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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Hispanic, Female Healthcare Providers More Likely to Report Clinician Burnout
Multivariable models identified Hispanic and female healthcare providers as particularly vulnerable to clinician burnout, even when accounting for variations in EHR message volume.
December 02, 2022 - Female and Hispanic healthcare providers are more vulnerable to clinician burnout than other physicians, according to a JAMA Network Open study.
The cross-sectional study extracted approximately 1.5 million inbasket messages for 609 physicians from multiple specialties. Previous research has found that higher EHR inbasket message volumes are associated with physician burnout. The study also found that physicians reporting burnout had, on average, higher message volumes. However, these differences did not reach significance.
The study authors used natural language processing (NLP) to understand inbasket message sentiment better. While they did not find significant associations between burnout and message sentiment, descriptive analyses of negative messages still yielded several interesting results.
Analyses of high-frequency words included many expletives, demonstrating the hatred of some messages arriving at physicians’ inbaskets. Some messages expressed negativity toward physicians, while others expressed frustrations at navigating complex healthcare systems.
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Automatic roll-out of Citizen Access to GP records halted at eleventh hour
In an eleventh-hour decision NHS England on 29 November halted the automatic, blanket roll-out of a scheme that would have given all NHS patients in England prospective online access to their GP-held records the day before it was due to come in.
30 November 2022
The high-profile scheme to enable patents to automatically view their GP records via the NHS app by 30 November, has been a key digital promise by successive Conservative health secretaries.
The last-minute u-turn came following a series of talks between the British Medical Association (BMA) and NHS England, in which the BMA made clear many practices would not be ready to roll out the programme in a safe way for patients, and that it didn’t comply with their data protection obligations.
The BMA says the decision is the ‘right thing to do’ for patient safety.
Until yesterday [29 November] the NHS England plan was for a mass roll-out on 30 November, which would automatically give patients the ability to view their prospective GP medical record via the NHS App.
The BMA said in a statement that while some practices were ready to implement this, many expressed concerns over safety aspects and that it wasn’t fit for purpose at the present time.
“As data controllers of the patient record, GPs need to be sure the right safeguarding measures are in place to protect certain vulnerable patients who might access their records – for example, for those living with an abusive partner, or patients with particular health conditions.
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https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/984855
AI ‘Simulants’ Could Save Time and Money on New Medications
Damian McNamara, MA
December 01, 2022
Artificial intelligence is poised to make clinical trials and drug development faster, cheaper, and more efficient. Part of this strategy is creating "synthetic control arms" that use data to create “simulants,” or computer-generated “patients” in a trial.
This way, researchers can enroll fewer real people and recruit enough participants in half the time.
“So far, machine learning has primarily been effective at optimizing efficiency – not getting a better drug but rather optimizing the efficiency of screening. AI uses the learnings from the past to make drug discovery more effective and more efficient,” says Angeli Moeller, PhD, head of data and integrations generating insights at drugmaker Roche in Berlin, and vice chair of the Alliance for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare board.
https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/metaverse-top-avenue-cyberattacks-2023
The Metaverse Could Become a Top Avenue for Cyberattacks in 2023
Expect to see attackers expand their use of current consumer-targeting tactics while exploring new ways to target Internet users — with implications for businesses.
Contributing Writer, Dark Reading
November 30, 2022
Researchers at Kaspersky, looking at how the cyber threat landscape will likely evolve over the next year, expect that threat actors will expand use of many of their current tactics while exploring new avenues for attack via social media, streaming services, and online gaming platforms.
For business admins, the expansion of brands into the world of the metaverse (the theoretical universal and immersive virtual world of the Internet, facilitated by the use of virtual reality and social media) could open them up to attack. And in the era of remote work and bring-your-own-device (BYOD), any consumer threat is potentially an enterprise one, so IT security teams would do well to follow the trends in this space.
Attacks Using Current Techniques Will Grow...
The security vendor for example expects that cybercriminals will continue to take advantage of the post-pandemic surge in consumer interest around online streaming services to try to distribute malware, steal data, and execute other malicious activity.
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Kaiser Permanente's big bet on remote diabetes monitoring pays off
01 Dec - 2022
As hospitals and health systems increasingly look to remotely monitor patients for a variety of chronic conditions, Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente is already tracking the diabetes of nearly 40,000 people from the comfort of their homes.
The health system prescribes Bluetooth-enabled, smartphone app-connected glucometers that send data directly to patients' EHRs.
Becker's recently interviewed Sos Mboijana, MD, assistant chief medical information officer and internal medicine physician with Kaiser Permanente in Washington, D.C., about how the program has worked so far and what promises it holds for the larger healthcare system.
Question: When did Kaiser Permanente start offering the remote diabetes program?
Sos Mboijana, MD: Kaiser Permanente offers remote patient monitoring programs for a variety of chronic health needs such as high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, perinatal care and diabetes. We launched the remote patient monitoring program specifically for diabetes in California in 2017 and have since expanded it to our other service areas.
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OCR Outlines Proper Use of Tracking Tech to Maintain HIPAA Compliance
Covered entities and business associates using tracking tech such as Google Analytics and Meta Pixel should pay close attention to whether PHI is being handled in accordance with HIPAA.
