Here are a few
I came across last week.
Note: Each
link is followed by a title and few paragraphs. For the full article click on
the link above title of the article. Note also that full access to some links
may require site registration or subscription payment
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/internal-email-outlines-changes-to-oracle-cerner-ehr-business-unit
Internal Email Outlines Changes to Oracle Cerner EHR Business Unit
Upon its
acquisition, the Cerner EHR business is now called Oracle Health, one of
Oracle’s global industry units (GIUs).
By Hannah Nelson
July 22, 2022
- An internal email from an Oracle executive shared on Reddit describes significant changes in the former Cerner EHR
business that is now owned by Oracle.
The email
notes that the business is now called Oracle Health, one of Oracle’s global
industry units (GIUs). According to HIStalk, the post was confirmed by Oracle
as authentic by the Kansas City business paper.
“Oracle
Health brings together Cerner’s portfolio with Oracle’s technologies for
healthcare to help us achieve our mission of enabling better outcomes for
patients and providers while reducing administrative workload and overall
healthcare costs,” Mike Sicilia, executive vice president of Oracle’s global
business units, wrote in the email.
Sicilia said
that former Cerner
president and CEO David Feinberg, MD, MBA will become chairman of Oracle
Health. Further, former chief client and services officer Travis Dalton, MPA,
who led Cerner Government Services, will take on the role of Oracle Health’s
general manager.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/nist-updates-healthcare-cybersecurity-hipaa-security-rule-guidance
NIST Updates Healthcare Cybersecurity, HIPAA Security Rule Guidance
NIST
issued a new draft publication on healthcare cybersecurity and implementing
HIPAA Security Rule requirements.
By Jill McKeon
July 22, 2022
- The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) issued updated
healthcare cybersecurity and HIPAA Security Rule guidance to aid organizations
in safeguarding protected health information (PHI). NIST is seeking comments on
the draft publication until September 21.
“One of our
main goals is to help make the updated publication more of a resource guide,”
Jeff Marron, a NIST cybersecurity specialist, said in an accompanying press
release.
“The revision
is more actionable so that health care organizations can improve their
cybersecurity posture and comply with the Security Rule.”
The original
guidance was published in 2008, and the updated guidance is meant to fit
seamlessly into the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and other resources that were
developed after the original guidance. It is important to note that the HHS
Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is the office that enforces HIPAA compliance.
NIST’s publication is simply additional guidance on implementing HIPAA’s
provisions.
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https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20220720/toolkit-helps-identify-and-respond-to-monkeypox-exposures-among-health-workers
July 20, 2022
Toolkit helps identify and respond to monkeypox exposures among health
workers
Massachusetts
General Hospital developed a toolkit that can help identify and respond to
potential monkeypox exposures among health care personnel, researchers reported
in Infection
Control & Hospital Epidemiology.
The
toolkit uses an enhanced version of REDCap, a web-based software platform that supports survey
and data collection.
“They
say necessity is the mother of invention and that’s absolutely true in this
case,” Erica
S. Shenoy, MD, PhD, associate chief of the infection control
unit at Mass General, told Healio.
Shenoy
noted that clinicians at the hospital identified the first U.S. case of monkeypox in the current outbreak.
“We
had to respond quickly to identify potentially exposed health care personnel,
patients and visitors,” Shenoy said.
Shenoy
and colleagues quickly developed and deployed an enhanced version of REDCap in
the hospital.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/ehnac-releases-new-criteria-for-health-it-accreditation-programs
EHNAC Releases New Criteria for Health IT Accreditation Programs
The
updated health IT accreditation criteria was revived to align with federal
regulations such as HIPAA/HITECH, 21st Century Cures Act, and TEFCA.
By Sarai Rodriguez
July 21, 2022
- The Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC), a
non-profit health IT data standards development organization, has released
the finalized criteria for its three accreditation programs.
The enhanced
criteria programs include the Trusted Dynamic Registration & Authentication
Accreditation Program (TDRAAP-Basic and TDRAAP-Comprehensive) and the Trusted
Network Accreditation Program (TNAP-QHIN).
The EHNAC
criteria for its three accreditation programs aim to create foundational
requirements that measure an organization’s ability to meet federal and state
healthcare regulation like HIPAA/HITECH, the 21st Century Cures Act,
Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), and other mandates
that focus on privacy, security, cybersecurity, breach handling,
confidentiality, best practices, procedures, and asset management.
“Our industry
is experiencing change at a rapid pace, and we must be ready to meet these new
requirements as they arise, while holding security, confidentiality, integrity,
and efficiency at the forefront when electronically exchanging healthcare
data,” Lee Barrett, executive director and CEO of EHNAC, said in the press
release. “EHNAC’s three newly enhanced accreditation programs are designed to
ensure compliance and stakeholder-trust while mitigating risk as organizations
address these ever evolving legislative and regulatory revisions.”
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/ai-tool-can-identify-sepsis-within-12-hours-of-hospital-admission
AI Tool Can Identify Sepsis Within 12 Hours of Hospital Admission
An
artificial intelligence-based tool developed by University of Florida and
University of Washington researchers can identify a patient’s likelihood of
developing sepsis within 12 hours of admission.
