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/states-select-fhir-based-api-to-meet-cms-interoperability-rule
States Select FHIR-based API to Meet CMS Interoperability Rule
To comply with CMS interoperability mandate, WA and MI integrated a FHIR-based API that provides Medicaid members access to personal health data.
May 28, 2021 - Washington and Michigan have selected a secure application programming interface (API) to meet the CMS interoperability rule that Medicaid members have access to personal health data.
The CMS Final rule 9115-F requirements aim to empower Medicaid beneficiaries to make informed decisions related to their health and healthcare by ensuring portable access to personal health information and payer data.
Member data access must also follow the HL7 FHIR standard for the electronic exchange of healthcare information.
To fulfill these requirements, Washington and Michigan selected an interoperability solution from CNSI which provides members access to their personal health data through a secure API.
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https://www.digitalhealth.net/2021/05/data-collection-service-destroy-patient-trust/
New data collection service could ‘destroy’ patient trust
A proposed new data collection service designed to give planners and researchers faster access to patient information could “potentially destroy” trust in the NHS.
Hanna Crouch – 27 May 2021
NHS Digital announced on 12 May it was launching a new service, called the General Practice Data for Planning and Research (GPDPR), which would provide access to pseudonymised patient information.
The organisation has issued a Data Provision Notice (DPN) to GPs to enable the new data collection process to begin from 1 July 2021, after being legally directed by the secretary of state for health and social care.
The organisation has issued a Data Provision Notice (DPN) to GPs to enable the new data collection process to begin from 1 July 2021, after being legally directed by the secretary of state for health and social care.
However, alarm bells have begun to ring with some expressing concern over patient trust and how the information is stored. Others pointed to the six-week timeframe GPs were given to prepare for the new service, including informing their patients of the changes.
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/machine-learning-model-helps-predict-clinical-lab-test-results
Machine Learning Model Helps Predict Clinical Lab Test Results
Using wearable device data from smartwatches, machine learning may enable physicians to predict health measurements that otherwise would require invasive tests.
By Jill McKeon
May 27, 2021 - Applying machine learning to wearable device data could help predict clinical laboratory measurements without a visit to the doctor’s office, a new study published in Nature Medicine reveals. The long-term data collection that wearable devices enable provide a more holistic view of a patient’s health.
“There is a circadian (daily) variation in heart rate and in body temperature, but these single measurements in clinics don’t capture that natural variation,” said Jessilyn Dunn, one of the study’s lead investigators, in a May 24th press release.
“But devices like smartwatches or Fitbits have the ability to track these measurements and natural changes over a prolonged period of time and identify when there is variation from that natural baseline.”
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Test results notification tool saved one Canadian health system $311,000
The system for communicating COVID-19 status also saved Nova Scotia Health's public health team more than 10,000 hours of phone time over the past year.
By Bill Siwicki
May 28, 2021 11:17 AM
Nova Scotia Health provides healthcare to the Atlantic Canadian province and an array of specialized services to the Maritimers who live there. The health system operates hospitals, health centers and community-based programs across the province. Its team of more than 30,000 includes employees, doctors, researchers and volunteers.THE PROBLEM
When COVID-19 reached the province in March 2020, leaders at Nova Scotia Health recognized contacting patients with test results would be a human resource challenge. As testing ramped up, more than 60 of the health system's public health staff were delivering test results by phone to more than 40,000 Nova Scotians. Most results were delivered within a 48-72 hour time frame – an unsustainable pace with the potential to overwhelm staff.
Recognizing that challenge, people in leadership began considering ways to notify patients with negative test results via email to save the staff time. They turned to the information management and technology team (IM/IT) to develop a solution to notify automatically by email those who tested negative for COVID-19.
"A system-wide effort across leading stakeholders sought to create an improved notification system to communicate COVID-19 testing results in order to optimize resource utilization," said Andrew Nemirovsky, RN, senior director of Nova Scotia Health IM/IT and CIO of the provincial health authority.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/va-ehr-modernization-program-cost-underestimated-by-up-to-2.6b
VA EHR Modernization Program Cost Underestimated By Up to $2.6B
An OIG audit found that the VHA’s life cycle cost estimates for the EHR modernization program failed to include physical infrastructure costs.
May 27, 2021 - The Department of Veterans Affairs’ ongoing EHR modernization effort is likely to cost $1 billion to $2.6 billion more than originally estimated, as the department did not account for some physical infrastructure costs in its original projections, according to an audit from the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG).
The VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) program began in 2018 when the department signed a contract with Cerner. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) previously reported that the EHR implementation across VA care facilities nationwide would cost about $16 billion over the course of ten years.
However, using VA and Government Accountability Office (GAO) cost-estimating guidance, the OIG team found that VHA’s two formal physical infrastructure cost estimates for the EHRM from June 2019 and November 2019 may have been underestimated by $1 billion and $2.6 billion, respectively.
“The lack of reliable cost estimates was caused in part by insufficient planning at the outset of the program,” the OIG wrote. “OEHRM leaders stated that at the beginning of the program the focus was on the EHRM contract and the system itself, rather than infrastructure.”
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/nist-iot-guidance-for-network-based-attacks-device-communication
NIST IoT Guidance for Network-Based Attacks, Device Communication
Aimed at smaller entities, new NIST guidance provides a standards-based approach to network communication to reduce the risk of network-based attacks.
May 27, 2021 - NIST unveiled guidance for small-sized enterprise networks and home users designed to mitigate network-based attacks using a standards-based approach to network communication and requiring IoT devices to only behave as the manufacturer intended.
The standards-based approach enables manufacturers to indicate device requirements for network communications to support the attack mitigation within the enterprise.
Manufacturer usage descriptions (MUD) lets the network automatically direct the IoT device to only send and receive traffic required for the device to perform as it was intended. NIST explained MUD prohibits all other communication with the device.
“[MUD increases] the device’s resilience to network-based attacks,” NIST researchers wrote. “In this project, the NCCoE demonstrated the ability to ensure that when an IoT device connects to a home or small-business network, MUD can automatically permit the device to send and receive only the traffic it requires to perform its intended function.”
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https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/features/new-generation-ai-drug-discovery-companies/
Needles in haystacks: a new generation of AI-enhanced drug discovery companies
By Darcy Jimenez 24 May 2021 (Last Updated May 25th, 2021 11:48)
A growing number of pharma and biotech companies are harnessing the power of artificial intelligence in drug discovery.
The search for novel therapies has long been a trial-and-error process that costs drug companies a vast amount of time and money. Now, with artificial intelligence (AI) set to transform the pharmaceutical industry more than any other emerging technology, a growing number of pharma and biotech groups are harnessing the cutting-edge tech to minimise the hit-and-miss nature of R&D and discover new therapies with previously impossible speed and accuracy.
Pharmaceutical Technology delves into the new generation of drug discovery companies leveraging AI to uncover novel treatments.
Generate Biomedicines
Founded in 2018 by life sciences venture capital company Flagship Pioneering, Massachusetts-based Generate Biomedicines uses machine learning to accelerate the discovery of protein therapeutics. The company’s AI-powered Generative Biology platform analyses hundreds of millions of known protein structures, and uses the learned patterns to create novel protein sequences that form the basis of new therapies. The generalisable nature of the platform enables broad applications in the creation of antibodies, peptides, enzymes, receptors, and other therapeutic proteins for potentially any target.
Generate leverages new computational tools to identify therapeutic proteins – traditionally a costly, time-consuming process – with enhanced speed and success. Just last year, the company applied its machine learning technology to discovering novel molecules to treat Covid-19. In less than 17 days – and with a success rate far higher than that of a typical discovery campaign – Generate built a portfolio of therapeutic candidates for coronavirus neutralisation, including antibodies and peptides that target multiple epitopes on the spike protein peptide.
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https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40299407.html
HSE staff asked to turn on computers but it will 'take weeks to get back online'
Wed, 26 May, 2021 - 19:57
Niamh Griffin
HSE staff have been asked to turn on their computers so that the decryption key sent by the cyberattackers can be downloaded across 80,000 devices, but have been warned the devices cannot yet be used.
The advice to staff came as the HSE's chief information officer said it will "take weeks to get back online".
Fran Thompson said restoring access to data has to be done in a safe and careful manner and "we anticipate this will take a number of weeks in total”.
“We are making progress, it is tough, but we are getting there,” said Mr Thompson in a video message for staff.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/imaging-ai-field-exploding-it-carries-unique-challenges
The imaging AI field is exploding, but it carries unique challenges
Gathering data at scale, labeling that data and monitoring tool efficacy are all critical steps in scaling AI tools, but they can also act as bottlenecks, especially in the healthcare space, said experts during an AWS panel this week.