By Jill McKeon
December 02, 2022 - Following reports that patient data was transmitted to Facebook through the use of tracking technology on hospital websites and within password-protected patient portals, the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a bulletin outlining the dos and don’ts of using tracking tech as a HIPAA-covered entity or business associate.
Covered entities and business associates using tracking tools such as Google Analytics and Meta Pixel should pay close attention to their obligations under HIPAA, OCR noted.
“Regulated entities are not permitted to use tracking technologies in a manner that would result in impermissible disclosures of PHI to tracking technology vendors or any other violations of the HIPAA Rules,” OCR stated.
“For example, disclosures of PHI to tracking technology vendors for marketing purposes, without individuals’ HIPAA-compliant authorizations, would constitute impermissible disclosures.”
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/hhs-issues-guidance-use-online-tracking-tools-healthcare-crm
HHS issues guidance on the use of online tracking tools in healthcare CRM
The agency issued a bulletin clarifying that a notice of pixel use does not permit PHI disclosure, and when HIPAA-compliant authorizations for pixels are required.
By Andrea Fox
December 02, 2022 11:13 AM
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a bulletin to highlight the obligations on covered entities and business associates under HIPAA's Privacy, Security and Breach Notification Rules when using online tracking technologies.These tracking tools have caused a number of patient data security concerns and there are several class-action lawsuits, creating a new challenge for healthcare organizations.
In a new bulletin, HHS is addressing how online tracking technologies, like Google Analytics or Meta Pixel, collect and analyze information on how internet users are interacting with a HIPAA-regulated entity’s websites or mobile applications.
"Regulated entities are not permitted to use tracking technologies in a manner that would result in impermissible disclosures of ePHI to tracking technology vendors or any other violations of the HIPAA Rules," the agency says.
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What 2023 holds for advanced primary care, tech integration, and clinical intelligence
The COO of one of the largest direct healthcare providers in the country looks ahead at these and other trends she sees in the year ahead.
By Bill Siwicki
December 02, 2022 10:13 AM
Premise Health is one of the largest direct healthcare providers in the country. Its approach focuses on clinical expertise, easy access to care, and a seamless and simple patient experience.Premise has a network of more than 800 wellness centers in 45 states and Guam. Premise's physicians, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, physical therapists and other providers deliver care in person and virtually, offering a personalized and digitally connected experience.
Beth Ratliff is COO of Premise Health. Healthcare IT News spoke with her to discuss the shift to advanced primary care and lifestyle medicine, the power of mapping and leveraging patient data and clinical intelligence in transforming primary care, and major trends driving the future of healthcare.
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CMS Publishes RFI for National Healthcare Provider Directory Data Hub
According to a CAQH estimate, transitioning healthcare provider directory data to a single platform could save the healthcare system $1.1 billion annually.
December 01, 2022 - CMS has published a request for information (RFI) on establishing a National Directory of Healthcare Providers & Services (NDH) that could serve as a data hub for healthcare provider, facility, and entity directory information.
Directories that contain aggregated data about healthcare providers and entities can support a variety of use cases, like helping consumers choose a provider, comparing health plan networks, auditing network adequacy, and coordinating care.
However, the fragmentation of current provider directories requires inefficient reporting from providers. Directories often contain inaccurate data, rarely support interoperable data exchange, and are costly to the healthcare industry overall.
According to an estimate from a provider survey completed in 2019 by the Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare (CAQH), physician practices collectively spend $2.76 billion annually on directory maintenance.
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SNOMED Issues Open IPS Terminology to Improve Clinical Data Interoperability
The International Patient Summary (IPS) Terminology adds hierarchy, defining relationships, and extra synonyms from SNOMED CT to enhance clinical data interoperability.
December 01, 2022 - Data standard group SNOMED International has issued the first production release of its International Patient Summary (IPS) Terminology to improve clinical data interoperability for non-SNOMED International members.
The IPS terminology adds the hierarchy, defining relationships, and extra synonyms from the SNOMED CT International Edition to form a sub-ontology of SNOMED CT that stakeholders can upload into a terminology server for the specified scope of the IPS.
The IPS is an extract of an EHR containing essential healthcare information to support cross-border patient care.
From a technical standpoint, the IPS is a minimal, non-exhaustive set of data elements defined by ISO/EN 17269 and delivered by HL7 in both CDA and FHIR using a set of SNOMED CT terms.
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Reimbursement, Patient Tech Issues Impede Telehealth Use, Health Execs Say
According to a survey of US healthcare executives, telehealth use has proven beneficial for patients, but reimbursement and technology barriers hamper the increased use of virtual care.
By Anuja Vaidya
December 01, 2022 - Though healthcare leaders see telehealth as critical to boosting patient access, they believe that reimbursement and patient technology issues are hindering more widespread telehealth use, according to a new report.
Released by the Center for Connected Medicine (CCM) at UPMC, the report is based on two surveys. The first polled healthcare executives on problems that have the greatest potential to be solved by digital health technology, areas of healthcare technology that have experienced the most significant progress in the last two years, and the most exciting emerging technologies. Fifty-three executives responded to the first survey.
The second focused on the top responses from the initial survey. Sixty-one leaders from 59 health systems answered quantitative and qualitative questions on their technology priorities. The research was conducted in consultation with KLAS Research and CCM partners.
