Here are a few I came across last week.
Note: Each link is followed by a title and few paragraphs. For the full article click on the link above title of the article. Note also that full access to some links may require site registration or subscription payment
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https://www.digitalhealth.net/2022/10/client-data-exfiltrated-advanced-nhs-cyber-attack/
Client data exfiltrated in Advanced NHS cyber attack
Health and care software supplier Advanced has confirmed that client data was accessed and extracted by hackers during a cyber incident in August 2022.
Jon Hoeksma 13 Oct 2022
The variant of malware used by the perpetrators was LockBit 3.0, during the attack that has left some trusts without access to key software systems for two months.
In a new summary of the incident seen by Digital Health News, Advanced
confirmed that the perpetrators of the attack were financially motivated and
“were able to
temporarily obtain a limited amount of information from our environment
pertaining to approximately 16 of our Staffplan and Caresys
customers”. Both software systems are used to manage care homes and
services.
Lockbit 3.0 uses the so-called double extortion method, involving both encrypting and exfiltrating (or transferring) a victim’s files to another device.
Advanced said that it has notified each of those affected customers as the controllers of the exfiltrated data.
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https://undark.org/2022/10/12/a-new-transparent-ai-tool-may-help-detect-blood-poisoning/
A New, Transparent AI Tool May Help Detect Blood Poisoning
The algorithm scans electronic records and may reduce sepsis deaths, but widespread adoption could be a challenge.
By Simar Bajaj
10.12.2022
woke up the next day with a 104 F fever, so his parents took him to the pediatrician and eventually the emergency room. It was just the stomach flu, they were told. Three days later, Rory died of sepsis after bacteria from the scrape infiltrated his blood and triggered organ failure.
“How does that happen in a modern society?” his father, Ciaran Staunton, said in a recent interview with Undark.
Each year in the United States, sepsis kills over a quarter million people — more than stroke, diabetes, or lung cancer. One reason for all this carnage is that sepsis isn’t well understood, and if not detected in time, it’s essentially a death sentence. Consequently, much research has focused on catching sepsis early, but the disease’s complexity has plagued existing clinical support systems — electronic tools that use pop-up alerts to improve patient care — with low accuracy and high rates of false alarm.
That may soon change. Back in July, Johns Hopkins researchers published a trio of studies in Nature Medicine and npj Digital Medicine, showcasing an early warning system that uses artificial intelligence. The system caught 82 percent of sepsis cases and reduced deaths by nearly 20 percent. While AI — in this case, machine learning — has long promised to improve health care, most studies demonstrating its benefits have been conducted on historical datasets. Sources told Undark that, to the best of their knowledge, when used on patients in real-time, no AI algorithm has shown success at scale. Suchi Saria, director of the Machine Learning and Health Care Lab at Johns Hopkins University and senior author of the studies, said the novelty of this research is how “AI is implemented at the bedside, used by thousands of providers, and where we’re seeing lives saved.”
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Senator questions Mark Zuckerberg over Meta's healthcare data collection policies
The letter from Sen. Mark Warner to the Facebook founder comes just days after Advocate Aurora Health notified patients of a potential breach involving a pixel-tracking tool.
By Mike Miliard
October 21, 2022 10:01 AM
U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., raised concerns this week about the tracking and collection of patient health data by Facebook parent company Meta.WHY IT
MATTERS
In an Oct. 20 letter sent to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Sen. Warner posed
a series of questions about patient privacy and the company's collection
practices.
Specifically, Warner said he was worried about a particular tiny piece of code that has drawn concern in recent months for its use in healthcare websites and apps.
"I write to you today to express my concern regarding Meta’s collection of sensitive health information through the Meta Pixel tracking tool without user consent," wrote Warner.
"As you know, I have long worked to protect user privacy and increase transparency around how user data is collected and shared," he said. "This mission is more urgent than ever as the last two years have shown us the importance of healthcare technology, with many relying on electronic health records, online appointment booking, and virtual patient portals to receive care during the pandemic."
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ONC-Funded FHIR Project for Patient Data Access Takes Health Equity Focus
Researchers identified the preferences of a diverse group of patients to create a FHIR-based platform for patient data access that could help boost health equity.
