considered a "vital sign"?
by David Nash, MD, MBA, FACP February 28, 2021
In the space of 1 year, the healthcare sector has undergone a veritable transformation in how care is delivered. The impetus for such a swift change was, of course, COVID-19. In the thrall of the pandemic, clinicians quickly embraced digital tools and technologies in order to avoid the health risks of face-to-face encounters. This will have broad implications across multiple sectors and populations.
The impact of the pandemic on the healthcare technology sector has been, and will continue to be, substantial. Recently, a colleague at Credit Suisse Securities forwarded me a copy of its publication projecting digital growth and innovations for 2021.
The surveys of investors and industry stakeholders on their expectations around various developments in digital health revealed that digital health adoption was "one of the silver linings in 2020," the report found. With the healthcare system under extreme stress during the pandemic, there has been a pressing need for technology and processes to boost capacity. This has led to what researchers described as a huge spike in adoption and use of digital health platforms, with once-underutilized digital tools and technologies now used to their full potential as staples in providing care.
In the coming year, the analysts predict a realignment in digital health as interrelated trends drive digital health growth and innovation. Their list of potential positive trends is lengthy and well within the realm of probability – e.g., continued adoption of virtual care; acceleration in employer activism; increased focus on addressing the mental health crisis (one that has been compounded by the pandemic); a continued shift to home-based care; continued progress on addressing waste, fraud, and abuse in the healthcare system; a reinvention of primary care; a shift to value-based care; and a recognition of the importance of cybersecurity.
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https://www.epmmagazine.com/news/digital-health-could-be-key-to-treating/
Digital health could be key to treating osteoarthritis, study finds
1 March 2021 16:53
A new study has found that first-line treatment of knee osteoarthritis can be delivery digitally without the need for traditional face-to-face physiotherapy visits.
Researchers from the University of Nottingham used digital healthcare company's Joint Academy's clinical and evidence-based digital treatment for chronic joint pain to see how patients responded to the treatment when compared to traditional face-to-face physiotherapy.
The study shows that UK patients receiving digital treatment reduced their pain by 41%, while the same number for patients receiving usual care landed at 6%.
A total of 105 people, who were 45 years or older with a diagnosis of knee osteoarthritis, participated in the study. They were allocated, at random, to two groups where one was treated digitally and the other group self-managed their symptoms according to NICE guidelines. Patients in the digital treatment were connected with licensed physiotherapists via a smartphone application where they received education and daily exercises. Patients in the other group continued their traditional self-management programme according to guidelines and visited their general practitioner when needed. In addition to experiencing substantially less pain than the control group, the patients receiving digital treatment also reported that their physical function increased by 48% —a stark improvement to traditional treatment where physical function increased by only 13%.
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MITRE launches ransomware support hub for hospitals and health systems
Its Ransomware Resource Center offers free tools to help healthcare IT pros "better prepare for, respond to, and recover from ransomware attacks."
By Mike Miliard
March 03, 2021 10:44 AM
In an effort to help improve healthcare organizations' resilience against ransomware, MITRE this week unveiled its new Ransomware Resource Center, offering an array of tools and strategies for IT and infosec professionals to better guard against the growing epidemic of costly malware.
WHY IT
MATTERS
The Ransomware
Resource Center tailors its many offerings around the role of the
healthcare professional who might be accessing them – whether business manager,
technical manager or IT or cybersecurity practitioner – and also
around the five stages of the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework: Identify, protect, detect, respond
and recover.
It also offers a well-stocked resource library that's searchable and can be filtered for the materials that might be the most useful.
The tools are drawn from MITRE’s own expertise, from government sources and from provider best practices. The goal is to convene a variety of resources in a single accessible and intuitive location, say MITRE officials, and to help "network defenders, IT administrators and business managers better prepare for, respond to, and recover from ransomware attacks."
