Here are a few I came across last week.
Note: Each link is followed by a title and few paragraphs. For the full article click on the link above title of the article. Note also that full access to some links may require site registration or subscription payment
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/behavioral-nudges-in-ehr-workflows-may-reduce-healthcare-waste
Behavioral Nudges in EHR Workflows May Reduce Healthcare Waste
While behavioral nudges in EHR workflows can reduce healthcare waste, stakeholders must balance the benefits with the cost of their implementation.
January 06, 2023 - Behavioral nudges within EHR workflows can help reduce erroneous decision-making and mitigate healthcare waste, according to a study published in JAMIA.
Researchers studied three clinical workflows at an academic medical center where the existing choice architecture, or the EHR design, was potentially nudging providers toward erroneous decisions, waste, and misuse.
The researchers changed the architecture to nudge providers toward better practice and found success to varying degrees.
“By changing the direction of these nudges—in one case, via making the less appropriate order more difficult to find and use; in the second case, by making the more frequently desired imaging easier to find; and in the final case, by presenting an easy to find alternative—we attempted to nudge providers toward reduced waste and misuse,” the study authors wrote.
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Digital Divide Goes Beyond Broadband, Rests with Digital Health Literacy
Folks are using the internet, but not for digital health engagement, a sign that the digital divide is about more than just broadband but also about digital health literacy.
By Sara Heath
January 06, 2023 - New data is shedding light on the digital divide in healthcare, with researchers from The Ohio State University revealing that it’s not just broadband access stymying connectivity for marginalized groups. Rather, digital health literacy and language access will be necessary to support digital health equity.
Access to digital health tools has become increasingly important in a modernized medical landscape, with the advent of digital health records, patient portals, and connected health changing the way consumers engage with their health.
That was never more obvious than during the COVID-19 pandemic, when primary care offices had to shutter their doors to conserve resources and try to stem the spread of the virus. Patients and providers alike leaned on digital health tools to support continuity of care and chronic disease management remotely.
But for as much promise as digital health showed during that period, experts still lamented the digital divide, or the difference between folks who could and could not actually utilize those health technologies.
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https://www.digitalhealth.net/2022/12/lets-stop-pointless-reorganisations-on-nhs-it/
Let’s stop pointless reorganisations on NHS IT
Dr Marcus Baw argues that 2022 has shown once again that the answer to NHS technology is definitely not to have another cycle of wasteful reorganisation.
DHI News Team – 28 December, 2022
2022 has to be the year of proving beyond all doubt that NHS technology doesn’t need another Reorganise, Strategy and Report. We’ve had all of those and more in the past.
They’ve all failed, because they didn’t have any way to bring in new ideas and new thinking. Here are some examples:
NHSX: It’s an impressive feat to achieve almost nothing over four years while making so much noise in the health tech space that they might at least have achieved something useful by accident, but NHS is the poster child for dumb and wasteful reorganisation.
NHSX was reorganised into being out of thin air during the Matt Hancock ascent stage, as a way to bypass the old, stuffy ways of NHS Digital and NHS England when it came to NHS tech. It ended up causing two years of chaos, confusion and inertia while it was set up, and another two years of chaos, confusion and inertia while it was being broken up for spare parts. I’m a Celebrity – get me out of NHSX.
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https://www.digitalhealth.net/2023/01/2023-predictions-health-tech-suppliers-give-their-verdict/
2023 predictions: Health tech suppliers give their verdict
The year 2022 was unsurprisingly another busy one with lots of changes and developments in the digital health world. We asked health tech suppliers what they expect to happen in 2023. Here is what they had to say:
Markus Bolton, director of Graphnet Health
“I predict that the current drive towards using population health to transform how care is delivered will accelerate through 2023 as more and more use cases become de facto standards. We are already seeing huge strides in areas such as waiting list management, fuel poverty, hypertension, diabetes, early intervention (social care) and suicide prevention.
“2023 will be the year that care systems use data to move from insights into actions.”
Guy Lucchi, managing director of healthcare at System C
“There will be a drive towards digital enabling services to make the transformational shift to new models of care that are required to overcome key health and care challenges. A big part of that will be ICS digital strategies beginning to address cross-organisational workflows, particularly those between health and social care.
