This blog is totally independent, unpaid and has only three major objectives.
The first is to inform readers of news and happenings in the e-Health domain, both here in Australia and world-wide.
The second is to provide commentary on e-Health in Australia and to foster improvement where I can.
The third is to encourage discussion of the matters raised in the blog so hopefully readers can get a balanced view of what is really happening and what successes are being achieved.
Quote Of The Year
Timeless Quotes - Sadly The Late Paul Shetler - "Its not Your Health Record it's a Government Record Of Your Health Information"
or
H. L. Mencken - "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
Saturday, June 04, 2022
Weekly Overseas Health IT Links – 4th June, 2022.
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.
Looking beyond job titles in the world of data, digital and clinical
informatics
Digital
Health CCIO Advisory Panel and Network members, Ramandeep Kaur and Ronke
Adejolu discuss the impact numerous titles are creating in the data, digital
and clinical informatics field.
DHI Newsteam –
26 May,2022
It’s hard not
to notice the emergence and flurry of job titles (CCIO, CNIO, CAHPIO,
CPIO, CMIO, CXIO, CDIO, CIO, CSIO and CHCIO) under the umbrella of data,
digital and clinical informatics in the last few years.
While CIO,
CNIO and CCIO job titles have been the front runners for a few years in the
data, digital and informatics world, the variety of roles is expanding rapidly,
and it is vital that we keep up. More importantly we must ensure job titles are
a true reflection of the skills, knowledge, expertise and experience required
to meet the demands, provision and delivery of health and care required across
systems and for the 21st century.
Informaticians
often ask for advice on how to further their careers from others in the
industry and the myriad of titles no doubt makes this for an interesting
conversation.
Online sexual health service rated outstanding by CQC
An online
sexual health service has been rated outstanding by the Care Quality Commission
(CQC), with its focus on innovation and digital technology highlighted in the
report.
Cora Lydon 23
May, 2022
SH:24 was
rated as outstanding overall by the CQC following its first inspection earlier
this year. The service also achieved ‘outstanding’ for being safe, effective,
caring, responsive to people’s needs and being well-led.
The
inspection praised the service’s contribution to innovation, improvement and
increased access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, marking it as
outstanding.
In addition,
the CQC report noted that in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the sexual
health service significantly scaled up its online contraceptive services to
reduce the need for in-person clinics.
It also used
technology innovatively to ensure that patients had 24/7 access to treatment,
support and care. The service’s online resources ensured patients could access
information when needed and were supported in making positive choices about
their lives.
Sen. Gary Peters, D-MI, urged the
Biden administration to implement a cyber incident reporting mandate,
after the Senate Homeland Security committee issued
a report Tuesday showing the vast majority of ransomware attacks and
crypto-based payments continue to go unreported.
Peters said the federal government
lacks comprehensive data on ransomware attacks, making it more difficult
to prevent, mitigate and recover from malicious attacks against critical
infrastructure, which has skyrocketed in recent years.
Congress in March passed the Cyber
Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act, which requires
critical infrastructure providers to report substantial cyberattacks as
well as ransomware payments to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
Security Agency (CISA).
Dive Insight:
Peters
in July 2021 launched an investigation into the role cryptocurrencies play in
ransomware. The probe was announced after a series of devastating ransomware
attacks on key industries, including the May 2021 attack
on Colonial Pipeline, followed weeks later by a ransomware attack on meat
supplier JBS
USA and the July ransomware attack against IT
monitoring firm Kaseya.
The
attacks demonstrated the potential impacts of such malign activity on national
security, giving rise to a series of Biden administration measures to crack
down on ransomware.
Telehealth
has been a prominent buzzword for the last few years. With the emergence of
Covid-19 and a newfound respect for remote healthcare services,
telehealth/telemedicine have been a large focus of healthcare organizations and
physicians alike. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) provides a broad definition:
“Telehealth — sometimes called telemedicine — lets your doctor provide care for
you without an in-person office visit. Telehealth is done primarily online with
internet access on your computer, tablet, or smartphone.”
Within
the realm of this definition, telehealth doesn’t exactly sound like something
that the practice of emergency medicine (EM) would embrace, given that the very
nature of EM entails high acuity, critical care. Despite this paradox, however,
EM as a specialty is slowly adapting in order to better utilize this
transformative technology.
