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/2022/02/health-education-england-ai-roadmap/
Health Education England publishes NHS AI roadmap
Health Education England has published the first roadmap into the use of artificial intelligence (AI) across the NHS and the impact this could have on the workforce.
Cora Lydon 16 February, 2022
The roadmap forms part of a report which aims to understand the use of AI and data-driven technologies that are currently being used in the NHS, the uptake of these technologies and the impact they are having on the staff using them.
In particular, the report is trying to determine how long AI projects take to implement, the different uses of the technology and how they’re distributed through the health service, what clinical areas are using AI, and which parts of the workforce are using AI the most.
Dr Hatim Abdulhussein, clinical lead for the Digital, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Technologies in Education (DART-Ed) programme at Health Education England, said: “The AI Roadmap is an invaluable asset in helping to understand the AI and data driven landscape in healthcare, and the implications this will have on our staff and learners.”
The roadmap was developed in cooperation with Unity Insights, with support from NICE, NHS AI Lab and the NHS Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC). The aim is to provide valuable insights for leaders into AI policy, education, regulation, innovation, digital transformation and workforce strategy.
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Ransomware prevention: How organizations can fight back
By Jim Boehm, Franz Hall, Rich Isenberg, and Marissa Michel
Ransomware prevention: How organizations can fight back
Ransomware has rapidly become one of the top cybersecurity nightmares. Strategies for prevention, preparation, response, and recovery can help.
Sometimes looking at the overall numbers, it is hard to grasp the reality of a ransomware attack’s effect on a company. To put it in perspective, here are some specific costs: Colonial Pipeline paid a $4.4 million ransom after the company shut down operations, global meat producer JBS paid $11.0 million, and global insurance provider CNA Financial paid a reported $40.0 million. Additionally, a ransomware attack on US software provider Kaseya targeted the firm’s remote-computer-management tool and endangered up to 2,000 companies globally. These figures do not reflect the additional costs of an attack, including paying third parties, such as legal, PR, and negotiation firms, or the opportunity costs of having executives and specialized teams turn away from their day-to-day roles for weeks or months to deal with an attack and its aftermath, or the lost revenue that results.
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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/innovation/ultimate-starter-kit-remote-patient-monitoring
The Ultimate Starter Kit for Remote Patient Monitoring
Analysis | By Sudipto Srivastava | February 17, 2022
Health systems have realized the importance of monitoring patients outside the healthcare facility and are building advanced RPM programs to address this need.
Editor's note: Sudipto Srivastava is the vice president of digital solutions at Hospital for Special Surgery.
With the exponential increase in the use of telehealth during the pandemic, patients are now familiar with seeing their clinical team in virtual settings. Simultaneously, health systems have realized the importance of monitoring patients outside the healthcare facility and are building advanced remote patient monitoring (RPM) programs to address this continued need. Creating a scalable RPM program requires careful thought.
There can be pitfalls in implementing a robust RPM program—from distractions like the Shiny Toy syndrome to missed clinical alerts. It is important to remember the 4 D's: Devices, Data, Dialogue, and Dropping charges when getting started.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/ehr-vendor-athenahealth-acquired-by-hellman-friedman-bain-capital
EHR Vendor athenahealth Acquired by Hellman & Friedman, Bain Capital
Two private equity firms have acquired cloud-based EHR vendor athenahealth in a $17 billion transaction.
February 17, 2022 - athenahealth, an EHR vendor boasting cloud-based tech solutions, has been acquired by two private equity firms, Hellman & Friedman LLC and Bain Capital, for $17 billion.
“We are thrilled to partner with Hellman & Friedman and Bain Capital as we take the next step in our evolution and continue our work to transform and improve the delivery of healthcare,” Bob Segert, chairman and chief executive officer of athenahealth, stated publicly.
“It is an exciting time for athenahealth’s customers, employees, and partners,” Segert added. “This acquisition confirms our position as the largest and most innovative provider of cloud-based electronic medical record and physician practice solutions across healthcare, and I look forward to our future as we work together to realize our vision of creating a thriving ecosystem that delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all.”
The EHR vendor has been acquired twice in the last few years. In 2019, Evergreen Coast Capital and investment firm Veritas took athenahealth private in a $5.7 billion deal. The deal required athenahealth to merge with Virence Health, a health provider Veritas acquired from General Electric Co.