“Our customers are increasingly focused on ensuring everyone has a good start in life to promote the best possible outcomes during an individual’s lifetime. We will continue to support this approach with our child health, social care, and education management solutions.
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Samsung's New App Lets Doctors Conduct an Exam Through Your TV Screen
The new telemedicine app from Samsung will let you videoconference a doctor on your TV screen, and even one smartwatch.
Jan. 5, 2023 3:32 p.m. PT
Samsung has expanded its smart TV platform to include streaming apps and game platforms, but at this year's CES it is looking to put health care on the big screen. A new Samsung Telemedicine app that allow those who are ill to be able to get at-home care on their TVs.
After people choose from a list of symptoms and input how long they've been ill, the app "will show relevant available doctors." Samsung will then create a link between the doctor and the at-home patient. The company says its service will "generally" connect a doctor "within 60 seconds."
After being connected, the doctor will be able to "conduct an exam through video conferencing via the app" using a camera attached to the TV. The app can also integrate with other devices beyond the TV including Samsung's own Galaxy Watch. After the exam is over, Samsung says that users will not only be able to rate their experiences but also schedule a follow-up appointment, have a prescription filled remotely including having it "delivered directly to their doorstep all via the on-screen app."
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https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/cybersecurity/whats-in-store-for-cybersecurity-in-2023.html
What's in store for cybersecurity in 2023?
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Healthcare cybersecurity is a rapidly changing industry as cybercriminals innovate and health IT teams work to improve their posture. Becker's reached out to five chief information security officers at the top hospitals and health systems across the country to project what healthcare cybersecurity will look like in 2023.
Editor's note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity.
Jack Kufahl. Chief Information Security Officer of Michigan Medicine (Ann Arbor): Hard for me to say what that No. 1 trend will be; I suspect new devious ransomware tactics. However, I think that the clever CISO will be looking at optimization of their current technology stack and investments. Where there is capability overlap, configurations unused, data falling away that is useful but going stale, and generally getting as much functionality as possible out of sunk costs or licenses. I also feel there may be an increase in talent attrition due to healthcare (even in the best of years) being somewhat of a laggard in keeping staff salaries competitive. This will drive toward more near-sourcing or outsourcing of capabilities due to talent shortfalls or salary gaps.
Steven Ramirez. CISO of Renown Health (Reno, Nev.): I think one of healthcare's biggest challenges will be third-party risk management. Industry data shows that third parties still only count for roughly 50 percent or so of breaches. With the continued push to software-as-a-service-based products and the cloud with the digital transformation, healthcare organizations are shipping more and more critical technology functions and services to vendors. There are two types of third-party breaches we need to focus and plan for; data breaches and disruptive breaches. We saw how impactful the Okta and Kronos ransomware events were on their customers. This emphasizes the need for strong third-party risk management processes and procedures, in addition to cyber resilience practice. Something to also keep on the radar is hiring and retaining talent to support these initiatives.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/vendors-must-do-better-understanding-cio-needs-survey-shows
Vendors must do better understanding CIO needs, survey shows
A new poll finds health system chief information officers saying marketers don't always appreciate their pain points. The same survey shows IT leaders getting information from online videos and basing buying decisions on news coverage.
By Bill Siwicki
January 06, 2023 10:32 AM
Only 60% of health system chief information officers say they believe health IT marketers understand and market to their unique needs, a new report shows – while 55% think marketers could do a better job of understanding the problem they are trying to solve.These are some of the findings of a report titled, 2023 Healthcare Technology Marketing Guide: Marketing and Selling to the Health System CIO, which surveyed 20 health system CIOs. The report is the product of the Merritt Group and 72Point's research division, OnePoll.
The Merritt Group is a woman-led strategic communications firm celebrating its 25th anniversary. A mid-sized agency, it has a dedicated healthcare practice and specializes in public relations, messaging, branding/creative, content strategy and creation, demand and lead generation, and more.
Healthcare IT News interviewed Erin Erban, a healthcare expert at the Merritt Group, to dive into the survey results.
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Could the EU's decision against Meta affect data privacy policies in the U.S.?
The social media giant says it will appeal the European Union's decision that Meta Platforms violated GDPR. We asked one privacy lawyer whether the decision might penetrate the company's reliance on contractual necessity in the U.S.
