Weekly Overseas Health IT Links – 15th October, 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

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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/drummond-group-releases-pediatrics-health-it-certification-program

Drummond Group Releases Pediatrics Health IT Certification Program

The Pediatrics Health IT Certification Program allows EHR vendors to earn 'advanced badges' in data security and pediatrics medication management.

By Hannah Nelson

October 07, 2022 - Drummond Group LLC, the leading certifying body for ONC's Health IT Certification Program, has announced its new Pediatrics Health IT Certification Program to support ONC's recommendations for the voluntary certification of health IT for pediatric care.

The program includes test interpretations of the recommendations, giving an independent and objective method for evaluating EHR vendor support.

Drummond Group completed a recent pilot of the program with three leading health IT vendors and an additional program review project with Arkansas Children's Hospital.

"As the leading testing and certification body for the ONC Health IT Certification Program, Drummond is pleased to be able to leverage our experience, reputation, and market position to innovate in industry-led testing and certification programs," Ryan Patano, Drummond's president, noted in a press release.

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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/endocrine-society-provides-guidance-for-appropriate-use-of-telehealth

Endocrine Society Provides Guidance for Appropriate Use of Telehealth

The Endocrine Society published a policy perspective covering various factors, such as clinical and patient factors, which could help determine subjective care needs and whether telehealth use is appropriate.

By Mark Melchionna

October 07, 2022 - Aiming to enhance personalized care, the Endocrine Society created a policy perspective containing five aspects of care that can help clinicians decide when using telehealth is appropriate.

With 18,000 members spread across 122 countries, the Endocrine Society is focused on promoting efforts to treat all hormone-related conditions, including diabetes, obesity, and hormone-related cancers.

Amid the rapid growth of telehealth that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare stakeholders anticipate that telehealth will continue to pave its way into various aspects of clinical care.

Published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, the Endocrine Society policy perspective describes five aspects of care that can assist the process of determining when telehealth is appropriate.

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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/man-sentenced-to-20-years-in-prison-for-netwalker-ransomware-attacks

Man Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison For NetWalker Ransomware Attacks

A Canadian man was sentenced to 20 years in prison for executing NetWalker ransomware attacks against healthcare organizations and other industries during the pandemic.

By Jill McKeon

October 07, 2022 - A Canadian man is facing 20 years in prison for his role in a variety of NetWalker ransomware attacks, including attacks against the healthcare sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sebastian Vachon-Desjardins, 35, of Gatineau, Quebec, was also ordered to forfeit $21.5 million.

“NetWalker ransomware has targeted dozens of victims all over the world, including companies, municipalities, hospitals, law enforcement, emergency services, school districts, colleges, and universities,” a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release stated.

“Attacks have specifically targeted the healthcare sector during the COVID-19 pandemic, taking advantage of the global crisis to extort victims.”

Previous reports indicate that NetWalker ransomware was behind a ransomware attack on the website of Champaign-Urbana Public Health District in Illinois in March 2020.

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https://www.csoonline.com/article/3675542/8-strange-ways-employees-can-accidently-expose-data.html#tk.rss_all

8 strange ways employees can (accidently) expose data

From eyeglass reflections and new job postings to certificate transparency logs and discarded printers, employees have odd ways to unintentionally expose data..

By Michael Hill

UK Editor, CSO | 4 October 2022 20:00 AEDT

Employees are often warned about the data exposure risks associated with the likes of phishing emails, credential theft, and using weak passwords. However, they can risk leaking or exposing sensitive information about themselves, the work they do, or their organization without even realizing. This risk frequently goes unexplored in cybersecurity awareness training, leaving employees oblivious to the risks they can pose to the security of data which, if exposed, could be exploited both directly and indirectly to target workers and businesses for malicious gain.

Here are eight unusual, unexpected, and relatively strange ways employees can accidently expose data, along with advice for addressing and mitigating the risks associated with them.

1. Eyeglass reflections expose screen data on video conferencing calls

Video conferencing platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams have become a staple of remote/hybrid working. However, new academic research has found that bespectacled video conferencing participants may be at risk of accidently exposing information via the reflection of their eyeglasses.

In a paper titled Private Eye: On the Limits of Textual Screen Peeking via Eyeglass Reflections in Video Conferencing, a group of researchers at Cornell University revealed a method of reconstructing screen text exposed via participants’ eyeglasses and other reflective objects during video conferences. Using mathematical modeling and human subject experiments, the research explored the extent to which webcams leak recognizable textual and graphical information gleaming from eyeglass.