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79% of Patients Want Call, Text to Signal Start of Telehealth Visit
Most patients, including those with chronic illnesses, wanted to be notified via call or text that their virtual visit was about to begin rather than stand by in a virtual waiting room, per a new poll.
By Anuja Vaidya
February 17, 2022 - Though patients have previously made their preference for virtual waiting rooms over traditional ones known, new survey results show that a majority of telehealth patients would rather just be notified by a text or call when their doctor is ready to see them.
Doximity, an online networking service and telehealth platform for healthcare professionals, conducted the new survey last November, polling 2,000 US adults, of whom 1,000 identified as having a chronic illness.
As telehealth becomes integrated into care delivery, questions around patient preferences arise. The survey helps shed some light, showing that 79 percent of patients would prefer a call or text letting them know that their doctor is ready to see them versus having to wait in a virtual waiting room. Even among chronic illness patients only, an overwhelming majority (81 percent) would prefer to receive a call or text.
Patients also displayed a strong preference for familiarity with a provider. Overall, 83 percent of patients surveyed said they would wait one to three days to see their current doctor rather than seeing a new physician immediately.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/hipaa-technical-safeguards-basic-review
HIPAA Technical Safeguards: A Basic Review
It’s critical to review the requirements of HIPAA technical safeguards to ensure that your healthcare organization is compliant and able to keep PHI safe.
February 17, 2022 - While no healthcare organization can eliminate the possibility of facing a data breach, implementing HIPAA technical safeguards can go a long way toward mitigating cyber risk.
Under the HIPAA Security Rule, healthcare organizations are required to keep electronic protected health information (ePHI) safe from external and internal threats via technical, administrative, and physical safeguards.
Healthcare data breaches occur nearly every day, and threat actors are constantly shifting their tactics and targets to adapt. In response to the ever-changing cyber threat landscape, it is crucial that healthcare organizations implement technical safeguards that are current, comprehensive, and compliant.
What are HIPAA technical safeguards?
According to the HIPAA Security Rule, technical safeguards are “the technology and the policy and procedures for its use that protect electronic protected health information and control access to it.”
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Organizations interested in earning QHIN designation, but questions abound
Some say Qualified Health Information Networks offer great potential opportunity to boost national data exchange if challenges can be overcome.
Feb 17 2022
Much of what will be required of the qualified health information networks that will facilitate nationwide data exchange under the Trusted Exchange Framework and the Common Agreement is still unknown.
But that has not stopped several organizations from expressing interest in applying for the job of running a QHIN.
TEFCA was created to carry out a requirement under the 21st Century Cures Act to facilitate nationwide interoperability. The QHINs will be the cornerstone of this data exchange, connecting to each other and to their participants and subparticipants.
The QHIN application process is expected to begin in the second quarter, says Mariann Yeager, CEO of the Sequoia Project, the Recognized Coordinating Entity in charge of designating QHINs and providing oversight.
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Data Analytics Skill Sets to Have in Today’s Data Decision Support Environment
Healthcare organizations are facing tremendous obstacles in the current healthcare climate, with staff shortages, burnout of medical professionals, and hospital admissions at an all-time high.
By Lesley Clack, ScD, MS, CPH; Shannon H. Houser, PhD, MPH, RHIA, FAHIMA; Michelle Martin, MEd, MBA, RHIA, FAHIMA; and Joanna Ward, MA, RHIA
Healthcare organizations are facing tremendous obstacles in the current healthcare climate, with staff shortages, burnout of medical professionals, and hospital admissions at an all-time high. All of these factors, alongside rising healthcare costs, are requiring many organizations to make numerous difficult decisions.
In order for senior leadership to make informed decisions, critical data must be obtained, analyzed, and displayed in a format that is accurate and trustworthy. How does senior leadership get the data necessary to make decisions, and who is the responsible party? A data analyst in health informatics and information management can fulfill this role.
According to an article from Columbia Engineering, “It’s no hyperbole to say that modern society runs on data. Humanity generates an incredible two and a half quintillion bytes of data daily with no signs of slowing down.” But what is data analytics, and why is it important to healthcare?
Masters in Data Science defines data analytics as the “process of analyzing raw data to find trends and answer questions, and the definition of data analytics captures its broad scope of the field.” There are four primary types of data analytics: descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive. Each type has a different goal and a different place in the data analysis process. This article will detail the skill set needed to work in data analytics, as well as how selected data analytics impact healthcare organizations and procedures to ensure data integrity.