By Andrea Fox
January 06, 2023 11:35 AM
Facebook parent company Meta this week was fined 390 million euros, or more than $414 million, by European Union regulators in a major decision around its online ad targeting and privacy policies.It's one of the more significant findings so far under EU's General Data Protection Regulation – and could potentially have implications for how the company operates in the U.S. – including its controversial practices in the healthcare space.
Meta had added a clause to its user terms of service contract when GDPR, which assures individuals that they have the right to reject the collection and processing of personal data for ad targeting purposes, came into effect on May 25, 2018.
The company says the clause justifies the collection and use of its user's personal data as necessary for performance.
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2023/01/06/ehi-is-not-what-it-used-to-be-but-dont-panic/
EHI is Not What it Used to be, but Don’t Panic
January 6, 2023
The following is a guest article by Mariann Yeager, CEO at The Sequoia Project.
What a difference a day makes.
On October 6, 2022, the healthcare and health IT community woke to a new reality – one in which electronic health information (EHI) included far more than it did the day before.
Why was that so important? Because penalties for information blocking – that is, any practice that interferes with access, exchange, or use of electronic health data – are tied to the definition of EHI. With many more types of health information specifically included as EHI, organizations regulated under the 21st Century Cures Act are on the hook to respond to requests for that information from individuals, providers, public health agencies, and health information exchanges.
The expanded definition of EHI now includes virtually any health information tied to an individual that is used in decision making. If it’s maintained or transmitted electronically and it’s not explicitly excluded, it is now included. For example, medical and billing information contained in the designated record set are included, as is any EHI held by EHR software or by a health information network.
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2023/01/06/telehealth-and-rpm-2023-health-it-predictions/
Telehealth and RPM – 2023 Health IT Predictions
January 6, 2023
As we head into 2023, we wanted to kick off the new year with a series of 2023 Health IT predictions. We asked the Healthcare IT Today community to submit their predictions and we received a wide ranging set of responses that we grouped into a number of themes. Check out our communities predictions below and be sure to add your own thoughts and/or places you disagree with these predictions in the comments and on social media.
Check out our community’s telehealth and RPM (Remote Patient Monitoring) predictions.
Dr.
Reza Hosseini Ghomi, Chief Medical Officer at BrainCheck
Digitally-enabled
care is the future of telehealth – “telehealth” has become industry
norm since the start of the pandemic and used as a catchall term for everything
from virtual doctor’s appointments to at-home testing kits. What’s most
important and impactful about telehealth is the technology’s ability to enable
care and improve accessibility.
For cognitive health, specifically, digital cognitive assessment tools have made access to baseline cognitive resources more widely available without removing healthcare providers from the care model (a common point of criticism in response to telehealth and the “DIY health economy”).
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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/innovation/ces-digital-health-panel-healthcare-has-data-problem
CES Digital Health Panel: Healthcare Has a Data Problem
Analysis | By Eric Wicklund | January 06, 2023
Healthcare executives speaking at CES 2023 this week in Las Vegas say the industry has to evolve to keep up with the times. How it deals with collecting, analyzing and using data may be the key to that evolution.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· Healthcare data represents one-third of all the data collected around the globe, yet 95% of that data isn't being used by healthcare providers to improve care.
· A panel of healthcare executives at this week's CES 2023 conference in Las Vegas says the key to digital health evolution will lie in finding a way to collect, analyze and use data on one common platform.
· Health systems and hospitals are struggling with their operating margins and other issues, like staff shortages and supply chain challenges, and will have to forge new partnerships to push that evolution along.
Healthcare organizations may have a hard time figuring out what to do with consumer technology, especially in this time of tight profit margins, but there's no denying that the data coming from these tools and platforms will have a significant impact on the future of healthcare.
And at CES 2023 this week in Las Vegas, that's what the experts were talking about.
"Using data to really leverage the journey of healthcare is very important," said Susan Turney, MD, MS, FACP, FACPME, CEO of Wisconsin's Marshfield Clinic Health System.
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DirectTrust and Health Data Standards Org EHNAC Announce Completion of Merger
The EHNAC Commission will oversee health data standard accreditation-specific matters, and The DirectTrust Board of Directors will continue as is.
