Here are a few I came across last week.
Note: Each link is followed by a title and few paragraphs. For the full article click on the link above title of the article. Note also that full access to some links may require site registration or subscription payment.
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https://www.digitalhealth.net/2021/11/nhsx-delivers-remote-blood-pressure-monitoring-devices/
NHSX delivers remote blood pressure monitoring devices to patients
NHSX is to offer devices to thousands of patients which will allow them to monitor their blood pressure at home and send readings to their GP via phone, email or digital platforms.
Cora Lydon 11 November, 2021
NHSX has purchased 220,000 devices which are being sent to people diagnosed with uncontrolled high blood pressure. Regular blood pressure checks will help to note any significant changes before a potentially deadly stroke or heart attack strikes.
The initiative supports the NHS Long Term Plan which aims to prevent up to 150,000 heart attacks, strokes and dementia cases over the next 10 years. By enabling patients to monitor their blood pressure at home, NHSX estimates it will prevent 2,200 heart attacks and almost 3,300 strokes over the course of five years.
The devices are simple to use and operate in a similar way to those found in GP surgeries. Patients can wrap the device around the upper arm to quickly read their blood pressure at home. The reading is then sent to their GP for review, either by telephone, email or courtesy of a digital remote monitoring platform.
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https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/digital-health/predictions-for-healthcare-2022
Healthcare industry will face higher medication errors, declining patient trust in 2022: Forrester
Nov 10, 2021 9:25am
As the world enters the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the healthcare industry faces a variety of ongoing challenges and shifts in delivery of care, according to a new 2022 predictions report.
The report was put together by analysts at Forrester, a global market research firm.
They identified five key predictions for the coming year:
1. Health disparities will negatively impact rural Americans twice as much as urban Americans
Patients living in rural communities are more likely to be harmed for a variety of reasons, including social disparities, chronic health conditions, higher suicide rates and widespread hospital closures. In 2020 alone, nearly two dozen rural hospitals closed, Natalie Schibell, a senior analyst in the healthcare vertical at Forrester, told Fierce Healthcare. As a result, patients had to travel farther for care.
Other exacerbating factors include barriers to broadband access and clinician licensing challenges. While these barriers are not new, “the pandemic was really the nail in the coffin,” Schibell said. These factors also impact COVID-19 vaccination rates.
To counter these issues, more federal aid is needed to facilitate virtual care and better reimbursement models, Forrester noted in its report. Schibell came up with this prediction after digging into COVID-19 mortality rates among urban and rural populations, she said, which are twice as high in rural areas.
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Nov 11 2021
Nonprofit health plans focus on reducing premiums, expanding benefits
Every member plan added new health benefits, or expanded existing ones, without increasing costs to consumers, report finds.
Jeff Lagasse, Associate Editor
Nonprofit payers have used a variety of strategies to address plan affordability throughout the next year, including reducing premiums by as much as 10% in some instances, finds a new report from the Alliance of Community Health Plans.
ACHP's inaugural Report on Affordability found that when health plans manage premiums, provide enhanced benefits, smooth the way for access and reduce costs for governments and employers, the system – and outcomes – improve.
This is exemplified by some of the strategies employed by ACHP member plans, which largely reduced insurance premiums or held them flat, with some member companies reducing premiums by as much as 10%.
On top of that, every plan added new health benefits, or expanded existing ones, without increasing costs to consumers, the report found. Some of the additional benefits include free vaccines, transportation, hearing aids, reduced insulin costs, nutrition classes and meal services, smoking cessation programs and $0 co-pays for mental health visits.
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https://www.statnews.com/2021/11/12/broadband-access-newest-challenge-health-care/
Broadband access: Health care’s newest challenge
By Nov. 12, 2021
The past two years have underscored the long-standing but always disturbing reality that millions of Americans lack sufficient health care access. While the consequences have been particularly deadly during the pandemic, the challenges to overcoming this problem are nothing new.