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https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/ai-eye-scan-stroke-heart-disease-risk-scores/

AI-enabled eye scan delivers stroke and heart disease risk scores

By Rich Haridy

October 06, 2022

A team of researchers in the UK has developed a fully automated artificial intelligence-enabled system that can scan retinal images for vascular health, helping identify those at high risk of heart disease and stroke.

The old adage "the eyes are windows to the soul" isn’t that far off when considering how much one can infer about a person’s general health by studying their eyes. Diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and hyperthyroidism can be detected in the eyes, and recent innovations suggest neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s could be diagnosable through retinal scanning.

Considering how sensitive blood vessels in the eye can be to general cardiovascular changes, researchers have long studied the relationship between retinal features and conditions such as diabetes or coronary artery disease. With the advent of computerized systems that can automatically identify minute differences in a person’s retinal vasculature researchers are now closing in on a new kind of diagnostic tool.

The AI system is dubbed QUARTZ ((QUantitative Analysis of Retinal vessels Topology and siZe) and a new study put the algorithm to the test on more than 88,000 retinal images from two large ongoing population health studies. Each person included in the study had an average of seven to nine years of follow-up data, allowing the researchers to evaluate the predictive capacity of the system.

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https://www.healio.com/news/primary-care/20221006/older-adults-satisfied-with-using-telehealth-for-primary-care-study-finds

October 06, 2022

Older adults satisfied with using telehealth for primary care, study finds

Most adults aged 65 years and older were satisfied with using telehealth for their primary care visits during the first 14 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, a recent study found.

Although most of those surveyed wanted telehealth to remain available, researchers said they still preferred in-person care.

Before the pandemic, Roma Bhatia, MD, MPH, an editorial fellow at The New England Journal of Medicine, and colleagues noted in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society that older adults were the least likely to utilize telehealth due to several factors, such as lower digital literacy.

“Pre-pandemic, telemedicine was found to be effective for monitoring chronic conditions such as hypertension, but not a substitute for in-person care of older adults with complex health issues,” they wrote.

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https://khn.org/news/article/hurricane-ian-coastal-hospitals-climate-change/

Hurricane Ian Shows That Coastal Hospitals Aren’t Ready for Climate Change

By Daniel Chang and Lauren Sausser October 7, 2022

As rapidly intensifying storms and rising sea levels threaten coastal cities from Texas to the tip of Maine, Hurricane Ian has just demonstrated what researchers have warned: Hundreds of hospitals in the U.S. are not ready for climate change.

Hurricane Ian forced at least 16 hospitals from central to southwestern Florida to evacuate patients after it made landfall near the city of Fort Myers on Sept. 28 as a deadly Category 4 storm.

Some moved their patients before the storm while others ordered full or partial evacuations after the hurricane damaged their buildings or knocked out power and running water, said Mary Mayhew, president of the Florida Hospital Association, which coordinates needs and resources among hospitals statewide during a hurricane.

About 1,000 patients across five Florida counties were evacuated from hospitals for different reasons, Mayhew said, with one hospital moving patients after the storm tore part of its roof and deluged the ground floor. Other hospitals emerged with no structural damage but lost power and running water. Broken bridges, flooded roads, and lack of clean water all added to the challenge for some hospitals, Mayhew said.

And that’s before considering the need to help those injured in the hurricane and its aftermath.

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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/hies-do-double-duty-public-health-utilities

HIEs do double duty as public health utilities

The concept of a health data utility formalizes the wide scope of functions many health information exchanges already deliver. And work on social determinants of health is adding to the mix.

By Bill Siwicki

October 07, 2022 10:58 AM

On the heels of this year's Civitas Networks for Health 2022 Annual Conference, a Collaboration with the DirectTrust Summit, executives from two health information exchanges have shared with Healthcare IT News perspectives on their organizations' roles as public health utilities, interoperability challenges, successes achieved during the pandemic and trends shaping the future for HIEs.

Our conversation features commentary from Erica Galvez, CEO of Manifest MedEx, the largest HIE in California, and Kyle Russell, CEO of Virginia Health Information, the non-profit organization that operates the commonwealth's HIE, emergency care coordination program, all-payer claims database and other data collection systems.

Q. How can health information exchanges serve as public health utilities?

RUSSELL: To truly live out the words "data utility," HIEs must be structured with strong public accountability mechanisms. They must serve the entire community, not just select groups.

The concept of a health data utility really formalizes the wide scope of functions many HIEs already deliver. Services like complex data linking, developing standards for data exchange and patient risk profiling have been key components of HIEs for years, and translate well to the concept of an HDU.