By Kat Jercich
May 27, 2021 02:44 PM
The use of machine learning and artificial intelligence to analyze medical imaging data has grown significantly in recent years – with 60 new products approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2020 alone.
But AI scaling, particularly in the medical field, can face unique challenges, said Elad Benjamin, general manager of Radiology and AI Informatics at Philips, during an Amazon Web Services presentation this week.
"The AI field is experiencing an amazing resurgence of applications and tools and products and companies," said Benjamin.
The question many companies are seeking to answer is: "How do we use machine learning and deep learning to analyze medical imaging data and identify relevant clinical findings that should be highlighted to radiologists or other imaging providers to provide them with the decision support tools they need?" Benjamin explained.
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Patient info released to media outlets after Waikato DHB cyberattack
The Privacy Commission has warned all DHBs to fix security issues within their systems or face prosecution.
May 27, 2021 03:50 AM
Yesterday, hackers who launched a cyberattack on Waikato District Health Board's system released patient information to several media outlets, including the NZ Herald.
"We are aware that the media have received what appears to be personal and patient information from Waikato DHB information systems," the hospital group said in an update.
The media agencies refused to divulge the information publicly and have turned it over to the police.
Since then, Waikato DHB has set up a 24/7 privacy helpline, which has taken 34 calls as of today.
WHY IT MATTERS
In a separate statement, Privacy Commissioner John Edwards said he expects Waikato DHB to "notify and offer support to the individuals identified in that information without delay".
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Why Healthcare Organizations Must Incorporate Data Privacy into Their Cybersecurity Strategies – and How to Do It
May 27, 2021
The following is a guest article by Monique Becenti, Security Strategist, Pondurance.
Healthcare organizations continue to represent a prime target for hackers – if not the leading one: The average cost of a breach for the industry now stands at $7.13 million (the highest of any sector), compared to less than $4 million for organizations overall.
What’s more, it takes 329 days for hospitals and other healthcare organizations to identify and contain a breach (i.e., the lifecycle of an incident), or seven weeks longer than the average lifecycle for companies in general. Again, healthcare leads all sectors in this category.
Given the circumstances, the industry’s chief information security officers (CISOs) and their teams are firmly focused on implementing new tools and practices to better protect their digital assets. But – with a wave of global regulations now in place, with more likely to come – they cannot solely frame their resources and objectives upon cybersecurity as a standalone effort, as data privacy has emerged as a critical priority as well.
Specifically, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) triggered the wave by requiring businesses to design personal data protection into the development of their products and services. In addition, they must document how and where data is stored, how it is processed, and most importantly, give consumers control over how organizations can use their data.
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Transforming Healthcare Through Data: Omada Health CEO on the Insights Lab
Analysis | By Melanie Blackman | May 27, 2021
Sean Duffy, CEO of Omada Health, speaks about the company's vision, the plan behind the creation of the Insights Lab, and how other recent initiatives were launched.
Omada Health, a San Francisco-based digital care company, recently announced the launch of The Omada Insights Lab, a data-driven initiative to further the organization’s vision in transforming care delivery and outcomes.
This new initiative follows Omada's mission of empowering those with chronic health conditions to lead healthier lives. The Insights Lab will take Omada's data science, behavior science, clinical and product design, as well as care delivery learnings to not only apply it to their members but also share some of its results within the healthcare industry to foster innovative change.
In a recent interview with HealthLeaders, Sean Duffy, CEO of Omada Health, conveyed the healthcare technology company's vision, the plan behind the creation of the Insights Lab, and how other recent initiatives were launched.
This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
HealthLeaders: Why does Omada want to transform healthcare delivery and outcomes?
Sean Duffy: I [previously] worked in tech, then was in medical school, and I wanted to do something that combined tech and healthcare in different disciplines. The recognition when founding Omada was that we needed an entirely different approach to supporting people, especially with longitudinal care. Back then, digital health or care delivery was always viewed as the icing on the cake versus something foundational.
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/machine-learning-models-predict-gastrointestinal-bleeding
Machine Learning Models Predict Gastrointestinal Bleeding
Machine learning can predict gastrointestinal bleeding in patients using antithrombotic drugs better than current risk models, a new study finds.
By Jill McKeon
May 26, 2021 - Researchers effectively trained machine learning models to predict the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding (GIB) within six to twelve months of a patient being prescribed antithrombotic drugs, according to a recent study published in JAMA Network Open.