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Next generation vaccines, help for paralyzed patients: Cleveland Clinic honors Top 10 Medical Innovations for 2022
Published: Feb. 16, 2022, 9:02 a.m.
By Julie Washington, cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio — The next generation of mRNA vaccines, as well as treatments for type 2 diabetes and postpartum depression are among the innovations that earned spots on the Cleveland Clinic’s Top 10 Medical Innovations for 2022.
The list of breakthrough technologies, chosen by a committee of Clinic experts, was announced Wednesday.
These medical advancements have the potential to transform healthcare in the coming year, the Clinic said. The committee considered technologies developed by the Clinic as well as other research centers.
The list of breakthrough medical innovations is even more important this year, because it highlights aspects of medicine outside of COVID-19, said Geoffrey Vince, executive director of Cleveland Clinic Innovations and chair of biomedical Engineering at the Clinic. He led the committee that compiled the top 10 list.
“We have nine non-COVID-19 technologies which may not have come to the public view if it wasn’t for this this top 10 list,” Vince said. “It’s things that people should pay attention to if they’re interested in the field.”
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Fine Balance Between Empowering Patients and Offloading Tasks
February 17, 2022
Life is a tricky balance and is often about perspective. For example, when you go into the grocery store these days you now see all of these self check out options. It’s easy to see why stores like self check-out. They only have to have 1 person there covering multiple checkout stations. That’s a lower cost to them. While this is clear for the store and why they’ve made the change, the customer experience varies.
For example, many see self check out as the store forcing the customer to do the work. They feel like the store should do the checkout and pay for the people to provide that service. This makes some sense. At self check out, you’re basically working at the store as a checker for a few minutes. On the other end of the spectrum is people like me. I LOVE self check out. I hated sitting in lines waiting to be checked out (self check out has reduced lines) and I love being in control of the speed of how quickly I’m checked out. Maybe I have some control issues here, but self check out is so much faster for me and I love it.
The reality here is that neither perspective is wrong. And stores have to balance the reality of customers with different views and feelings about checkout. The same is true in so many parts of healthcare.
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CHIME Launches New Health Technology to Boost Health Information Access
The technology will focus on delivering healthcare leaders better health information access involving topics such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, clinical care delivery, and patient engagement.
February 15, 2022 - The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) recently announced the launch of its new health technology, Digital Health Insights, in an effort to increase health information access, according to a recent press release sent to journalists.
Digital Health Insights will aim to provide CHIME members with the latest resources on the most pressing healthcare issues to keep up with major shifts in healthcare delivery. The topics covered will include information on artificial intelligence and machine learning, clinical care delivery, cybersecurity, digital health leadership and transformation, patient engagement and experience, and virtual care.
“The launch of DHI this week is the latest CHIME initiative to bring new knowledge resources to even more healthcare industry leaders,” Steve Lieber, CHIME’s chief analytics officer, said in the press release. “Over the coming weeks and months, we will be launching additional tools that will give providers and solution companies insights, survey research data, and analysis from the world of digital health technology.”
Health leaders using the Digital Health Insights websites will receive access to tailored content on a weekly basis, the press release stated.
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https://patientengagementhit.com/news/convenience-technology-use-can-boost-patient-satisfaction
Convenience, Technology Use Can Boost Patient Satisfaction
A convenient healthcare experience fueled by technology will improve patient satisfaction and drive patient retention.
February 16, 2022 - A convenient and technology-driven healthcare experience has become an essential factor in boosting patient satisfaction, as roughly 4 in 5 Americans want the ability to use technology when managing their healthcare experience, according to a Harris Poll conducted on behalf of Tegris.
The survey comprising responses from 2,000 healthcare consumers nationwide uncovered that 7 in 10 healthcare consumers would consider switching to another provider that offered more appealing services.
The report highlighted several factors that could persuade patients to leave their existing healthcare providers. Thirty-five percent of healthcare consumers stated same-day appointments for non-routine issues would influence them to switch providers.
Nearly 3 in 10 respondents would consider switching to a provider with a convenient location. In fact, a convenient healthcare experience is more important than having a designated healthcare provider for 59 percent of consumers.