By Shania Kennedy
July 21, 2022
- A new study
published in JAMA Network Open assesses an artificial intelligence (AI) tool
that can predict the likelihood of patients developing sepsis and the severity
of the infection as quickly as 12 hours after hospital admission.
According to
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1.7 million adults in the
US develop sepsis
in a typical year, and 270,000 die. One in three patients who die in the hospital
has sepsis, but the condition, or the infection that causes it, starts outside
the hospital in 87 percent of cases. Some patients who survive sepsis also
develop permanent
organ damage and, as a result, have a higher risk of other medical
conditions for several years after recovering.
Identifying
the risk of sepsis quickly is key to reducing serious adverse outcomes such as
septic shock, which can result in multiple organ failures and death. But
recognizing and managing sepsis early remains a challenge.
“There is no
consistent way of recognizing and triaging critically ill patients when they’re
admitted to the ICU,” said Lyle L. Moldawer, PhD, director of the University of
Florida’s Sepsis and Critical Illness Research Center and emeritus director of
the Laboratory of Inflammation Biology and Surgical Science, in the press
release. “While this may not pose a problem at large academic institutions
with dedicated specialists, it can be harder for places where tertiary care is
less developed.”
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/most-americans-support-expansion-of-asynchronous-telehealth-options
Most Americans Support Expansion of Asynchronous Telehealth Options
A new
survey shows that a majority of Americans support legislation that would expand
asynchronous telehealth, thereby increasing access to care, particularly mental
healthcare.
By Mark Melchionna
July 21, 2022
- Two-thirds (69 percent) of Americans are in favor of legislation to
expand access to asynchronous telehealth, according to
a new survey.
Telehealth
company Hims & Hers Health worked with polling firm Public Opinion
Strategies to conduct a
survey of 1,301 US adults between Feb. 13 and 17. The results indicate that
optimizing telehealth and changing policies are critical.
The COVID-19
pandemic significantly affected healthcare overall, resulting in an increased
need for care, especially for behavioral healthcare.
The survey
found that only 38 percent of respondents reported having good mental health,
which was lower than the 52 percent who said the same in February 2021.
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https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payers/doj-charges-36-series-phony-telehealth-claim-fraud-schemes
DOJ charges 36 over $1.2B in phony telehealth claim fraud schemes
By Robert King
Jul 21, 2022
06:40am
Federal
prosecutors charged 36 defendants with committing a variety of alleged schemes
to bilk Medicare using telehealth, as regulators continue to tinker with how to
make the COVID-19 telehealth boom permanent.
The
Department of Justice (DOJ) announced
Wednesday that the defendants allegedly engaged in a series of actions that led
to $1.2 billion in medical fraud, with much of that coming from phony
telehealth claims for advanced genetic testing and unnecessary medical
equipment.
“Fraudsters
and scammers take advantage of telemedicine and use it as a platform to
orchestrate their criminal schemes,” said Luis Quesada, assistant director in
the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, in a statement. “This collaborative
law enforcement action shows our dedication to investigating and bringing to
justice those who look to exploit our U.S. health care system at the expense of
patients.”
Under
one of the alleged schemes, a collection of clinical laboratories would offer
$16 million in kickbacks to telemedicine companies, call centers and doctors
for genetic testing orders and the documentation needed to submit the claims to
Medicare for reimbursement, according to a federal indictment. But the genetic
testing was not medically necessary.
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https://www.healthdatamanagement.com/articles/progress-report-integrating-genetic-data-with-ehrs
Progress report: Integrating genetic data with EHRs
Foundation
Medicine is working with software vendors and healthcare providers to automate
ordering tests and obtaining results.
Jul 19 2022
Howard
Anderson
Contributing
Editor, HDM
Foundation
Medicine, which provides genomic profiling tests for patients with advanced
cancer, is working with several electronic health record vendors and healthcare
providers to further automate the ordering of tests and receiving of results
within EHRs.
In one of the
most recent initiatives, Foundation Medicine worked with University of Missouri
Health Care to develop an HL7 interface to enable the electronic ordering of
tests and obtaining a PDF of the results via its EHR system, Oracle Cerner’s
PowerChart. The provider organization has a strategic partnership with Cerner –
the Tiger Institute
for Health Innovation – that runs much of its IT operations and coordinated
the interface initiative, explains Katie
Wilkinson, a senior director at the institute.
Previously,
the health system relied on submitting paper orders and receiving results via
fax and then manually scanning the information into the record, says Richard Hammer, MD, professor of pathology at the MU School
of Medicine and vice chair of clinical affairs in the Department of Pathology
and Anatomical Sciences.
“Our
clinicians now have the ability to seamlessly integrate this new tool into our
workflow,” Hammer says. “We can order the patient testing and receive the
results within the EHR, and an email will notify us when the information is
available. It speeds up the entire process.”
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https://www.healthdatamanagement.com/articles/a-physician-who-became-cio-reflects-on-important-lessons-learned?id=130611
A physician who became CIO reflects on important lessons learned
Despite the
emphasis on technical acumen, success in healthcare IT is all about people. ‘If
we don’t get this right, everything else falls apart.’