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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/white-house-unveils-artificial-intelligence-bill-of-rights

White House Unveils Artificial Intelligence Bill of Rights

The White House has unveiled a 'blueprint' for an AI Bill of Rights, which outlines five protections Americans should have in the face of the rising use of these technologies.

By Shania Kennedy

October 07, 2022 - The White House unveiled its Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights earlier this week, which identifies five guidelines for the design, use, and deployment of automated and artificial intelligence (AI)-based tools to protect Americans from harm as the use of these technologies continues to grow in multiple industries.

The blueprint outlines five core principles: safe and effective systems, algorithmic discrimination protections, data privacy, notice and explanation, and human alternatives, consideration, and fallback. These are intended to serve as practical guidance for the US government, tech companies, researchers, and other stakeholders, but the blueprint is nonbinding and does not constitute regulatory policy.

The guidelines apply to AI and automated tools across industries, including healthcare, and are part of a larger conversation around the ethical use of AI.

Under the five principles, Americans should be protected from unsafe and ineffective systems; not face discrimination by algorithms, which should be used and designed in an equitable way; and be protected from abusive data practices via built-in safeguards and have agency over how their data is used.

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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/ai-bill-rights-defining-fairness-and-privacy-design

The AI Bill of Rights: Defining fairness and privacy by design

The Biden Administration blueprint outlines principles for the use of artificial intelligence and is meant to help government agencies level set – but it's also an operational vision addressing automation in data-sensitive domains such as healthcare.

By Andrea Fox

October 07, 2022 10:45 AM

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy set its expectations of automated system development based on five principles guiding design, use and deployment in its "Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights."

WHY IT MATTERS
To protect the American public in the age of artificial intelligence, the "Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights" is a guide that protects people from threats and a framework that defines guardrails on technology to reinforce civil rights, civil liberties and privacy, and equal opportunities ensuring access to critical resources and services.

While financial, public safety, social services, government benefits, and goods and services are named, healthcare AI is called out first.

"Too often these tools are used to limit our opportunities and prevent our access to critical resources or services. These problems are well-documented. In America and around the world, systems supposed to help with patient care have proven unsafe, ineffective or biased," according to the White House.

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https://patientengagementhit.com/news/misinformation-leading-factor-in-low-pediatric-covid-19-vaccine-uptake

Misinformation Leading Factor in Low Pediatric COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake

Misinformation around vaccine safety continues to circle, resulting in fear-fueled COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among parents and low pediatric COVID-19 vaccine uptake, researchers found.

By Sarai Rodriguez

October 06, 2022 - Although the COVID-19 vaccine for children between five and 11 years has been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) since late 2021, only about 30 percent of American children are fully vaccinated. According to a recent study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), misinformation about vaccine safety is the main deterrent to pediatric COVID-19 vaccine uptake.

Despite an abundance of evidence showing that vaccines are safe and effective, vaccine confidence is challenged by misinformation that suggests the vaccine causes autism, contains antifreeze, and increases COVID-19 risk.

Other concerns about COVID-19 vaccines include false claims of infertility and increased mortality, changes in patient DNA, frequent allergic reactions, and the perception of COVID-19 vaccines being more dangerous than the virus itself.

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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/telehealth/new-study-finds-telehealth-outperforms-person-care-hedis-measures

New Study Finds Telehealth Outperforms In-Person Care in HEDIS Measures

Analysis  |  By Eric Wicklund  |   October 06, 2022

Researchers have found that telehealth performed better than in-person care in 11 of 16 HEDIS quality performance measures, but that doesn't mean virtual care is superior to the office visit.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

·         A recent study of more than 526,000 patients receiveing care at Wellspan Health sites in 2020 and 2021 found that telehealth outperformed in-person care in 11 of 16 HEDIS quality improvement measures for primary care.

·         The research indicated in-person care was better in medication-based measures, while telehealth scored higher in testing and counseling measures.

·         Researchers stressed that the results show a need for health systems to integrate telehealth with in-person care, enabling patients and providers to select the venue that most suits them and the treatment.

New research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) finds that telehealth was superior to in-person care in 11 of 16 quality performance measures for primary care.

The study, conducted by researchers at the Robert Graham Center in Washington DC and Pennsylvania-based Wellspan Health, focused on more than 526,000 patients receiving healthcare services at roughly 200 Wellspan Health outpatient sites between March 1, 2020, and November 30, 2021, and used HEDIS (Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set) measurements.