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GetWellNetwork: Addressing Vaccine Inequity is More Than a Moral Obligation
March 3, 2021
The COVID pandemic has been hard on everyone, but it has disproportionately affected the elderly, the working poor, and visible minorities. This inequity, if not addressed, has the potential to blunt the effectiveness of COVID vaccination programs. GetWellNetwork believes that technology, applied correctly, can be a bridge that closes this inequity gap for COVID vaccines and healthcare in general.
Uneven Impact
The Washington Post analyzed COVID-19 data and found that:
- Asians were 53% more likely to die than Whites
- Black Americans were 37% more likely to die
- Native Americans and Alaskan Natives 26% more likely to die
- Hispanics 16% more likely to die
…after controlling for age, sex, and mortality rates over time.
A study published in JAMA Network Open showed that in poorer counties “those with substantially non-White populations had an [COVID-19] infection rate nearly 8 times that of counties with substantially White populations and a death rate more than 9 times greater.”
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What to Look for In Your Remote Patient Monitoring Solution
March 3, 2021
The following is a guest article by Peter Van Haur, CEO, VitalConnect.
In the spring of 2020, hospital and IT systems were put in a difficult position. For one, hospitals were overloaded with patients and bed space was at a premium, yet the need for care wasn’t waning. Health care systems also needed to contain the potential spread of a new pandemic between clinicians, staff, and patients in their facilities.
Consequently telehealth, and in particular remote patient monitoring (RPM), was accelerated as a way to track patients who may not need care in the hospital, yet still needed monitoring of critical physiological data to keep an eye on symptoms and the potential need for accelerated care. The health care system adapted quickly because the need was prevalent, and the benefits of telehealth and the ability to remotely monitor patients came into sharp focus during this time.
Today, much of the discussion has shifted to the future of remote patient monitoring. As hospitals, clinicians, and their patients have grown accustomed to this new delivery of health care, permanent changes are inevitable. As CMS alters its reimbursement and patients continue to request remote care, the health care space will continue to transform. But if recent transactions are any indication, a good segment of the health care industry has already decided that remote patient monitoring is a viable solution, as well as a target-rich environment. Within the past three months there have been announcements about Philips buying Biotelemetry, Boston Scientific’s acquisition of Preventice and the intended acquisition of Bardy Diagnostics by Hill-Rom.
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Artificial Intelligence: 5 Considerations for Health Systems
Analysis | By Mandy Roth | March 02, 2021
While AI solutions are gaining traction in the healthcare industry, the technology is still in its infancy. HealthLeaders speaks to a panel about their experiences using AI in health systems.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· Before investing in AI, make sure executives and clinicians understand how the technology works, as well as its potential benefits.
· Consider AI solutions to address organizational challenges related to harnessing data and provider burnout.
· Explore potential long-term issues that could be associated with use of AI.
Artificial intelligence (AI) holds tremendous potential to change dynamics in healthcare, but it is also one of the least understood technologies, as myths, promises, and valid concerns create confusion in the landscape. Regardless, AI is a fast-growing technology sector, predicted to reach $6.6 billion this year by consulting firm Accenture, which also forecasts that key clinical health AI applications could potentially create $150 billion in annual savings for the U.S. healthcare economy by 2026.
According to a recent report by Optum, 83% of healthcare organizations reported having an AI strategy in place during 2020, and another 15% are planning on creating one, with many accelerating their AI deployment timelines in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/3-ways-the-biden-admin-hhs-could-boost-patient-data-sharing
3 Ways the Biden Admin, HHS Could Boost Patient Data Sharing
Effective and accurate patient data sharing could give a boost to public health organizations and decrease the spread of COVID-19.
March 02, 2021 - The Biden administration could require enhanced patient data sharing, update EHR requirements, and increase API access to improve public health sharing and give experts the tools to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, according to Ben Moscovitch, project director of Health Information Technology at Pew Charitable Trusts.
