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/cerner-ehr-integration-automates-organ-donor-data-exchange
Cerner EHR Integration Automates Organ Donor Data Exchange
The Cerner EHR integration automates data exchange for the organ donor referral process in efforts to promote timely organ donation.
November 05, 2021 - EHR vendor Cerner has partnered with health IT company Transplant Connect on an EHR integration that aims to streamline data exchange for organ donor referrals.
The health IT company expedites potential organ, tissue, and eye donor referrals to boost recipient matches and promote timely organ donation.
The EHR integration is also expected to decrease clinician burden by reducing the number of hours spent on the donor referral process.
"This integration is a prime example of how health systems can talk to one another, which helps eliminate manual bottlenecks that drain time and resources," Sam Lambson, vice president of interoperability at Cerner, said in a press release.
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https://www.digitalhealth.net/2021/11/nhs-saves-more-than-2-million-hours-using-microsoft-teams/
NHS saves more than 2 million hours using Microsoft Teams
More than two million hours of staff time have been saved since the NHS rolled out Microsoft Teams, a new survey has found.
Andrea Downey, 02 November, 2021
In the first six months, the communications platform was used across the health service as it replaced 14.5m phone calls and hosted more than 32m virtual meetings.
NHS Digital rolled Teams out to 1.3million users with NHSmail accounts between 16-20 March 2020. The roll-out was accelerated to help NHS staff better communicate and collaborate around their responses to Covid-19, and counter the increased risks associated with the virus.
It is estimated Teams has saved 2.9m hours for NHS staff in the six months between April and September this year, which NHS Digital said have been put to “better use”.
In one week alone nearly six million messages were sent between NHS staff and more than 1.3million meetings were held.
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Babylon and Microsoft join forces to improve healthcare through AI
Babylon and Microsoft have teamed up with the aim of using artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve accessibility of healthcare worldwide.
Andrea Downey 02 November 2021
The new partnership also aims to address affordability issues and improve the quality of healthcare. Through exploring opportunities to enhance current artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning tools the tech companies aim to shift focus “from sick care to preventative healthcare”.
The first stage of the collaboration will see Babylon Cloud Services, the company’s digital health software solution, made available on Microsoft’s Azure Marketplace.
This will allow payers and providers to access Babylon’s AI-powered symptom checker and Healthcheck services via the marketplace, which current reaches more than four million monthly users across 140 different areas.
Tom McGuinness, corporate vice president of global healthcare and life sciences at Microsoft, said: “This collaboration will allow us to build on our existing capabilities so we can proactively support patients through the devices they already own, and shift the focus from reactive to proactive healthcare.
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Nov 02 2021
Data Analytics
Access and Action: Healthcare Systems Put Big Data to Work
Innovative data management technologies help organizations improve patient care and operations.
by Melissa Delaney
Melissa Delaney is a freelance journalist who specializes in business technology. She is a frequent contributor to the CDW family of technology magazines.
From patient questionnaires to Internet of Medical Things devices, healthcare systems collect, store and rely on massive streams of data to deliver care, especially as they undergo digital transformations.
In North Carolina, Chapel Hill-based UNC Health responded to the pandemic in 2020 by deploying new telemedicine capabilities, an online symptom-checker chatbot and automated models to create forecasts on hospitalizations. UNC Health then integrated the information generated from those technologies into its data warehouse.
“It helped us make daily operational decisions to support the breadth of the system as we were facing the pandemic,” says Brent Lamm, senior vice president and deputy CIO at UNC Health. “Even now, our healthcare leaders have access to a dashboard with a weekly forecast of COVID-19 hospitalizations. We’ve been able to give them a head start on planning that they wouldn’t have had otherwise.”
Across all industries, organizations are now managing more data, nearly 14 petabytes on average, according to Dell Technologies’ 2020 Global Data Protection Index (1 petabyte is just over 1 million gigabytes).
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ONC: EHRs need better sex and gender inclusion standards
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Clinical data collection is being hindered by EHRs' failure to represent sex and gender diversity, according to Steven Posnack, the deputy national coordinator at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
In an Oct. 27 blog post he wrote for the ONC, Mr. Posnack said relying on a single, oftentimes binary sex and gender categorization can hamper interoperability and lead to suboptimal care outcomes. He called on the healthcare industry to eliminate ambiguities surrounding the meaning, context and expected use of sex and gender data.
"This ranges from missing preventative screening notifications to inaccurate reference ranges on lab tests all the way to denied claims because the patient’s 'administrative sex' on the clinical side didn’t match their 'gender' on the health insurance side," Mr. Posnack wrote.