Jul 21 2022
Lee
Milligan, MD
On June 12,
2000, I started working at Asante Health System as an emergency department
doctor.
My wife and I
had just gotten married three months prior. She was two months pregnant. And I
was a week out from finishing my emergency medicine residency at UCLA.
At the time,
we didn’t know much about Oregon or Asante, other than the space is beautiful
and the people are gold. We were in for an adventure. Over time, we
were blessed to have four children born at our flagship hospital – two
requiring NICU care – and raise them in the beautiful Rogue Valley.
My career
eventually shifted from working in the system to working on the system, most
recently serving as senior vice president and CIO.
Now comes
another adventure. After working for Asante for 22 years, I have left to
start a new role.
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https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-outlines-health-technology-strategy-new-report-2022-07-20/
July 20, 202210:08 PM GMT+10Last Updated 2 days ago
Apple outlines health technology strategy in new report
By Stephen Nellis
July 20
(Reuters) - Apple Inc (AAPL.O) on Wednesday released a report outlining a
two-pronged strategy in digital health markets, courting consumers with health
and fitness features on one hand while engaging with traditional healthcare
systems on the other.
Spearheaded
by Apple's chief operating officer, Jeff Williams, the report is the first time
Apple has offered a comprehensive view of its approach to healthcare markets in
the eight years since it began releasing health features such as a medical
records storage system on iPhones. It has also started partnering with
institutions such the Stanford University School of Medicine to conduct
large-scale formal medical studies.
Much of the
work has centered around the Apple Watch, a device that Williams played a key
role in bringing to market and which contains sensors for heart health and
other functions.
In the
report, Apple said its focus for consumers is on providing a secure place for
users to store their health and medical information on iPhones while using
tools like the Apple Watch to warn and nudge users toward better health. The
device can alert people to heart irregularities and detect when a person takes
a hard fall to alert an emergency contact, among other features. Apple said its
system can now store 150 different types of health data that is encrypted so
that only users, not Apple, can access it.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/amazon-makes-further-healthcare-inroads-39b-one-medical-deal
Amazon makes further healthcare inroads with $3.9B One Medical deal
The merger
agreement with the IT-driven primary care company aims to make healthcare more
"accessible, affordable and even enjoyable" with in-person and
virtual care services.
By Mike Miliard
July 21, 2022
10:46 AM
Amazon
and One Medical announced their plans to merge on Thursday morning, in a $3.9
billion mega deal that would see the retail giant continue its ambitious string
of healthcare acquisitions.
Under
terms of the merger agreement, which is subject to customary closing conditions,
Amazon will acquire One Medical for $18 per share in an all-cash
transaction.
San
Francisco-based One Medical is a technology-focused primary care organization
offering in-person, digital and virtual care services that it says are designed
to improve the healthcare experience for its customers.
"The
opportunity to transform health care and improve outcomes by combining One
Medical’s human-centered and technology-powered model and exceptional team with
Amazon’s customer obsession, history of invention, and willingness to invest in
the long-term is so exciting," said One Medical CEO Amir Dan Rubin, who
will remain in that role, in a statement.
He
said the deal represents an opportunity to help build a primary care experience
with Amazon that's "more accessible, affordable, and even enjoyable for
patients, providers, and payers."
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2022/07/21/securing-the-internet-of-medical-things-10-effective-ways/
Securing the Internet of Medical Things: 10 Effective Ways
July 21, 2022
The
following is a guest article by Vinugayathri Chinnasamy from Indusface.
The
Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is revolutionizing the healthcare industry by
creating a connected infrastructure of medical systems and services that are
helping enhance patient outcomes. But they come with newer security risks too. 63%
of healthcare organizations in 2019 faced security incidents owing to
the insecure and unmanaged Internet of Medical Things. Given the increasing
costs of data breaches, IoT
security in healthcare is indispensable.
Continue
reading to find out more about IoMT and powerful insights on securing the
Internet of Medical Things.
What
is IoMT?
The
Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is the amalgamation of medical devices and
applications that use networking technologies to connect to healthcare IT
systems. The IoT in healthcare is helping improve patient outcomes and
enhancing patient experiences, optimizing costs, enabling quicker, more
accurate diagnosis, enabling effective remote monitoring of chronic diseases,
and bettering drug management, among others.
Why is
IoT Security in Healthcare Necessary?
Today,
a hospital has an average
of 15-20 medical devices such as smart beds, ventilators, insulin
pumps, IV pumps, etc. If any of these devices have vulnerabilities or security
weaknesses such as unpatched software or outdated OS, attackers can easily
breach them and access the connected devices.
Attackers
could weaponize these devices and cause harm to patients. Or they could
orchestrate a ransomware attack to extort huge sums of money from healthcare
organizations. Given the criticality of these devices to patient safety and
life, organizations may end up paying the ransom.
Healthcare
organizations collect, store, and transmit a large volume of sensitive patient
data using these connected devices. So, unprotected Internet of Medical Things
pose a threat to data security and attracts huge penalties if a breach occurs.