The researchers, led by Derek Baughman, MD, of the Robert Graham Center and Wellspan Good Samaritan Hospital in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, and Yalda Jabbarpour, MD, and John Westfall, MD, MPH, both of the Robert Graham Center, said the results don't mean that health systems should close their clinics and focus on virtual care. Rather, they should offer telehealth as a part of the overall care plan, particularly for those who face barriers to accessing in-person care.

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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/the-joint-commission-joins-white-house-coalition-for-sdoh-data-collection

The Joint Commission Joins White House Coalition for SDOH Data Collection

The Sync for Social Needs coalition aims to support health equity by improving SDOH data collection, including nutrition information, in the EHR.

By Hannah Nelson

October 05, 2022 - The Joint Commission has joined the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health’s Sync for Social Needs coalition, which aims to improve social determinants of health (SDOH) data collection.

The coalition of leading healthcare organizations and health IT vendors is working to integrate nutrition information within a patient’s EHR using the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) data standard.

SDOH can limit an individual’s access to nutritious foods. Americans who lack access to healthy food are disproportionately low-income, Black or Hispanic, or live in rural areas. Standardizing SDOH data collection and exchange is a critical step in the pursuit of health equity.

As the standards-setting organization for over 22,000 healthcare organizations, The Joint Commission is committed to working with participants to lower clinician burden of screening for SDOH.

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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/va-announces-efforts-to-address-oracle-cerner-ehr-outages

VA Announces Efforts to Address Oracle Cerner EHR Outages

After experiencing several EHR outages, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) plans to work with Oracle Cerner to address the EHR issues.

By Sarai Rodriguez

October 05, 2022 - In a joint effort, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Oracle Cerner will launch a series of investigations to identify and fix frequent Oracle Cerner EHR outages, according to reporting from FedScoop.

Earlier this year, the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted an inspection to assess a safety concern with the new EHR that resulted in patient harm.

One of the concerns with the highest patient safety risk was described as the "unknown queue.”

A report reviewed the unknown queue and found that the EHR sent thousands of orders for medical care to an undetectable location instead of the intended service location.

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https://patientengagementhit.com/news/which-social-determinants-of-health-interventions-yield-best-roi

Which Social Determinants of Health Interventions Yield Best ROI?

The Commonwealth Fund has found that housing and nutrition social determinants of health interventions have the strongest evidence for yielding good ROI.

By Sara Heath

October 05, 2022 - Social determinants of health interventions focused on housing security, including addressing houselessness and making home modifications to improve housing quality, improve clinical outcomes and generate a return on investment, according to an analysis from the Commonwealth Fund.

The analysis, published as a follow-up to a similar three-year-old document, found moderate evidence that social determinants of health interventions centered on food, nutrition, and transportation were effective.

Meanwhile, more data is needed to support the efficacy of medical-legal partnerships and interventions for social isolation and loneliness. Although there has been rigorous study looking at care management or patient navigators, results are mixed, the researchers said.

“Overall, we continue to see mounting evidence that addressing social needs of complex patients can reduce costly forms of health care utilization and result in savings,” the researchers wrote in a blog post accompanying the report. “More research is being produced in this area, with studies of increasing rigor.”

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https://www.hcinnovationgroup.com/interoperability-hie/application-programming-interfaces-apis/news/21282796/ehnac-carin-alliance-partner-on-code-of-conduct-accreditation

EHNAC, CARIN Alliance Partner on Code of Conduct Accreditation

Oct. 5, 2022

Effort brings CARIN Code of Conduct, EHNAC’s criteria review process to health plans, health systems, EHR vendors, implementers of FHIR-based APIs, and third-party app developers

David Raths

The Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC) is working with the CARIN Alliance on a code of conduct accreditation program in an effort to support additional levels of trust related to consumer access to health data.

An HL7 FHIR accelerator program, the CARIN Alliance is a multi-sector collaborative convened by Leavitt Partners and more than 80 stakeholders, to advance the adoption of consumer-directed exchange across the U.S. It is working to advance the ability for consumers and their authorized caregivers to easily get, use, and share their digital health information.

The nonprofit EHNAC accredits organizations that electronically exchange healthcare data, including accountable care organizations, data registries, electronic health networks, e-prescribing solution providers, and health information exchanges, The commission is an authorized HITRUST CSF Assessor, making it the only organization with the ability to provide both EHNAC accreditation and HITRUST CSF certification.