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Roundup: France announces €650M boost for digital health, Enovacom and Medanets join forces to provide mobile first health data
Also, Dutch medical AI-company Thirona closes financing round
By Tammy Lovell
November 05, 2021 06:03 AM
Enovacom and Medanets join forces to provide mobile first health data
A partnership between global interoperability firm Enovacom and Nordic nursing app specialist Medanets will enable nursing staff to access patient data through their mobile devices.
Medical device data will be automatically gathered using Enovacom’s Patient Connect interoperability platform and fed through to the hospital’s electronic health record (EHR) and to the Medanets’ mobile nursing app in real-time.
Juha-Matti Ranta, Medanets chief executive officer (CEO), said: “By helping nurses with tools that are the most time-saving, such as observations, our app becomes an integral part of their workflow.”
France announces €650 million boost for digital health
French health minister Olivier Véran has announced an investment plan of €650 million to accelerate the country’s digital health strategy.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/deep-dive-holy-name-medical-center-builds-its-own-ehr
Deep dive: Holy Name Medical Center builds its own EHR
A nurse IT expert at the organization explores the complex journey to an electronic health record unlike any other.
By Bill Siwicki
November 05, 2021 11:09 AM
Photo: Holy Name Medical CenterThe 360-bed Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, New Jersey, has always been keen on using technology to enable its mission of providing compassionate and personalized care to a diverse population of patients.
THE PROBLEM
Nearly 30 years ago, the hospital developed its own electronic health record – long before they were prevalent or mandated in the industry. But times change, and the organization realized the need to be more efficient and use technology to enable and streamline processes. It was time to update the EHR.
The question was: Buy or build?
"Holy Name believes in a healthy mixture of build and buy, but we did not have faith that any of the 'big box' EHRs would be able to address our need for a truly person-centric approach with technology-enabled workflows," said Jessica Cox, RN, director of product solutions at Holy Name Medical Center.
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/health-it-vendors-to-improve-risk-adjustment-capabilities
Health IT Vendors To Improve Risk Adjustment Capabilities
A KLAS Research report finds that health IT vendors must continue improving their risk adjustment capabilities to avoid poor outcomes.
November 03, 2021 - A recent KLAS Research report used analytics to evaluate which vendors deliver the best risk adjustment.
According to the report, there is a growing interest in adopting risk adjustment solutions. While many vendors claim they can provide desired solutions, the KLAS report examines which can deliver on that promise. Using the feedback of 163 respondents, the report evaluates vendor performances across key customer experience metrics and validates customer adoption across risk adjustment capabilities.
The report examines vendors based on customer experience pillars. These pillars include culture, loyalty, operations, product, relationship, and value.
“In addition to the questions in the standard evaluation, KLAS also asked respondents to answer two supplemental questions specific to the risk adjustment market,” the report stated.
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Walmart partnership with Epic aims to simplify info access
As the retail giant rolls out Walmart Health, it will use electronic capabilities to enhance info sharing for patients and stakeholders.
Nov 04 2021
Walmart’s recent decision to enter into a partnership with Epic, the Verona, Wis.-based electronic records system vendor, hints at efforts by the nation’s largest retailer to play a bigger role in healthcare delivery and mesh with other organizations in the ecosystem.
Bentonville, Ark.-based Walmart announced the agreement in late September, saying it expected to begin the rollout of an Epic-developed system in early 2022 in four new Walmart Health Centers in Florida.
The retailer said it picked Epic so it could be a single unified records system to simplify healthcare customers’ efforts “to live healthier.”
The Epic platform will support all of Walmart’s health and wellness lines of business, and through the use of the records system “Walmart Health will engage patients, healthcare professionals, insurance carriers and other stakeholders while enhancing communication, personalization and information sharing amongst healthcare professionals, utilizing a patient portal.”
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/biden-nominates-new-cio-va-would-lead-ehr-modernization
Biden nominates new CIO for VA, could help lead EHR modernization
Former Microsoft exec Kurt DelBene, who helped right the course for Healthcare.gov eight years ago, could be tasked with enabling a bigger turnaround job at Veterans Affairs.
By Mike Miliard
November 04, 2021 05:00 PM
On Wednesday, the White House announced its nomination of Kurt DelBene as chief information officer and assistant secretary for information and technology at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
WHY IT
MATTERS
DelBene, who served more than 25 years at Microsoft in two different stints,
could take an active role in VA's ongoing $16 billion electronic health
record modernization if he is confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
He'd bring deep technology and management experience to the job. He retired from Microsoft just two months ago, after serving as executive VP of corporate strategy, core services engineering and operations. He was in charge of the planning and execution of the tech giant's cross-engineering and cross-business initiatives. He also served many years as president of the Microsoft Office division.