Tele-Triage:
using telehealth modalities to determine the acuity of a patient’s
injuries and the care and resources required
Tele-Emergency
Care: “Tele-emergency medicine connects providers at a central
hub emergency department to providers and patients at spoke hospitals
(often small, remote, or rural) through video or similar telehealth
technology.”
Virtual
Rounds: monitoring emergency department patients remotely,
reducing the number of physical providers and physicians needed on-site
E-Consults:
providers and physicians can seek consultations or specialty
management for patients
Telehealth
for Follow-Up Care: “Telehealth technology can also be used to
provide follow-up care for patients who were triaged but not sent to the
emergency department, or for patients after they are discharged from the
emergency department.”
May 24, 2022
- A
survey conducted by the American Medical Association (AMA) shows that
telehealth is popular among allergy and immunology providers, most of whom
prefer live audio-visual modalities for visits.
The survey
polled 2,232 providers, 136 of whom specialized in allergy and immunology. The
survey was conducted in 2021.
Researchers
found that 92 percent of allergists and immunologists used telehealth. A vast
majority (97 percent) used audio-visual platforms, while 59 percent used
audio-only, and 16 percent used asynchronous telehealth modalities.
Researchers
surmised that those who did not use more advanced telehealth platforms faced
issues relating to access to technology and digital literacy.
Yesterday
we shared 6
EHR optimization tips with you. Today, we’re going to look at the
ecosystem of technology that interacts with the EHR and makes the EHR
experience better (or worse if done wrong). It’s easy to talk about optimizing
the EHR as just configuring the EHR setting and workflows, but EHR software
these days now integrates with often hundreds of other systems. If we’re
going to optimize the EHR experience, we’re going to have to integrate the
right add-on products and make sure those integrations are done the right way.
Here
are just a few examples members of the Healthcare IT Today community shared
with us when it comes to the downstream impacts of EHR optimization and the
need to properly integrate with other solutions.
Dr.
Kikelomo (Dayo) Belizaire, Chief Medical Officer at Pegasystems
When EHRs are not optimized, siloes ensue and breakdown in communication across
staff and providers occur, which in turn results in a fractured health
ecosystem that culminates in poor patient outcomes. Additionally, an arduous
and cumbersome EHR can exacerbate time pressures and inefficiencies that result
in both staff and physician burnout. More administrative work takes the focus
away from care delivery and can cause gaps in care. Patient safety is of the
utmost importance but is at risk when providers are bogged down by inefficient
EHRs.
Jon-Michael
Smith, Head of Healthcare & Life Science Analytics – Data Integration at Qlik
At the end of the day through a bit of common sense, one can make the case that
only through proper EHR optimization can health systems use their data
accurately. Most of what hospitals are calling EMR optimization isn’t really
optimization in the dictionary sense: most hospitals are actually doing
remediation of technical flaws not fixed in the initial implementation and
defining and rolling out deeper clinical content to deliver actionable data
insights. So, improved information technology in the healthcare digital care
community is critical for healthcare data integrity and all of the clinical
analytics, population health management, and personalized care activities that
should all flow together.
Data Sharing Knowledge Gaps Widespread Among Patients
A new
survey has identified significant knowledge gaps among patients about the types
of healthcare data collected and how they are shared, used, and protected.
May 26, 2022
- Only about half of respondents (52 percent) identified health
information as part of the personal data collected and shared in clinical
settings, indicating significant knowledge gaps among patients about healthcare
data collection, use, and security.
The Health Care Data
Sharing Survey, commissioned and published by Chicago-based clinical data
management company Q-Centrix, was conducted in December 2021 with a sample size
of 1,191 people.
Fifty-three
percent of respondents were female, and 47 percent were male. Respondents fell
into four age groups: 18-29 (21 percent), 30-44 (27 percent), 45-60 (29
percent), and over 60 (23 percent). Respondents were also split based on
household income: $49,999 or less (41 percent), $50,000-$99,999 (34 percent),
and $100,000 or more (25 percent).
When asked
what types of personal data are collected and shared in clinical settings, 87
percent of respondents chose personal information, such as name, address, and
phone number. Seventy-four percent chose demographic data, and 73 percent
selected location tracking data. Sixty-eight percent responded that information
about their interests was being collected. But, only 52 percent selected health
information.