Health outcomes are closely tied to race, income level, educational quality, location of residence, and more, as well as individuals’ genetics. Dozens of studies show that the higher a person’s wealth and income, for example, the lower their likelihood of illness and premature death, largely because wealthier people can afford resources that lead to improved health.
With the rise of digital health care, the U.S. faces a new health challenge: unequal access to broadband technology. Some 43% of adults in households making less than $30,000 a year — that’s more than 25 million American adults — lack a high-speed internet connection. Those with limited or no internet access can’t communicate online with their physicians, obtain electronic medical records, or access online health resources, all of which can improve health outcomes.
Many digital health products and applications offered today work most effectively with a broadband connection. Tools like smartphones, health monitoring devices, and cloud-based software applications can support health equity by closing communication gaps between patients and providers, enhancing consumer access to health care services and increasing consumers’ knowledge about their own health.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/va-watchdog-new-ehr-scheduling-system-needs-work
VA watchdog: New EHR scheduling system needs work
Although some schedulers reported positive experiences, the Office of Inspector General found a host of problems with the system's implementation.
By Kat Jercich
November 12, 2021 03:14 PM
The Department of Veterans Affairs' Office of Inspector General released a report this week examining whether the VA's new scheduling system, implemented as part of its electronic health record modernization contract with Cerner, had been effectively deployed.
The watchdog acknowledged that the new system has the potential to transform scheduling at the Veterans Health Administration.
However, the OIG found that the VHA and the VA's Office of EHR Modernization knew "of significant system and process limitations before or after implementing the new scheduling system" at two facilities.
"These limitations reduced the system’s effectiveness and risked delays in patient care," read the report.
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Telehealth for Borderline Personality Disorder Treatment Sees Success
Using telehealth for borderline personality disorder treatment led to positive patient outcomes and satisfaction for the Rhode Island Hospital Adult partial hospital program.
November 11, 2021 - Using telehealth to treat patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) produced similar, positive outcomes as in-person treatment, according to a study from the Rhode Island Methods to Improve Diagnostic Assessment and Services (MIDAS) project.
Past studies have shown telehealth’s success in treating mental health disorders such as depression, social anxiety disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder, but there are limited studies that focus on using telehealth to treat borderline personality disorder, the Rhode Island researchers said.
BPD symptoms can include impulsivity, intense fluctuating emotions, unstable relationships, excessive anger, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. The risk of self-injury and suicidality for patients with BPD may speak to why telehealth treatment is so limited, the researchers said.
But clinicians and therapists had to adapt accordingly when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and called for limited in-person contact. The Rhode Island Hospital Adult partial hospital program transitioned to telehealth use for BPD treatment in response to the pandemic.
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/predictive-model-determines-antidepressant-medication-response
Predictive Model Determines Antidepressant Medication Response
A noninvasive predictive model can determine how a patient will respond to certain antidepressant medications, preventing unnecessary side effects.
November 11, 2021 - Using data from the National Institute of Mental Health, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers created a predictive model to determine how a patient will respond to antidepressants.
According to researchers, these findings could provide a strong precision medicine approach in identifying the correct medication for individuals.
“This is a significant advance. It’s noninvasive. It can be and should be used immediately,” Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Director of the Center for Depression Research and Clinical Care, Madhukar Trivedi, MD, said in a press release.
Trivedi explained that the new biomarkers could prevent patients from taking the wrong medication and dealing with unnecessary side effects. The study tested the common antidepressant drug sertraline with a control group taking a placebo. Those that did not respond to sertraline after eight weeks switched to the antidepressant bupropion.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/best-practices-for-responding-to-medical-device-security-incidents
Best Practices for Responding to Medical Device Security Incidents
A new playbook from the Cloud Security Alliance aims to help organizations balance clinical considerations and patient safety risks with medical device security incidents.
By Jill McKeon
November 11, 2021 - As healthcare organizations continue to integrate connected medical devices into everyday clinical care, it is imperative that providers recognize and prepare for medical device security risks that could impact patient safety, the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) suggested in its new “Medical Device Incident Response Playbook.”