Between those two jobs, DelBene spent a crucial several-month stint as part of the Obama-Biden administration, signing on as a senior HHS advisor and joining a team tasked with fixing the problem-riddled rollout of Healthcare.gov, the Affordable Care Act's enrollment website.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/rpm-will-be-new-standard-care-new-study-says
RPM will be the new standard of care, a new study says
WebCareHealth CEO Dr. Teresa Sieck unpacks the results of the report about remote patient monitoring's abilities to find gaps in care, improve patient engagement, enhance the provider experience and boost revenue.
By Bill Siwicki
November 04, 2021 11:03 AM
Sixty percent of healthcare C-suite and clinical leaders see remote patient monitoring becoming a new standard of care over the next two years, according to a new study released today by WebCareHealth, a company that delivers solutions to remotely monitor patients managing chronic illnesses.
Further, 66% of survey respondents at provider organizations say RPM helps identify gaps in care for 10% of patients. This could be a boon for telehealth technology that could lead to better patient outcomes.
Dr. Teresa Sieck is CEO, president, cofounder and chief medical officer at WebCareHealth. Healthcare IT News interviewed her to get her to dig into the most significant results of the study.
Q. The survey suggests that 40% of physician offices leverage RPM today, with nearly 70% of those practices reporting improvements in patient engagement, satisfaction and increased revenue associated with ability to create capacity for higher intensity office visits. What will it take for more providers to adopt RPM?
A. Remote patient monitoring adoption has historically been slow, cost and change management being the top two barriers to RPM usage today. Despite innovations in care delivery during the pandemic, some providers and patients are still resistant to change.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/congress-voices-va-ehr-implementation-patient-safety-concerns
Congress Voices VA EHR Implementation Patient Safety Concerns
Only 16 percent of employees at the VA’s EHR implementation pilot site are confident in using the system, highlighting patient safety concerns.
November 03, 2021 - At a House Veterans Affairs Technology Modernization Subcommittee hearing on November 2, members of Congress said they fear VA is moving on to the next site for its EHR implementation before fully addressing patient safety and training concerns at the pilot site.
The department is planning to deploy the Cerner EHR at a VA facility in Columbus, Ohio in February of 2022, but VA Deputy Secretary Donald Remy said that that doesn’t mean VA will go live with the new EHR at that time.
“We’ll have sandbox exercises to make sure that the facility is ready to receive and that we’ve provided them with the tools to be successful,” Remy said.
However, members of Congress on both sides of the aisle said that incoming data from the pilot site in Spokane, Washington is too concerning to ignore.
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https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306501#.YX88qqX7B8I.twitter
Public Health 3.0 After COVID-19—Reboot or Upgrade?
Karen B. DeSalvo MD, MPH, MSc, and Kushal T. Kadakia MSc Author affiliations, information, and correspondence details
Accepted: July 28, 2021
Published Online: October 28, 2021
Governmental public health, which in the United States has long been relegated to the periphery, has returned to center stage because of COVID-19. Because of funding for a national forecasting center and a federal mandate for public health data modernization, among other public health steps taken to control the pandemic, there is now unprecedented awareness about the vital role of public health in all sectors of society. Yet in this moment of crisis, it is imperative that policymakers and practitioners avoid reducing the work of public health to pandemic preparedness alone. Health is driven by communicable and chronic diseases as well as social and environmental determinants. Addressing all drivers of health requires relying on governmental public health in collaboration with other sectors, because “public health is what we do together as a society to ensure the conditions in which everyone can be healthy.”1
AJPH’s special issue “COVID-19, Racism, and Public Health Infrastructure” sounds the clarion call for dealing with the crisis of conditions facing the public’s health. The disparate impact of the pandemic on communities of color and low-income populations highlights generational inequities institutionalized in the US health system and broader society. For example, variation in COVID-19 infections and outcomes across the boroughs of New York City, a pandemic epicenter, reflects the profound role that zip codes play in determining the health of people in the United States.2 Likewise, disparities in COVID-19 mortality between Black and White Americans are a shameful manifestation of the racial/ethnic gaps in life expectancy that have existed since the country’s founding.
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Cerner's Feinberg says health IT giant will narrow strategic focus, confirms upcoming layoffs to 'right the ship'
Nov 2, 2021 8:00am
During his first earnings call since taking the reins at Cerner, David Feinberg, M.D., a former executive at Google Health, said the health IT company will narrow its strategic focus to "high-value areas" with a particular focus on making medical records systems more reliable and usable.