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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/telehealth/feds-list-7-characteristics-fraudulent-telehealth-arrangement
Feds List 7 Characteristics of a Fraudulent Telehealth Arrangement
Analysis
| By Eric Wicklund |
July 21, 2022
The
characteristics are part of a Special Fraud Alert issued by the Health and
Human Services Department's Office of the Inspector General, and give
healthcare organizations an idea of what to look out for in dealing with
telehealth companies.
Federal
officials have issued a Special
Fraud Alert targeting contracts with telehealth companies and offered seven
characteristics of an arrangement that could be illegal.
The notice,
issued by the Health and Human Services Department's Office of the Inspector
General, follows several recent investigations into companies claiming to offer
what they define as telehealth services, but which often constitute illegal
marketing schemes.
"While
the facts and circumstances of each case differed, often they involved at least
one practitioner ordering or prescribing items or services for purported
patients they never examined or meaningfully assessed to determine the medical
necessity of items or services ordered or prescribed," the OIG notice
reads. "In addition, telemedicine companies commonly paid practitioners a
fee that correlated with the volume of federally reimbursable items or services
ordered or prescribed by the practitioners, which was intended to and did
incentivize a practitioner to order medically unnecessary items or services.
These types of volume-based fees not only implicate and potentially violate the
federal anti-kickback statute, but they also may corrupt medical
decision-making, drive inappropriate utilization, and result in patient
harm."
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/the-sequoia-project-releases-tefca-flow-down-resource
The Sequoia Project Releases TEFCA Flow-Down Resource
New
resources from The Sequoia Project outline TEFCA flow-down provisions and the
kinds of entities that can be participants or subparticipants in TEFCA.
By Hannah Nelson
July 20, 2022
- The Sequoia Project, selected by ONC as the Recognized Coordinating
Entity (RCE) for the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA),
has released
a new resource to help healthcare organizations comply with the Common
Agreement’s flow-down obligations.
The
“Informational Resource for Flowing Down Common Agreement Provisions Into
Framework Agreements” (TEFCA Flow-Down Resource) aims to help qualified health
information networks (QHINs), participants, and subparticipants in compliance
with the Common Agreement’s required flow-down obligations.
Required
flow-down provisions ensure that QHINs legally bind TEFCA
participants to specific terms and conditions of the Common Agreement.
Flow-down requirements also ensure that participants and subparticipants, and
subparticipants and downstream subparticipants, are legally bound by these same
terms and conditions of the Common Agreement.
The resource
is divided into two parts. First, it outlines general information regarding
each section of the Common Agreement and its impact (or lack thereof) on
Participant-QHIN Agreements.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/onc-releases-united-states-core-data-for-interoperability-version-3
ONC Releases United States Core Data for Interoperability Version 3
United
States Core Data for Interoperability Version 3 (USCDI v3) includes a new data
class, Health Insurance Information, to support the interoperability of health
insurance data.
By Hannah Nelson
July 20, 2022
- ONC has released
the United States Core Data for Interoperability Version 3 (USCDI v3), which
expands upon USCDI v2 by adding new data classes and elements.
ONC received
more than 800 public comments on data classes and elements after the
publication of Draft USCDI v3 in January 2022.
Building on
USCDI v2, USCDI v3 added 24 data elements across the following classes: health
insurance information, health status/assessments, laboratory, medications,
patient demographics/information, and procedures.
Health
Insurance Information Data Elements
USCDI v3
includes a new data class, Health Insurance Information, which allows health IT
(not just EHR systems) to capture and share healthcare insurance coverage
information in a standardized way.
This data
class includes seven new elements: Coverage Status, Relationship to Subscriber,
Member Identifier, Subscriber Identifier, Payer Identifier, Group Identifier,
and Coverage Type.
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/klas-broad-remote-patient-monitoring-vendors-most-used-considered
KLAS: Broad Remote Patient Monitoring Vendors Most Used, Considered
Broad
vendors — vendors that monitor many conditions using many devices — were the
most used and considered in the RPM arena, new data from KLAS shows.
By Mark Melchionna
July 20, 2022
- Broad remote patient monitoring (RPM) vendors, that is, companies that
monitor a wide array of clinical conditions, were most commonly used or
considered by healthcare organizations, with Health Recovery Solutions (HRS)
and Vivify Health being two vendors that stood out, according to a
recent KLAS report.
As RPM use
continues to grow, KLAS researchers are determining how solutions can be used
to produce effective interventions, which can lead to improved outcomes and
lower costs. During this process, they sought insight into the workings of the
RPM landscape.
The KLAS
report examined several vendors, along with the various types of services they
offer. It also noted the plans of each organization regarding potential
expansion efforts.
The report
found that HRS and Vivify Health were the most widely used and considered RPM
vendors. HRS achieved an overall performance score of 91.9, while Vivify Health
received a score of 86.7.
Regarding
types of vendors, researchers found that broad RPM was the most widely used,
with 33 organizations currently using it and 35 considering it. A distant
second was focused RPM vendors that monitor a single use case or condition.