The study tested three machine learning models: regularized Cox regression (RegCox), random survival forest (RSF), and extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost). They compared these models to the effectiveness of the current standard risk model, HAS-BLED, or hypertension, abnormal kidney and liver function, stroke, bleeding, labile international normalized ratio, older age, and drug or alcohol use.
Researchers studied more than 300,000 patients over the age of 18 who were prescribed thienopyridine antiplatelet and/or oral anticoagulant agents. All patients had a history of ischemic heart disease, venous thromboembolism, or atrial fibrillation, the study stated, and the data was collected from the OptumLabs Data Warehouse. Patients were separated into a development cohort and a validation cohort.
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Cyberattack Updates: Alaska Health Dept, Scripps’ Recovery, Ireland HSE
As ransomware continues to disrupt the healthcare sector on a global level, a number of providers are facing ongoing outages, while a vendor is creating a decryptor for Ireland HSE.
May 24, 2021 - In the last week, an FBI alert and a Check Point repott reiterated what many in the healthcare sector have known for some time: Ransomware threat actors are consistently targeting and successfully exploiting providers and causing ongoing outages from a range of cyberattacks.
Check Point data shows healthcare remains the key target for ransomware hacking groups, with a steady rise in attacks across a host of global sectors. Specifically, the FBI recently warned that the nefarious Conti group has healthcare in its crosshairs, with 16 victims in the last year.
Alaska DHSS Website Attack
In the last month, several providers have been driven into EHR downtime procedures and some are continuing to face outgoing outages and disruptions to patient care. The latest victim appears to be a malware attack on the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services.
On May 17, a malware attack hit the DHSS website, and the IT team took it offline to investigate. Other sites were also taken offline during the incident, including the public website, Behavioral Health and Substance Abuse Management System, the background check system, the system for schools to report vaccine data, vital statistics system, and a host of others.
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Gene Therapy, High-Tech Goggles Restore Some Vision to Blind People
New treatment using optogenetics has restored limited vision to people blinded by hereditary retinal disease
By Amy Dockser Marcus
May 24, 2021 11:00 am ET
Scientists are making dramatic strides toward a goal that once seemed almost unimaginable: Restoring limited vision to people affected by a previously irreversible form of blindness caused by an inherited eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa.
In a paper published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, researchers working with the Paris-based company GenSight Biologics SA reported that a 58-year-old man who was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa 40 years ago was able to locate objects placed on a table after receiving an experimental therapy. And New York City-based company Bionic Sight LLC announced in March that four blind people in an early-stage clinical trial are now able to detect light and motion after undergoing a similar treatment. Those results haven’t yet been published.
The patients all had advanced cases of retinitis pigmentosa, which affects more than two million people world-wide. All underwent optogenetic therapy, in which an injection is used to deliver a gene into the eye to boost the light sensitivity of certain cells in the retina, a layer of tissue at the back of the eye. The companies are developing high-tech goggles that process and amplify light in a way that boosts the cells’ ability to send electrical signals to the brain.
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CVS Health launching new business arm to drive greater clinical trial participation
May 25, 2021 3:40pm
CVS Health has launched a new business arm that aims to drive greater, and more diverse, participation in clinical trials.
CVS Health's new Clinical Trials Services business focuses on three core areas: patient recruitment, delivering clinical trials in multiple ways and generating real-world evidence on therapies and devices.
Owen Garrick, M.D., vice president of clinical trial delivery at CVS Health Clinical Trial Services, told Fierce Healthcare that the team is building on decades of work at CVS to build community ties and relationships with pharmaceutical companies.
"This is, in some respects, a new business, but we’re really scaling and expanding work that we’ve done historically at CVS," he said. "This is not us dipping our toe in, this is really us building on a 15-, 20-year history and really being focused on it."
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/scripps-ceo-says-attack-was-ransomware
Scripps CEO says attack was ransomware
President and CEO Chris Van Gorder said in a statement that he anticipates restoration of the system's electronic health record this week.
By Kat Jercich
May 26, 2021 11:05 AM
Nearly four weeks after a security incident that led to a network outage at Scripps Health, President and CEO Chris Van Gorder confirmed that the attack involved ransomware.
In a public statement, Van Gorder said he anticipated that the San Diego-based health system would have its electronic health record back online in the latter part of the week.