January 05, 2023 - DirectTrust and health data standards organization Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC) have announced the completion of their previously announced merger, effective January 4, 2023.
DirectTrust is a non-profit healthcare industry alliance created to support secure electronic exchanges of protected health information. EHNAC is a non-profit standards development organization and accrediting body for organizations that electronically exchange health data.
“We’re excited to officially welcome EHNAC’s team of experts and assessors to the DirectTrust family,” stated Scott Stuewe, DirectTrust president and CEO, in a press release. “The completion of this merger significantly strengthens our accreditation capabilities, in particular for our members who will experience an improved and streamlined accreditation process.”
“However, the impact of this merger will reverberate well beyond our members,” Stuewe added. “This move further supports trust and security in nationwide trust frameworks and networks throughout the healthcare ecosystem as we strive to become the nation’s premier healthcare-focused accreditation, standards development, and technical trust partner.”
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Caregiver Proxy Patient Portal Access Leaves Much to Be Desired
Healthcare organizations may consider strategies for marketing proxy patient portal access to better support caregivers while protecting patient privacy.
By Sara Heath
January 04, 2023 - New research published in JAMA Network Open is showing that the patient portal isn’t exactly set up for caregiver engagement and use. Caregivers are certainly using the portal, the data showed, but password-sharing is rampant, and it’s calling into question patient privacy and best practices for proxy patient portal adoption.
Patient portals aren’t always just for patients. With kids managing their health with their parents or guardians and more and more seniors tapping their adult children or professional caregivers as they age, the patient portal isn’t just about the patient at the center of care.
Proxy patient portals are caregiver-facing tools that are tethered to a designee’s patient portal and EHR. These technologies are best suited for parents or guardians of adolescent patients or those caring for an aging or ailing family member.
Through a literature review of 41 studies published between February and March of 2022, the researchers found that most caregivers are, in fact, using the patient portal. Most of the articles included in the review and which measured caregiver patient portal use found that more than a third of caregivers are utilizing the health IT.
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ECG-equipped Apple Watches found to violate AliveCor patents, teeing up possible sales ban
By Andrea Park
Dec 28, 2022 10:53am
Hot on the heels of a major win for Apple in its patent dispute with fellow wearable device maker AliveCor, the tech giant has hit a roadblock.
The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled last week that the FDA-cleared electrocardiogram technology built into recent models of Apple’s eponymous smartwatch violates patents previously filed by AliveCor. The latter company—which, like Apple, is headquartered in Silicon Valley—makes artificial-intelligence-powered personal ECG monitors such as the FDA-cleared KardiaMobile portable device.
The ruling stems from a complaint AliveCor filed in 2021 and doubles down on the initial determination finding issued in June by an administrative law judge at the ITC, who determined that Apple had violated two of AliveCor’s patents. After that finding, the companies filed further petitions before the issue was put to a vote by the full ITC this month.
In a company release sent to Fierce Medtech, AliveCor CEO Priya Abani characterized the ITC’s decision as “a win for innovation and consumer choice.”
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'Easy as 1, 2, Pee' — Withings' smart scanner puts a urology lab in your toilet bowl
By Conor Hale
Jan 4, 2023 11:30am
To those who’ve always wanted to digitally monitor their bathroom health at home: you’re in luck.
Withings debuted a toilet bowl-based sensor that polls the biomarkers and metabolites released with daily urinations, to provide a picture of hydration, nutrient levels and wellness in addition to ovulation and cycle tracking.
“It’s one of the most exciting and complex products we have ever announced,” Withings CEO Mathieu Letombe said in the company’s announcement, during the annual CES tech innovation meeting.
After four years in development, the puck-shaped U-Scan hides a miniaturized, microfluidic urine analysis lab, equipped with a rotating cartridge-based system that forgoes the use of test strips and is cleaned with each flush.
Described by Withings as “Easy as 1, 2, Pee,” the rechargeable, automated device is capable of running dozens of tests, with modules that can be swapped out for different types. On a basic level, it’s a logical expansion of the idea that’s driven home health tech devices: to capture information on a regular basis that would otherwise only be examined by lab professionals perhaps once a year.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/healthcare-ransomware-attacks-more-than-doubled-over-past-5-years
Healthcare Ransomware Attacks More Than Doubled Over Past 5 Years
According to a study published in JAMA Health Forum, healthcare ransomware attacks have more than doubled from 2016 to 2021, posing potential risks to patient safety in the process.