“The Biden administration plans to work with Congress to respond to the coronavirus, but unless these issues are resolved, challenges with sharing data could continue to hamper efforts to track the virus’s spread and who has been vaccinated,” Moscovitch wrote in a recent Health Affairs blog post.
Enhance Patient Data Sharing
The need for faster and more reliable patient data access is key to slowing down the coronavirus pandemic. Gathering critical demographic data to effectively initiate contact tracing would aid public health organizations during the pandemic.
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Machine Learning Shows Social Media Greatly Affects COVID-19 Beliefs
Machine learning tools analyzed tweets about COVID-19 and showed that social media can significantly influence people’s health beliefs.
By Jessica Kent
March 02, 2021 - Using machine learning, researchers found that people’s biases about COVID-19 and its treatments are exacerbated when they read tweets from other users, a study published in JMIR showed.
The analysis also revealed that scientific events, like scientific publications, and non-scientific events, like speeches from politicians, equally influence health belief trends on social media.
The rapid spread of COVID-19 has resulted in an explosion of accurate and inaccurate information related to the pandemic – mainly across social media platforms, researchers noted.
“In the pandemic, social media has contributed to much of the information and misinformation and bias of the public's attitude toward the disease, treatment and policy,” said corresponding study author Yuan Luo, chief Artificial Intelligence officer at the Institute for Augmented Intelligence in Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
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50% Phishing Emails Seek Credential Theft, as Malware Delivery Declines
Cofense’s annual phishing report shows more than half of phishing emails are designed to steal user credentials, while just 12 percent contained a malware payload.
March 02, 2021 - The number of phishing campaigns delivering malware has drastically decreased in recent years, with just 12 percent of phishing deploying malware. On the other hand, 57 percent of all phishing attacks were designed for credential theft in 2020, according to Cofense.
The 2020 Annual State of Phishing Report details evolving tactics used by threat actors, as well as the impact of COVID-19 on the scope of phishing campaigns.
The report is compiled from the analysis of millions of emails related to phishing attacks. Of the 255,000 malicious emails analyzed, researchers found almost 100 unique malware families.
For healthcare, 59 percent of attacks took aim at credential theft, while 15 percent were designed for business email compromise and just 5 percent contained malware payloads.
Further, across all sectors, about 45 percent of credential phish attacks targeted Microsoft Office users.
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Nurse: I'm correcting COVID conspiracy theories inside and outside the health care industry
Misinformation runs rampant online, even from my colleagues in the health care industry. We need to do better.
Katherine Buaron Opinion contributor
March 1 – 5.05 pm
Social media platforms have been instrumental in allowing misinformation and distrust to proliferate, hindering the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic as well as contributing to deeply cut social and political divides, and an insurrection on the Capitol.
As a community nurse in and around Chicago, I have been personally and professionally thrust into the role of social media fact-checker for my patients. I live in the intersection between health care and science and a misinformed public.
I don my often-painful N95 mask, tie my hair back and evaluate patients every day. I field patient questions about microchipped syringes, and offer overly simplified explanations about the bureaucratic logistics of scientific research and vaccine development. In moments I attempt to educate patients on cell biology, immunology and microbiology — subjects I’ve taken years to study.
While cases and hospitalization of COVID-19 patients have dropped significantly around the country, the threat of infection remains an ever-present reality. Public confidence in the COVID-19 vaccine is improving, but not improving fast enough.
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University of Minnesota Uses Telehealth to Treat Heart Attacks in the Field
The university is getting ready to launch a mobile health vehicle equipped with telemedicine capabilities that will allow EMS providers to more quickly treat patients in cardiac arrest, potentially saving lives in the field.
March 01, 2021 - Much like telestroke vehicles bring emergency treatment to stroke victims in the field, a new vehicle being developed by the University of Minnesota Department of Medicine aims to treat heart attack patients the same way.