The playbook was inspired by growing medical device security concerns since the 2017 WannaCry ransomware incident, which demonstrated the fragility and vulnerabilities of medical devices. WannaCry successfully encrypted radiology equipment drives at hospitals.
“While serious confidentiality and integrity issues are often associated with leakage of medical device data, the highest risk when dealing with systems being used for clinical care concerns is keeping those systems available for patient care use,” the playbook stated.
“The loss of access to medical devices and other clinical system availability can lead to delays in patient care. This loss of availability can be due to the threat itself, or a result of an incident response (IR) process that doesn’t take clinical considerations into account and brings devices offline without consulting health care professionals.”
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Organizations widen virtual offerings in response to pandemic
Patients already wanted an improved experience in healthcare, and the need to meet their needs during the lockdown accelerated changes.
Nov 10 2021
Patients are consumers, and they increasingly expect healthcare providers to meet their needs. At the same time, providers are learning to quickly adapt to these new expectations, often finding that they line up with improvements in service delivery.
These and other lessons were among the findings in Wednesday’s edition of the HDM KLASroom, which covered changing workflows and meeting patients where they are.
The massive impact and change required by the massive COVID-19 pandemic amplified the need to make quick changes in service delivery, noted Adam Cherrington, an research director for KLAS Research. The move to virtual care delivery, through the use of telemedicine and other telehealth services, is one example of a service that soared during the lockdown phase of the pandemic, he noted.
Recent research by KLAS also shows significant consumer appetite for capabilities such as self-scheduling, remote check-ins and other patient-facing services.
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https://www.healthdatamanagement.com/articles/urgency-rises-to-better-link-patients-to-their-records
Urgency rises to better link patients to their records
Current patient matching efforts are marred by flaws, but unique identifiers aren’t a panacea either.
Nov 10 213 min read
Unique patient identifiers are one of many requirements that were established by the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), which also sought standardized IDs for employer, provider and other unique identification numbers.
However, in 1998 Congress introduced language that banned the use of federal funds for the development of a UPI.
Absent a standardized national patient identifier, healthcare providers typically have created their own records numbers for patients. Matching and linking patient medical records within and across the healthcare ecosystem is done through a variety of technologies, such as enterprise-wide master patient indexes and by using records from non-healthcare sources, such as drivers’ licenses, typically called “referential matching.”
However, these techniques are not consistently effective. For instance, a Pew Report found the match rates can be as low as 80 percent - meaning one out of five patients may not be matched to all of his or her records. Even within a facility, where the patient has been seen before; the error rate can be as high as 50 percent, even when providers use the same electronic health record system. Matching then needs to be conducted manually, adding time and cost.
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A national unique patient identifier faces an uncertain, bumpy road
Recent legislative action may clear the path for developing a uniform, accurate and effective way to tie data to patients, but challenges are looming.
Nov 10 2021
The Senate’s recent decision to repeal the ban on funding for the development of a unique patient identifier (UPI) marks a potential watershed moment in the development of what previously has been a hot third rail for privacy concerns.
This controversial possibility of developing a UPI provides a new opportunity to link a patient’s health records throughout the health ecosystem, but also highlights the inherent challenges of such a project.
The Senate in October dropped the prohibition from its appropriations bill for the first time in about 20 years, citing the need to remove this barrier to the sharing of patient information and for public health entities to effectively track contacts and immunizations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Senate’s move follows in the footsteps of the House of Representatives, which had removed the ban from its appropriations bill earlier this year. If Congress passes the 2021 budget, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) then could take a serious look at the feasibility of adopting a UPI as part of a national strategy to better link patient records, thereby setting the stage for improving patient safety, enhancing the coordination of care, and reducing the cost of healthcare.
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Surgeon General Releases Guide to Navigate Health Misinformation
The new toolkit provides resources aimed at identifying and combating health misinformation while COVID-19 vaccination campaigns commence.