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https://icd10monitor.com/three-steps-to-improve-cdi-for-good/
Three Steps to Improve CDI for Good
Glenn Krauss, RHIA, BBA, CCS, CCS-P, CPUR, CCDS, C-CDI, PCS, FC
There is a three-step process for improving the CDI process, bringing it closer to true clinical documentation integrity.
All hospitals
and health systems are facing continuing financial challenges associated with
dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. While news reports note that the Omicron
variant is trending downward, there is inarguably no shortage of hospitalized
patients with healthcare worker burnout and widespread shortages of qualified
healthcare professionals, including nurses, respiratory therapists, and even
physicians. The National Hospital Kaufman Hall Flash Report for January 2022
provides real-time financial data that highlights these financial challenges
hospitals and health systems are dealing with: (Kaufuman
Hall Flash Report).
Adding to these current financial challenges are payers that are still
maintaining and expanding their cost-containment, profit-centered initiatives
to downgrade hospital level-of-care decisions by physicians to observation,
deny care under the auspices of lack of medical necessity, challenge
physicians’ clinical judgment and medical decision-making on the basis of
clinical validation diagnosis determinations, and lastly, challenge coders’
assignment of ICD-10 diagnosis and procedure codes, with the goal of
downgrading MS-RG assignment. One must not overlook payers or their contractors
reviewing inpatient stays two to three years after initially paying the claim
to claw back monies from the provider, utilizing the above rationale. A
physician colleague of mine recently equated the healthcare revenue cycle to a
cat-and-mouse game, with the payer controlling the upper hand just because they
control the purse strings. What strategies can a hospital or health system
consider, mount, and deploy in a concerted attempt to level the playing field
with the payers and alleviate roadblocks thrown up by the payer to deny
much-needed reimbursement for patient care services rendered?
A Historic Background to CDI
Most hospitals and health systems have invested heavily in clinical
documentation integrity (CDI) initiatives, both in the inpatient and outpatient
setting, with the goal of optimizing revenue through better physician clinical
documentation. Interest in clinical documentation improvement, now known as
clinical documentation “integrity” programs, became entrenched, with consulting
companies promoting their programs as means of maximizing revenue through
capture of additional diagnoses impacting case mix index and reimbursement.
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CDC, CMS call for rebuilding health system after patient safety measures drop
Gabrielle Masson – 15 February 2022
As patient safety declines amid the pandemic, the U.S. must rebuild a healthcare delivery system in which safety is embedded in every step of a process, with clear metrics that are aggregated, assessed and acted on, according to an analysis published Feb. 12 by The New England Journal of Medicine.
The article was penned by Lee Fleisher, MD, chief medical officer and director at CMS; Michelle Schreiber, MD, deputy director for quality and value at CMS; Denise Cardo, MD, director of the division of healthcare quality promotion for the CDC's National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; and Arjun Srinivasan, MD, associate director for healthcare-associated infection prevention programs in the division of healthcare quality promotion at CDC's National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, metrics tracking healthcare-associated infections and other complications of care indicate significant deterioration of multiple patient safety measures.
"It is abundantly clear that the healthcare ecosystem cannot ask clinicians and staff to work harder," the authors wrote, "but must instead provide them with more tools and an environment built on a strong foundation of wellness and on instilling and rewarding a culture of safety."
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Report shows overwhelming patient interest in post-pandemic virtual care
Research from the telehealth platform Doximity finds that nearly three-quarters of patients surveyed say they plan to keep receiving at least some care virtually.
By Kat Jercich
February 16, 2022 03:32 PM
In its second "state of telemedicine" report, virtual care platform vendor Doximity found that roughly three-quarters of patients surveyed said they plan to continue using telehealth after the pandemic.
The report, which surveyed 2,000 patients and more than 1,000 physicians, found evidence that virtual care had helped build trust among users.
"The results of our study suggest doctors and patients alike have found it easy and convenient to adopt telemedicine, so much so that they plan to continue using it after the pandemic," said Doximity VP of product Peter Alperin in a statement.
WHY IT MATTERS
The Doximity report sought to forecast future telemedicine trends by analyzing telehealth adoption across its user base from January 2020 through June 2021 and conducting a study of patients’ experiences with telemedicine during the same time frame.