Overall, 30 percent of executives who responded to the first survey cited telehealth as the area of healthcare technology that has seen the most significant progress or improvement in the past two years.
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Using Medical Jargon Confuses Patients Amid Low Health Literacy Trends
Patients are less likely to understand their health status when providers use medical jargon in place of verbiage that centers patient health literacy levels.
By Sara Heath
December 01, 2022 - In perhaps an unsurprising clue into navigating low levels of patient health literacy, new research published in JAMA Network Open found that patients have a far better understanding of their health status when their providers use jargon-free verbiage.
The analysis looked at common medical jargon that has a different, in some cases opposite, meaning in common usage. For example, telling a patient that test results are “positive,” indicating in medical terms that the patient has an illness. In laymen’s terms, “positive” can indicate that the patient is in the clear.
These findings come as healthcare providers work on improving patient engagement and activation among those with limited health literacy. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, only about 12 percent of Americans have proficient health literacy skills, meaning few people can both understand and use healthcare terminology.
The researchers said that despite this understanding and an acknowledgment that the best patient-provider communication is free of medical jargon, most providers are still using complex terminology.
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Could $250 Apple AirPods disrupt the OTC hearing aid market? One study shows it's possible
By Andrea Park
Nov 23, 2022 11:54am
The study’s authors concluded that Apple's AirPods Pro “may have the potential to serve as an adequate hearing assistive device,” specifically for those with mild-to-moderate hearing impairment. (Apple)
As the FDA finally paved a new pathway this year allowing some hearing aids to be sold over the counter, swaths of devicemakers have hit the ground running, revamping their existing lines of hearing aids and rolling out entirely new ones to cater to the OTC market.
But an effective hearing aid may already be in users’ pockets: A study published in the journal iScience this month concluded that Apple’s AirPods earbuds meet most of the benchmarks developed by the Consumer Technology Association for personal sound amplification products, despite not being marketed as hearing aid alternatives.
The study pitted the second-generation version of the original AirPods and the more advanced AirPods Pro against basic and premium models of currently available hearing aids. Around two dozen adults—none of whom had previously used hearing aids—were asked to wear each of the devices throughout a battery of tests.
The experiments were designed to test for the CTA’s five core standards: the smoothness of a device’s frequency response, the bandwidth of that response, its maximum output sound pressure level from an input of 90 decibels, its total harmonic distortion and the amount of equivalent internal noise (EIN) generated by the devices themselves.
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https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/984780
Analysis of Doctors' EHR Email Finds Infrequent but Notable Hostility
Steph Weber
November 30, 2022
In a new study published online today in JAMA Network Open, researchers used artificial intelligence to analyze more than 1.4 million electronic health record (HER) emails to physicians — and the results aren't pretty.
Among the emails, 43% were from patients; the remainder were mostly from other physicians or clinicians, or automated. The content of the messages wasn't associated with doctor burnout, as the researchers had hypothesized. And only about 5% of the messages had negative sentiment.
But the researchers were struck by the hostility of that sentiment, displayed in messages like these that surely would be distressing for physicians to read:
"I hope and expect that you will spend eternity in he**. You are an abusive, nasty, cheap person."
"Your office is full of liars, hypocrites and I will do everything in my power to prevent anyone from going to your bullsh** office again."
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Deep Learning Predicts Heart Disease, Stroke Death Risk Using Single X-ray
Researchers have developed a deep-learning model that uses a single chest X-ray to predict the 10-year risk of death from a heart attack or stroke.
November 30, 2022 - Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital have developed a deep-learning model that uses a single chest X-ray to predict the 10-year risk of death from a heart attack or stroke stemming from atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, according to research presented this week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
Cardiovascular disease risk is a major population health and chronic disease concern. The press release states that current guidelines recommend estimating the 10-year risk of major adverse cardiovascular disease events to establish who should get a statin for primary prevention.
Risk is calculated using the atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk score, a statistical model that considers multiple patient variables, such as age, sex, race, systolic blood pressure, hypertension treatment, smoking, type 2 diabetes, and blood tests. For patients with a 10-year risk of 7.5 percent or higher, statin medication is recommended.
However, calculating risk in this way can be a challenge.
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/82-of-americans-want-telehealth-flexibilities-extended
82% of Americans Want Telehealth Flexibilities Extended
A recent survey indicates that 82 percent of respondents with employer-provided coverage believe that the government should extend telehealth flexibilities.
November 30, 2022 - A recent survey conducted by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) found that a majority of respondents are requesting that the government sustain the telehealth flexibilities enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2020, the number of people using telehealth increased dramatically, largely due to the withdrawal of various regulatory restrictions as well as the new barriers imposed on in-person care. According to data from market research firm Trilliant Health, telehealth use peaked in the second quarter of 2020.
Though telehealth use has waned since 2020, it remains popular among patients and providers. As a result, Congress is faced with deciding whether to continue or terminate telehealth flexibilities. A survey from the Morning Consult on behalf of AHIP’s Coverage@Work campaign collected data on patient preferences regarding telehealth and how they feel about its future. The survey polled 818 voters with employer health insurance between Nov. 11 and 13.
The main survey findings related to whether patients would consider seeing a doctor through telehealth, reasons for using telehealth, and their opinions on the government extending telehealth flexibilities.