October 20, 2022 - The University of Texas at Austin’s Dell Medical School (Dell Med) has developed a health equity-focused patient engagement platform that supports patient data access through FHIR.
Dell Med developed the tool as a 2019 ONC Leading Edge Acceleration Projects (LEAP) for Health IT program awardee.
The team proposed developing a patient engagement technology platform using application programming interfaces (APIs) and FHIR and SMART on FHIR, the same national standards used by EHRs.
Researchers developed the FHIRedApp using human-centered design methodology to identify the preferences of a group of Latino, African American, and Asian American patients.
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https://patientengagementhit.com/news/why-healthcares-digital-front-door-needs-multiple-entryways
Why Healthcare’s Digital Front Door Needs Multiple Entryways
New healthcare consumer surveys show that patients want multiple ways to begin digitally engaging with providers, suggesting healthcare needs many entryways for its digital front door.
By Sara Heath
October 20, 2022 - The digital front door in healthcare doesn’t just need to be opened wide; it needs to be opened wide and it needs to lead to multiple entryways, according to new survey data gathered by Wakefield Research on behalf of Kyruus, obtained via email.
That’s because patients want to access their healthcare in numerous ways, ranging from online research to digital self-scheduling options to self-service patient pre-registration, the survey of 1,000 healthcare consumers over age 18 found.
This data comes as the medical industry works to adapt to trends in healthcare consumerism. On the hook for more of their own medical costs than ever before, patients are becoming savvy shoppers for healthcare. The typical healthcare consumer might research a medical provider and compare cost and quality scores, as well as other factors important to that person, before selecting a provider.
With the rise in healthcare consumerism comes renewed attention to the digital technologies that create a seamless experience. Patients are experiencing healthcare the way they might other service sectors, and medicine has had to open up a digital front door to meet demand.
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3M Advocate Aurora Health Patients Face PHI Exposure Tied to Tracking Pixels
Advocate Aurora Health discontinued its use of tracking pixels after discovering that they potentially resulted in patient PHI exposure.
By Jill McKeon
October 20, 2022 - Advocate Aurora Health notified 3 million patients of a data breach that resulted in potential protected health information (PHI) exposure.
The breach stemmed from the nonprofit health system’s use of Google and Meta (Facebook’s parent company) tracking pixels, which are commonly used tools that allow organizations to track website visitor activity.
In August, North Carolina-based Novant Health notified 1.3 million patients that the use of Meta pixel code on its website also potentially exposed PHI.
Background
As previously reported, a co-published report by The Markup and STAT discovered that the Meta pixel tracker was being used on hundreds of hospital websites. While the use of pixels is common, the report found the pixel installed inside multiple password-protected patient portals and scheduling forms.
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Health system data breach due to Meta Pixel hits 3 million patients
By Bill Toulas
· October 20, 2022
Advocate Aurora Health (AAH), a 26-hospital healthcare system in Wisconsin and Illinois, is notifying its patients of a data breach that exposed the personal data of 3,000,000 patients.
The incident was caused by the improper use of Meta Pixel on AAH's websites, where patients log in and enter sensitive personal and medical information.
Meta Pixel is a JavaScript tracker that helps website operators understand how visitors interact with the site, helping them make targeted improvements.
However, the tracker also sends sensitive data to Meta (Facebook) and is then shared with a massive network of marketers who target patients with advertisements that match their conditions.
This privacy breach has taken the U.S. by storm, as Meta Pixel is used by many hospitals in the country, exposing millions of people to third parties and sparking class action lawsuits against the responsible organizations.
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WEDI highlights challenges in integrating telehealth data into EHRs
More than a third of adults used telehealth services in 2021, and now providers face the hard work of integrating results from standalone platforms.
Oct 19 2022
There is heightened awareness of the need to better integrate data from telehealth encounters into providers’ health records systems, but multiple challenges make that difficult to accomplish.
The difficulty is especially significant for health organizations in rural areas, which have limited technological capabilities and resources to integrate data from standalone platforms, according to a recent white paper from WEDI.