The UM’s Minnesota Mobile Resuscitation Consortium (MMRC) is getting ready to roll out a mobile health van that can treat patients on the scene via extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). The process uses a machine that oxygenates a patient’s blood outside the body, allowing the heart and lungs to recover, then pumps that blood back into the body through cannula.
The three-year, $1.8 million project is being funded in part by the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, a familiar source of donations for innovative connected health projects across the country. Officials hope to have the program up and running this summer.
The project is the brainchild of the MMRC, which was launched in 2015 to improve collaboration among healthcare providers in the Minneapolis-St. Paul community to combat cardiac arrest.
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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/technology/eight-exceptions-information-blocking-rule-highlighted
Eight Exceptions to Information Blocking Rule Highlighted
Analysis | By Scott Mace | March 02, 2021
Guide details these 21st Century Cures Act exceptions with one month to go until this federal regulation becomes effective.
On April 5, the 21st Century Cures Act: Information Blocking, Interoperability, and the ONC Health IT Certification Program final rule takes effect.
The Journal of AHIMA, the American Health Information Management Association, recently published a helpful guide to the eight exceptions to the information blocking rule incorporated into the Cures Act final rule.
These exceptions were necessary to allow the final rule to comply with other privacy laws and, in certain circumstances, to guard the integrity and security of electronic health record (her) systems, according to the guide's authors, Sharon Slivochka, RHIA, Cleveland Clinic director of electronic health record in health information management, and Diana Warner, MS, RHIA, CHPS, CPHI, FAHIMA, director of account management at security provider MRO.
The authors recommend steps for setting up an enterprise-wide information governance framework for a structured approach to compliance.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/ehr-data-is-as-effective-as-covid-19-contact-tracing-methods
EHR Data is as Effective as COVID-19 Contact Tracing Methods
Researchers found a 10.1 percent transmission risk percentage with EHR data, which was on par with traditional contact tracing methods.
March 01, 2021 - Extracting household patient EHR data proved to be as effective at tracking transmission as COVID-19 contact tracing, according to a research letter published in JAMA Network Open.
Because COVID-19 is primarily transferred by person-to-person contact through respiratory droplets in households, researchers aimed to find out if healthcare professionals could leverage EHR home address data to identify COVID-19 risk factors and estimate transmission risk.
Researchers analyzed EHR COVID-19 data between exposed children and adults from Mass General Brigham between March and May 2020. Researchers compiled data from all patients registered at the addresses of index cases but excluded patients who did not have at least one health system visit within the last 60 months.
Overall, researchers evaluated 7,762 index cases between 17,917 at-risk individuals. Using EHR data, researchers found a 10.1 percent overall household infection risk, or 1,809 COVID diagnoses. This transmission risk percentage was consistent with traditional contact tracing, the study authors wrote.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/nsa-shares-zero-trust-security-model-guide-recommendations
NSA Shares Zero Trust Security Model Guide, Recommendations
NSA guidance on the zero trust security model details much-needed cybersecurity elements and recommendations to bolster access controls and workflows across the enterprise network.
March 01, 2021 - The NSA unveiled guidance for implementing a zero trust security model across the enterprise infrastructure, which includes recommendations. The system management strategy is designed to bolster workflows and infrastructure through a coordinated, proactive security approach.
As previously noted, the zero trust model is highly recommended for healthcare delivery organizations as a way to stop attack proliferation across connected devices, strengthen access controls, and protect cloud-based assets.
“A zero trust architecture uses zero trust principles to plan enterprise infrastructure and workflows,” according to NIST. “Zero trust assumes there is no implicit trust granted to assets or user accounts based solely on their physical or network location (i.e., local area networks versus the internet).”
“Authentication and authorization (both user and device) are discrete functions performed before a session to an enterprise resource is established,” it added. “Zero trust focuses on protecting resources, not network segments, as the network location is no longer seen as the prime component to the security posture of the resource.”