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Feb 16, 2022,09:00am EST|147 views
The Accuracy Limits Of Data-Driven Healthcare
Forbes Councils Member
Algorithms are only as good as the quality of data they’re being fed. This is not a new concept, but as we begin to rely more heavily on data-driven technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and other automation tools and applications, it’s becoming a more important one.
Recent research from MIT found a high number of errors in publicly available datasets that are widely used for training models. An average of 3.3% errors were found in the test sets of 10 of the most widely used computer vision, natural language processing (NLP) and audio datasets.
Given that accuracy baselines are often at or above 90%, this means that a lot of research innovation amounts to chance — or overfitting to errors. Data science practitioners should exercise caution when choosing which models to deploy based on small accuracy gains on such datasets.
These findings are particularly concerning when it comes to AI applications in high-stakes industries like healthcare. Outcomes in this field have the ability to prevent disease, accelerate the development of life-saving medicine and help us understand the spread of disease and other critical health trends. While accuracy in healthcare is vital to success, it’s also rife with complexities that make this extremely challenging.
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Penn Medicine Touts Success of Digital Care Coordination Platform
Analysis | By Eric Wicklund | February 16, 2022
The Pennsylvania health system is pointing to a recent survey that shows the digital health tool, which is now marketed by a company spun out of Penn Medicine, improves real-time care coordination.
Penn Medicine is touting the results of a study showing the value of a digital workflow tool, developed at the health system, that allows providers to better coordinate care between teams.
The tool, called CareAlign, pulls data from the electronic health record and allows multiple providers to access from different locations and schedule services, such as tests and specialist consults. It’s designed to give the patient’s care team real-time access via mHealth devices to the patient’s care management plan as it’s designed and updated.
According to a study recently published in Applied Clinical Informatics, the digital health tool saw widespread use across three hospitals in 2016, and has been positively reviewed by clinicians in surveys taken in 2016 and 2018, with steady use over at least four years.
Penn Medicine has since spun the service into a digital health company called CareAlign, which markets the tool to other health systems.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/ransomware-demands-data-leaks-skyrocketed-last-year
Ransomware Demands, Data Leaks Skyrocketed Last Year
The 2022 CrowdStrike Global Threat Report found an 82% increase in data leaks resulting from ransomware as well as an increase in ransomware demands.
By Jill McKeon
February 15, 2022 - In its annual threat report, CrowdStrike observed an 82 percent increase in data leaks resulting from ransomware in 2021. CrowdStrike researchers tracked more than 50 targeted ransomware events per week on average.
In addition, the report found that the average ransom demand increased to $6.1 million in 2021, signifying a 36 percent spike compared to 2020. The findings bolstered those of other recent reports and underscored the growing threat of ransomware and data breaches across all sectors.
The healthcare sector ranked sixth in the number of ransomware-based data leaks, jumping from 94 in 2020 to 154 in 2021. Overall, every sector analyzed saw significant increases in cyber threats throughout the last year compared to 2020.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recently released a report that revealed that 14 of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors were targeted in ransomware attacks last year, further solidifying the grim nature of today’s cyber threat landscape.
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Analyzing Finger Taps, Voice on Cellphone May Help in Diagnosis
by Steve Bryson PhD | February 14, 2022
Collecting finger tapping, voice, and walking data on a smartphone to be digitally processed by deep machine learning tools can accurately distinguish between people with and without Parkinson’s disease, a study of more than 7,000 people reported.
This approach, known integrative digital biomarkers, may help to diagnose the disease in its early stages and provide a more convenient way to monitor patient symptoms and progression, its scientists suggested.
The study, “Heterogeneous digital biomarker integration out-performs patient self-reports in predicting Parkinson’s disease,” was published in the journal Nature Communication Biology.
Tremors, slow movements, and rigidity are hallmark symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
Mobile devices and built-in sensors can convert these abnormal movements into digital signals to measure and monitor symptoms.
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Broad industry coalition seeks lasting telehealth policy approach
More than 300 healthcare organizations sign a letter to Congress demanding study and action to make permanent regulatory changes.
Feb 15 224 min read
A wide array of healthcare organizations is pushing for permanent changes in telehealth policy that would assure extensions of waivers and permissions granted because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The initiative produced a letter signed by 336 organizations that want permanent reform in telehealth policy, reflecting the experience gained from emergency efforts enacted as part of an emergency response to the pandemic.