By Jill McKeon
January 05, 2023 - The number of healthcare ransomware attacks more than doubled from 2016 to 2021, from 43 in 2016 to 91 in 2021, according to a study published recently in JAMA Health Forum.
The cohort study relied on data from the Tracking Healthcare Ransomware Events and Traits (THREAT) database, which combines proprietary data from cybersecurity threat intelligence company HackNotice with data from the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) data breach portal.
Researchers also analyzed press releases by the victim organization, news reports, public disclosures, and healthcare trade press coverage to determine whether the breaches could be deemed ransomware attacks and what operational disruptions may have occurred.
In total, the researchers documented 374 ransomware attacks that occurred between 2016 and 2021, impacting nearly 42 million patients. Protected health information (PHI) exposure increased more than 11-fold over that time period, the study found, from 1.33 million in 2016 to more than 16.5 million in 2021.
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Hackers’ health care siege
By BEN LEONARD, RUTH READER, CARMEN PAUN and ERIN SCHUMAKER
01/05/2023 02:00 PM EST
Hackers have compromised over 40 million patients' data.
The toll of ransomware attacks on the health care sector is mounting.
Attacks on health care providers doubled between 2016 and 2021, leaving 42 million patients’ data vulnerable, according to a new study in JAMA Health Forum. The attacks are now more often hitting large organizations that have more than one facility than before.
“Ransomware attacks on health care delivery organizations are increasing in frequency and sophistication,” the researchers from the University of Minnesota and the University of Florida wrote. “Disruptions to care during ransomware attacks may threaten patient safety and outcomes.”
More than 2 in 5 (44.4 percent) attacks, the researchers found, hindered delivering health care to patients. Electronic systems went down 41.7 percent of the time, while care was canceled in 10.2 percent and ambulances were diverted in 4.3 percent of attacks.
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Tips for Health Systems on Managing Legacy Systems to Strengthen Security
Bolstering basic security can help protect legacy systems as healthcare organizations make strides to modernize infrastructure.
by Brian Eastwood
Brian Eastwood is a freelance writer with more than 15 years of experience covering healthcare IT, healthcare delivery, enterprise IT, consumer technology, IT leadership and higher education.
Legacy operating systems and software applications are pervasive in healthcare, and they pose a serious security threat.
A 2021 report from Kaspersky Lab found that 73 percent of health systems used medical equipment running legacy operating systems. Not coincidentally, only 34 percent of organizations said they had up-to-date and adequate hardware and software security protections.
In some cases, the legacy OS is a sunsetted version of Microsoft Windows. According to the 2021 HIMSS Healthcare Cybersecurity Survey Report, more than one-third of health systems still have devices running Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7, both of which haven’t been supported by Microsoft since January 2020. Even worse, 1 in 5 are still running Windows XP, which hasn’t been supported since 2014. In other cases, the legacy OS is a proprietary system running on medical devices or industrial control systems.
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Amy Abernethy on fixing clinical trials
By BEN LEONARD, CARMEN PAUN and RUTH READER
01/04/2023 02:00 PM EST
Clinical trials that are key to developing new treatments and medical devices have a lot of problems.
Researchers struggle to recruit participants, and the people who agree to take part are often not diverse enough. That can undermine the results if drugs or devices affect different people in different ways.
The Covid-19 pandemic, with the pressing need it created to develop treatments and vaccines, pushed clinical trial modernization efforts forward. Millions in venture funding have poured into the sector.
The 21st Century Cures Act of 2016 aimed to improve trials by reducing administrative burdens, and the FDA has made improving trials a priority over the past several years. Verily, a subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet, hopes to be part of the solution.
Ben caught up with Amy Abernethy, the former No. 2 at the Food and Drug Administration and now president of Verily’s clinical research business. They discussed barriers to improving trials, the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health and more.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/what-do-these-it-leaders-see-healthcare-2023-flux
What do these IT leaders see for healthcare in 2023? 'Flux'
Regulatory difficulties, workforce shortages, financial pressures, evolving patient expectations, an aging population and more will combine to make the next year uniquely challenging, say tech company CEOs, but they're challenges that can be met.