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New Connected Device Security Maturity Model Helps Orgs Strengthen Cybersecurity
Ordr published a connected device security maturity model containing five steps to help organizations manage connected device risks and improve their cybersecurity postures.
By Jill McKeon
November 30, 2022 - Connected device security company Ordr published a maturity model to help healthcare organizations evaluate and improve the security of their connected devices. The guide is broken down into five stages of maturity, each with recommended actions and detailed descriptions.
Medical devices and other connected devices remain a security challenge for healthcare organizations. Although the issue has garnered some attention from legislators, experts have expressed a need for healthcare organizations to continue to prioritize device security internally today as they await the passing of legislation.
“The notion of a maturity model is not unique to protecting connected devices. NIST, among others, has developed models that help organizations go from rudimentary security levels to the most advanced level in a logical sequence,” the document states.
“Buying the most sophisticated tools doesn’t work if the other parts required for an organization to successfully leverage its capabilities have not been established. That is why it is implicit in all these models to start with people and processes.”
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40 million Americans' health data is stolen or exposed each year. See if your provider has been breached.
Neena Hagen Nov 29, 2022
USA TODAY
More than 40 million Americans' medical records have been stolen or exposed so far this year because of security vulnerabilities in electronic health care systems, a USA TODAY analysis of Health and Human Services data found.
And the problem is steadily worsening. From 2010 to 2014, the first five years that data was collected, close to 50 million people had their medical data stolen. In the following five years, that number quadrupled. And health privacy breaches have continued to grow on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Federal law strictly prohibits medical institutions — hospitals, insurance companies and outpatient clinics — from sharing patient information, and requires that companies take steps to shield sensitive data from prying eyes.
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DirectTrust, EHNAC merge to pursue info access improvement
Accreditation efforts of both organizations will continue, and new initiatives will look at efforts to improve consumer access and use of data.
Nov 28 2022
Editor in Chief, HDM
Two industry organizations with pedigrees in enabling the exchange of healthcare data are joining forces to enable more seamless accreditation of information technology with an end goal of ensuring consumers can access and use their health information.
As part of the announcement on November 17, the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC) will be merged into DirectTrust, effective January 4.
DirectTrust is a non-profit healthcare industry alliance created to support secure, identity-verified electronic exchanges of protected health information. EHNAC is a non-profit standards development organization and accrediting body for organizations that electronically exchange healthcare data.
DirectTrust executives say the merger will enable the development of new accreditation programs, especially credential service provider designations that will set goals for organizations related to consumer access and use of health data.
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AWS launches new genomics data service for life sciences, healthcare companies
Nov 30, 2022 04:25pm
Amazon Web Services has launched a new genomics service to run IT-heavy bioinformatics workflows for healthcare and life sciences companies.
Amazon Omics, powered by Amazon Web Services, is a purpose-built service to help bioinformaticians, researchers, and scientists store, analyze and generate insights from genomic, transcriptomic and other omics data.
"We’re approaching an inflection point in health to provide highly personalized and precisely targeted diagnostics and treatments to people, known as precision medicine," Tehsin Syed, AWS' general manager of health AI, and Dr. Taha Kass-Hout, vice president of machine learning and chief medical officer at AWS, wrote in a blog post.
More than 98% of medical records are now in digital form and the digitalization and sharing of medical data is driving the demand for precision medicine technologies. There's also been a steep decline in the cost of sequencing with a 100,000-fold reduction in cost since the human genome was first sequenced in 2001, reaching an all-time low of approximately $200, Syed and Kass-Hout wrote.
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Implementing 30-day post discharge medication reconciliation using FHIR
While understanding and reconciling drugs after discharge from the hospital can be challenging, it's a necessity for greater efficacy of care delivery. HL7's Da Vinci project can help
November 30, 2022 11:30 AM
The elderly and chronically ill patients are typically challenged with many drugs and complicated dosing regimens, often leading to medication errors. Medication errors are one of the most common patient safety events. More than 40 percent of medication errors are believed to result from inadequate reconciliation in handoffs during admission, transfer, and discharge of patients.
While understanding and reconciling drugs after discharge from the hospital can be challenging, it is a necessity for greater efficacy of care delivery. There can be instances where a patient taking Glucophage before admission and then prescribed Glycomet post-discharge is unaware that the two drugs are the same and continues to take both until the patient’s care provider reconciles them. A significant number of emergency admissions are also traced back to insufficient reconciliation.
Medication reconciliation is about identifying the most accurate list of currently prescribed medicines, including the drug’s name, dosage, frequency, and route. It can be a very time-consuming process involving reviewing all medicines taken by the patient, including home medications, OTC, herbal supplements, and prescription medications, and checking them for duplications, dosing errors, omissions, and possible drug-drug interactions.
Various quality programs have mandated medication reconciliation at all events of admission, discharge, transfer, or during regular patient visits to the physician.
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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/clinical-care/business-group-health-7-healthcare-trends-2023
Business Group on Health: 7 Healthcare Trends for 2023
Analysis | By Christopher Cheney | November 29, 2022
Addressing health inequities is expected to be a top priority for employers in 2023.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· Employers show an increasing awareness that employee health and well-being have a positive effect on workforce strategy.
· Mental health is becoming a top priority for employers and employees, with a recognition that mental health is tied to job satisfaction and several aspects of well-being such as physical and social health.