"While this progress is meaningful, there is work left to be done. We look forward to building on these efforts and restoring the remaining Scripps systems as soon as possible," he wrote.
WHY IT MATTERS
Scripps suspended user access to its IT applications after detecting a security incident on May 1. For more than two weeks, the health system's website and Epic-powered online patient portal were inaccessible.
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Synthetic data's growing role in healthcare AI, machine learning and robotics
An expert discusses use cases for this emerging approach, and describes how it's poised to enable big advances in decision support, diagnosis, surgery and more.
By Bill Siwicki
May 26, 2021 12:25 PM
Today there is a bottleneck in the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning – real-world data collection. AI and machine learning models require large datasets to become proficient at a task.
But preparing these datasets for model training is both costly and labor intensive. It is a conundrum, and the lack of large, accurately labeled datasets for specific applications is holding back the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Some say synthetic data offers a solution – data that imitates real-world data. Instead of manually collecting and labeling datasets from the real-world, synthetic data is instead computer-generated.
"The ultimate result is that artificial intelligence and machine learning models can be trained faster, more cost-effectively and without the constraints of real-world data collection," said Michael Naber, CEO and cofounder of Simerse, which creates synthetic data to train AI and machine learning models. The company offers a free guide to synthetic data. Healthcare IT News interviewed Naber for a deep dive into synthetic data and its role in healthcare.
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What’s Holding Back the Always Connected Wearable Health Sensors We Need?
May 26, 2021
Anyone who’s had experienced with bluetooth (I think that’s everyone right?) knows the pains associated with bluetooth. When it works, it works great. However, when the device loses its pairing, it’s a mess. Plus, we all know how much fun it is to get various devices to pair in the first place. The amazing part is that I’m literally @techguy on Twitter and so you think this wouldn’t be an issue for me and for the most part it’s not. However, I still don’t like it. Now think about my mother or another less technical senior trying to figure out how to pair their health sensors using bluetooth to their health hub. Forgetaboutit!
Unfortunately, bluetooth health sensors have been the best solution to date with a hub that connects to all the sensors being a common implementation. What’s unfortunate is that we all know how it should really be. In fact, the technology is available today that would get rid of the mess we know as bluetooth pairing. If you’ve used one of the original Kindle devices, you’ve experienced it first hand.
The original Kindle device comes built in with a cellular connection. There’s no need to connect to wifi or bluetooth to another device. The built in cellular connection just connects and downloads whatever books you want from Amazon. We could do the same thing with all the various wearable health sensors. Just have those sensors connect directly to the cellular network and automatically send the data from the device back to a server in the cloud. Simple as that. No pairing needed. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?
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Patient Benefit Dashboard Proves the Value of Telehealth at PHSA
May 26, 2021
Healthcare organizations in the province of British Columbia rapidly rolled-out telehealth technologies during the pandemic, just like many others did. The Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) took the unusual step of implementing a patient benefit dashboard to track the impact of telehealth on patients across the province. Their dashboard made it crystal clear how valuable telehealth is for reducing costs and improving access.
ROI Before but Rarely After
A lot of time is spent analyzing the ROI of technology solutions in healthcare before deciding to purchase. Once the solution is implemented, however, the impact is rarely measured unless something goes terribly wrong. The ROI spreadsheets that were carefully constructed prior to the sales are often abandoned and the benefits become anecdotes from staff and patients.
PHSA has a unique role in British Columbia’s (BC’s) health system. Their mandate is to ensure that residents have access to a coordinated provincial network of high-quality specialized healthcare services which include:
- BC Autism Assessment Network
- BC Cancer
- BC Centre for Disease Control
- BC Early Hearing Program
- BC Transplant
- BC Women’s Hospital + Healthcare
- Indigenous Health
- Post COVID-19 Recovery Clinics
…and a dozen more programs that span the province.
When the province began implementing telehealth services, PHSA wanted to measure and capture actual benefits rather than have only anecdotal evidence to prove the value of telehealth. To achieve this, they created a Patient Benefit Dashboard.
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/inevitable-that-hse-hack-data-will-be-shared-wmk6d89l7
‘Inevitable’ that HSE hack data will be shared
Julieanne Corr
Wednesday May 26 2021, 1.02am BST, The Times
It is inevitable that patient data stolen from the HSE by hackers last week will either be published online or quietly sold to criminals, a data expert has said.
Daragh O’Brien, managing director of Castlebridge, a data protection consultancy, said that the credibility of the criminals would be at stake if they did not follow through on their threat to sell the data on the darkweb.