The broad industry backing seeks reform to alleviate the uncertainty surrounding current emergency measures, which are continued only because the Biden Administration is extending them because of the current public health emergency. That is creating significant uncertainty for the U.S. Healthcare system, the letter’s backers say.
While telehealth encounters have declined from the height of the pandemic nearly two years ago, use of these services is rising among consumers, who appreciate the convenience and immediacy of telehealth-enabled encounters. The breadth of support for telehealth within the industry recognizes increasing acceptance among industry organizations.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/disability-documentation-ehr-can-improve-care-quality
Disability documentation in the EHR can improve care quality
An article in Health Affairs shows that standardizations in the electronic health record could also facilitate value-based care and create research opportunities.
By Kat Jercich
February 15, 2022 12:17 PM
A recent article in Health Affairs called the electronic health record an "underrated medium" for improving care and pushed for the standardization of structures for documenting disabilities.
"In medical school, we spend a lot of time learning how to take a patient’s medical history. We practice asking specifically worded questions in a structured way to develop 'muscle memory' and allow us to focus on the nuanced content of our conversations," wrote Trisha Kaundinya, the cofounder of the Disability Advocacy Coalition in Medicine, in the piece.
"But many of us do not learn how to ask patients about disability, whether it affects their daily lives, and what accommodations they need to optimize communication and quality of life," Kaundinya continued.
WHY IT MATTERS
As Kaundinya notes, a lack of provider training about how to approach patients with disabilities may compromise quality of care.
With that in mind, she proposes a range of strategies, including implementing EHR standardizations to record disability and accommodations.
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https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/forefront.20220209.110739/
The Need For Disability Documentation In The Electronic Health Record
February 14, 2022 10.1377/forefront.20220209.110739
In medical school, we spend a lot of time learning how to take a patient’s medical history. We practice asking specifically worded questions in a structured way to develop “muscle memory” and allow us to focus on the nuanced content of our conversations. But many of us do not learn how to ask patients about disability, whether it affects their daily lives, and what accommodations they need to optimize communication and quality of life.
This lack of training—when coupled with societal biases about disability, which many physicians share—compromises our care of patients with disabilities. For example, a recent study found that more than one-third of US physicians knew little or nothing about their legal responsibilities per the Americans with Disabilities Act, which includes providing reasonable accommodations in the health care setting. Additional data from this national survey found that only 40 percent of physicians felt strongly confident that they could provide the same quality of care to patients with disabilities and patients without disabilities. These threads of compromised care for this population contribute to adverse health outcomes.
An underrecognized medium for improving the quality of care for patients with disabilities is the electronic health record (EHR). Electronic record-keeping is a ubiquitous part of training for medical students of my generation. Alongside learning how to take a medical history, we learn how to use the EHR to write organized notes, review important interval events that occur between medical visits, and anticipate ancillary services needed. Health care professionals also rely on the EHR as capsules of vital information about their patients.
Robust use of the EHR is an opportunity to improve the quality of our documentation of disability and accommodations—and thereby better our quality of care for patients with disabilities.
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Study Says Patients Like Mayo Clinic’s “Care Hotel” Virtual Care Approach for Surgical Care
February 15, 2022
A new study has concluded that Mayo Clinic’s hybrid Care Hotel is working well for patients, offering them an opportunity to handle stressful aspects of surgery in a lower-stress environment and saving them money.
Mayo’s Care Hotel is a virtual medicine hybrid care model implemented at Mayo’s Florida location in July 2020. Mayo designed the model, which focuses on serving patients following small and low-risk surgical procedures, to speed up recovery as well as preserve hospital capacity for those that need it.
In a study published in the journal Annals of Medicine and Surgery, the authors describe the experience and feedback received from 102 patients admitted to the Care Hotel.
Patients were referred to the on-campus hotel by either a primary surgical or interventional team before surgery. Once signed up, patients were educated about the program, which offers vital sign monitoring, nursing, neurologic assessments, dressing changes, urinary catheter, drain management and education, as well as breakthrough non-opioid pain and nausea medication, which is administered by paramedics.
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Researchers Using Digital Health Tools to Design a 'Digital Twin' for Patients
Analysis | By Eric Wicklund | February 14, 2022
Researchers at the University of Miami School of Medicine have launched an NIH-funded study to create a 'digital twin,' which would stand in for the patient on any tests or new treatments to determine whether they're effective.