· To optimize cost savings, patient experience, and health outcomes, employers are expected to continue to adopt value-based payment models.
Pursuing affordability of services tops seven healthcare trends for 2023, according to the Business Group on Health.
The trends are associated with the interplay of several factors, says Ellen Kelsay, president and CEO of the Business Group on Health. "While each trend relates to employer health and well-being strategies, they also exist against the backdrop of the global economy, workforce trends, innovation, and the policy and regulatory environment. As such, factors that range from provider labor shortages to the increased cost of healthcare will affect employers and employees alike in the year to come."
1. With rising healthcare costs, affordability is the leading concern for employees and employers.
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Survey: Health Systems See Technology as a Key to Improving Patient Access
Analysis | By Eric Wicklund | November 30, 2022
A new survey from the Center for Connected Medicine and KLAS Research finds that patient access is still top of mind for most health system leaders, with telehealth, AI and scheduling tools the most popular tools in the toolkit.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· Health system leaders are basing their technology strategy on improving patient access, according to a new survey.
· Telehealth, AI and scheduling tools are the most popular technologies, though each come with their own difficulties.
· The biggest barriers to technology adoption aren't technical, but human: Patients are reluctant to engage in technology to improve their health, and providers are often reluctant to adapt to change.
Health system leaders are focused on using digital health technology during the coming year to improve patient access, according to a new survey from the Center for Connected Medicine (CCM) and KLAS Research. And they're most interested in using telehealth and AI to improve engagement and help patients find what they need.
While "patient access" is a broad term, it highlights the emphasis being placed by health systems on patient-centered care, and creating new and better connections between patients and their care teams, particularly at a time when the competition is fierce for healthcare services.
The Top of Mind for Top Health Systems 2023 report, released this week by CCM, the innovation arm of UPMC, and KLAS Research, represents the thoughts of 61 leaders from 59 healthcare organizations, and marks the second year in a row that patient access is at the top of the to-do list. Some 28% of those surveyed for this year's report rated it as the problem that has the greatest potential to be improved via digital health--and one that has been greatly impacted by the pandemic.
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Telehealth Requires Efforts to Improve Access to Reach Full Potential
New research found that telehealth expansion lacks benefits when efforts to improve access are not present, which may often lead to health disparities.
November 29, 2022 - Regions with limited healthcare resources may not benefit from telehealth expansion, prompting the need for efforts to improve access, a new JAMA Network Open study finds.
Throughout the recent expansion of telehealth, researchers continuously gained insight into new methods for reaching areas with limited amounts of healthcare resources, highlighting many areas and populations facing limited healthcare resources.
The fact and theories about the relationship between telehealth and health disparities led researchers to conduct a cross-sectional study containing 2015 to 2019 American Community Survey data which was linked to national, state, and county-level metrics of healthcare access. Prior to the study, the authors hypothesized that internet access was poor in areas that lacked sufficient access to traditional healthcare resources.
Known as healthcare deserts, communities with limited healthcare services such as pharmacies, hospitals, PCPs, and low-cost health centers were reviewed for the study. The data sources included dataQ and GoodRx databases for 60,249 pharmacies, federal information on primary care health professional shortage areas, and geospatial information.
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Healthcare Orgs Face Imperative to Rebuild Good Healthcare Experience
Humanizing healthcare and simplifying access and costs will be critical for remedying record-low patient and healthcare experience scores.
By Sara Heath
November 29, 2022 - Six in 10 patients had a bad healthcare experience in the past year, leaving the door open for organizations to get a bad reputation or even lose market share, according to the latest The Beryl Institute-Ipsos PX Pulse, a quarterly report that examines the patient experience.
The report, gleaned from over 1,000 patient responses to the Ipsos KnowledgePanel, showed that 60 percent of patients had a poor healthcare experience in the past three months and very few (14 percent) could say they’ve had a positive healthcare experience in the past three months.
Half of those reporting a poor experience said they told their family and friends about it and one-third said they decided to switch healthcare providers. About one in five patients said they addressed the problem with the individual provider, care team, or healthcare facility.
This is bad news for an industry that’s increasingly embracing the idea of consumerism. If healthcare wants to mirror the experiences people have with other service sectors, experience needs to be paramount.
But the PX Pulse report showed that patient perceptions of care are at their lowest since the poll started in 2019.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/healthcare-industry-remains-a-top-victim-of-ransomware-attacks
Healthcare Industry Remains a Top Victim of Ransomware Attacks
Guidepoint Research’s latest ransomware report revealed that the healthcare industry was the second most targeted industry by ransomware attacks specifically targeted by groups like Everest and LockBit.
November 29, 2022 - Ransomware attacks continue to be the most prolific threat that organizations face across all infrastructure verticals, with the healthcare sector as a top target, according to the GuidePoint Research Q3 GRIT Ransomware report.
Behind the manufacturing sector, the healthcare industry was the second targeted by ransomware attacks in Q3. Ransomware groups such as Everest, BianLain, and LockBit were responsible for most of the attacks on the healthcare sector.
“Everest is a Russian-speaking ransomware group with potential connections to Blackbyte (who were observed in November 2021 targeting organizations with unpatched Microsoft Proxyshell vulnerabilities), and they maintain a presence on dark web marketplaces and forums such as Breached.to–a supposed RAID forums replacement–and XSS,” the report said.