The CARIN Code of Conduct Accreditation Program is set to bring both the CARIN Code of Conduct and EHNAC’s criteria review process to health plans, health systems, EHR vendors, implementers of FHIR-based application programming interfaces (APIs), and third-party app developers.

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https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/digital-health/kaiser-permanente-offer-members-free-access-ginger-text-based-mental-health-coaching

Kaiser Permanente offers members free access to Ginger text-based mental health coaching

By Heather Landi

Oct 5, 2022 07:40am

Kaiser Permanente is offering its members free access to Ginger's on-demand emotional support coaching app as part of its growing portfolio of digital self-care tools.

With Ginger, Kaiser Permanente members across the organization's entire geographic footprint can text one-on-one with emotional support coaches that provide help with common challenges such as managing stress or getting better sleep at no cost and with no referral or appointment needed.

Kaiser Permanente currently serves 12.6 million members in eight states and the District of Columbia.

Last fall, Ginger merged with Headspace, creating a $3 billion mental health company. By combining Ginger's teletherapy services with Headspace's meditation and mindfulness app, the company, now called Headspace Health, has a combined reach to 100 million consumers, according to the company.

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https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/google-health-notches-another-provider-partner-care-studio

Desert Oasis Healthcare signs on to pilot Google Health's Care Studio for outpatient care

By Heather Landi

Oct 5, 2022 12:00pm

Medical group Desert Oasis Healthcare has jumped on board to pilot Google Health's clinical software Care Studio.

It marks Google Health's third provider partnership, and its first outpatient collaboration, for its clinician-facing search tool that harmonizes healthcare data from different sources.

Starting next year, a small number of Desert Oasis Healthcare clinicians will test out Care Studio’s search and summarization capabilities that leverage artificial intelligence to bring context to physicians' clinical notes. The plan is to gradually expand the technology to more users over time, the organizations told Fierce Healthcare in an exclusive interview this week.

"This is really impressive technology. We are kind of geeked to work with Google on this shared mission," Brian Hodgkins, Pharm.D., executive vice president of clinical operations and ACO at Desert Oasis Healthcare said in an interview. "We honestly expect this to be a game changer for healthcare."

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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/where-telehealth-can-help-curb-mental-health-staffing-shortage

Where telehealth can help curb the mental health staffing shortage

A physician and virtual care expert discusses how demand for behavioral health services is increasing and what telemedicine can do to meet these needs. He shows how the tech can help serve vulnerable populations.

By Bill Siwicki

October 05, 2022 10:00 AM

It should not be news to anyone in the healthcare industry that the nation is suffering a profound shortage of mental health professionals, which was exacerbated by the pandemic. What is news to many is the different ways various telemedicine technologies are being used to help chip away at the mental health-staffing problem.

As Iris Telehealth's chief medical officer, Dr. Tom Milam manages a team of clinicians and guides them in telemedicine and industry best practices.

Milam has served in leadership roles throughout his psychiatric career and spearheaded the telepsychiatry initiative at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Research Institute, where he still serves as an associate professor. Milam also is an ordained Episcopalian priest and got his master of divinity degree from Yale.

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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/vendor-derived-ehr-use-measures-present-research-limitations

Vendor-Derived EHR Use Measures Present Research Limitations

A review published in JAMIA found inconsistencies between investigator- and vendor-derived measures for EHR use.

By Hannah Nelson

October 04, 2022 - As the number of studies using event logs to observe EHR use continues to grow, inconsistent measure definitions from vendors and investigators pose challenges for clinical research, according to a study published in JAMIA.

Researchers reviewed studies that employed measures of EHR use derived from EHR event logs.

They found that researchers use vendor- and investigator-derived measures independently—just one study out of 151 employed both. Additionally, the study authors found that researchers use vendor- and investigator-derived criteria for different kinds of research.

The authors noted that while vendor-provided measures remove many barriers to conducting log-based research, they are limited in scope.

Studies using vendor-derived measures focused almost exclusively on ambulatory physicians and APPs. On the other hand, studies employing investigator-derived measures examined EHR use in ambulatory and acute care by a broader range of users, including physicians, APPs, nurses, technicians, students, and scribes.

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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/telehealth-utilization-rose-1.9-nationally-in-july

Telehealth Utilization Rose 1.9% Nationally in July

Telehealth usage jumped slightly in July relative to June, making up 5.3 percent of medical claim lines nationally, new data shows.

By Mark Melchionna

October 04, 2022 - From June to July 2022, the FAIR Health Monthly Telehealth Regional tracker reported that telehealth utilization increased slightly at the national level and in three of the four US census regions.