November 10, 2021 - The US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, released a new toolkit addressing best practices for individuals to debunk COVID-19 health misinformation and educate their peers about the threats of misinformation.
Throughout the pandemic, misinformation and disinformation have spread rampantly, resulting in people rejecting COVID-19 safety practices and threatening public health. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation study, over two-thirds of unvaccinated adults were exposed to a COVID-19 misconception and believed it or were unsure of its accuracy.
“With the authorization of COVID-19 vaccines for children 5 to11 years old, it is more important than ever that families have access to accurate, science-based information. Health misinformation is spreading fast and far online and throughout our communities,” Murthy said in a public statement.
The toolkit provides detailed guidance for individuals, specifically calling upon healthcare professionals and administrators, teachers, school administrators, librarians, and faith leaders to understand, identify, and evaluate the accuracy of health information within their communities.
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Most Patients Unaware of the Magnitude Healthcare Ransomware Attacks
Half of potential patients said they would change hospitals if their provider was hit by a healthcare ransomware attack, but most are unaware of recent attacks.
By Jill McKeon
November 10, 2021 - Over half of surveyed IT professionals said that their organization has been hit by a healthcare ransomware attack. But 61 percent of surveyed potential patients said that they had not heard of any cyberattacks in the healthcare industry in the last 24 months, new research conducted by Censuswide on behalf of Armis found.
The survey, which included responses from 2,000 potential patients and 400 healthcare IT professionals, revealed an extreme disconnect between patient perceptions of ransomware risks and the significant threat that ransomware actually poses on the healthcare sector.
Ransomware attacks have increased in volume and severity in the healthcare sector over the past few years, and can result in EHR downtime, ambulance diversions, and appointment cancellations. In some rare cases, patient deaths have been directly attributed to ransomware attacks.
Over 80 percent of surveyed IT professionals agreed that they have seen increased cyber risk over the past 12 months. Ransomware gangs are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and startling gaps in medical device security have exposed additional vulnerabilities and expanded the attack surface and scope.
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https://www.medicaleconomics.com/view/how-to-be-a-telehealth-physician
How to be a telehealth physician
November 9, 2021
Medical Economics Journal, Medical Economics November 2021, Volume 98, Issue 11
The COVID-19 pandemic has seen a sea change in the way that physicians treat their patients and nowhere is this more evident that in the near-overnight implementation of telehealth across the health care industry.
Introduction:
The COVID-19 pandemic has seen a sea change in the way that physicians treat their patients and nowhere is this more evident that in the near-overnight implementation of telehealth across the health care industry.
As case counts began to rise in early 2020, public health authorities across the country implemented stay-at-home orders and moratoriums on nonemergency medical services in an effort to keep health care professionals from being overwhelmed by patients with COVID-19. With no other option, many health care entities were forced to step into the telehealth space with little experience and even less training.
The use of telehealth was barely a factor among physicians in 2015, with only 5% of physicians having used video visits to see patients. That trend was on the rise by 2019,with 22%, but the pandemic accelerated it, with 80% of physicians saying they had used video visits to see their patients in 2020.
This is expected to continue even after the pandemic ends, with 92% of physicians still expecting to use video visits when it is safe to meet with patients, according to telehealth provider Amwell.
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Truveta is making progress towards building a living medical portrait of America
Truveta wants to collect privacy-safe medical data from around the United States on a regular basis, making it available for researchers to sift and parse. The company is making real progress toward that goal in product terms, and this morning said it raised another $100 million, giving it a capital base of around $200 million in total.
But the financial aspect, and the fact that Truveta has secured more partners in the medical world to supply it with information, are ancillary to the fact that the startup has started to make its platform available to external parties.
Truveta partners with around 20 medical providers, aggregating regular de-identified data from 42 American states and myriad patients into its collection. From there it has built a software service that allows researchers and other users to ask questions of the collected data. TechCrunch was given a tour of the Truveta product, which, as chart nerds, we liked.