Nine organizations presently use focused RPM vendors, and two are considering
it.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/debunking-some-healthcare-s-biggest-blockchain-myths
Debunking some of healthcare's biggest blockchain myths
An expert in
distributed ledger technology dives deep into how blockchain can best be used
in healthcare – and dispels some stubborn misconceptions that might be
hindering its wider acceptance.
By Bill Siwicki
July 20, 2022
10:41 AM
Although
not yet widely implemented in healthcare, blockchain technology has tremendous
potential and could be transformational by providing increased security,
transparency and integrity.
However,
some common myths around blockchain may be slowing its acceptance.
Kali
Durgampudi is chief technology officer at Zelis, a healthcare payments company.
He is a blockchain expert, which is why Healthcare IT News sat down with him – to
discuss how blockchain can be used in healthcare, those stubborn myths and
blockchain's transformational potential in the industry.
Q.
What are the primary use cases for blockchain in healthcare?
A.
Some of the biggest issues we have in healthcare are privacy and data security.
Cyber-risk continues to grow exponentially as the industry moves toward
digitizing and eliminating archaic paper-based processes.
Blockchain
technology has the potential to alleviate many of these concerns. For those who
are not familiar with it, blockchain is essentially a system of tracking and
recording information. "Blocks" of data, or encrypted information,
are widely distributed across a peer-to-peer network.
-----
https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/technology/acep-launches-digital-data-platform-emergency-care-services
ACEP Launches Digital Data Platform for Emergency Care Services
Analysis
| By Eric Wicklund |
July 19, 2022
The American
College of Emergency Physicians is partnering with PA Consulting on a new
platform aimed at helping emergency care providers access data and
resources to improve services and outcomes and reduce administrative burdens.
The American College of Emergency
Physicians (ACEP) is launching a digital platform aimed at helping
healthcare organizations improve their emergency care services.
ACEP will partner
with PA Consulting on the platform, which will form the foundation for ACEP's
newly launched Emergency Medicine Data Institute (EMDI).
“The ACEP
Emergency Medicine Data Institute will transform information that physicians
and others can rely on to support clinical innovation and patient management,”
ACEP President Gillian Schmitz, MD, FACEP, said in a press release. “We are
very excited to launch a resource with the potential to transform care delivery
and empower clinicians at the bedside with analytics from emergency departments
around the country.”
-----
https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/technology/marrying-precision-medicine-ehrs-priority-uh-cleveland
Marrying Precision Medicine to EHRs is a Priority at UH Cleveland
Analysis
| By Scott Mace |
July 20, 2022
University
Hospitals Cleveland's technology platform is a key part of a long-term
strategy to improve clinical outcomes.
KEY
TAKEAWAYS
·
The approach helps providers develop therapeutic
strategies for patients, including depression treatments.
·
Shortcomings of EHRs and data interoperability
remain unsolved challenges.
·
Anticoagulation and genetic counseling
initiatives are also benefitting from related technology.
Healthcare
organizations can make patient genomic data actionable, incorporating it into
the EHR.
So says Maulik
Purohit, MD, associate chief medical information officer at University Hospitals
Cleveland, a 25-hospital system with 6,000 affiliated providers covering
northeastern Ohio.
In this
interview with HealthLeaders, Purohit describes ways to evaluate organizational
information technology and clinical readiness for strategic precision medicine
programs, moving genetic information from tests to the lab to the EHR and then
to the patient. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
HealthLeaders:
What kind of problem will this solve?
Purohit:
Precision medicine is about using large sets of data to understand
pathophysiology solutions, diagnoses, and treatments, and how they affect the
patient. We have a lot of potential, where nearly everybody is on electronic
records of some type, in converting that data to knowledge and using that, with
the hope of improving care for patients. How did each individual do? Did the
individual have side effects? Did the individual get the same level of
improvement as somebody else? Those are questions that research studies
couldn't answer because they're done on a population level.
-----
https://www.cnet.com/health/apple-discusses-the-future-of-health/?ftag=CAD090e536
Apple Discusses the Future of Health
A new report
aims to define the company's philosophies. Apple VP Sumbul Desai talks to CNET
about where things go from here.
Scott Stein
July 20, 2022
5:00 a.m. PT
Apple's
Health app keeps evolving, with the company aspiring to offer a combination
personal data archive, medical liaison and insight engine. iOS
16 and WatchOS
9 are adding medication management and multistage sleep tracking to a
growing list of features. But what comes next?
Apple just
published a multipage Health report, which aims to detail where the company sees
its health focus heading on the iPhone and the Apple Watch. The report covers
the app, research studies and initiatives with medical organizations.
As Google
prepares to release a Pixel
Watch that will connect to Fitbit's features and services, Apple looks to
be strengthening its position by expanding beyond the watch to a larger
spectrum of health services. Already, Apple Health and Fitness Plus are
evolving into services
you don't need an Apple Watch to use.
But will
Health start become an extension of how I connect with my own doctors? Will
sleep tracking offer a doorway to other health insights? And why doesn't Apple
have its own equivalent of the "readiness score" used by Fitbit and
Oura?
Apple's vice
president of health, Dr. Sumbul Desai, spoke with CNET about the goals of Apple
Health and where goals are being set next. She sees the blend of lifestyle with
clinical data, medication data and an increasing number of metrics in one place
as helping future insights in other health measurements over time.