"In the past, Cerner has simply tried to do too many things by ourselves. Going forward, we are going to change our approach and only focus on a small number of important high-value areas—some of which we plan to achieve by partnering with highly capable organizations we believe can help us achieve our mission, which is to improve the lives of others," Feinberg told investors and analysts during the company's third-quarter earnings call Friday.
Cerner tapped Feinberg, who spent the past two years at Google leading the tech giant's health efforts, to lead the health tech company back in August after a three-month CEO search.
Chief Financial Officer Mark Erceg said the company will take Feinberg up on his challenge to focus on the patient and plans to "stop or jettison side pursuits” that, in many cases, have proven to be nothing but "resource drains and distractions."
Feinberg said Cerner will focus on enhancing capabilities to the electronic health record (EHR) system to help patients avoid unnecessary tests and medications and help clinicians avoid errors and suggest what treatments may work best.
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November 02, 2021
Accuracy of voice assistants for medical information varies
Researchers found distinct differences between popular digital voice assistants when they were used for information about cancer screening.
“There is room for improvement across all assistants,” the researchers wrote in Annals of Family Medicine.
Google is asked more than 1 billion health questions daily, Steven Lin, MD, co-author of the new study and head of technology innovation for the division of primary care and population health at Stanford University School of Medicine, told Healio Primary Care.
“Since nearly one‐half of US adults use a voice assistant, most commonly through their smartphones, we decided to examine how popular voice assistants respond to questions about cancer screenings, one of the most important preventive services that patients are missing due to the pandemic,” he said.
For the study, researchers asked Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant and Microsoft Cortana whether they should get screened for 11 different types of cancer.
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2021/11/03/is-dentistry-still-the-technological-underdog/
Is Dentistry Still the Technological Underdog?
November 3, 2021
The following is a guest article by Dan Mirsky, Vice President of IT, and Benjamin Walling, Vice President of Intelligence at Sage Dental.
Historically, experts have argued that dentistry lagged 10 years behind the medical industry in terms of adoption of cutting-edge technology such as electronic patient records, practice management solutions, patient portals, etc. However, for many standout dental practices, that simply is no longer the case. Many leaders in the dental field are evolving rapidly and are now on equal ground with the standard medical practice, but in some cases are even embracing and leveraging technology solutions faster than the medical field can. For patients and providers alike, this digital transformation is exciting because it offers unmatched benefits, from convenience to cost savings.
On Equal Ground
Dental leaders who are committed to technological innovation have caught up to the standard medical practice in crucial ways already, but especially in their use of data management solutions both in and out of the exam room. Modern dental practices are avid users of digital dental records, as they give practitioners easy access to patients’ dental history and previous scans, and they can quickly take notes during exams on tablets or smartphones. The front desk is plugged into these platforms as well, enabling them to follow up with patients for additional treatment, schedule appointments and otherwise automate communication, billing, record sharing and CRM strategies – capabilities that are common in medical practices today. These adoptions bring patients, providers and administrative staff increased efficiency, which means clinicians can spend more time with patients, and patient histories are more accessible and reliable going forward.
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2021/11/03/fax-isnt-what-it-used-to-be/
Fax Isn’t What It Used to Be
November 3, 2021
One of the most interesting conversations I had at the HLTH conference in Boston this month was with Bevey Miner from Consensus. She has quite the history in healthcare and so she has a ton of experiences and perspective to draw on. Plus, she’s leading the charge for the newly branded Consensus suite of solutions which is a break off of J2Global and eFax that is just focused on healthcare.
While many government officials are calling for things like #AxtheFax, Miner gave me a number of perspectives on why the fax of today isn’t the same as your grandma’s fax. We’ve come a long way from thermal paper and physical fax machines.
This was best illustrated by a chart she showed me which illustrates how far a “fax” has come. At its most basic level, a home health nurse is sending a fax to a doctor. However, as you can see in the chart below, there’s a lot more happening behind the scenes of this digital “fax” to make it so much more useful.
When you see the details happening here, you can see how Consensus has taken faxing a document to the next level. Instead of it just being a document, they’re applying things like OCR and NLP on top of the document to create files like CCDA and FHIR that accompany the document so it can be added to something like an Epic EHR with the granular data. That’s much different than a piece of paper lying on a fax machine.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/former-cio-calls-for-va-secretary-to-rethink-ehr-implementation
Former CIO Calls for VA Secretary to Rethink EHR Implementation
Former VA Deputy CIO stressed VA EHR implementation concerns, noting that the health IT will “damage the VA’s ability to meet its mission.”
November 02, 2021 - While the federal government has committed $16 billion to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) EHR implementation project so far, officials must consider whether the health IT will improve clinical quality for veterans, according to a Federal News Network op-ed written by Ed Meagher, former VA Deputy CIO.