The hackers, believed to be a collective referred to as the Conti group or Wizard Spider, based in St Petersburg, demanded a ransom of $20 million and had threatened to start selling patient data on the darkweb from last Monday if it were not paid. Some Irish people have received fraudulent calls, but it remains unclear whether significant volumes of stolen material have been posted online yet.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/epics-ehr-optimization-mitigates-sdoh-promotes-care-coordination
Epic’s EHR Optimization Mitigates SDOH, Promotes Care Coordination
Health IT services can aid providers in addressing social determinants of health and fostering care coordination across the healthcare continuum.
May 25, 2021 - Epic’s EHR optimization services boost care coordination and help providers address social determinants of health, according to a recent health equity presentation for Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI)’s annual conference.
Led by Seth Howard, a product development lead at Epic, the presentation outlined the EHR vendor’s advances to help healthcare organizations deliver high-quality, patient-centered care.
According to Howard, about half of all the data exchanged in practice is within the Epic network, while the other half comes from non-Epic systems including specialty groups, dental providers, and post-acute care providers.
The Epic ecosystem continues to expand in pursuit of increasing administrative efficiency and providing higher quality, coordinated care, Howard noted.
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/how-big-data-insights-can-lead-to-better-mental-healthcare
How Big Data Insights Can Lead to Better Mental Healthcare
Using big data collected from different public systems, California's Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission delivers enhanced mental healthcare.
By Jessica Kent
May 25, 2021 - With healthcare organizations increasingly aiming to provide patients with comprehensive, holistic care, big data and analytics tools have become essential tools in the medical field.
In mental healthcare, these solutions are equally as important. To address individuals’ mental health, organizations often have to consider multiple different factors – a task perfectly suited for big data and analytics technologies.
Leaders at California’s Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission (MHSOAC) recognized the need for advanced analytics solutions to enhance care delivery. The organization partnered with SAS to help gather insights from multiple different data sources, leading to improved mental health services.
“We are a commissioned body that is tasked with accountability, as well as transforming California's mental health system – a fairly large mission. We achieve this through programs and grants, but also through research and analytics,” Dawnte R. Early, PhD, MS, chief of research and evaluation at MHSOAC, told HealthITAnalytics.
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House reps seek to permanently safeguard audio-only telehealth coverage
A bipartisan bill introduced this week would allow providers to offer audio-only telemedicine services to Medicare enrollees.
By Kat Jercich
May 25, 2021 03:01 PM
Reps. Jason Smith, R-Mo., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., introduced legislation this week to ensure Medicare enrollees have expanded access to telehealth.
HR 3447, or the "Permanency for Audio-Only Telehealth Act," would allow for Medicare coverage of audio-only telehealth services after the COVID-19 public health emergency.
"The COVID-19 pandemic required the U.S. healthcare system to innovate and embrace every viable method of healthcare delivery. For patients in rural areas back home in Missouri, none have been more beneficial than the expansion of audio-only telehealth," said Smith in a statement.
"This method of healthcare delivery should serve as a bridge to provide better care and remain a permanent option for patients who will not gain access to broadband and technology overnight," he continued.
WHY IT MATTERS
As the legislators noted in a press release, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services allowed healthcare providers to offer audio-only telehealth under Medicare and Medicaid plans during the public health emergency.
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Epic, Anthem Strike Deal To Support Health Information Exchange
May 25, 2021
Health plan management company Anthem has struck a deal with Epic rolling out data sharing technology to health systems and providers who use the EHR vendor’s technology.
Under the terms of the deal, participating providers will have access to Epic’s Payer Platform. The Payer Platform allows the providers to exchange various types of data with payers, including clinical data and admissions, discharge and transfer data from hospital stays.
The Epic Payer Platform will be integrated with Anthem’s Health OS, a platform designed to enable health plan-provider collaboration, the health benefits company said.
Along with making more comprehensive data sharing possible, the new Epic functionality should allow Anthem to capture consumer health information provided by clinicians, analyze the data and respond with insights the care team can use.
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/googles-artificial-intelligence-voice-assistant-bests-siri-alexa
Google’s Artificial Intelligence Voice Assistant Bests Siri, Alexa
Google Assistant has the most accurate artificial intelligence capabilities for providing medication information, with Siri and Alexa making swift improvements.