May 26, 2022
- The Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3) issued a brief
outlining the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of four major cyber
organizations linked to the Russian Intelligence Services.
The Russian
Intelligence Services are comprised of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the
Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), and the Main Intelligence Directorate of
the General Staff of the Armed Forces (GRU).
As previously
reported, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked widespread cyber concerns
for US critical infrastructure. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the
National Security Agency (NSA), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
Security Agency (CISA) have also released
numerous warnings about Russian state-sponsored cyber operations.
Verizon’s
2022 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) showed
a significant uptick in healthcare cyberattacks. The report noted that
“heightened geopolitical tensions are also driving increased sophistication,
visibility, and awareness around nation-state affiliated cyberattacks.”
Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN) application process details
released
The
Sequoia Project has released new details on the process and requirements for
becoming a Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN), inching forward toward
launching the QHIN application process later this year.
The Office of
the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) made the Trusted
Exchange Framework and Common Agreement available in January this year.
The Sequoia Project was selected to serve as the recognized coordinating entity
(RCE) to support the implementation of TEFCA. created to facilitate nationwide
interoperability as required under the 21st Century Cures Act to, TEFCA
calls for forming QHINs to facilitate nationwide data exchange among a wide
variety of organizations in an effort to improve care.
The effort
will establish a universal policy and technical floor for nationwide
interoperability to simplify connectivity and enable individuals to more easily
obtain their healthcare information. The QHINs are expected
to be the backbone of interoperability, connecting to each other and to
their participants and subparticipants.
Health
and Social Care Northern Ireland (HSCNI) is working with healthcare technology specialist,
Tegria, and digital health consultancy, Cloud21 to support its national digital
transformation programme.
The
organisations will help to deliver Northern Ireland’s Encompass programme –
a decade long initiative to implement a fully integrated electronic health and
care record across acute physical, mental health, community care and social
services.
Under
the agreement, Tegria and Cloud21, will provide strategic guidance,
programme readiness and electronic patient record (EPR) implementation
expertise.
WHY IT
MATTERS
Northern
Ireland is set to become the first UK country to integrate a fully integrated
electronic health and care record across all care settings.
One
thing I’ve learned in 16 years writing about health IT and particularly focused
on EMR (now EHR if you prefer), is that the EHR still impacts so many things in
the life of a clinician. Yes, hospitals and health systems have 1000s of
health IT solutions that they have to manage, upgrade, secure, etc.
However, the EHR is still the center of most doctors and nurses lives.
How well it’s implemented (or how poorly) has a massive impact on the
experience doctors and nurses have throughout the day.
With
this in mind, we wanted to focus this month on EHR optimization
and how healthcare organizations should be approaching optimizing their
EHR. The challenge with the topic is that it’s often very unique to a
specific healthcare organization. However, we got a number of responses
from people sharing what they think is required to optimize your EHR use.
Here’s a look at some of the ideas people shared:
Paul
Brient, SVP and Chief Product Officer at athenahealth
Historically, the approach has been to create a standard workflow in an EHR and
then teach physicians how to change their practice to mesh with that workflow.
With modern technologies, we can make the EHR work the way a given physician
thinks and practices.
Gidi
Stein, Co-Founder and CEO at MedAware
EMR optimization includes buckets: 1) Workflow efficiency – is working with an
EMR improves work efficiency? Or makes it more cumbersome? Most EMRs fail this.
2) Data integrity – can I trust the data that exists in my EMR? Are the problem
list and medication list correct and up to date? Is the patient’s weight
accurate? Again – most EMRs fail this. 3) Upgrade compatibility – is patient
care compromised following EMR upgrades? Is workflow efficiency or data integrity
negatively impacted by EMR upgrades?
Propelled
by more engaged consumers and available digital health devices, healthcare
providers are taking that next step and replicating the physical exam at home.
KEY
TAKEAWAYS
·As the nation moves beyond the pandemic,
healthcare organizations are looking beyond video-based telehealth encounters
and using new devices that offer more opportunities for collaboration
between patient and provider.
·An increase in digital health devices coming
onto the market aim to replicate the physical exam, with tools and capabilities
to measure a variety of physiological touchpoints, including vital signs and
activities.