The electronic health record modernization (EHRM) project, which aims to connect VA, Department of Defense (DoD), and Coast Guard health records, has faced a plethora of roadblocks since its inception. Challenges include inaccurate cost estimates, delays, and patient safety concerns at EHR implementation pilot sites.
Meagher said that replacing VA’s legacy Veterans Information System Technology Architecture (VISTA) system with the proposed Cerner EHR implementation is “a self-inflicted wound that if allowed to proceed will fester, degrade, and ultimately critically damage the VA’s ability to meet its mission.”
Meagher noted that Denis McDonough, VA secretary, sits at perhaps the most obvious yet challenging inflection point for an incoming cabinet secretary.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/how-telehealth-rpm-interoperability-with-ehr-systems-boosts-care
How Telehealth, RPM Interoperability with EHR Systems Boosts Care
When surveyed, providers noted that interoperability of telehealth solutions with EHR systems promotes better care and rapport with the patient.
November 02, 2021 - Telehealth interoperability with EHR systems is key for delivering high quality care, according to guidance published by the Michigan State Medical Society.
COVID-19 accelerated efforts to connect patients and providers virtually. Now, providers are looking to single-source telehealth solutions that integrate with EHR systems to maintain telehealth visits on a large scale.
The article, authored by Sue Boisvert, BSN, MHSA, patient safety risk manager II at The Doctors Company, noted several benefits to telehealth interoperability with EHR systems, including patient engagement.
When surveyed, providers have reported that easy access to the EHR during a telehealth visit facilitates better care and rapport with the patient, Boisvert noted.
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/data-analytics-to-help-identify-clinical-approaches-to-long-covid
Data Analytics to Help Identify Clinical Approaches to Long COVID
Through an NIH award, researchers will use data analytics to find prevention and treatment strategies for long COVID.
November 02, 2021 - Using data analytics, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Louisiana State University (LSU), and Tulane Health Science Center researchers will investigate prevention and treatment methods for “long COVID” under a National Institutes of Health award.
The new award is part of the National Institutes of Health’s Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Initiative, which is enrolling 30,000 to 40,000 participants over the next 12 to 18 months to study the long-term impact of COVID-19 infection.
“Pennington Biomedical, through the Louisiana Clinical and Translational Science Center, is one of 25 research hubs that will study why some people are still sick many months after being infected by the virus and how these lengthy illnesses affect a person’s body,” said Pennington Biomedical Executive Director John Kirwan, PhD, in a press release.
The term long COVID covers a wide range of physical and mental health side effects, such as shortness of breath and brain fog, that some patients experience after the illness.
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Teladoc Health Virtual Primary Care Model Influences Q3 Earnings
Teladoc Health’s recently launched virtual primary care model helped the company see successful third quarter earnings.
November 02, 2021 - Telehealth company Teladoc Health launched a virtual primary care model and saw an increase in revenue and visit volume during the third quarter of 2021, according to its recent earnings report.
The company produced $521,658,000 in total revenue in Q3 2021 compared to $288,812,000 in Q3 2020, amounting to an 81 percent year-over-year growth. The company saw a 37 percent year-over-year growth for total visits in Q3 2021, going from 2,835,000 visits in Q3 2020 to 3,885,000 visits in Q3 2021.
Teladoc also saw growth in US paid membership and US visit fee-only access numbers, with 52.5 and 23.6 million members in Q3 2021, respectively.
The company credited its virtual primary care service Primary360 with helping to influence the 2021 earnings.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/cybersecurity-workforce-must-grow-65-to-protect-critical-assets
Cybersecurity Workforce Must Grow 65% to Protect Critical Assets
The current cybersecurity workforce shortage may leave organizations open to more vulnerabilities and cyberattacks, (ISC)² suggests.
By Jill McKeon
November 01, 2021 - The cybersecurity workforce gap narrowed for the second consecutive year, but the global workforce still must grow by 65 percent in order to effectively defend critical assets and data, according to analysis from (ISC)².
(ISC)² collected survey data from over 4,500 cybersecurity professionals. Only 4 percent of respondents reported working in healthcare, which validates previous findings of inadequate IT staffing within the sector.
Lasting Consequences of a Cybersecurity Workforce Shortage
The cybersecurity workforce gap, which (ISC)² defines as the number of additional professionals that organizations need to adequately defend their critical assets, decreased from 2.12 million last year to 2.72 million this year. The study also revealed that in 2021, over three-quarters of respondents reported being satisfied or extremely satisfied with their jobs.