By Jill McKeon
May 24, 2021 - A new study from Klick Applied Sciences suggests that people who use artificial intelligence-driven voice assistants for medication information will find the best results from Google Assistant. Meanwhile, Siri and Alexa are catching up, making significant comprehension improvements.
The 2021 study is a follow-up to a 2019 study by the same researchers, which first revealed that Google Assistant was the most accurate and effective tool when asked about the top 50 most dispensed medications in the US, both brand-name and generic.
“Interactive voice assistants are fulfilling a very legitimate need for people who are using them to help manage several aspects of their lives, including their health,” said Adam Palanica, PhD, co-author of the study, in a press release.
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AI Toilet Tool Offers Remote Patient Monitoring for Gastrointestinal Health
Duke University is developing an artificial intelligence software tool for toilets that uses remote patient monitoring to help manage gastrointestinal issues.
May 24, 2021 - Researchers at Duke University are developing an artificial intelligence tool for toilets that would help providers improve care management for patients with gastrointestinal issues through remote patient monitoring.
The tool, which can be installed in the pipes of a toilet and analyzes stool samples, has the potential to improve treatment of chronic gastrointestinal issues like inflammatory bowel disease or irritable bowel syndrome, according to a press release.
When a patient flushes the toilet, the mHealth platform photographs the stool as it moves through the pipes. That data is sent to a gastroenterologist, who can analyze the data for evidence of chronic issues.
A study conducted by Duke University researchers found that the platform had an 85.1 percent accuracy rate on stool form classification and a 76.3 percent accuracy rate on detection of gross blood.
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How Johns Hopkins Medicine became an information powerhouse during the COVID-19 pandemic
May 24, 2021 11:00am
The Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard, a real-time pandemic tracker, has become a global reference for the pandemic and one of the most cited resources to track the spread of coronavirus around the world, cited by U.S. federal agencies and major news sources including The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. (Johns Hopkins Medicine)
Last spring, as news reports detailed growing cases of a pneumonia-like illness around the world, people turned to Google Search to type in "What is coronavirus?"
The top result that popped up was information from Johns Hopkins Medicine, even above public health authorities like the World Health Organization (WHO).
Today, if you Google "COVID-19 vaccine and safety," Johns Hopkins remains in that top position in basic searches.
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FBI Issues Conti Ransomware Alert as Attacks Target Healthcare
Officials have identified at least 16 Conti ransomware attacks targeting US healthcare and first responder networks.
5/21/2021 03:58 PM
The FBI has issued an alert warning of Conti ransomware following its identification of at least 16 attacks in the past year targeting US healthcare and first responder networks including law enforcement agencies, emergency medical services, 911 dispatch centers, and municipalities.
Attacks linked to Conti and the DarkSide ransomware variant, most recently linked to the attack on Colonial Pipeline, are believed to originate from "criminal networks operating from a non-cooperative foreign jurisdiction," according to the advisory published by the American Hospital Association (AHA).
Ransomware attacks connected to these variants have interrupted critical infrastructure including hospitals in the US and Ireland, the advisory said, noting that hospitals in New Zealand have also been hit with disruptive ransomware campaigns.
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https://www.ebar.com/news/latest_news/305183
Political Notes: LGBTQ groups push federal body on SOGI data
by Matthew S. Bajko Assistant Editor
Monday May 24, 2021
LGBTQ advocates are pushing a federal agency to include the collection of sexual orientation and gender identity among patients' health records when it releases an update this summer on what information should be exchanged between heath care providers, governmental agencies, and other groups.
The federal Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT is expected to publish on July 1 version 2 of the United States Core Data for Interoperability, known as USCDI v2. It sets the standards nationwide for health information exchange and establishes the baseline for what data is commonly exchanged across care settings for a wide range of uses.
But a draft version of the proposed updates released in January did not include any questions regarding someone's LGBTQ status among the 15 questions listed under patient demographics. In addition to race, ethnicity, and age a question does ask about a person's birth sex. But the only answer options listed are male, female, or unknown.
In a letter sent April 15 to National Coordinator for Health IT Micky Tripathi, Ph.D., and?Deputy National Coordinator for Health IT Steven Posnack, the Fenway Institute at Fenway Health in Boston, along with a coalition of 65 partner organizations working in LGBTQ health care, requested that the SOGI questions be included in the final USCDI v2, along with intersex status, name used, and pronouns.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/onc-defines-ehr-certification-for-sdoh-data-to-pursue-health-equity
ONC Defines EHR Certification For SDOH Data To Pursue Health Equity
ONC released race and ethnicity data collection requirements for EHR certification that are set to improve data quality and advance health equity.