The FAIR Health Monthly Telehealth Regional tracker is a complimentary service that analyzes how telehealth usage changes monthly by tracking various factors such as claim lines, procedure codes, and diagnostic categories. The population represented is privately insured and includes Medicare Advantage but excludes Medicare Fee-for-Service and Medicaid beneficiaries.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, tracking telehealth use trends helped healthcare organizations understand the extent to which patients used virtual care and the circumstances in which providers used it most.

For example, in May, the tracker reported a 10.2 percent increase in telehealth use nationally. Researchers surmised that this was linked to the rise in COVID-19 cases related to the Omicron variant in early 2022.

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https://www.medicaleconomics.com/view/select-medical-software-based-on-your-practice-s-life-cycle-stage

Select medical software based on your practice’s life cycle stage

October 1, 2022

Inga Shugalo

Medical Economics Journal, Medical Economics October 2022 edition, Volume 99, Issue 10

Though providers probably can use any type of medical software, the financial resources they are able to invest in medical solutions differ significantly based on the type of practice.

Diverse medical software has become essential for the efficient operation of any health care provider, be it a cross-state health care network or a small private practice. Though providers probably can use any type of medical software, the financial resources they are able to invest in medical solutions differ significantly based on the type of practice.

There are numerous classifications of health care providers. This article uses the one that divides providers into groups depending on the life cycle stage the clinic is at the given moment. According to this classification, medical providers fall into three groups:

• Beginners
• Growing clinics
• Well-established providers

Health care providers are business entities, so their life cycle, like that of any business, consists of the early stage or launch, growth and maturity. At each stage, providers have different priorities and goals, and the choice of medical software solutions should be made accordingly.

Medical software for beginners

The launch phase can be tough. At this stage, the profits are usually low and providers may even incur losses. Hence, they need tools that enable efficient work at this point, such as an electronic health records (EHR) solution, a patient scheduling tool and billing software. Those tools can make a solid foundation for any clinical operation.

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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/asia/importance-data-clinical-decision-making

The importance of data for clinical decision-making

AJ Missaghi, Healthcare and Life Sciences CTO at Dell Technologies, shared how the rapid explosion of data is demanding it be analysed more quickly.

By Tammy Lovell

October 04, 2022 03:44 AM

"If we're genuine about changing patient experience we have to make sure we collect data and make the clinical decisions as close to the data collection as possible," said AJ Missaghi, CTO of Healthcare and Life Sciences at Dell Technologies.

During his session, "Healthcare Industrial Revolution," sponsored by Dell Technologies, Missaghi argued it was important that healthcare leaders use insights from data to bring new levels of efficiency to patient care.

One example is the Digital LifeCare programme, which was launched in collaboration between Dell, the government of India, and Tata Trusts in 2018. Using a digital platform with mobile, cloud and analytics applications, accredited social health activists (ASHAs), and auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs) monitor the health of more than 135 million people in districts across India. 

"ASHAs go into remote areas and start collecting data from communities which typically wouldn't have had that sort of interaction," explained Missaghi. "This data allows us to start making assessments really quickly about what sort of diseases are about to take place."

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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/emea/how-himss-and-who-europe-plan-boost-digital-health-transformation

How HIMSS and WHO-Europe plan to boost digital health transformation

The two organizations have signed a memorandum of understanding to work together to bring paperless healthcare to the 53 member states of the WHO's European region.

By Bill Siwicki

October 04, 2022 11:24 AM

HIMSS and WHO-Europe have set a new agenda of transatlantic collaboration in digital health, recently signing a memorandum of understanding marking it.

HIMSS aims to help lead the reform of the global health ecosystem through information and technology. With a membership of more than 120,000, HIMSS serves the world's health communities through its operations across North America, Europe, United Kingdom, the Middle East and Asia Pacific.

The 53 member states of the World Health Organization's European Region recently approved a Resolution and Action Plan to scale up digital transformation for better health. A leading healthcare advocate, HIMSS has extensive experience in the area, and has said it stands ready to help.

In advance of Global Health Equity Week, October 24-28, 2022, Healthcare IT News sat down with Tom Leary, senior vice president and head of government relations at HIMSS, to discuss the memorandum of understanding between HIMSS and WHO-Europe and what the organizations will be doing to advance digital health in Europe.