But frankly, your local technology writer is not precisely the Truveta end user. Instead, the product is aimed at individuals with their hands in the public health domain. To that end, the company’s product lets researchers include and exclude elements of the population, before dropping the user into a Jupyter Notebook, from where they can build a dashboard with data that updates daily.
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https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/ge-spin-healthcare-unit-early-2023
GE to spin off healthcare unit in early 2023
The industrial giant plans to retain a stake of almost 20% in GE Healthcare.
By Emily Olsen
November 09, 2021 03:49 pm
GE will spin off its healthcare division, GE Healthcare, in early 2023 as part of a larger effort to separate the nearly 130 year old industrial giant into three separate public companies.
GE plans to retain a stake of 19.9% in GE Healthcare once it’s spun off. The conglomerate will also combine its renewable energy, power and digital businesses and spin them off in early 2024, leaving the original company to focus on aviation.
The company expects the separation and transition to cost around $2 billion, with tax costs at less than $0.5 billion. GE intends the healthcare and energy spinoffs to be tax-free.
“Today and tomorrow, delivering on the future of healthcare is about enabling precision health: integrated, efficient and highly personalized care,” GE chairman and CEO Larry Culp said on a call with investors. Culp will serve as nonexecutive chairman of the healthcare company once it’s spun off, while Peter Arduini will take on the president and CEO role of GE Healthcare starting in 2022.
“Making this a reality requires merging clinical medicine and data science by applying advanced analytics and AI across every possible point of the patient journey. GE is one of the few companies with the reach, capabilities and relationships to do this.”
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Big Focus on Small Data = Big Impact for HIEs Like Healthix
November 10, 2021
Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) are improving the quality of their data to further increase their value. Higher quality data means they can help healthcare organizations understand their region more clearly, allowing them to allocate their resources in the areas that need it. Key to achieving this is translating the data from the various standards used by HIE participants.
Quality Data Aligns with HIE Goals
When the State HIE program was created as part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA), the goal was to enable the timely sharing of health information to improve care quality, efficiency and safety. The data collected by HIEs was meant to enable more effective public health programs, power clinical research, and give providers more comprehensive clinical information for use in treating patients.
“What we do is aggregate clinical data from hospitals, behavioral health organizations, nursing homes, federally qualified health centers, and even community-based organizations,” explained Todd Rogow, President and CEO at Healthix – one of the largest public HIE in the US, serving New York City and Long Island – who sat down with Healthcare IT Today. “It is a diverse set of data sources that we have grown over the years.”
An HIE cannot fulfil its mandate if participating organizations do not trust the data that the HIE provides. Having good quality data, therefore, is paramount to an HIE’s success. It is not surprising therefore, that HIEs like Healthix are investing in tools, talent, and processes that improve the quality of the data in their repositories.
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El Camino Health Celebrates 60th Anniversary, Track Record of Innovation
Analysis | By Christopher Cheney | November 10, 2021
The Mountain View, California-based health system helped develop one of the first electronic medical record systems.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· El Camino Health has embraced the innovative culture of Silicon Valley.
· To succeed in innovation, health systems and hospitals cannot be afraid to lead, must heed the perspectives of consumers, and should target incremental change, El Camino Health's CEO says.
· When it comes to innovation, relatively small health systems and standalone hospitals have the advantage of nimbleness compared to larger organizations.
As El Camino Health marks the health system's 60th year of operating in the Bay Area of California, the health system is celebrating its history of innovation.
Innovation has been a hallmark of the healthcare sector for more than a century. Innovation has driven advancements in a range of medical areas, including medical technology, surgical techniques, and patient experience.
It is critical for health systems and hospitals to be innovative, says Deb Muro, chief information officer at El Camino Health, which features two acute care hospitals.
"You are not going to be able to survive, thrive, and grow if you are not innovating. We all know that healthcare does not provide the best experience for patients—we know that we must innovate to get better. We have opportunities to do things better, and the only way to do that is to do things differently. Innovation is the way that we can make that happen," she says.