·Healthcare organizations are integrating this
technology into their remote patient monitoring and direct-to-consumer programs
to improve engagement and outcomes, and are hoping to collect the data needed
to convince payers to make this a standard of care.
Healthcare
organizations are starting to look beyond the video visit to connect with
patients at home, with new programs that pull in smart devices, wearables, and
other digital health technology to make the experience more than just a video
chat.
At MemorialCare, a health
system in southern California, administrators have expanded their Virtual
Urgent Care platform to include technology that allows patients to conduct
guided physicals at home. In a partnership with New York-based TytoCare, the
health system is sending handheld examination kits that allow users to conduct
examinations of the heart, skin, ears, throat, abdomen, and lungs, and
measures, among other things, heart rate and temperature.
"We can
actually allow a physical exam to take place in the patient's home," says Mark
Schafer, MD, CEO of the MemorialCare Medical Foundation, which comprises
more than 300 primary care physicians and 2,000 specialists.
May 25, 2022
- Healthcare organizations that have leveraged virtual scribes reported
decreased EHR documentation time and improved clinician satisfaction, according
to a KLAS
report.
Virtual
scribes are remote human scribes who communicate with clinicians via a laptop,
smartphone, tablet, or another two-way communication device. Scribes enter
clinical notes, update charts, clarify information, and make suggestions to
physicians.
Since the
onset of COVID-19, the adoption
of virtual scribing services has grown among healthcare organizations to
ease documentation burdens and limit the number of staff members present during
patient examinations.
The KLAS
report outlines client experiences with two frequently used virtual scribe
vendors: ScribeEMR and AQuity Solutions.
Patient data might be the biggest business you’ve never
heard of.
As
a
STAT investigation published Monday revealed, data brokers are quietly
trafficking in Americans’ health information — often without their knowledge or
consent, and beyond the reach of federal health privacy laws. This market in
medical records has become highly lucrative — $13.5 billion annually — thanks to advances in
artificial intelligence that enable the slicing, dicing, and cross-referencing
of that data in powerful new ways.
But
the building of these algorithms often
sidelines patient privacy. And researchers who’ve been tracking these
erosive effects say it’s time to reform how health data is governed and give
patients back control of their information.
“Privacy
is an elusive concept, but the potential harms when it’s taken away or when
it’s lost — those are critically important to understand,” Eric Perakslis,
chief science and digital officer of the Duke Clinical Research Institute said
Tuesday at the 2022 STAT
Health Tech Summit in San Francisco. “And if we can’t figure out privacy in
some way with a law we should be figuring out what those harms are and making
them illegal.”
One
of the most frequent harms he and other researchers have chronicled: Patients
being denied care or insurance coverage based on information payers drew from
their social media activities after combining datasets to re-identify them. “We
hear those stories all the time,” he said. “Data re-identification isn’t
illegal. And there’s lots of things like that I wouldn’t even call loopholes.
Loopholes imply something’s working. They’re just the truth of the ecosystem.”
I recently
returned to hospital-based cardiology because I missed patient contact and the
camaraderie of colleagues. What I didn't miss was all the typing. Not a day
goes by when I do not curse Epic, MEDITECH, Athenahealth, Cerner, and any and
all electronic health record (EHR) platforms.
I remember
how efficient my day used to be, when I could quickly dictate a note, spend
more time with patients, and get home to my family. For those of us in
hospital-based medicine, there is no help in sight, but help did come for my
friends in office-based medicine in January 2021. However, despite changes
in the Evaluation & Management (E/M) coding requirements,
many doctors remain chained to their laptops typing the equivalent of War and
Peace.
Reams of lab
results, orders, and imaging reports are still lobbed into office notes when
just a mention would suffice. This "note bloat" drives a large
portion of physician
burnout at a cost of hundreds of lives and $1.7
billion annually.
Some hire
scribes to handle the documentation burden, but that's like prescribing a drug
to treat the side effects of another. So who should be held accountable and who
can help us?
With
a projected shortage of nearly 140,000 physicians by 2033, and a shortage of
three million lower-wage healthcare workers in the next five years, U.S.
Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy has sounded the alarm on the country's ongoing
healthcare burnout crisis.