The need to achieve integration from standalone platforms is a growing problem for many healthcare organizations. While some integrated records systems enable clinicians to order telehealth consultations or conduct them out of EHR systems in clinicians’ workflow, it’s more complex when patients receive care from outside entities, such as through a phone-based app service.
The extent of use of telehealth systems rose during the pandemic, and a recent report from the National Center for Health Statistics indicates that 37 percent of adults in 2021 used telemedicine – defined as care delivered to patients via video or telephone. The results, based on data from the 2021 National Health Interview Survey, found that more than four out of every 10 adults older than 65 used telemedicine during the year.
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Oracle Cerner unveils new tech capabilities: Virtual nursing, tools to streamline charting, billing and data integration
Oct 18, 2022 08:35am
Four months after it was acquired by software maker Oracle, health IT giant Cerner, now Oracle Cerner, unveiled new tech upgrades to build on its promise of delivering "next-generation" health tech systems.
"We have the marriage of one of the world's greatest technology companies with the global leader in the EHR [electronic health record] space," said David Feinberg, M.D., Oracle Health chairman during the Oracle Cerner Health Conference in Kansas City Monday evening. The event was also livestreamed.
"Together, Oracle and Cerner are going to allow you to care for your patients and communities like never before, because I believe now is our time. We're going to provide you with a cloud-enabled health platform that is intelligent, connected and interoperable. We're going to integrate the EHR into the supply chain. We're going to integrate the EHR into human capital management and integrate the EHR into enterprise resource planning," Feinberg said during a keynote to kick off the three-day corporate conference.
With the $28.3 billion Cerner deal, database giant Oracle is pushing deeper into the healthcare market, and the acquisition should help the company scale up its cloud business.
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Hospitals, practices doubling down on IT spending. Here are their top priorities for tech investments
Oct 19, 2022 10:00am
Healthcare providers continue to spend on health IT and software despite current economic uncertainty.
As hospitals, health systems and medical practices try to recover from a global pandemic, these organizations are now regrouping, looking to be more focused with their investments and streamlining their existing tech stacks, according to a new report from Bain & Company and KLAS Research.
"Provider organizations, regardless of size or sophistication, are emerging from the pandemic and taking stock of the software solutions they’ll need in the long term and determining where and how to invest. As part of this reflection, many are seeking to better integrate new solutions and rationalize vendors," Bain & Company and KLAS analysts wrote in the report.
Some 45% of providers accelerated software investment over the past year, with only 10% decelerating their spending.
Another takeaway: Of those accelerating investments over the past year, nearly 80% cite labor shortages, inflation concerns or specific organizational situations, such as M&A or change in leadership, as the top catalysts spurring new investments.
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It's RPM, hospital at home and virtual walk-in for United Health Services Hospitals
The New York health system launched telehealth in 2019 and widely diversified its offerings to, among other things, decrease inpatient length of stay and readmission rates.
By Bill Siwicki
October 19, 2022 10:26 AM
United Health Services Hospitals is a health system serving South Central New York and based in Vestal, New York. Its virtual healthcare program began in July 2019 with the launch of the UHS Virtual Walk-In.
The Virtual Walk-In was a direct to patient offering for minor acute complaints. Zipnosis was chosen as the technology platform because of its ability to combine an asynchronous adaptive interview process with a step-up to video.
Virtual walk-in care
"The offering is staffed exclusively by the same providers who staff our in-person walk-in locations," said Sean J. Britton, system program manager, UHS virtual healthcare and digital transformation. "We achieved URAC Consumer-to-Provider Telehealth Accreditation for the Virtual Walk-In in December 2019 and hold the distinction of being the first health system to receive that designation.
"As the pandemic arrived, we used the Virtual Walk-In as the primary access point for care of suspected COVID patients," he added.
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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/technology/ehr-study-finds-value-time-spent-computer
EHR Study Finds Value in Time Spent on the Computer
Analysis | By Eric Wicklund | October 19, 2022
Research by Brigham and Women's finds that more time spent on the EHR can improve primary care quality outcomes, but there's a fine line between the right amount and too much.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· Studies have found that too much time spent on the EHR can lead to stress and burnout, alongside negative clinical outcomes.