Researchers at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine are creating a “digital twin” that would replace the patient during tests and treatments.
Called the MLBox, it would use digital health wearables and smart devices in the home to collect biological, clinical, behavioral and environmental data on a patient, then create a model that could be used to test out new treatments before they’re tried on the actual patient.
The project is being spearheaded by the Miller School’s Media and Innovation Lab (TheMIL), along with Amazon Web Services and the Open Health Network, and will initially focus on treatments for sleep issues, such as sleep apnea, and their link to serious health concerns like dementia and heart disease.
“We want to demonstrate that this kind of individualized data capture can spur a new line of research and personalization in healthcare,” Azizi Seixas, PhD, founding director of TheMI, an associate director for the Translational Sleep and Circadian Sciences Program at the Miller School of Medicine, and one of the nation’s leading experts on sleep health, said in a press release. “With the capacity to discover everything we can about the individual, we can change the relationship between people and their health.”
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/va-improving-ehrm-data-standardization-for-clinician-needs
VA Improving EHRM Data Standardization for Clinician Needs
After a GAO report revealed data quality concerns earlier this month, VA has made “significant improvements” to its EHRM data standardization processes, an official said.
February 14, 2022 - The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has completed most of the data standardization needed for its EHR Modernization (EHRM) effort, according to reporting from FedScoop.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report earlier this month that revealed clinicians had experienced challenges with the quality of migrated data from VA’s legacy VistA EHR to the new Cerner Millennium and HealtheIntent systems.
On Thursday, Laura Prietula, acting deputy chief information officer for the VA EHRM, said that uniformly transferring veteran EHR data to the platforms has required the EHRM Integration Office to make “significant improvements” to its processes.
“We’ve learned a lot around the lack of standardization,” Prietula said during AFCEA Bethesda‘s 14th annual health IT event. “And it may not just be because of the data models themselves, but also some processes that we need to change or policies.”
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/telehealth-use-dropped-to-8-in-2021
Telehealth Use Dropped to 8% in 2021
New data reveal a 13 percent rise in telehealth use during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, but usage has since dropped as surges slowed.
February 14, 2022 - Though telehealth is still on the rise, new data from the Peterson- KFF Health System Tracker revealed how the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic might affect outpatient visit preferences.
As the COVID-19 pandemic became more prominent in mid-2020, the government increased access to telehealth, removing regulatory barriers and reforming payment policies. The motive behind this choice was to limit exposure to the deadly disease and maintain pandemic safety protocols.
The new brief contains data regarding telehealth use between March 2019 and August 2021, which shows trends before and during certain stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analyzed data came from Epic Cosmos, a HIPAA-defined limited data set of over 126 million patients.
Although telehealth use has decreased since the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is sustaining a relatively high utilization rate compared to 2019.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/cisa-observes-increased-critical-infrastructure-ransomware-threats
CISA Observes Increased Critical Infrastructure Ransomware Threats
CISA, the FBI, and the NSA observed ransomware attacks against 14 of the 16 US critical infrastructure sectors last year.
By Jill McKeon
February 11, 2022 - A joint advisory by cybersecurity authorities in the US, Australia, and the United Kingdom underscored increasing critical infrastructure ransomware threats that will likely continue to grow in the coming months and years.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the National Security Agency (NSA) observed ransomware attacks against 14 of the 16 US critical infrastructure sectors last year.
“Ransomware tactics and techniques continued to evolve in 2021, which demonstrates ransomware threat actors’ growing technological sophistication and an increased ransomware threat to organizations globally,” the advisory stated.
The advisory provided information on ransomware trends and prevention tactics for organizations across the world to mitigate threats and spread awareness. The healthcare and public health sector, one of the 16 US critical infrastructure sectors, was hit especially hard by ransomware in 2021. Most of the largest healthcare data breaches of the year (by the number of victims impacted) resulted from orchestrated cyberattacks.
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The EU vaccine passport paves the way for digital identity – but pitfalls lie ahead
The EU announced that it's preparing to extend the digital COVID certificate by a year, until June 2023. On 31 March, it will publish a report on the technology’s regulation, and Brussels-based Frieda Klotz finds out more.
February 14, 2022 07:29 AM
Vaccine passports, crucial to managing the pandemic, have led to a rapid advance in digital health technology. The Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders said in a statement that they allowed freedom of movement during the pandemic: “Without this extension, we risk having many divergent national systems, and all the confusion and obstacles that this would cause.”