Health
workers – including physicians, nurses, community and public health workers,
and nurse aides – have long faced systemic challenges in the healthcare
system, even before the COVID-19 pandemic. That, according to Murthy, is
leading to crisis levels of burnout.
The
pandemic, of course, only made things worse, prompting Murthy to issue an
advisory for addressing health worker burnout that includes recommendations
such as reducing administrative burdens, being more responsible to workers'
needs and eliminating punitive policies for seeking mental health and substance
use disorder care.
Specifically,
Murthy advised that hospitals and health systems should listen to workers and
seek their involvement to improve workflows and organizational culture. On the
mental health front he called for ensuring on-demand counseling and
increased accessibility to after-work care.
Building
on its effort to battle social isolation and support aging in place, the New
York State Office for the Aging (NYSOFA) is delivering voice-operated smart
technology to the homes of more than 800 older adults.
NYSOFA
is working with local offices for the aging and partners to identify older
adults who would most benefit from the technology: ElliQ by Intuition Robotics,
which is described by the company as a proactive and empathetic care companion.
ElliQ
is designed to foster independence and provide support for older adults through
daily check-ins, assistance with wellness goals and physical activities,
connection to family and friends, and other functions, using voice commands or
on-screen instructions.
The
technology recently launched commercially after years of pilots and early
production deployments. Users have an average of 20 daily interactions. ElliQ
is made specifically for older adults to support independence at home. While
other technologies are reactive to commands, ElliQ proactively suggests
activities and initiates conversations, building context through artificial
intelligence to inform follow-up conversations that create a sense of
relationship with the AI, the company explained.
The health
system's new platform replaces manual processes to maximize staffed OR
utilization and improve a hospital's bottom line.
KEY
TAKEAWAYS
·CommonSpirit Health is using technology that
allows the health system to maximize use of its ORs, reducing wasted time and
resources and improving efficiency and profits.
·The technology, developed by LeanTaaS, enables
marketing teams to reach out to area surgeons to fill vacant staffed ORs.
·The health system plans to expand that platform
to more hospitals across the country by the end of 2022.
A major
rollout of technology designed to optimize operating room use is helping drive
profits at one of the nation's largest health systems.
The
technology, developed by LeanTaaS, replaces manual systems with AI-based
automation at Chicago-based CommonSpirit
Health, which operates 142 hospitals in 21 states. It targets workflows by
providing real-time access to OR availability and scheduling, allowing
schedulers and staff to manage OR use more efficiently, reduce potential
transcription errors and ease stress for both providers and patients.
Dignity Health, which
merged with Catholic
Health Initiatives to form CommonSpirit Health, reports that 36 of its
hospitals have used the technology and saw an additional contribution margin of
14.5 times the return on investment from May 2019 to December 2020, compared to
previous year-over-year measurements.
The driving
force behind this deployment is Brian Dawson,
MSN, RN-BC, CNOR, CSSM, system vice president of perioperative services. He
came to CommonSpirit Health after stints at Sutter Health and Keck Medicine of
USC, as well as serving as executive assistant to and chief of staff for the
surgeon general of the US Navy.
Hospitals
must weigh several factors, including staff needs and overall risk appetite.
KEY
TAKEAWAYS
·Hospitals typically spend 5%–15% of an IT budget
on information security
·Regulatory compliance issues determine where security
investments must be made
·The need to hire new security leaders is a quick
way to push security budgets to new heights
The
healthcare sector continues to be a favorite target for cybercriminals, who
place great value on patient data. Information about a person's identity,
medical conditions, treatments, and procedures enable threat actors to attempt
all sorts of fraud, including fake medical billings and insurance claims.
The dark web,
the global underground marketplace for stolen data, is rife with the sale of
personally identifiable information (PII) and medical information. There are a
host of compliance regulations that hospitals and healthcare systems must meet
to protect data privacy.
This places
pressure on hospitals to get their information security funding right. But
paying for information security is like buying insurance. You need it, but you
don't want to overspend on it. The challenge for hospitals is knowing
how much security spending is enough and where it should be invested. To get to
the heart of those questions, HealthLeaders spoke to several experts about
their security spending strategies.