While this improvement in numbers and job satisfaction shows promise, increasing the workforce by 65 percent is not an easy task. As current cybersecurity professionals continue to work in the middle of the workforce shortage, negative consequences may emerge.
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A freer flow of health information holds promise of achieving ROI
ONC’s National Coordinator Micky Tripathi contends that the ability to share health data and include more information from other sources can aid industry efficiency.
Nov 02 2021
Data sharing across the health ecosystem has the potential to improve industry efficiency and get more bang for the buck invested in information systems.
Micky Tripathi believes that’s one of several important realizations that can help get the industry enthused about new federal regulations. He came to the lead role in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology earlier this year, and has worked hard to advance the use of IT to improve healthcare delivery and consumer engagement.
Tripathi heads ONC as the agency looks to implement provisions of the Cures Act Final Rule, widely known as information blocking provisions. He wants to put a positive spin on the rules, preferring to call them information sharing regulations. Improving the flow of information will be important as patients seek more access to their medical information from providers to use as they choose.
In this, the second of a two-part interview with Health Data Management Editor in Chief Fred Bazzoli, Tripathi discusses the promise he sees for data sharing, and gathering and analyzing more data – particularly information on social determinants of health.
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HL7 statement responds to security worries about FHIR
The organization notes that a white paper highlights the need for re-evaluating protection concerns involving data aggregators and intermediaries.
Nov 02 2021
HL7 International is taking steps to counter concerns that the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR) standard and application programming interfaces that use it are a security weak link.
The standards organization leading the development and promulgation of FHIR standards and implementation guides, issued a statement late last month to push back on concerns raised by a white paper based on research looking at shortcomings in basic protections in FHIR API implementations.
While the white paper by Alissa Valentina Knight at Las Vegas-based Knight Ink focuses on security challenges of data aggregators and intermediaries using FHIR to enable their access to data, the research has led to some carry over concerns about whether FHIR itself has security flaws.
HL7’s statement highlights that Knight’s white paper “represents a continuation of a project that previously pointed out vulnerabilities in mHealth and telemedicine in the United States, a topic that should concern us all.”
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https://www.modernhealthcare.com/technology/alliance-connected-care-telehealth-letter-governors
November 01, 2021 02:21 PM
Hundreds of organizations ask governors to extend telehealth waivers
More than 230 organizations want state governors to preserve and expand state medical licensure flexibilities for telehealth until the public health emergency ends, according to a letter led by the Alliance for Connected Care, ALS Association and National Organization for Rare Disorders.
Nearly 30 states have allowed their emergency declarations to lapse in recent months, according to the Alliance. That’s led many people to suddenly lose access to telehealth services delivered by out-of-state providers as exceptions to state medical licensing rules expired alongside the emergency declarations.
It can be especially challenging for people at high risk for COVID-19, those who require specialized care, people with mobility issues and those living in rural areas or areas with provider shortages, the letter said.
“Given the urgency of the times as more states consider rolling back flexibilities enacted at the start of the pandemic, states must act now to ensure patients can access the care they need where they reside and when they need it, without having to choose between cancelling an appointment or traveling long distances and risking potential exposure to the COVID-19 virus for an in-person visit,” the letter said.
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AWS physician expert talks new use cases for telehealth, machine learning, cloud
Dr. Rowland Illing, director of international public sector health at Amazon Web Services, offers a tutorial on some leading-edge technologies, and how they're being deployed across healthcare.
By Bill Siwicki
November 02, 2021 11:36 AM
Over the last almost two years, healthcare has seen organizations rely on technology and the cloud to get accurate, trusted information to patients and direct them to the appropriate resources and care at scale.
From chatbots and remote patient monitoring to telehealth, the industry worked quickly to adapt and find new ways to care for patients. But what does all of this mean for the future of patient care?
Healthcare must look at how access to the right patient data, paired with advanced analytics and machine learning, can enhance medical and scientific insights tied to patient outcomes in an accurate, scalable, secure and timely manner, says Dr. Rowland Illing, director, international public sector health, at Amazon Web Services.
By eliminating barriers and providing greater visibility into a patient's medical history and then providing bespoke recommendations or materials to support their care, interoperability and tech stand to provide a better patient experience anywhere as well as empower patients to take greater control over their healthcare journey, he said.
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COVID Brings Deadlier Edge To Healthcare Ransomware Attacks
November 2, 2021
Over the past several years, the number of ransomware attacks on healthcare organizations has continued to grow. Worse, these attacks are beginning to impose direct harm on patients.
Despite the critical nature of these threats and the intense need to shut them down, healthcare IT leaders have been struggling to keep up.