May 21, 2021 - ONC announced its health IT demographic EHR certification requirements to standardize race and ethnicity data collection in the pursuit of health equity.
ONC outlined that the agency’s “demographics” certification criterion requires health IT to record race and ethnicity at the same level of detail as the CDC’s Race & Ethnicity code technology. This system encompasses over 900 concepts for race and ethnicity, giving patients precise options for self-identifying their demographic information.
“Race and ethnicity data are important for many uses, such as informing effective treatment and patient care, improving healthcare outcomes, research, and, identifying and eliminating health disparities to improve health equity,” said ONC. “Race and ethnicity data are also critical to informing national priorities, including efforts to advance racial equity and to support underserved communities.”
The CDC’s 900 race and ethnicity concepts are organized to “roll up” to meet the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) minimum categories for race and ethnicity. This allows for data aggregation when the OMB standard is necessary, ONC explained.
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Waikato DHB making 'good progress' in bringing systems back online, says Chief Executive
The statement was published today as part of the organisation's latest update regarding a cyberattack on Tuesday.
May 24, 2021 03:34 AM
The information services system at Waikato District Health Board, one of New Zealand's North Island DHBs, went dark last week after getting hit by a cyberattack.
WHY IT MATTERS
On 18 May, Waikato DHB reported a "full outage" of its information services, affecting all clinical services across its five hospitals – Waikato, Thames, Tokoroa, Te Kuiti and Taumarunui. Its main landline number also went down that day.
The following day, it disclosed that the government agencies investigating the matter were working on a theory that the attack might have come initially through "an email attachment", or a phishing scheme.
Some elective surgeries were deferred, while a number of outpatient clinics were reduced, including cardiology, maxillofacial, dental clinic and dermatology.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/using-data-work-effectively-toward-health-equity
Using data to work effectively toward health equity
Aggregating information can disguise differences in the way different groups of vulnerable people access care – and prevent organizations from taking useful action.
By Kat Jercich
May 24, 2021 09:36 AM
The COVID-19 crisis has shed light on – and worsened – existing health inequities in the United States, particularly for Black and Latinx people.
Many health equity advocates have pointed to the important role data plays in addressing that inequity, noting that it is challenging to fix a problem about which we have no information.
But Kellie Goodson, director of performance improvement programs at Vizient, says all data collection isn't equally useful in this regard.
"Healthcare is all about data," she told Healthcare IT News. "But what we do with the data is we aggregate the data in basically everything."
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No-Cancel Culture: How Telehealth Is Making It Easier to Keep That Therapy Session
Analysis | By Kaiser Health News | May 24, 2021
Virtual visits can also save patients money, because they might not need to travel, take time off work or pay for child care.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· But before the pandemic, almost 64% of psychiatrists had never used telehealth, according to the psychiatric association.
· Post-andemic, providers should review data from the past year and determine when virtual care or in-person care is more effective.
· The healthcare industry needs to work to bridge the digital divide that exists because of lack of access to devices and broadband internet.
This article was published on Monday, May 24, 2021 in Kaiser Health News.
By Eric Berger
When the COVID-19 pandemic forced behavioral health providers to stop seeing patients in person and instead hold therapy sessions remotely, the switch produced an unintended, positive consequence: Fewer patients skipped appointments.
That had long been a problem in mental healthcare. Some outpatient programs previously had no-show rates as high as 60%, according to several studies.
Only 9% of psychiatrists reported that all patients kept their appointments before the pandemic, according to an American Psychiatric Association report. Once providers switched to telepsychiatry, that number increased to 32%.
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https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40295060.html
Patients warned of long delays in emergency departments over cyberattack fallout
Fri, 21 May, 2021 - 11:41
Vivienne Clarke
Two emergency medicine consultants have warned that emergency departments are facing continued delays because of the cyberattack.
Anyone who needs to go to an emergency department should bring any previous prescriptions or details of medication with them, they told RTÉ radio’s Today with Claire Byrne show.
Consultant at Sligo hospital, Dr Fergal Hickey also called for a unique patient identifier number system which would mean that in the current situation the patient’s paper file could be found easily.
“We’re flying blind here, we don’t have a patient’s previous information.”
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Enjoy!
David.
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