· New research, meanwhile, finds that more time spent on the EHR, including after hours, can boost quality incomes in primary care.
· The challenge lies in determining how much time is enough, and creating protocols and workflows that enhance that time and reduce stress.
New research out of Brigham and Women's finds that more time spent on the electronic health record platform can improve quality outcomes in primary care, though providers still need to make sure they're not overdoing it.
As reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), researchers at the Boston-based health system tracked ambulatory quality measures for 291 primary care physicians affiliated with either B&W or Massachusetts General Hospital in 2021. They reported "significant associations between EHR time and panel-level achievement of hemoglobin A1c control, hypertension control, and breast cancer screening targets."
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Telehealth Reduces No-Show Rates, Improves Access Among Surgical Patients
New research shows that telehealth services successfully connected surgical patients to care and reduced the odds of a no-show among two-thirds of patients.
October 18, 2022 - A study presented at a recent America College of Surgeons (ACS) conference found that telehealth helped decrease no-show rates among surgical patients and led to improved healthcare access.
With more than 84,000 members, ACS centers its efforts on improving the care provided to surgical patients and maintaining an ethical practice environment for surgery. The results of the study were presented at ACS' Clinical Congress 2022.
For the study, researchers aimed to determine the impact telehealth has on the rate of no-show visits. Using data from the University of Alabama Birmingham, gathered between January 2018 and December 2021, researchers created three groups.
These groups consisted of a historical control group of data from in-person visits between January 2018 and March 2020, a contemporary control group of in-person visits between March 2020 and December 2021, and a contemporary group of patients scheduled for telehealth visits between March 2020 and December 2021. After noting that March 2020 was the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers evaluated the three groups for no-show rates.
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Results of Smartwatch-Based ECG Assessing Heart Rhythm Often Inconclusive
Apple Watch's ECG app identified 78 percent of patients with atrial fibrillation (AFib) accurately, and one in five patients did not receive an automatic diagnosis, new research shows.
By Anuja Vaidya
October 18, 2022 - The use of smartwatches to detect cardiac issues, like atrial fibrillation (AFib), presents exciting new possibilities for heart care, but a new study shows that the results they provide may not always be accurate.
Published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, the study examined how accurately the Apple Watch's electrocardiogram (ECG) feature detected AFib in 734 patients with different ECG anomalies. About 21 percent of the patients had the condition.
The Apple Watch's ECG app records the user's heartbeat through the smartwatch's electrical heart sensor. The app then analyzes the recordings to detect irregular heart rhythms, also known as AFib.
Prior research has shown the Apple Watch can accurately diagnose the condition "in a limited number of patients with similar clinical profiles," said lead investigator Marc Strik, MD, PhD, of the LIRYC institute, Bordeaux University Hospital, in France, in a press release. "We tested the accuracy of the Apple Watch ECG app to detect AF[ib] in patients with a variety of coexisting ECG abnormalities."
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Digital Patient Data Access Grows in Large Hospitals, Lags in Small Orgs
Small organizations are lagging behind in offering digital patient data access via API-based apps, particularly apps built using FHIR.
By Sara Heath
October 18, 2022 - Digital patient data access remains somewhat stable in the nation’s hospitals, with modest gains in patient portal and FHIR-based app access, according to an October data brief from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC).
However, digital patient data access isn’t equal across all hospitals and health systems. Rural hospitals, small hospitals, and critical access hospitals (CAHs) all have lower rates of digital patient data access, including via FHIR-based patient engagement apps and the patient portal, the report found.
Currently, 82 percent of all hospitals, regardless of size, let patients view their clinical notes in the EHR, meeting the terms of the 21st Century Cures Act.
This is more common among large hospitals, 87 percent of which offer patient portal access to clinical notes. That’s up from 2019—pre-Cures Act provision—when only 78 percent of medium and large hospitals enabled digital clinical note access.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/many-healthcare-orgs-suffer-it-outages-after-ransomware-attacks
Many Healthcare Orgs Suffer IT Outages After Ransomware Attacks
A Trend Micro study found that 86 percent of surveyed healthcare organizations hit by ransomware attacks had experienced IT outages.