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Large tech companies making slow progress in healthcare
Google Health disbands, but giants’ other initiatives make progress in data access, artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
Nov 09 2021
The role of big technology companies in healthcare continues to be in flux, but indications are that they are increasing their footprint in data aggregation, and artificial intelligence and machine learning.
The challenges faced by large technology companies seeking to play a role in healthcare were exemplified by the announcement late this summer that the Google Health division of Alphabet had been dissolved, with its staff reassigned to other parts of Google, working to follow through with the organization’s health-tech initiatives.
Other technology giants – Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, most prominently – continue to pursue advanced computing capabilities to interact with provider or other health organizations, or consumer-facing technologies seeking to improve health data access. Still, the healthcare market generally has continued to be a tough nut to crack for companies that have broadly succeeded with their technologies in other industries.
The changes at Google Health haven’t meant that existing technology efforts have ceased on healthcare solutions. Google’s chief health officer, Karen DeSalvo has indicated in interviews that the company is still continuing efforts in areas where it believes it can use its technology capabilities to improve processes.
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https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/patientcenteredmedicalhome/95521
Click Here If You Want Fewer Clicks in the Health Record
— We need to be able to opt out of some of the EHR's required checkboxes if it's appropriate
The other day during a practice session, when I opened the chart of a patient I was about to start seeing, I noticed that the electronic health record (EHR) had suddenly labeled their chart with something new. Under "Gender Identity," it stated, "Patient chose not to disclose."
"That's strange," I thought. "I wonder what was happening here that led to this change." Last time I had seen the patient, it had an actual gender choice listed there (and had it listed that choice for them, to the best of my recollection, since we started using this system over 14 years ago).
When I entered the room, I asked my patient, whom I've been taking care of for over 20 years, whether someone had asked this question and perhaps they'd decided that they just didn't want this information on their chart, or even possibly that something had changed in how they wished to be identified. My patient looked at me like I was kind of crazy, and said they had no idea what I was talking about. Clearly, someone toggled something somewhere during some part of registration to change the patient's actual gender to this noncommittal answer, and it made me realize that there are so many places where we have to make so many choices to get our patients the care that they need, that we are all totally overwhelmed.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/emea/nhs-receives-248m-boost-modernise-diagnostics
NHS receives £248M boost to modernise diagnostics
The funding is for new technology to help tackle patient waiting lists.
By Tammy Lovell
November 09, 2021 06:30 AM
The UK government has pledged £248 million over the next year to digitise diagnostics care across the NHS.
New technology will be used to improve the way tests, images and results can be shared across computer systems in hospitals, labs and GP surgeries, meaning clinicians can access results more easily, even when working from different settings.
It will also allow imaging specialists to review high-res images remotely without needing to be in an imaging lab.
The funding will also provide a new tool to help GPs and other clinicians choose the most suitable scan for their patient based on the patient’s symptoms and medical history. This aims to cut inappropriate requests made to radiology departments, saving radiologists’ time and ensuring patients get the right scans at the right time.
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Highly Sensitive Motion Sensors from Xandar Kardian Anticipate Critical Health Incidents
November 9, 2021
Timely prediction is key to saving both lives and money in the health care system. I recently talked to Sam Yang, managing director and cofounder of Xandar Kardian, about their motion sensor called XK300 that can tip off clinicians to oncoming emergencies in patients suffering from COVID-19, heart failure, COPD, pneumonia, asthma, and more.
The XK300 emits very fast, high-bandwidth signals over a wide area in a technology called ultra wide band (UWB) radar. The XK300 is pretty tolerant of location; it can be on a wall or even a ceiling (which would make it harder to remove) and can scan an entire human body (Figure 2). Thus, it can check the breathing and even the heart beat of a sleeping patient. The device has FDA clearance and Xandar Kardian markets it both to hospitals and to clinicians monitoring patients in their homes.