The
percentage of IT budgets typically spent on security
Sanofi and
Leaps by Bayer are just two pharmaceutical companies using digital technologies
to reach stakeholders more effectively.
KEY
TAKEAWAYS
·Investment in digital health companies jumped
79% in 2021
·Digital health is earning a permanent position
in pharma business models
·Sanofi is one of the companies adopting digital
health as a strategy
·Positive outcomes will spur more growth in three
to five years
This spring
ushered in a swell of partnerships between pharma and digital health companies
that flag a growing trend in healthcare. This much needed move to digital has
been spurred by the increasing number of health consumers who want an
Amazon-like experience, combined with the forces of the COVID-19 pandemic that
required pharma to rapidly adopt digital technology.
"The
pandemic pushed both digital health and telehealth forward by 15 years in a
matter of three weeks," says Rick Anderson, president and general manager
of North America at DarioHealth.
According to
a CBI Insights report of 2021 digital health investment
activity, funding grew 79% year over year to reach a record of $57.2 billion.
Experts claim these investments will only continue to grow. "There are
more and more opportunities for collaboration, and I expect that will
accelerate over the next three to five years," Anderson adds. "We're
definitely going to see more and more of those kinds of partnerships as people
try and leverage those different worlds."
May 24, 2022
- DirectTrust announced that the Event Notifications via the Direct
Standard has been approved by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
as a national data standard.
DirectTrust
developed Event Notifications via the Direct Standard to improve communication
between hospitals and care teams and address the new CMS rule on Admissions,
Discharges, and Transfers (ADT) notifications that went into place on May 1,
2021.
A DirectTrust
consensus created an implementation guide that outlines how hospitals and
health systems can use Direct Secure Messaging to send ADT notifications. The
guide also highlights how primary care teams can prepare to handle inbound
messages.
“We are
excited ANSI has recognized Event Notifications via the Direct Standard as a
national standard,” Scott Stuewe, DirectTrust president and CEO, said in a
public statement.
CHIME, WEDI Launch Patient Education Campaign on Health Data Sharing
The
initiative will include a 5-step checklist to increase patient education about
health data sharing, helping patients protect their health information while
using third-party apps.
May 24, 2022
- The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) and
the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) have launched
the “THINK BEFORE YOU CLICK” campaign to enhance patient education about health
data sharing.
As part of
the 21st Century Cures Act, the federal government has mandated that all
healthcare providers offer patients immediate access to their digital records
and clinical
notes.
As more
patients use third-party apps to access their health information, the need to
ensure the privacy and security of this data has grown with it, the press release
stated. Yet, most of these apps are not bound by any current privacy and
security requirements.
Often, patients
may not realize that once their health information is transmitted to a
third-party app, it is no longer protected by HIPAA. The security of their
health information is largely up to individual companies, WEDI stated.
How a National Patient ID Standard Could Boost Population Health
Patient ID
Now coalition members noted that a national patient ID standard could enhance
population health through improved patient matching.
May 23, 2022
- A national patient health identifier standard is integral to supporting
direct patient care, value-based care, and population health initiatives
through enhanced patient matching, according to members of the Patient ID Now
coalition.
Earlier this
month, over 100 members of Patient ID Now sent
a letter to leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations committees
calling to remove a funding ban for a national patient health identifier
standard.
Patient ID
Now is a coalition of healthcare organizations committed to advancing a
national strategy to address patient identification. Founding members of the
coalition are the American College of Surgeons, AHIMA, CHIME, HMMS,
Intermountain Healthcare, and Premier Healthcare Alliance.
A
teletherapy program reduced symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder, and most
patients maintained improvements up to a year later, according to a study
published in JMIR.
The
treatment, from digital mental health company NOCD,
included twice-weekly video appointments that used exposure and response
prevention (ERP) therapy for three weeks. Patients then underwent six weeks of
weekly half-hour video check-ins. Researchers followed up with the patients
three, six, nine and twelve months after the therapy program.
The
study found a 43.4% mean reduction in patient-rated obsessive-compulsive
symptoms as well as a 44.2% mean reduction in depression, a 47.8% mean
reduction in anxiety and a 37.3% mean reduction in stress symptoms. Of the more
than 3,500 patients included in the study, more than 1,600 participated in
follow-up surveys.