October 18, 2022 - Ransomware attacks against healthcare organizations have been increasing and wreaking havoc for the last several years. These threats lead to disruptions for patients and providers, with 86 percent of surveyed healthcare IT decision-makers reporting that their organizations suffered operational IT outages when compromised by ransomware attacks, according to a recent Trend Micro survey.
From 2017 to 2021, ransomware attacks have hit new highs increasing by 109 percent, and 2022 has seen a 13 percent year-over-year increase in attacks, an FBI report found as noted by the study authors
The cybersecurity firm, Trend Micro, investigated the effect of ransomware attacks on healthcare organizations in a survey commissioned by Sapio Research of 145 businesses and IT decision-makers.
The survey discovered that 57 percent of healthcare organizations reported being hit by a ransomware attack in the last three years. Of those who experienced a ransomware attack, 25 percent had to halt operations, while 60 percent revealed that the attack disrupted some business processes completely.
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October 17, 2022
Use of EHR integrated sepsis model did not impact time to antibiotics for sepsis in ED
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Use of an electronic health record integrated sepsis model did not impact time to antibiotics for patients with sepsis in the emergency department, according to a study presented at the CHEST Annual Meeting.
Researchers conducted a retrospective analysis to determine how the EHR-integrated EPIC Sepsis Model impacts time to antibiotics among septic patients who presented to the ED from February to June 2019.
“We wanted to try to understand better the EPIC Sepsis Model as it is functioning in our hospital and how it was impacting antibiotic use,” Daniel M. Burgin, MD, a third-year internal medicine resident at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, told Healio. “We previously reviewed the performance characteristics of the model, which we found to be poor, and we wanted to understand more about its overall impact on delivering care.”
The retrospective analysis included 226 patients who had at least two of the Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome criteria. All patients were considered infected according to the physician chart review and were classified as meeting Sepsis-2. A physician panel further adjudicated patients for sepsis using the Sepsis-3 definition. If patients reached a threshold of 6 on the EPIC Sepsis Model, the EHR prompted an order set for providers on management options, which included antibiotics. The EPIC Sepsis Model was calculated every 15 minutes.
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https://journal.ahima.org/page/solutions-for-challenges-in-telehealth-privacy-and-security
October 17, 2022 · Privacy and Security
Solutions for Challenges in Telehealth Privacy and Security
Telehealth, using electronic information and telecommunication technologies to provide care for patient visits, has rapidly grown and plays an important role as a valuable resource during and after the post-COVID-19 pandemic. According to CMS Reports in 2021, 68 million telehealth services were delivered from March to October 2020. This was a 2,700 percent increase compared to the same period in 2019.1 However, privacy and security in telehealth practices have been identified as major concerns and challenges for the development of successful telehealth services. Millwood stated that “For telehealth to succeed, privacy and security risks must be identified and addressed.”2
Protecting patient privacy and security is necessary and should be a top priority in the telehealth environment. There is more to it than being HIPAA compliant. Ensuring privacy and security builds trust between providers and patients, which opens the door for patients to make the decision to share personal and health information without concerns. Patients’ information, both clinical and administrative, should be protected from breaches and cyberattacks. Ultimately, patients should have the ability to control, access, and manage their personal and health information. For these reasons, it is important to identify challenges and issues for privacy and security related to telehealth visits during and after the post-COVID-19 pandemic in order to apply the appropriate solutions.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/breast-cancer-technologies-improve-patient-outcomes
Breast cancer technologies that improve patient outcomes
Using bioimpedance spectroscopy for surveillance can trigger early interventions that reverse lymphedema for at-risk breast patients, while wireless localizing devices and oncoplastic radiation markers improve surgery and radiation treatment.
By Andrea Fox
October 18, 2022 08:36 AM
Great strides have been made over the last few decades that see more women and men surviving breast cancer, but the journey leaves survivors with physical, mental and emotional impacts that can take years to recover from or to learn to cope with the often disabling new realities.
For Dr. Nandini N. Kulkarni, medical director of surgical oncology at New Jersey-based Inspira Health Network, technologies that provide early detection to prevent chronic conditions, increase accuracy for biopsies and lumpectomies and elevate surgical outcomes improve survivorship.