-----
https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/data-inconsistencies-provide-blurry-picture-of-audio-only-telehealth-use
Data Inconsistencies Provide Blurry Picture of Audio-Only Telehealth Use
According
to Harvard and RAND Corp. researchers, challenges in data analysis of
audio-only telehealth make it hard to assess the use of the care
modality.
By Mark Melchionna
July 19, 2022
- In a piece published in Health Affairs, researchers from Harvard Medical
School and RAND Corporation wrote that predicting
the future of audio-only sources is hard, mainly due to the common
difficulties in data analysis and the lack of clarity regarding reimbursement.
Throughout
the rapid uptake and high use of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic, many
payers, including Medicare, began reimbursing for audio-only and video-based
telehealth services at the same rate as in-person services. Although this and
other regulatory flexibilities will remain active throughout the remainder of
the pandemic, there are difficulties in predicting the future of virtual care
use.
To determine
the rate of use and efficacy of telehealth, groups such as government agencies
and payers use surveys, claims, and her data.
The authors
of the Health Affairs article used this type of information to identify 25
different telehealth visit estimates. Across these, the proportion of
audio-only telehealth visits spanned from 9 percent to 98 percent.
-----
https://patientengagementhit.com/news/telephone-patient-outreach-effective-for-smoking-cessation-quit-rates
Telephone Patient Outreach Effective for Smoking Cessation, Quit Rates
Consistent
smoking cessation treatment provided through a telephone patient outreach model
improved quit rates two-fold in comparison to patients who received minimal
counseling.
By Sarai Rodriguez
July 19, 2022
- Offering smoking cessation treatment through a telephone patient
outreach model may be an effective way to engage patients and help them quit
smoking, according to a recent study
published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
“Quitting
smoking is very difficult, and people who seek medication and support are more
successful than those who try to quit on their own,” Kathryn L Taylor, PhD,
professor in the Department of Oncology at Georgetown University and
corresponding author of the study, said in the press release. “Importantly,
making a quit attempt while undergoing lung screening may provide a boost to
one’s motivation to stop smoking.”
People with a
long-term smoking history are at high risk for lung cancer.
According to CDC
data, cigarette smoking is linked to about 80 percent to 90 percent of lung
cancer deaths. In addition, people who smoke cigarettes are nearly 15 to 30
times more likely to get lung cancer or die from lung cancer than people who do
not smoke.
-----
https://patientengagementhit.com/news/waning-public-trust-in-healthcare-poses-medical-misinformation-threat
Waning Public Trust in Healthcare Poses Medical Misinformation Threat
Community
health partnerships with entities that have gained public trust could help
clinicians combat a medical misinformation threat.
By Sara Heath
July 19, 2022
- The number of patients saying they trust their healthcare providers has
decreased since pre-pandemic times, posing a threat of further medical
misinformation problems already beleaguering the healthcare industry, according
to new
data from Harris Poll, a Stagwell company.
The dampening
of public trust in the medical establishment, paired with increased trust in
non-medical sources to answer healthcare questions, just might open the door
for pervasive medical
misinformation.
To be clear, patient
trust hasn’t gone away entirely. In Harris Poll’s 2022 Health Information
Trends Survey, 78 percent of the more than 2,000 adult patient respondents said
they trust their primary care providers.
But that
trails trust levels of merely three years ago when Harris Poll’s 2019 iteration
of the survey revealed 83 percent of adult patients trust their primary care
providers.
-----
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/health-sector-suffered-337-healthcare-data-breaches-in-first-half-of-year
Health Sector Suffered 337 Healthcare Data Breaches in First Half of Year
Providers
accounted for the highest number of healthcare data breaches so far this year,
followed by business associates and health plans.
By Jill McKeon
July 19, 2022
- Fortified Health Security’s mid-year report
on the state of healthcare cybersecurity observed slight shifts in healthcare
data breach trends in the first half of 2022. The HHS Office for Civil Rights
data breach portal showed that there have been 337 healthcare data breaches
impacting more than 500 individuals each in the first half of this year,
signifying a slight decrease from 368 at this time last year.
“While the
number of healthcare cybersecurity reported breaches has leveled off after
meteoric rises over the past several years, hospitals and health systems still
cannot breathe a sigh of relief,” the report stated.
“The
percentage of healthcare breaches attributed to malicious activity rose more
than 5 percentage points in the first six months of 2022 to account for nearly
80 [percent] of all reported incidents.”
Fortified
Health Security studied incident response, cyber program effectiveness, the
MITRE ATT&CK framework, and the growing prevalence of artificial
intelligence (AI) in cybersecurity to inform its mid-year report.
In its
analysis of the OCR data breach portal, the organization found that healthcare
providers accounted for 72 percent of the healthcare data breaches in the first
half of the year, followed by business associates at 16 percent and health
plans at 12 percent.