Now, with COVID-19 having imposed a heavy burden on healthcare IT organizations, they seem even less certain that they can beat back ransomware. According to a new study by Ponemon Institute that was commissioned by Censinet, the number of health IT leaders who don’t feel confident that they can fight ransomware adequately is growing.
To conduct the study, Ponemon surveyed 597 IT and IT security pros working in health care delivery organizations, which the researchers define as being entities that deliver clinical care and rely upon the security of third parties with whom they contract services and products. These include integrated delivery networks, regional health systems, community hospitals, physician groups and payers.
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mHealth App Improves Patient-Provider Communication During Pregnancy
An mHealth app from UPMC can help improve patient-provider communication about preeclampsia and low-dose aspirin use in pregnant people.
November 01, 2021 - An mHealth application could help identify pregnant people at-risk for preeclampsia and increase prophylactic low-dose aspirin intake through improved patient-provider communication, a study from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) revealed.
Preeclampsia is a pregnancy complication characterized by high blood pressure and is associated with maternal and infant morbidity and mortality. Taking low-dose aspirin during pregnancy has been shown to prevent preeclampsia in patients who are at moderate or high risk of the complication.
However, the efficacy of low-dose aspirin is dependent upon three factors. At-risk patients must be identified early in the pregnancy, as prophylaxis works best if started before the patient is 16 weeks gestation. Low-dose aspirin use is also only successful if there is adequate, clear patient-provider communication that outlines the recommendation. Following the recommendation, patients must also show adherence to taking the aspirin daily.
UPMC’s MyHealthyPregnancy mHealth application aimed to address these factors and improve patient education about and adherence to using low-dose aspirin to avoid preeclampsia.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/supreme-court-turns-solicitor-general-epic-damages-case
Supreme Court turns to Solicitor General in Epic damages case
The electronic health record vendor had asked the nation's highest court to review its case against Tata Consultancy Services earlier this year.
By Kat Jercich
November 01, 2021 02:38 PM
The U.S. Supreme Court this past month invited the top attorney for the United States federal government to weigh in about a case involving the Epic electronic health record vendor and Tata Consultancy Services.
After the case was distributed for conference in early October, the nation's highest court invited Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar to file a brief expressing the views of the United States.
Attorneys for Mumbai-based Tata did not respond to requests for comment; Epic representatives declined to comment.
WHY IT MATTERS
As noted this past week in Trade Secrets Trends, Epic filed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review its case in April 2021.
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https://histalk2.com/2021/10/31/monday-morning-update-11-1-21/
Cerner reports Q3 results
Cerner reports Q3 results: revenue up 7%, adjusted EPS $0.86 versus $0.72, beating analyst expectations for both.
From the earnings call:
- President and CEO David Feinberg, MD, MBA says that EHR vendors have done a good job of automating processes and digitizing medical records, but their products haven’t reached their potential to allow caregivers to spend less time on the computer. He says one of his top priorities will be to improve system usability, a theme he repeated several times in the call.
- Feinberg says that Cerner has historically tried to do too many things, often without involving other companies. He says the company will focus on high-value areas, sometimes in partnership with others.
- The company says it is making end-of-life decisions for some less-profitable products. It will also end some low-value partnership arrangements.
- Client satisfaction that has “not been as high as it should be” has limited Cerner’s ability to pass along the Consumer Price Index escalators that many of its customer contracts allow.
- Cerner’s data business that is now known as Enviza is generating $130 million in annual revenue.
- Feinberg says that while health system mergers and acquisitions may create customer attrition, losing a customer who is disappointed with Cerner’s products and services “is something that is completely unacceptable to me.” He will meet with any customers that have been identified as unhappy in his first 100 days.
- Feinberg said in response to an analyst’s question about layoffs that companies can’t shrink their way to greatness. He said, “I think it oftentimes is a reflection of management not predicting where the business is going and getting folks retrained for areas of growth so that this stuff doesn’t happen. We need to right the ship, and I think that’s part of the process here. But in some ways, to me, it’s been lack of discipline and lack of focus.”
- Cerner’s employee count dropped by 1,000 from the end of Q2 to the end of Q3, equally split between layoffs and managed attrition.
- Asked about revenue cycle product consolidation, Feinberg said that it should have been done earlier, but the mindset was that anything built outside of Kansas City couldn’t be the best.
- Feinberg says that HealtheIntent offers a good strategy for population health management, but it needs to be streamlined and some of it is falling behind competing systems.
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https://histalk2.com/2021/10/29/weekender-10-30-21/
Weekly News Recap
- Northwell Health and Aegis Ventures create what they say will become a multi-billion dollar program for investing in seed-stage AI-driven healthcare companies.