Preventing lymphedema with early intervention
Kulkarni called bioimpedance spectroscopy a game changer andwas eager to share the progress that's been made in ongoing surgical care.
Finding subclinical lymphedema much sooner than clinical manifestations "allows me to refer the patients in a much more timely and aggressive fashion to physical therapy than I would have in the past," she said.
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At Oracle Cerner Health Conference, David Feinberg offers post-merger updates
The chairman said the new, larger company is well-resourced to improve upon EHR, revenue cycle and data exchange tools that too often "aren't helping" but inhibiting care delivery.
By Mike Miliard
October 18, 2022 10:57 AM
At the first in-person Cerner client conference since 2019, and the first since the health IT pioneer was acquired by Oracle this past June, Oracle Health Chairman Dr. David Feinberg offered a status report on some of the company's existing and upcoming technologies.
"There's been no time in Cerner's history where we have been as capable and prepared and resourced to be your partner as we are today," said Feinberg.
He noted the enormously challenging past few years, where physicians and nurses around the world cared for millions of COVID-19 patients in truly heroic ways.
"Heroes are supposed to have tools and superpowers that help them do their job," said Feinberg. However, too often "the tools and the technology that we're giving aren't helping. They're inhibiting."
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Researchers Outline AI-Related Clinical Competencies for Health Professionals
Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and IBM Watson Health have defined guidelines for how health professionals might best prepare themselves to evaluate and work with artificial intelligence.
October 17, 2022 - A research report published in Academic Medicine outlines artificial intelligence (AI)-related clinical competencies for healthcare professionals in an effort to address practical and ethical concerns raised by the growing interest in and adoption of these tools in clinical settings.
Efforts to create responsible health AI and define guidelines for use have become more common in response to these concerns, but many are focused on the developers of the algorithms. By focusing on the clinician’s side of this issue, the research team highlights the shared responsibility of ethical health AI use among various healthcare stakeholders.
“We started with a formal literature review of the health professions education and informatics literature, finding that there’ve been numerous calls for a list of AI-related competencies, because of the complexity of the tools and the risk of misuse and unintended consequences,” said Bonnie Miller, MD, professor of medical education and administration at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), in the press release. “But we could find no list of competencies, and very scant mention of how clinicians were being trained to use AI-based tools as they’ve begun entering into testing.”
To fill this gap, the researchers selected 15 subject matter experts from across the US and conducted semistructured interviews focused on the use of AI-based tools in healthcare settings.
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/telehealth-use-remained-popular-among-us-adults-in-2021
Telehealth Use Remained Popular Among US Adults in 2021
New data from the CDC shows that 37 percent of adults, and more specifically, 42 percent of women continued to use telehealth in 2021.
October 14, 2022 - After reviewing telehealth use data from 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that many populations, mainly adults, maintained high levels of engagement in telehealth.
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, rising infections, hospitalizations, and deaths, prevented patients and providers from engaging in in-person visits. To work around this, healthcare stakeholders used telehealth to maintain provider-patient communication and allow patients to continue to receive care.
Throughout the pandemic, patients and providers alike observed the benefits that virtual care provided, which include improved access, convenience, and lack of exposure to COVID-19. However, as the pandemic has evolved, so have telehealth use patterns.
This report presents CDC findings on telehealth use trends in 2021. It includes data from the National Health Interview Survey, a nationally representative household survey conducted throughout the year by the National Center for Health Statistics.
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Who Used Telemedicine in 2021?
New data shows which groups have been most likely to use a health care option popular during the pandemic.
By Christopher Wolf
Oct. 13, 2022, at 12:01 a.m.
More than 1 in 3 adults used telemedicine in the past year in 2021, according to a new report from the National Center for Health Statistics, with the method more popular among women, older adults and those living in urban areas.
“In the past 12 months, have you had an appointment with a doctor, nurse, or other health professional by video or by phone?“
Based on data from the 2021 National Health Interview Survey, the report indicates 37% of adults in the past 12 months had used telemedicine – meaning care delivered to patients via video or telephone. Women were much more likely than men to use telemedicine, at 42% and 31.7%, respectively. Usage also increased with age, as 43.3% of adults aged 65 and over took advantage of telemedicine compared with only 29.4% of those between 18 and 29.