The
study's authors were employed by NOCD or reported they had received payments
from NOCD while conducting the study.
HIMSS
has welcomed plans for NHS trusts to receive national investment to help them
achieve EMRAM Stage 5 or above.
Under
the new plans, NHS England (NHSE) will prioritise the least digitally mature
NHS trusts for future investment funding in electronic patient record systems
(EPRs), according to Digital Health News.
It
reports that trusts have been divided into four groups ranging from the lowest
Group 0 (which have no EPR) to Group 3 (equivalent to EMRAM Stage 5).
Around
25 trusts in Group 0 will receive funding to help them implement EPRs.
Meanwhile, a further 45 trusts will be brought up to the common baseline of
Stage 5 on the HIMSS EMRAM, or Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model, which measures
the adoption and maturity of a health facility’s inpatient EPR capabilities
from 0 to 7.
With
the huge initial swell in the use of virtual care in the rearview mirror, many
industry experts – from health plans to big tech and practicing clinicians
– are considering whether a doubling down on telehealth is just what the doctor
ordered for the future of patient care.
Many
clinicians are hungry for new opportunities that allow them to continue to
serve patients without dealing with long-standing administrative burdens and
the aftermath of burnout from COVID-19 in their hospitals, health systems and
doctor's offices.
With
too many clinicians continuing to stress that they've lost passion in their
careers and considering quitting their jobs altogether, experts say change is
needed. The healthcare industry can't afford to lose these highly skilled
clinical workers to other industries.
On
this note, Healthcare
IT News interviewed Dr. Pooja Aysola, a practicing emergency
department clinician in Boston and senior director of clinical operations at
Wheel, a virtual care company.
She
talks about physicians' newfound familiarity with telehealth and what it means
for the future, the possibility of physicians working full time in
telemedicine, and how virtual care can help with staffing shortages in
healthcare.
Clinical
trial innovation must be patient-centered, inclusive, and tech-enabled.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
·The Reuters Pharma Clinical 2022 conference
featured the dual themes of patient and tech-centricity.
·Standardization was a recurring theme in
clinical trial design and data collection.
·Additional tech topics included the expansion of
virtual trials during the pandemic and the importance of real-world data.
The Reuters
Pharma Clinical 2022 virtual conference, held May 17-19, featured more than
20 presentations but one predominant theme: that "accelerated technology
adoption in clinical trials … has neglected patient needs." The conference
included 40-plus speakers, largely from the life sciences industry.
The event
spanned traditional topics (trial design, engagement, and participation) while
highlighting the need for greater inclusivity so that the following tech
advancements do not come at the expense of patients:
·Standardizing trial data and digital health
developments
·Expanding clinical trial virtual options post
pandemic
·Using AI and machine learning to enroll more
diverse participants faster
These topics
were presented against the backdrop of the conference’s stated mission:
"We must establish new industry-wide benchmarks now, leverage recent
digital innovations, and ensure permanent cultural change toward
patient-centric trials. If we do not act immediately, we risk losing this
opportunity to rebuild patient trust."
Propelled
by more engaged consumers and available digital health devices, healthcare
providers are taking that next step and replicating the physical exam at home.
KEY
TAKEAWAYS
·As the nation moves beyond the pandemic,
healthcare organizations are looking beyond video-based telehealth encounters
and using new devices that offer more opportunities for collaboration
between patient and provider.
·An increase in digital health devices coming
onto the market aim to replicate the physical exam, with tools and capabilities
to measure a variety of physiological touchpoints, including vital signs and
activities.
·Healthcare organizations are integrating this
technology into their remote patient monitoring and direct-to-consumer programs
to improve engagement and outcomes, and are hoping to collect the data needed
to convince payers to make this a standard of care.
Healthcare
organizations are starting to look beyond the video visit to connect with
patients at home, with new programs that pull in smart devices, wearables, and
other digital health technology to make the experience more than just a video
chat.
At MemorialCare, a health
system in southern California, administrators have expanded their Virtual
Urgent Care platform to include technology that allows patients to conduct
guided physicals at home. In a partnership with New York-based TytoCare, the
health system is sending handheld examination kits that allow users to conduct
examinations of the heart, skin, ears, throat, abdomen, and lungs, and
measures, among other things, heart rate and temperature.