Take the example of rapid breathing, a common indicator of risk in COVID-19 patients as well as those with asthma, pneumonia, and heart disease. A healthy breathing rate of a person at rest is around 10 to 12 breaths per minute. If those goes up a bit—say, to 15 breaths per minute—there’s an early sign of lung or heart problems that could get worse fast.
The XK300 can detect a change from 12 to 15 breaths per second. In contrast, a pulse oximeter reports a problem only when breaths get up to about 25 per minute. The person is quite close to an emergency by that time.
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Sociodemographic Factors Impacted Success of Telehealth Video Visits
Patients over 65 and Black patients were more likely to have an unsuccessful telehealth video visit compared to their younger White counterparts due to a slew of sociodemographic factors.
November 08, 2021 - Patient sociodemographic factors largely influenced whether a telehealth video visit was successful or not, with racial minority status and older age being associated with unsuccessful visits, a JAMA Network Open study found.
The spike in telehealth adoption increased access to healthcare services during the COVID-19 pandemic when in-person interaction was discouraged. But the telehealth boom may have enhanced care disparities for some populations as well.
Individuals must have access to a smartphone or a computer and a stable internet connection to use telehealth. Although these resources may be common among some Americans, not everyone has equal access. Low socioeconomic status or living in rural areas may widen health disparities when it comes to using telehealth.
Researchers from the Medical College of Wisconsin conducted a quality improvement study of telehealth video visits to discover how many visits were completed successfully and if the odds of success were influenced by patient and clinician factors.
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/skilled-nursing-facilities-had-mixed-reviews-of-telehealth-use
Skilled Nursing Facilities Had Mixed Reviews of Telehealth Use
While telehealth helped improve access to convenient care for residents in skilled nursing facilities, some staff found it difficult to use without proper training.
November 05, 2021 - Telehealth helped increase access to care and reduce stress for some skilled nursing facility residents and staff, but others faced unexpected challenges and consequences of telehealth use, a study from the University of Missouri found.
Like other healthcare organizations, skilled nursing facilities were hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting many to implement telehealth programs in an attempt to relieve some of the burden.
Kimberly Powell, an assistant professor at the MU Sinclair School of Nursing, led the study and interviewed 21 administrators and clinicians from 16 skilled nursing facilities across the country about their experiences with telehealth.
Telehealth proved to be convenient for some nursing home residents, as they could access timely care without having to travel, the study indicated.
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FDA hopes draft guidance on device software will offer 'clarity, simplicity'
The new document, published this past week, takes stock of a fast-changing technology environment – and would replace the agency's previous medical device guidance, first issued more than 16 years ago.
By Mike Miliard
November 08, 2021 03:12 PM
This past week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration published draft guidance for its Content of Premarket Submissions for Device Software Functions.
WHY IT
MATTERS
The guidance, posted online on November 4, intended to provide
information regarding the recommended documentation to include in premarket
submissions for the FDA to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of device
software functions.
The FDA's draft recommendations pertain to device software functions – software in a medical device (SiMD) and software as a medical device (SaMD), most notably – and describe data that would be generated and documented during software design, development, verification and validation.
The guidance, once finalized after a public content period, would replace the FDA’s more than 16-year-old Guidance for the Content of Premarket Submissions for Software Contained in Medical Devices.
It represents a substantial reworking of that document, which was first issued in May 2005, when the existing technology landscape could hardly have been imagined. Just as the maturity and capabilities of medical devices have evolved significantly since then, so has the agency's regulatory approach.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/unitedhealth-ciso-ransomware-existential-risk-delivery-care
UnitedHealth CISO: Ransomware 'an existential risk to the delivery of care'
In her session at the upcoming virtual HIMSS Healthcare Cybersecurity Forum, Aimee Cardwell will walk information security and IT leaders through a risk-fraught landscape – and offer tips for best defenses.