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https://radiologybusiness.com/topics/health-it/enterprise-imaging/imaging-informatics/video-6-key-trends-pacs-and-radiology

VIDEO: 6 key trends in PACS and radiology informatics observed by KLAS

Dave Fornell | September 29, 2022 | Imaging Informatics

Monique Rasband, vice president of imaging, cardiology and oncology,

KLAS Research, shares some of technology trends KLAS researchers have seen in radiology PACS and related imaging informatics systems. KLAS is a healthcare IT market research firm that covers all areas of health informatics by speaking with healthcare professionals to get candid feedback on vendor product performance, their needs and what ideal IT solutions would look like. 

Rasband identified six key trends in imaging informatics over the past three years

1. Change in direction for radiology informatics

The COVID-19 pandemic overnight created an explosion of interest in telemedicine, remote access to patient data and imaging, and the ability to share images and reports remotely. For radiology departments that were already nothing these things, they had an easy time during the pandemic transitioning to remote work and telehealth. For imaging departments that had not yet transitioned, their hospital administrations and informatics departments saw value in these newer imaging informatics technologies. 

"The pandemic was interesting in that it showed the capabilities of newer IT systems, and radiology had been ahead on this prior to the pandemic," Rasband said. "So when you talk about remote access, cloud and image exchange, there were providers who asked KLAS about this. Now, does this mean there was a lot of purchasing or upgrades going on, no. But it felt like the pandemic gave providers some time to breath and room to think about their strategy, and in some cases we had CIOs said 'OK, I get what my imaging team was talking about,' and it showed them why they need to move in a different direction. The pandemic really showed for those radiology departments that had already adopted these technologies prior to COVID, there was a real advantage there."

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/health/suicide-predict-smartphone.html

Can Smartphones Help Predict Suicide?

A unique research project is tracking hundreds of people at risk for suicide, using data from smartphones and wearable biosensors to identify periods of high danger — and intervene.

By Ellen Barry

Sept. 30, 2022

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — In March, Katelin Cruz left her latest psychiatric hospitalization with a familiar mix of feelings. She was, on the one hand, relieved to leave the ward, where aides took away her shoelaces and sometimes followed her into the shower to ensure that she would not harm herself.

But her life on the outside was as unsettled as ever, she said in an interview, with a stack of unpaid bills and no permanent home. It was easy to slide back into suicidal thoughts. For fragile patients, the weeks after discharge from a psychiatric facility are a notoriously difficult period, with a suicide rate around 15 times the national rate, according to one study.

This time, however, Ms. Cruz, 29, left the hospital as part of a vast research project which attempts to use advances in artificial intelligence to do something that has eluded psychiatrists for centuries: to predict who is likely to attempt suicide and when that person is likely to attempt it, and then, to intervene.

On her wrist, she wore a Fitbit programmed to track her sleep and physical activity. On her smartphone, an app was collecting data about her moods, her movement and her social interactions. Each device was providing a continuous stream of information to a team of researchers on the 12th floor of the William James Building, which houses Harvard’s psychology department.

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https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/google-fitbit-launch-new-analytics-tools-help-hospitals-use-wearables-data

Google, Fitbit launch new cloud analytics tools to help hospitals harness wearables data

By Heather Landi

Sep 30, 2022 07:55am

When Google acquired Fitbit for $2.1 billion in early 2021, it was unclear at the time how the tech giant planned to leverage the wearable company's capabilities in the healthcare space.

Google is now leveraging its cloud and analytics know-how combined with Fitbit's consumer wearables expertise to roll out a new service to help healthcare and life science organizations more easily use data from smartwatches and fitness trackers.

The new service, called Device Connect for Fitbit, aims to reduce some of the barriers for healthcare organizations to harness Fitbit data for patient monitoring programs or for research and population health projects. 

"The problem we are looking to solve stems from the fact that 80% of health happens outside of the hospital. But many healthcare organizations really don't have visibility to what patients are doing once they leave the hospital," Alissa Hsu Lynch, global lead, medtech strategy and solutions at Google Cloud, said in an interview.

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https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/digital-health/digital-health-funding-drops-2019-levels-investors-make-more-cautious-bets

Digital health funding in Q3 slides to 2019 levels as investors make more cautious bets

By Heather Landi

Oct 3, 2022 12:00pm

With the market under pressure, digital health funding continues to cool down as investors write smaller checks and focus on early-stage startups.

Digital health companies raised $2.2 billion across 125 deals in the third quarter, marking the smallest funding quarter for all of 2022—in fact, it’s the lowest quarter by dollars raised in digital health since the fourth quarter of 2019, according to the latest quarterly report from Rock Health, a venture fund dedicated to digital health. Startups raised $2.1 billion in Q4 2019.