The report noted a minor downtrend in ransomware attacks during Q3 as the biggest ransomware actors, including LockBit and Hive, saw a combined 53 percent decrease in reported victims.
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https://www.statnews.com/2022/11/28/minimizing-administrative-harm-key-step-improving-health-care/
Minimizing administrative harm: a key step to improving health care
By Nov. 28, 2022
Late on a Friday, I sit reviewing some of my patients’ old medical records instead of heading home to be with my family. I’ll likely be doing it next Friday, and the one after that.
This wasn’t my idea. The health system I work for discovered that some patients for whom CT scans were ordered never got them over the ensuing two to three years. So administrators decreed that clinicians like me must review the records of each patient who needed a CT scan, find out if the test was missed, determine if the missed test needs to be rescheduled, and report as to whether we reordered the scan or deemed it unnecessary.
For each patient, the procedure involves a mind-numbing and demoralizing number of mouse clicks and keystrokes. This project was aimed at reducing medical injury, but is instead wreaking administrative harm.
That these hours could be spent in countless other ways — especially caring for patients and our families rather than tending to our computers — raises an obvious question: Is the system we created to fix the system even working?
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In The Wild West Of Healthcare Data, Leaders Struggle To Know If Their Insights Are Pure Gold
Nov 28, 2022,01:47pm EST
Organizations are starting to look beyond volume of data to quality
It’s no secret that approximately one-third of data produced each day is healthcare related. In fact, the healthcare industry has debated how to harness this overwhelming amount of information for years. Organizations are finally embracing data for decision-making, with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services requiring the use of data and analytics as part of its value-based care programs. Life sciences companies are harnessing real-world data for research and commercial decisions and both are wondering if they are using the “right” data.
Are organizations mining through data points and uncovering gold insights – those that are truly valuable to their care, treatment, research, or commercial decisions? Or, are they seeing shimmers that seem like the exact information they need, but upon further examination, it’s only pyrite–fool’s gold.
This is particularly true for organizations working with complex diseases, including oncology, or working to succeed with the latest clinical advancements such as precision medicine. Success in these areas is pivotal – the oncology precision medicine market alone is predicted to reach USD $1.25B with an 11% CAGR by 2030.
Unearthing the gold–and ensuring it’s 24 karat
Organizations that use data are taking steps in the right direction. However, as the industry evolves to focus on harnessing high-quality data sets, many are looking at the sources of the data, the relevance of the information, and its completeness – or its ability to be compiled into complete, longitudinal patient journeys.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/aws-launches-amazon-omics-precision-medicine
AWS launches Amazon Omics for precision medicine
The cloud-based platform provides security, scale and the processing power needed for genomic data storage and analyses, eliminating the need for specialized infrastructure and workflows.
By Andrea Fox
November 29, 2022 10:35 AM
To enhance clinical insights at the point of care and help identify the best treatment or prevention options for patients, Amazon Web Services has launched a service that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and other AWS and partner products and services to run IT-heavy bioinformatics workflows.
WHY IT MATTERS
Clinicians can query thousands of variants across many genes at once to understand how genomic variation, joined with corresponding clinical data, may affect human health or predict clinical outcomes, according to the AWS announcement.
Tehsin Syed, AWS' general manager of health AI, and Dr. Taha Kass-Hout, vice president of machine learning and chief medical officer at AWS, say in their blog post that it's the size, rapid accumulation, complexity and heterogeneity of data that challenge existing computational tools used in precision medicine and research.
AWS built Amazon Omics to support large-scale genomic analysis and collaborative research for two main reasons, the company says:
- Generating insights from genomic, transcriptomic and other omics data poses difficulties for existing tools and systems trying to manage these workflows, Syed and Kass-Hout explained.
- The level of data required for sequencing also presents privacy, security, data ownership, governance and fairness challenges for the healthcare and life sciences sectors and must exist in a secure, compliant environment.
Amazon Omics users can reduce time spent on setting up and running complex Extract-Transform-Load pipelines by natively storing data in optimized query-ready formats (like Apache Parquet) and APIs. They do not need to focus on provisioning the underlying infrastructure to operate their bioinformatics programs.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/how-ai-saving-lives-stroke-and-other-neurovascular-care
How AI is saving lives in stroke and other neurovascular care
The technology has been proven to greatly reduce times to treatment.
By Bill Siwicki
November 29, 2022 11:06 AM
Karim Karti is the former president of GE Health Imaging and the current CEO of RapidAI – a company founded more than 10 years ago by Dr. Greg Albers, one of the world's leading stroke researchers and director of the Stanford Stroke Center.
For more than 20 years, most in healthcare believed doctors had less than three hours after a stroke to provide treatment. However, Dr. Albers' landmark research ultimately demonstrated that a thrombectomy (a procedure to remove blood clots) as late as 24 hours after stroke onset still benefited patients.
Albers and Dr. Roland Bammer founded RapidAI to streamline the stroke workflow and get patients to treatment faster.
Since then, their AI technology has been applied beyond stroke treatment, to aneurysm, pulmonary embolism and more. Today, RapidAI is being deployed in more than 2,000 hospitals in more than 100 countries, the company reported.