"We can
actually allow a physical exam to take place in the patient's home," says Mark
Schafer, MD, CEO of the MemorialCare Medical Foundation, which comprises
more than 300 primary care physicians and 2,000 specialists.
Experts Testify on Healthcare Cybersecurity Issues at Senate Hearing
At the
Senate HELP hearing, industry leaders testified on the current state of
healthcare cybersecurity, advocating for immediate improvements to federal
cybersecurity protocols.
May 23, 2022
- The US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP)
held
a full committee hearing to discuss the need for an increased focus on
education and healthcare cybersecurity.
“Attacks on
healthcare are increasing in volume, variety, and impact—with consequences that
now include the loss of life,” Joshua Corman, founder of I Am the Cavalry, said
in his testimony.
“While
directionally correct steps have been taken, we’re getting worse faster than
we’re getting better. Bold actions and assistance will be required to change
this trajectory, address these market failures, lack of incentives, and
historical under-investments.”
Cybercriminals
have gained strength while defenders get weaker, Corman explained. In 2021
alone, more
than 550 HIPAA-covered entities reported healthcare data breaches. Over 40
million individuals faced potential protected health information (PHI) exposure
because of those breaches.
A
small, vibrating pill designed to help people with chronic constipation cleared
a clinical study and is headed to the FDA for final review.
Vibrant
Gastro is putting forward its approach as a drug-free alternative for infrequent
or difficult bowel movements.
Swallowed
along with a glass of water, the disposable pill—about the size of an everyday
multivitamin—aims to do more than simply shake up any possible blockages. The
device is designed to also help reset the connection between the gut and the
brain’s circadian rhythm.
As
it travels through the digestive system, its vibrations help stimulate the
colon’s involuntary contractions, with the ultimate goal of resyncing them with
the body’s biological clock to improve regular bowel movements after one to
eight weeks of use. The pill’s progress can also be tracked via a companion
smartphone app.
When you were
growing up, the closest you ever got to a personal medical data-collection
device was probably a thermometer, or a bathroom scale. But these days, health
trackers are a lot more sophisticated – and a lot more wearable.
Smartwatches
from companies like Fitbit and Apple
are teeming with tiny sensors that display their findings on your smartphone.
They can track heart rate, irregular heartbeats, blood oxygen levels, noise
notifications, and even hand-washing. And, of course, your pulse rate.
Dr. Sumbul
Desai, vice president of health at Apple, demonstrated to correspondent David
Pogue how an Apple Watch can warn you about dangerous sound levels, measure
your cardio fitness, and even perform an electrocardiogram.
"And if
you want to choose to share this with your doctor, you can hit 'export to
PDF,'" she said.
But the most
life-changing talent of the latest smartwatches is brand new: They can give you
early warning of medical problems. "For example, if you're sleeping more
or sleeping less than you used to, if your heart rate is at a different
baseline heart rate than it was, those are early signs of things that may be
going on," Desai said.
May 20, 2022
- An EHR integration at Baystate Medical Center (BMC) in Massachusetts aims
to reduce postoperative use of opioids through interoperable clinical
decision support (CDS).
One of the
risk factors for continued opioid use is the postoperative prescription of
opioids intended to be used only for a brief period, according to an HL7 case
study that outlines BMC’s recent CDS project.
Studies have
found that minimizing total Opioid Morphine Milligram Equivalents (MMEs)
administered post-operatively correlates with reduced length of stay, costs,
incidence of respiratory depression, and risk of opioid dependency.
However,
calculation of in-hospital opioid use is burdensome, as it requires sorting
through a variety of EHR data sources. Also, since opioids come in various
forms and potencies, monitoring actual intake is time-consuming.
British
healthtech firm accuRx has announced the national roll-out of its
patient-centred viewing system, Record View, in England and Wales.
The
system is available to NHS healthcare professionals free of use, following a
successful pilot with four integrated care systems (ICSs).
Record
View allows NHS healthcare professionals to view a read-only summary of a
patient’s GP medical record for up to 24 hours, with the patient’s explicit
permission via multi-factor authentication
WHY IT
MATTERS
Already,
60% of GPs have opted-in to have their patient records viewed by healthcare
professionals outside of primary care.
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