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Allscripts reports $414M in Q4 with strong growth in its Veradigm data business
Mar 1, 2021 10:35am
Allscripts is seeing strong growth in its life sciences data business as the market heats up among large health IT vendors.
That business, along with the steady return of patient volumes among its provider clients, helped the electronic health record (EHR) vendor post $414 million in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2020. Revenue was down 8% from $451 million a year ago.
The Chicago-based company reported full-year 2020 revenue of $1.6 billion, down 8% from $1.8 billion, according to 2020 and fourth-quarter earnings results.
But, the company reported a quarterly profit of $728 million compared with a net loss of $19 million in the fourth quarter of 2019. Earnings for the quarter came to 29 cents compared to 17 cents in the same period a year ago.
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https://www.protocol.com/manuals/transforming-2021/truveta-terry-myerson-ai#toggle-gdpr
'A hybrid of Big Tech and big medicine': Truveta’s plan to make health AI that actually works
Former Microsoft executive Terry Myerson's new health data venture aims to apply big data to patient care with "an alliance of health systems."
February 26, 2021
If health AI were a patient at a hospital, its chart up to this point wouldn't look too promising.
Its symptoms are long-standing and chronic: a lack of interoperability, a dearth of equitable data sets and a difficult-to-navigate relationship with patient privacy. And the specialists that have taken a crack at treating it — Big Tech, insurance giants, AI and cloud companies — have largely come up short with patient-care tools that have broad utility across the medical field.
But Terry Myerson, the CEO of the newly-announced collaborative health data venture Truveta, said he believes the prognosis could be starting to turn the corner.
The former head of Windows at Microsoft, Myerson has assembled a team meshing Silicon Valley talent and health care expertise that, from the get-go, is approaching health data from a unique angle. Like its funding, Truveta's data will be sourced from 14 health care systems that span the country and account for tens of millions of patients.
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Twitter tackles Covid-19 vaccine misinformation with labels, strike policy
By Paul Sandle on Mar 2, 2021 12:44PM
Could see users permanently banned for repeat violations.
Twitter said it would apply warnings to tweets that contain misleading information about Covid-19 vaccines and implement a strike system of enforcement that could see users permanently banned for repeat violations.
The social media network started promoting public health information before Covid-19 was declared a global pandemic. It also aimed to remove demonstrably false or misleading content about the virus that had the highest risk of causing harm.
Since introducing its Covid-19 guidance, it said it had removed more than 8400 tweets and challenged 11.5 million accounts.
With more and more people now looking for authoritative public health information about vaccines as programs were rolled out across the world, it said it would expand the guidance.
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Telehealth, remote monitoring and wearables are transforming care delivery
The onset of the COVID-19 crisis a year ago, with its widespread quarantines and lockdowns, offered telemedicine its moment to shine after years of under-fulfilled promise. Now, as states look toward a post-pandemic world and rewrite many of the regulatory and reimbursement policies that often stymied wider adoption of virtual care strategies, it's time to build on that promise.
That's not just for telehealth and traditional video visits, of course, but also for remote patient monitoring, wearable sensors, devices, apps and the whole emerging and evolving ecosystem of connected health tools.
They all hold huge promise for long-term and post-acute care – promoting care coordination, enabling care plan adherence and boosting patient engagement for chronic care management and population health. As 5G proliferates and devices mature, that promise only grows.
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HHS watchdog reiterates importance of preventing telemedicine fraud
The OIG is conducting "significant work" to assess telehealth services during the public health emergency.
By Kat Jercich
March 01, 2021 01:15 PM
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General recognized telehealth's potential while cautioning that steps must be taken to ensure virtual care will not be compromised by fraud.
OIG Principal Deputy Inspector General Christi A. Grimm wrote in a statement on Friday that the quick pivot to telemedicine amidst the COVID-19 pandemic makes oversight, transparency, accountability and program integrity all the more important.