-----
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/977395
Data Exchange Among Doctors Widespread, but Challenges Remain: Report
Ken Terry
July 18, 2022
Nearly two
thirds of office-based physicians are engaged in some form of electronic health
information exchange (HIE), and three quarters of those who exchange data say
they have experienced improvements in quality of care, practice efficiency, and
patient safety as a result, according to a new
study from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC).
The data
analysis from an annual survey by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) also showed that the percentage of physicians electronically
finding or querying patient information reached 49% in 2019, a 40% increase
from 2015.
But other
domains of interoperability did not grow much, if at all.
“The progress
of interoperability is still incremental,” commented Julia Adler-Milstein, PhD,
professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco and
director of its Center for Clinical Informatics and Improvement Research, in an
interview with Medscape Medical News. “Every year, things are getting better on
both the ambulatory practice and the hospital side, but it’s not dramatic
progress. We have to just keep chipping away at the facets of this problem.”
Overall, 65%
of physicians either sent, received, or queried health information with
providers outside of their organization in 2019. The other physicians used only
mail, fax, or e-fax to exchange patient information with other providers.
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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/technology/opinion-physicians-need-use-smarter-safer-ehrs
Opinion: Physicians Need to Use Smarter, Safer EHRs
Analysis
| By Scott Mace |
July 19, 2022
A JAMA
article penned by two doctors builds upon a recent CMS final rule calling on
health systems and vendors to work together to improve EHRs.
New
guidelines are needed to minimize the cognitive load imposed by electronic
health records, according to a physician-written proposal published last week
in JAMA Network Open.
Making
Electronic Health Records Both SAFER and SMARTER states that a recent final
rule issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services should
stimulate shared responsibility between EHR vendors and health systems to
improve EHRs by reducing the cognitive load on clinicians and making EHRs more
readable.
"Cognitive
attention of the clinical team is a scare resource – one that is essential for
quality health care," say Kevin B. Johnson MD, MS, of the department of
biostatistics, epidemiology, and informatics at the University of Pennsylvania,
and William W. Stead, MD, who served as chief strategy officer
for Vanderbilt University Medical Center from 2010 to 2020.
-----
https://healthitanalytics.com/news/ml-analysis-of-handgun-purchases-can-forecast-suicide-risk
ML Analysis of Handgun Purchases Can Forecast Suicide Risk
New
research shows that administrative data on handgun transactions, analyzed using
machine-learning techniques, may predict firearm suicide risk and provide
insights to inform prevention strategies.
By Shania Kennedy
July 18, 2022
- A new study
published in JAMA Network Open indicates that machine-learning (ML) models
designed to analyze handgun transaction data can accurately forecast firearm
suicide risk, resulting in insights that could inform targeted interventions
for suicide prevention.
According to
the study, research suggests that limiting access to firearms among individuals
at high risk for suicide is an effective method for suicide prevention, but
accurately identifying them to initiate an intervention is a challenge. The
authors of the study hypothesized that firearm purchasing records might offer a
large-scale and objective data source for developing tools to predict firearm
suicide risk.
To test their
hypothesis, the researchers used California’s Dealer’s Record of Sale (DROS)
database, which consisted of 4.9 million handgun transaction records from 1.9
million individuals between Jan. 1, 1996, and Oct. 6, 2015. The DROS records
include purchaser identifiers, addresses, dates and times of the transaction,
identifiers for the seller, and firearm calibers, types, makes, and models.
They fed this
data into an ML-based model designed to predict suicide risk based on 41
factors pulled from the DROS data. The researchers also pulled California death
records from 1996 to 2016 to measure rates of firearm suicide within one year
of firearm transactions, as defined by the ICD-9 and ICD-10 code sets. They
identified firearm suicide deaths by linking purchasers in DROS to the
California Department of Public Health’s Death Statistical Master File, using
probabilistic matching on name, date of birth, and gender/sex.
-----
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/ocr-settles-11-hipaa-right-of-access-cases
OCR Settles 11 HIPAA Right of Access Cases
OCR
announced the resolution of 11 HIPAA Right of Access cases to reinforce patient
health record access under the HIPAA Privacy Rule.
By Jill McKeon
July 18, 2022
- The HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced 11 HIPAA Right of Access
resolutions. OCR created the HIPAA Right of Access Initiative in 2019 to
support patients' right to timely and cost-effective access to their health
records.
"It
should not take a federal investigation before a HIPAA covered entity provides
patients, or their personal representatives, with access to their medical
records," Lisa J. Pino, OCR's director, said in a press
release.
"Health
care organizations should take note that there are now 38 enforcement actions
in our Right of Access Initiative and understand that OCR is serious about
upholding the law and peoples' fundamental right to timely access to their
medical records."
Each
settlement involved a settlement payment to resolve allegations of HIPAA
Privacy Rule violations, and most required the covered entities to undertake
standard corrective action plans. None of the settlements equate to an
admission of guilt by the impacted parties.
-----
https://fcw.com/it-modernization/2022/07/unknown-queue-va-health-software-led-patient-harm-watchdog-says/374502/
Routing gap in VA health software led to patient harm, watchdog says
By Adam
Mazmanian,
Executive Editor
July 14, 2022
An
oversight report claims a confusing routing process in the new electronic
health record system being fielded by the Department of Veterans Affairs
contributed to nearly 150 adverse patient events.