The EU views the Digital COVID Certificate (EUDCC) as a success, but for software developers, the story is more nuanced according to Matthew Comb, a doctoral student doing research on digital identity at the University of Oxford. The EUDCC, which has been adopted by 27 EU states and 18 other countries, uses barcodes in the certificates which are not encrypted, Comb warns, making them vulnerable to cybercrime and abuse.
Potential target
For decades, coders have been striving to develop a common approach to digital identity, which would let users verify their identity without providing extraneous personal details or even their name. The need for a COVID certificate arose just a little too early, Comb explains to Healthcare IT News: “If this had happened maybe two or three years later the infrastructure would have been in place.”
The EU’s certificate program deploys cryptographic key pairs – random characters in no particular order – to digitally sign users’ data in order to later prove the data is authentic. The regional certifying authority signs the certificate with a private key. To verify that data, the barcode readers we see in airlines and restaurants use a public key, one that is in the public domain.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/ai-health-cant-leave-older-people-behind-says-who
AI for health can't leave older people behind, says WHO
A policy brief from the World Health Organization offers strategies for combating ageism and bias in machine learning technologies.
By Kat Jercich
February 14, 2022 11:43 AM
The World Health Organization released a policy brief this past week aimed at combating age-related bias in health-related artificial intelligence tools.
The brief, "Ageism in artificial intelligence for health," proposes a wide range of measures to ensure older people are effectively engaged in the processes, technologies and services affecting them.
"The implicit and explicit biases of society, including around age, are often replicated in AI technologies," said Alana Officer, unit head of demographic change and healthy aging at the WHO.
"To ensure that AI technologies play a beneficial role, ageism must be identified and eliminated from their design, development, use and evaluation," Officer continued.
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What Keeps Healthcare from Sharing Data as Nimbly as Financial Services Do?
February 14, 2022
Healthcare, like finance, is a huge and highly regulated sector of society with many different types of institutions that have to exchange data. Both sectors have defined standards in the pursuit of seamless data exchange, and both now have a modern standard (FHIR in the case of healthcare; FIX in the case of finance) that meets the expectations of today’s programmers.
(To get technical, these expectations involve RESTful interfaces that exchange structured XML or JSON formats over HTTP and that can be programmed in the language of the developer’s choice.)
Finance has reached the promised land of seamless data exchange. But healthcare, as we all know, has not. What are the differences between these two major sectors that might explain healthcare’s lag?
Incentives
Cynics have long claimed that health institutions hold patient data hostage in order to prevent patients from switching to other providers. Finance, in contrast, depends on being able to transfer funds and information with competitors. I am willing to entertain this notion, but I don’t think it’s enough to explain the stubborn resistance of data to sharing in healthcare.
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Survey: Despite the Benefits, Seniors Aren't Using mHealth Apps
Analysis | By Eric Wicklund | February 11, 2022
A new survey conducted by the University of Michigan and supported by the AARP finds that less than one in every three seniors is using an mHealth app, andf those numbers are even lower for seniors who should be using them.
Senior care advocates say mHealth apps could do a world of good for people over 50 who want to live healthy lives and stay in their own homes, but a new survey finds that less than a third actually use that resource.
According to an online and phone survey of some 2110 seniors ages 50-80 taken in August 2021 by the National Poll on Healthy Aging, based at the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation and supported by the AARP, only 44% have ever used an mHealth app, and only 28% are using one now. That’s stunning news considering the emphasis being put on virtual care these past two years to deal with the pandemic.
“Now that most older adults have at least one mobile device, health-related apps can provide an opportunity to support their health-related behaviors, manage their conditions and improve health outcomes,” Pearl Lee, MD, MS, a geriatrician at Michigan Medicine who worked on the poll report, said in a press release.
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https://histalk2.com/2022/02/11/weekender-2-11-22/
Weekly News Recap
- AndHealth, founded by CoverMyMeds co-founder Matt Scantland, exists stealth mode and raises $57 million in funding.
- Germany-based Ada expands its Series B round to $120 million and plans aggressive expansion to the US.
- Senators form a commission to consider updating HIPAA.
- Best in KLAS named.
- NThrive will acquire Pelitas.
- Premier reports Q2 results.
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Enjoy!
David.
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