- Pharmacy fulfillment, diagnostics, and telemedicine company Truepill raises $142 million in funding at a valuation of $1.6 billion.
- RCM platform vendor NThrive and its financial backer Clearlake Capital Group will acquire TransUnion Healthcare for $1.7 billion in cash.
- Cerner launches Enviza, an operating unit that combines expertise from Cerner and its acquired real world data vendor Kantar Health.
- Amazon launches Alexa Smart Properties for healthcare facilities.
- Britain’s finance ministry will allocate $2.9 billion for technology improvements across the NHS.
- Consumer DNA testing company 23andMe will acquire telemedicine and online pharmacy vendor Lemonaid for $400 million.
- Medicare primary care provider Oak Street Health acquires RubiconMD, which offers PCPs electronic patient consults with specialists.
- Shares in London-based digital health tools vendor Babylon Health closed their first day of trading Friday up 18% following its SPAC merger.
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Enjoy!
David.
Microsoft Teams is hardly Digital Health
ReplyDeleteThe claims in the NHS Microsoft teams are bold. I personally find the never ending , zoom, teams, facetine, cisco calls and scheduled meeting a ruddy pain in the backside and tomewasting
ReplyDeleteThe Microsoft Teams time saving NHS is <1minute per worker per day. How much does it cost to implement, then cost per year?
ReplyDeleteThe two Cerner articles 1. Feinberg says Cerner will narrow its strategic focus and confirms layoffs of 1,000 employees to ‘right the ship’, and 2. The former VA CIO calls for the VA Secretary to rethink the Cerner EHR implementation, are illuminating and could be quite concerning to Cerner customers in Australia.
ReplyDeleteThe first reports that Cerner’s recently appointed President and CEO, David Feinberg, said Cerner will focus on enhancing capabilities to the electronic health record (EHR) system to help patients avoid unnecessary tests and medications and help clinicians avoid errors and suggest what treatments may work best.
The second reports that the VA’s former Deputy Chief Technology Officer, Ed Meagher, said that replacing VA’s legacy Veterans Information System Technology Architecture (VISTA) system with the proposed Cerner EHR implementation is “a self-inflicted wound that if allowed to proceed will fester, degrade, and ultimately critically damage the VA’s ability to meet its mission.”
I thought that Cerner’s systems in Australia were purchased on the basis that they would:
…….. help patients avoid unnecessary tests and medications?
…….. help clinicians avoid errors?
It seems however that is not the case.
What then are we to make of the following:
…….. replacing VA’s VISTA system with the proposed Cerner EHR implementation is “a self-inflicted wound” that if allowed to proceed will fester, degrade, and ultimately critically damage the VA’s ability to meet its mission.
What does it mean for Australian hospitals using Cerner?
@8:15 PM It is extraordinary to think that our hospitals have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a software system from America which, as its President and CEO says, does not "help patients avoid unnecessary tests and medications and does not help clinicians avoid errors"! Quite extraordinary. Why do our bureaucrats and hospital executives insist on buying systems based on fresh air?
ReplyDeleteKnowing these players... it doesn't say very much. It might be a big deal, or not. And if it's a big deal, it might be good, or bad. most probably, it'll be a bit of everything. Big companies like that, huge ships, totally need refocusing, and that's what you get a new CEO for, so, surprise, it's happening. But there's not that much detail there yet. But I always worry any time technical people walk out the door... what's the consequence. Good or bad, it takes a year or two for the company to find out, let alone the rest of the world.
ReplyDeleteAnd problems the VA are having... most probably have more to do with client culture and politics than supplier capabilities (the VA is the most intensely political health service I've worked with around the world). Though I suspect that the other customers would have the worries eased if the cerver/VA thing fell through - less competition for attention.
Why do our bureaucrats and hospital executives insist on buying systems based on fresh air?
ReplyDeleteThe answer is somewhere between “ a good sales and a bad purchase”
Health IT is a broad set of things, much of it very successful and frankly pretty cool. Some however no longer fits in the modern world
"The answer is somewhere between a good sale and a bad purchase"; undermined by the long-held,deeply embedded, widespread, cultural insecurity that supporting the development of Australian hospital software is too risky and could never be better than that sourced from outside of Australia.
ReplyDeleteYes. The invaders, with the suport of the country's health bureaucrats, buried any opportunity to build an Australian-based hospital software industry 30 years ago.
ReplyDeleteI assume by invaders you are referring to the likes of Cerner, MedTech, InterSystems, AllScripts, Epic. They're all over Australia now. I seem to recall a few others which came with a blast of trumpets in the late 80's and then left Australia with their tale between their legs, Sunquest and Gerber Alley come to mind.
ReplyDelete