The Oracle
Cerner software being installed by the Department of Veterans Affairs as part
of a $21 billion-plus technology refresh has flaws that are directly leading to
patient harm, according to a report
from the agency's Office of Inspector General.
The OIG
report focuses on the "unknown queue," which is used by the Oracle
Cerner health record system to capture clinical orders that have incomplete
routing information. The report covers events at Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical
Center, the initial go-live site for the new software.
According to
the report, the health record software did not alert clinicians that orders
didn't reach their intended destination. From the time the software went live
in October 2020 to June 2021, more than 11,00 clinical orders were routed to
the unknown queue. According to the report, 8,500 were radiology orders and
2,500 involved other clinical services.
The OIG
report concluded that the unknown queue "ultimately led to thousands of
orders for medical care not being delivered to the requested service, placed
patients at risk for incomplete care, and caused multiple events of patient
harm." The report also noted that, "Oracle Cerner failed to inform VA
end-users of the existence of the unknown queue and put the burden on VA to
identify and address the problem."
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/blog/seeing-through-security-illusion
Seeing through the security illusion
As an
industry we've bought into the idea for too long that we can simply buy some
cybersecurity tools and be safe.
By Christopher
Frenz
July 18, 2022
10:49 AM
In
recent years, a disturbing trend should have come to light to anyone closely
following the security industry. We have seen a large uptick in investment in
security tools by organizations, but we have not observed a decrease in
breaches and ransomware attacks.
In
fact, the number of data breaches and ransomware attacks are still arguably
increasing despite this increased level of investment in security tooling. This
should be raising a serious question among security leaders as to what we as an
industry are strategically doing wrong. Why are we not getting improved
outcomes against attackers with all of this increased investment?
In
the realm of application security, it has long been known – and is an oft
repeated mantra – that you must build security in and not bolt it on later as
having an application that is secure by design and that has various security
controls like input validation, escaping, etc. built into it will lead to far
better security outcomes than just sticking a poorly designed application
behind a firewall or CASB.
There
is a huge body of evidence to support this mantra on the app sec side of the
house and it should be viewed as a mantra that as security professionals we all
take to heart, whether we work in app sec or not. If it's well established that
we can't bolt security on later, then on the larger healthcare delivery
organization network scale why do we as an industry often just invest in tools
and then assume we are safe?
-----
https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/innovation/david-danhauer-looks-back-his-career-cmio
David Danhauer Looks Back on His Career as a CMIO
Analysis
| By Eric Wicklund |
July 18, 2022
David
Danhauer, MD, is retiring after 37 years in healthcare, the last decade spent
as cheif medical information officer at Kentucky-based Owensboro Health. He
talks to HealthLeaders about the challenges and successes and his role as an
enabler for innovation.
After a
37-year career in healthcare, David E. Danhauer. MD, is retiring.
Danhauer has
served as chief medical information officer and senior vice president at
Kentucky-based Owensboro
Health for more than a decade. While with the health system, he oversaw the
implementation of an electronic health record platform, supported the growth of
an ambulatory care group that now comprises 180 providers in 30 locations, and
helped design a $500 million, 450-bed regional hospital.
Prior to that,
he was a pediatrician, first running a solo practice for 11 years, then as part
of Owensboro Pediatrics.
Danhauer
recently spoke about his experiences in an e-mail Q&A with HealthLeaders.
Q: How has
the role of Chief Medical Information Officer changed over the years?
Danhauer:
CMIO roles have been evolving from an EHR enabler to a strategic clinical IT
leader/expert. This transition has required the development of skill sets in
leadership/management, project management, and contracting, as well as the
ability to network at regional and national levels. The need to stay current
with evolving technologies and trends is critical to the success of any CMIO.
-----
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/health/lost-decade-in-digital-health-a-big-part-of-chronic-illness-backlogs-that-mounted-during-covid-41845503.html
‘Lost decade in digital health’ a big part of chronic illness backlogs
that mounted during Covid
John Reynolds
July 17 2022 02:30 AM
Ireland
has experienced “a lost decade in digital health” that is partly to blame for
the rising backlog in the treatment and diagnosis of cancer and other serious
and chronic conditions that mounted up during the pandemic, according to the
HSE’s director of digital transformation.
Speaking
to the Sunday
Independent, Professor Martin Curley said the HSE “needs to start
from scratch” where digital healthcare is concerned, and “create a national
digital health agency which can transform care, keep more people cared for in
their homes using digital monitoring, dramatically improving healthcare
outcomes”.
If
such an agency had existed before the pandemic, patient monitoring could have
allowed earlier intervention, resulting in fewer people requiring more complex
care being on waiting lists, he said.
Prof
Curley also blamed a “tendency to do nothing instead of doing no harm”, of some
in senior HSE roles, as well as the prolific use of management consulting
firms, for the lost decade.
Figures
provided last month by the HSE to Sinn Féin health spokesman David Cullinane
showed 1.3 million people — almost a quarter of the population — are on some
form of waiting list, for hospital, therapy or diagnostics.
-----
Enjoy!
David.