With his extensive experience in medical technology, Karti joined RapidAI this year as CEO with the goal of expanding the company's AI product offerings and growing the company globally.
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New IT Report Finds Healthcare C-Suite Stressed Out by a Lack of Interoperability
Analysis | By Eric Wicklund | November 29, 2022
A survey of CHIME executives by digital health company symplr, unveiled during the HLTH conference, indicates executives have adopted new technology at a fast pace, but those new tools and software solutions aren't always compatible.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· A survey of CHIME executives finds that nearly 60% of health systems are using more than 50 point solutions to manage healthcare operations, including almost a quarter who are using more than 150 point solutions.
· 88% of those surveyed say those disparate IT systems are complicating their jobs, resulting in increased staff stress and burnout, lost opportunities for cost savings, challenges to patient care and less time to focus on innovation.
· Healthcare leaders need to adopt an IT strategy that focuses on improving interoperability, reducing siloed solutions and identifying opportunities to streamline operations, improve clinical care and adopt new technologies like digital health and telehealth.
Health system leaders say they're being swamped by technology solutions that don't integrate with other solutions, and it's costing them a lot of money and stress.
This, in turn, puts more pressure on the enterprise, increasing clinician burnout, complicating patient care, and slowing the pace of healthcare innovation.
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Community Health Network Notifies 1.5M of Data Breach Stemming From Tracking Tech
The health system used third-party tracking technologies to track user trends, but later discovered that the tools were collecting more information than the health system “had ever intended.”
By Jill McKeon
November 28, 2022 - Indiana-based integrated healthcare system Community Health Network notified 1.5 million individuals of a data breach stemming from the use of third-party tracking technologies from companies like Facebook and Google.
As previously reported, Meta (Facebook’s parent company) is facing scrutiny over the use of tracking pixels on hospital websites and even inside password-protected patent portals. Tracking pixels are typically used for tracking visitor activity and trends and for targeted marketing.
In the case of Community Health Network, the health system said it used the tracking tech to “better understand how patients and other users interacted with our website.”
“Upon learning of concerns about the use of third-party tracking technologies by healthcare organizations, Community initiated an internal investigation that included engaging a third-party forensic firm to perform a detailed technical evaluation of the technologies implemented on our websites and applications,” the notice explained.
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https://www.cio.com/article/412908/7-enterprise-data-strategy-trends.html
7 enterprise data strategy trends
A strong, up-to-date data strategy is fundamental to your enterprise’s long-term success. In light of ongoing changes, it will probably need some serious updating.
Contributing writer, CIO Nov 22, 2022 2:00 am PST
Every enterprise needs a data strategy that clearly defines the technologies, processes, people, and rules needed to safely and securely manage its information assets and practices.
As with just about everything in IT, a data strategy must evolve over time to keep pace with evolving technologies, customers, markets, business needs and practices, regulations, and a virtually endless number of other priorities.
Here’s a quick rundown of seven major trends that will likely reshape your organization’s current data strategy in the days and months ahead.
1. Real-time data gets real — as does the complexity of dealing with it
CIOs should prioritize their investment strategy to cope with the growing volume of complex, real-time data that’s pouring into the enterprise, advises Lan Guan, global data and AI lead at business consulting firm Accenture.
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Is Lack Of Innovation Killing Telehealth?
Nov 23, 2022,07:00am EST
Michael O'Sullivan - Managing Partner - Psyclarity Health.
In the space of just two and a half years, telehealth went from being a footnote on most healthcare providers’ list of services to a nonnegotiable requirement for millions of Americans. The Covid-19 pandemic forced us to think differently about the way healthcare services are delivered, and telemedicine and the technologies that enabled it became some of the most critical components of our healthcare infrastructure virtually overnight.
But as the world opened up again and life went back to “normal,” it seems many have gone back to considering telehealth an adjunct, rather than a core offering of a healthcare plan. Of course, there are pragmatic reasons for this—it’s no longer problematic to visit your physician in-office, hospitals are no longer worried about overcrowding and mask mandates, sanitation stations and compulsory antigen tests are all (thankfully) relics of the past. But I believe there’s another vector that doesn’t get enough time in the spotlight: Innovation—or lack thereof—could stifle the telehealth space to such a degree that it’s at risk of becoming all but irrelevant in a fascinatingly short space of time.
Right Place, Right Time: Telehealth’s Emerging Presence Pre-Covid
In order to assess the state of telehealth today, it’s pertinent to take a brief look at its history. The CDC reports that, before the pandemic, around 43% of health centers in the U.S. offered telehealth options in 2019. By mid-2020, that increased to 95%, and in urban areas as much as 30% of total healthcare visits were conducted virtually. That isn’t to say that telehealth was unheard of. Before the pandemic, there had been a slow but steady proliferation of telehealth services, but the trend of widespread telehealth only kicked off in earnest from around March 2020. Before this, patients and providers wanting to make use of telehealth services had to deal with inconsistent and sometimes inadequate reimbursement for the services, stringent privacy regulations that required a significant investment into secure telecommunications technology, and rigid rules about where each party should be based. Many of these regulations were relaxed in order to cater to the new demands that came with the onset of the pandemic, and remain as such today. So, why has telehealth seemingly stagnated after some substantial groundwork was laid?