Use of telemedicine was also more likely among non-Hispanic white (39.2%) and American Indian or Alaska Native (40.6%) adults compared with Hispanic (32.8%), Asian (33.0%) and Black (33.1%) adults. And it varied depending on where people lived: Telemedicine use rose in increasingly urban areas, with 40.3% of adults in central counties of large metropolitan areas having used the service. Meanwhile, the most rural counties saw only 27.5% of adults using telemedicine.
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Post Dobbs fallout tracker—HHS investigating Walgreens, CVS over reports of withheld prescriptions
Oct 17, 2022 10:45am
HHS investigating pharmacy chains including Walgreens, CVS over reports of withheld prescriptions
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)' Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has opened an investigation into chain pharmacies including Walgreens and CVS over complaints that some pharmacists are refusing to fill prescriptions for medications that could threaten a patient's pregnancy.
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra shared the news on Twitter alongside a USA Today link highlighting the two pharmacy chains, which in light of the Supreme Court's abortion ruling and state laws now have policies that allow pharmacists to withhold from filling a prescription based on moral beliefs should they believe a medication is being sought for an abortion.
The policies have received criticisms amid reports that some patients have been unable to receive treatments for medical conditions. The medications reportedly being withheld include those used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, high blood sugar and severe acne.
"Since Dobbs & state laws that have gone into effect, HHS has received complaints about chain pharmacies across the U.S. for not complying w/ their federal obligations to fill prescriptions," he tweeted Friday evening. "[The OCR] has opened investigations into these companies & others."
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/what-eventual-end-phe-would-mean-telehealth
What an eventual end to the PHE would mean for telehealth
Among other impacts, ending the PHE would represent access challenges and a loss of Medicaid coverage for millions, and would end medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder without an in-person exam.
By Andrea Fox
October 17, 2022 10:21 AM
Since the COVID-19 public health emergency was declared in 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services has renewed the legislation every 90 days. Close to the end of the most recent expiration date, October 13, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra again signed a renewal determination and it was posted without announcement late in the day.
There had been no official news, but a lot of hearsay that the PHE would be renewed once more, because the Biden Administration indicated it would give two months' notice before its expiration. There is also the matter that open enrollment begins on November 1, and without the relaxed enrollment provisions for Medicaid that the PHE provides, the national uninsured rate along with health premium costs would certainly rise.
But by definition an "emergency" can't last forever. The inevitable end of the PHE could result in the loss of Medicaid to millions when states review enrollee eligibility and in other impacts to healthcare operations. Questions regarding what will happen to telehealth benefits and the continuum of care in the absence of the PHE loom large.
There has been extensive support for making the changes that have launched telehealth and provided the opportunity to serve more patients, but some people want to halt the prescribing of controlled substances via telehealth for mental health and substance abuse disorders and see the Ryan Haight Act – the online pharmacy consumer protection act of 2008 – reinstated.
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2022/10/17/scientists-studying-health-evidence-based-medicine/
Scientists Studying Health – “Evidence Based Medicine”
October 17, 2022
When someone new comes to healthcare, it’s always amazing to see how many things they think happen that just don’t. For patients, that’s the realization that doctors often don’t collaborate together on their care and they often don’t share information. That’s on the patient and their caregiver to ensure the records get where they need to go and care is coordinated. If you think that’s an exaggeration, check out two of the three apps I featured here to see how big of a problem this is for rare disease patients.
There are a lot more. Jay Parkinson, MD shared one he discovered when he started medical school. Here’s what he shared in this Twitter thread:
1/ There is a huge misconception found in most people outside of the health industry— people think that there are many scientists studying all aspects of health, especially diet and “things that are good for me and things that aren’t.”
2/
Scented candles are bad. Avocados are good. Nut milk is a life-extender. I ask
folks:
Who would be studying these concepts?
Who would financially benefit from the results?
Who would be able to follow people long enough to understand the effects of one
thing on humans?
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Enjoy!
David.
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