Coming out of 2021’s breakthrough year when funding reached a record level $29.2 billion, industry watchers questioned whether digital health could keep up the momentum. Now the signs are pointing toward funding in 2021 standing out "as an anomaly" rather than the norm with 2022 shaping up to be a year of market adjustments.

Digital health funding slowed in the first quarter, with companies bringing in $6.1 billion, down from $6.7 billion during the same period in 2020. Funding then dropped to $4.1 billion in the second quarter, also down from $8.3 billion the same time a year ago.

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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/how-va-cio-kurt-delbene-leading-agencys-digital-transformation

How VA CIO Kurt DelBene is leading the agency's digital transformation

Top leaders from the VA's digital transformation team discussed the PACT Act, zero trust security, low-code agility, the VA's new mobile app, technology application sourcing and more.

By Andrea Fox

October 03, 2022 11:15 AM

Secretary for Information and Technology and Chief Information Officer Kurt DelBene says his goal is to make the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs the model of what it means to be a modern IT shop in the federal government.

Joined by Charles Worthington, CTO of the VA, Luwanda Jones, deputy chief information officer in the office of strategic sourcing and Carrie Lee, acting executive director of product engineering, DelBene laid out his vision orientation – the processes working to make Vision 22 a reality in a media roundtable on Friday.

DelBene said that as a first step after being appointed last November, he sought to reduce the layers of management across the organization to increase collaboration and speed decision-making.

"Very flat organizations are typically the most effective ones," he said.

The second step was to set a vision of what great IT looks like in order to deliver for the needs of veterans and their care-stakeholders. 

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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/onc-offers-tips-info-blocking-compliance-october-6-ehi-expansion-approaches

ONC offers tips on info blocking compliance as October 6 EHI expansion approaches

The scope and definition of electronic health information covered under the Cures Act rule is set to broaden this week.

By Mike Miliard

October 03, 2022 11:19 AM

Deputy National Coordinator for Health IT Steven Posnack penned a blog post on the ONC website this past week, offering eight reminders and pieces of advice for providers, IT developers and information networks covered by the 21st Century Cures Act's information blocking rules. The rules will expand in scope on Thursday, October 6, even as confusion remains among some of those entities bound by them.

That date represents "the end of the more than two-year glide path laid out for the information blocking regulations," said Posnack.

Starting this week, the information blocking rules' limited definition of "electronic health information" will be lifted – expanding the variety and types of data that those organizations subject to the regs will be responsible for.

The rule "no longer limits what’s considered EHI to the data elements represented in the United States Core Data for Interoperability version 1 (USCDI v1)," Posnack explained. "We have sought to make sure that actors had ample time to evaluate and revise their practices related to EHI and making it available for access, exchange, and use."

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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/finance/how-healthcare-cfos-can-get-most-bang-their-buck-tech-investments

How Healthcare CFOs Can Get The Most Bang For Their Buck From Tech Investments

Analysis  |  By Amanda Schiavo  |   October 03, 2022

Greater investments in tech can help CFOs get their hospitals and health systems on track for sustainable and long-lasting financial well-being.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

·         When technology helps improve the workflow and back-end tasks it can act as a tool for recruiting and retaining the best workers.

·         Research from Deloitte found that by the end of 2021 almost $23 billion had been invested in the healthcare technology landscape.

·         A close-knit relationship between physicians and CFOs can help better equip hospitals with the most critical technology needed to treat patients.

Hospitals and health systems are making key investments in technology to advance their healthcare capabilities, enhance the patient experience, and improve the organizations' overall financial well-being. Greater technological investments can also incentivize employees to remain with the organization, another positive jolt for the bottom line.

"Every industry is moving toward technology, it doesn't matter if it is retail, travel, or going to a ball game, everything is [accessed] through technology," says Jennifer Williams, CFO and VP of finance for Wayne HealthCare. "It is an expense, but our mission is to provide quality care. To us, technology on the patient finance side and the patient access side is more important. It is more important that the patient has good quality access on the front end. It is a cost, but we look at it from the perspective of our patients and how it will help our patients."

Greater funding toward technological advancements within hospitals and health systems—whether it is for the admin and workforce side of things or the patient side of things—can only make an organization better. When clinical outcomes improve, more patients will walk through your doors, making the organization the best place for care. When technology helps improve the workflow and back-end tasks it can act as a tool for recruiting and retaining the best workers. Technological investments are not to be taken lightly, but with the right combination of funding, cooperation, and collaboration, CFOs can establish a technological investment strategy that boosts their financial wellness. 

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Enjoy!

David.