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From finding the right candidates to keeping them, how hospitals are using AI to address workforce needs
By Annie Burky
Nov 23, 2022 11:58am
Healthcare organizations struggling under a mountain of unfilled job postings are turning to technology to address staffing shortages.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning models are easing the application process, automizing workflow to decrease burnout and offering leadership time to connect with employees, health tech executives say.
The technology also is providing ways to help healthcare professionals find the right job, stay at the right job and interact with coworkers and patients on a more human level.
Almost 334,000 clinicians, including physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants exited the workforce in 2021 due to retirement, burnout and pandemic-related stressors including increased workplace violence, according to a recent report from Definitive Healthcare.
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Google Health strikes deal with iCAD to commercialize mammography AI
Nov 28, 2022 12:00pm
Google Health struck a deal with medical technology company iCAD to integrate its artificial intelligence technology into the company's breast imaging solutions.
It marks the first licensing and commercialization agreement for Google Health's mammography AI models and will integrate the technology into real-world clinical practice, according to the company. ICAD's tech is used in health systems and imaging centers across the U.S. and globally.
Shares of iCAD jumped 25% after the medical technology company said it has struck a deal with Alphabet Inc.'s Google Health to integrate Google Health's artificial intelligence technology into iCAD's portfolio of breast-imaging solutions.
Under the definitive agreement, Google has licensed its AI technology for breast cancer and personalized risk assessment to iCAD. The medtech company will apply the licensed technology to further improve its 3D and 2D AI algorithms and will commercialize developed products.
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Philips launches AI informatics platform, new imaging tools at RSNA
Its new Advanced Visualization Workspace includes dozens of clinical apps for cardiology, oncology, neurology and radiology.
By Mike Miliard
November 28, 2022 10:30 AM
As the Radiological Society of North America conference gets under way in Chicago this week, Philips is among many companies showcasing new artificial intelligence tools for imaging and other clinical decision support use cases.
WHY IT
MATTERS
One of the biggest announcements Philips is making at McCormick Place is the
launch of its next-generation Advanced Visualization Workspace platform.
Powered by AI-enabled algorithms and workflows, the goal is to offer a
vendor-neutral environment for more than 70 clinical applications, say Philips
officials.
These applications span modalities that include cardiology, oncology, neurology and radiology, according to the announcement, with a suite of advanced visualization tools. New apps include the MR cardiac suite, an all-in-one environment for cardiac MR.
The AI-powered CT ASPECT (Alberta Stroke Program Early CT Score) scoring feature, meanwhile, can indicate early signs of brain infarction on non-contrast CT scans for the management of ischemic stroke patients. The app identifies ASPECTS regions of the brain and generates a score sent directly to the PACS.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/get-handle-insider-threats-industry-intel
Get a handle on insider threats with industry intel
At the HIMSS Healthcare Cybersecurity Forum, MITRE's Suneel Sundar, senior manager of cyber new professionals, will share insider threat learnings to help IT professionals detect, mitigate and stop insider cybersecurity threats.
By Andrea Fox
November 28, 2022 10:03 AM
Leading a team of eager cyber problem solvers, Suneel Sundar, senior manager of cyber new professionals at MITRE, researches the tactics, techniques and procedures used by known insiders in IT environments.
Sundar will present "We See You When You're Sneaking: Insider Techniques and Trends Across IT Systems," an educational discussion at the HIMSS Healthcare Cybersecurity Forum, which will take place December 5 and 6 in Boston.
His session will address insider threats and share several of their techniques examined through objective evidence-based analysis using the Insider Threat TTP (Tactics, Threats and Procedures) Knowledge Base. The knowledge base, created by researchers at the non-profit MITRE Center for Threat-Informed Defense, or CTID, launched in February with more than 50 examples of insider threat TTPs.
Inspired by MITRE ATTACK and tools such as the Ransomware Support Center for hospitals and health systems, Sundar and his colleagues launched the new community-driven insider threat knowledge base to guide insider threat mitigation programs toward actionable detections and response. The submission platform authenticates users and anonymizes submissions.
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Enjoy!
David.
"Using Medical Jargon Confuses Patients Amid Low Health Literacy Trends
ReplyDeletePatients are less likely to understand their health status when providers use medical jargon in place of verbiage that centers patient health literacy levels."
So giving patients access to medical data such as diagnoses, pathology tests, discharge summaries etc has a limited, sometimes negative effect?
So, who is going to do all the translating into a language patients can understand before the data gets put into patient health records?
Not a problem. The bureaucrats will try to convince the government to legislate against the use of acronyms in healthcare except when the patient is BND!
DeleteSome sort of general practitioner concept might help. I’m entertaining an idea where a well-trained person who can sit alongside the patient and provide advice, explain and recommend, using their knowledge and networks to get the most appropriate treatment.
ReplyDelete@7:43 AM and who would pay for that well-trained person? Another GP?
ReplyDeletePerhaps through our taxes. The training would be funded by existing over-taxed parents or through loans ( to ensure servitude). It's sustainable and affordable, creates jobs and growth and empowers our education system. There is still room for digital notepads and a national G: Drive if that is a concern.
ReplyDeleteIsn't giving patients access to their medical data and all this Digital Health stuff supposed to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare?
ReplyDeleteLooks like all it's going to do is increase costs and create confusion.