"OIG is conducting significant oversight work assessing telehealth services during the public health emergency. Once complete, these reviews will provide objective findings and recommendations that can further inform policymakers and other stakeholders considering what telehealth flexibilities should be permanent," wrote Grimm.
WHY IT MATTERS
Grimm noted that for most people, telehealth expansion is viewed positively, given its potential to increase access, decrease burdens and enable better care.
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Technical work on interoperable EU vaccine certificate to be completed within three months
European Council stresses importance of a common approach.
By Tammy Lovell
March 01, 2021 12:58 PM
Technical work to develop an interoperable EU-wide vaccine certificate is planned to be completed within three months.
EU leaders met via video conference to discuss the topic at the European Council meeting last week.
European Council, president, Charles Michel, confirmed there would be a “common European approach” to ensure vaccine certificates (also known as vaccine passports) are interoperable.
The certificate will not only contain vaccination data, but other information which could indicate immunity to COVID-19, such as PCR or rapid antigen test results, he added.
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EHR Auto Documentation is Great, but Augmenting Doctors Is the Future
March 1, 2021
If you read Healthcare IT Today regularly, or listen to our health it podcast, then you’re probably tired of hearing me talk about the potential of Ambient Clinical Voice in healthcare. For good or bad, I’m probably not going to stop. At least not until it’s proven that it can’t ever fulfill it’s potential. However, there are already promising signs that this will never be the case.
I don’t know any clinician who wouldn’t love for the EHR to auto document the visit for them. That’s the promise of ambient clinical voice and related technologies. There’s no doubt some trepidation about whether it really works which is healthy, but once it’s ready for prime time it’s hard to imagine every doctor not wanting it. Can you imagine working with ambient clinical voice at one healthcare organization and then moving to one that didn’t have it? That would be shocking to the doctor.
While ambient clinical voice is great for being able to auto document the note and relieve clinicians of that documentation burden, I’m seeing that this is just the first step. The next step past automating the documentation is a casual AI listener that’s informing, prompting, and possibly even teaching the doctor.
How reassuring would it be for a doctor to be able to look down at their phone or on their computer and see that the AI engine is confirming the diagnosis they have in mind based solely on their conversation with the patient. Plus, it could suggest other possible diagnoses to consider. At least for now, it’s not going to make the decision for the doctor, but just the prompt is going to force the doctor to really verify their diagnosis.
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RPM (Remote Patient Monitoring) Gaining Momentum According to Xealth
March 1, 2021
There has been a lot of chatter recently about Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM), but is it real? Are healthcare organizations actually deploying RPM in meaningful ways or is it just talk? Xealth, makers of a platform that allows physicians to prescribe apps, devices, and services, have seen first-hand an increasing number of organizations leveraging RPM technology.
Telehealth Boom. RPM Echo.
Over the past year, telehealth has exploded. MGMA’s Stat 2020 Year in Review survey found a staggering 97% of physician practices had expanded their use of telehealth.
As patients and physicians grow more accustomed to convenience of telehealth, there is mounting pressure on provider organizations to offer more than consultations. The genie is out of the bottle and patients are asking for more remote health options. They do not want to come in for routine measurements if they don’t have to. The answer is RPM.
The American Heart Association has this to say about RPM: “It can empower patients to better manage their health and participate in their health care. When used by clinicians, RPM can provide a more holistic view of a patient’s health over time, increase visibility into a patient’s adherence to a treatment, and enable timely intervention before a costly care episode.”
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https://histalk2.com/2021/02/26/weekender-2-26-21/
Weekly News Recap
- Allscripts and Teladoc Health release quarterly results.
- Healthcare Bluebook acquires the quality division of Quantros.
- Innovaccer raises $105 million at an implied valuation of $1.5 billion.
- Redox announces a $45 million Series D funding round.
- Google Health expands the pilot of its EHR search and data presentation tool, which it has named Care Studio.
- IBM is rumored to be looking at selling IBM Watson Health.
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Enjoy!
David.
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