By Bill Siwicki
November 08, 2021 12:28 PM
As part of the HIMSS Healthcare Cybersecurity Forum virtual event December 6-7, Aimee Cardwell, the chief information security officer for the UnitedHealth Group at Optum Technology, will dig into the subject of ransomware in an educational session entitled "Ransomware: Today's Threat Landscape." Optum Technology is UnitedHealth Group's IT and services subsidiary.
Ransomware continues to expose the vulnerabilities in the global network from the government to infrastructure to hospitals. In this session, Cardwell will discuss the current threat landscape and the ransomware to watch out for.
In a sneak-peek of the session, Healthcare IT News interviewed Cardwell to get her to explain the cybersecurity landscape and some of the best defenses against ransomware.
Q. What is the current threat landscape for healthcare organizations?
A. We see three major categories of threat. First, ransomware. According to the Wall Street Journal, ransomware has become the most lucrative form of malware globally, generating $350 million in 2020, while causing over $20 billion in damages and downtime over the same period.
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New Zealand taps MATTR for local and international vaccination passes
Both passes will become available later in November.
By Adam Ang
November 08, 2021 03:14 AM
New Zealand's Ministry of Health has chosen Auckland-based IT services provider MATTR to create vaccination passes for both domestic and international use.
In a statement, it said MATTR, which won a closed competitive tender process, will be the main technology provider for both passes.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT
The agency last week released the specification for the domestic COVID-19 vaccine pass and verifier to its Github account.
My Vaccine Pass will serve as an official record of a person's vaccination status for accessing places within the country while a separate pass for international travel will be introduced soon.
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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/finance/manage-successful-remote-work-model-your-health-system
Manage a Successful Remote Work Model at Your Health System
Analysis | By David Weldon | November 04, 2021
The pandemic has shown healthcare organizations that many jobs can be done successfully from home, at least partly. Here are tips to make the program work, says one CFO.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· CFOs have an important role to play in developing a hybrid strategy that encourages productivity while also boosting patient care.
· Many organizations must revisit their management styles and take a more humanistic approach to supervising hybrid workers.
(Editor's note: This is the second article in a series on the healthcare labor market from the CFO perspective.)
Most healthcare organizations are hoping to bring remote workers back into the workplace in some capacity. After all, the pandemic has been disrupting the workforce for almost 20 months now.
But having tasted their first experience with remote work, many workers say they now don't want to go back to the workplace, at least full time. Those workers saved money, gained back time, and better juggled personal commitments during the shutdowns and ensuing surges. Still, there are downsides to remote work, such as the loss of face-to-face communication and camaraderie in a virtual work environment. Remote workers often complain about the loneliness of it.
Meanwhile, healthcare organizations discovered during the pandemic that many employees can be productive working from home. This lesson has come as a surprise to many since organizations have historically discouraged remote work arrangements. Before the pandemic, a small percentage of the U.S. workforce did their jobs remotely.
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https://histalk2.com/2021/11/05/weekender-11-5-21/
Weekly News Recap
- Allscripts and Change Healthcare report quarterly results that beat earnings expectations but fall short on revenue.
- EverCommerce announces that it will acquire DrChrono.
- Worklfow automation vendor Notable raises $100 million in a Series B funding round.
- CMS will increase the minimum penalty for hospitals that don’t comply with pricing transparency requirements to $10 per bed, per day starting on January 1, 2022.
- 23andMe says it hasn’t decided how to integrate its recent acquisition of telehealth provider Lemonaid Health, but expects to incorporate genetic risk factors into its primary care prescribing.
- A VA survey of employees at its initial Cerner implementation site find widespread worsening of morale, burnout, and lack of confidence in performing their jobs using Cerner, leading to the VA’s pledge to add executive oversight to the project.
- Kareo and PatientPop merge to form Tebra.
- Cerner and NextGen report quarterly results that beat expectations for revenue and earnings.
- Cerner CEO David Feinberg addresses EHR usability and a tightening of less-profitable company products and partnerships in its quarterly earnings call.
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Enjoy!
David.
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