By Mike Miliard
January 05, 2023 10:06 AM
If the past three years have shown us anything, it's that healthcare organizations are capable of rising to the occasion in even the most trying of circumstances.
But if pandemic-era pressures have eased a bit, their aftereffects are still being felt as we move into 2023. Hospitals and health systems are grappling with a perfect storm of financial and operational challenges, even as the clinical and population health imperatives remain.
Add to this mix: new interoperability requirements, the ongoing push away from fee-for-service, fast-evolving data modeling hurdles, an industry-wide workforce shortage, pervasive cybersecurity threats and a shift toward home-based care. The challenges are many, but technology can help.
We asked business leaders from a handful of health IT vendors what they see when they look toward the year ahead. Here's what they had to say.
Seeking more streamlined healthcare experiences
"Patients – as consumers – expect healthcare to work just like everything else in their personal and professional lives," said Mudit Garg, CEO and co-founder of Qventus, which develops AI-enabled care automation tools. "They're used to highly efficient experiences enabled by AI and automation, such as personalized recommendations for movies, self-serve flight booking and home automation.
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2023/01/05/healthcare-workforce-2023-health-it-predictions/
Healthcare Workforce – 2023 Health IT Predictions
January 5, 2023
As we head into 2023, we wanted to kick off the new year with a series of 2023 Health IT predictions. We asked the Healthcare IT Today community to submit their predictions and we received a wide ranging set of responses that we grouped into a number of themes. Check out our communities predictions below and be sure to add your own thoughts and/or places you disagree with these predictions in the comments and on social media.
Check out our community’s healthcare workforce predictions.
Kelly
Conklin, Chief Clinical Officer at PerfectServe
Let’s be real—nurses are, to put it lightly, still being stretched very thin.
We’re no longer in the throes of the pandemic, but staffing issues persist in a
major way, and the people putting on scrubs every day are struggling to tread
water. I’ve been talking with hospitals all over the country this year, and in
recent conversations I’ve heard more and more about virtual nursing. This kind
of technology-enabled workflow can take a tremendous burden off of some of our
most important care team members.
Think about it—we’ve already got technology that can efficiently deliver every kind of communication, whether it’s going from patient to nurse or from nurse to patient. At the push of a button, a virtual nurse can walk through the admission checklist or answer other general questions for the patient, which then frees bedside nurses up to answer calls and tend to physical patient needs faster. That’s a huge win for nurses and patients alike, and I think more organizations will be investigating and deploying solutions like this in the coming year.
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/report-details-4-imperatives-of-virtual-care-growth
Report Details 4 Imperatives of Virtual Care Growth
A recent report described four imperatives to enable health systems to grow their virtual care offerings, including getting buy-in early and ensuring vendor partnerships are productive.
January 04, 2023 - A recent report from TheAcademy details four key considerations for health systems looking to grow and further integrate virtual care into their care delivery models, including gaining operational buy-in and comprehensive vendor partnerships.
As described in the report, virtual care has become more of a healthcare essential rather than a luxury. A recent survey indicated that a majority of health system executives (93 percent) reported that the growth of virtual health offerings is part of their overall plans for the future.
For this report, which was commissioned by Teladoc Health, TheAcademy surveyed chief strategy officers, chief medical information officers, and population health leaders from 38 health systems.
Though executives want to establish an integrated, customer-focused, and scaled virtual care strategy, they are not there yet, the report notes. When asked to rank their system's performance on virtual health, executives scored overall performance at 2.9 on a scale of one to five, with one signifying poor performance.
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HHS to Restore Religious Nondiscrimination Rules for Patient Care Access
The 2022 NPRM would “partially rescind” a 2019 rule loosening religious nondiscrimination rules, which critics said worsened patient care access for marginalized groups.
By Sara Heath
January 04, 2023 - The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is making moves to reverse a 2019 rule that expanded religious nondiscrimination and moral conscience protections. The agency said this latest action will continue to protect religious freedom for healthcare workers while allowing for patient care access regardless of religion, color, sexual orientation, or other demographic factors.
Particularly, the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) from HHS restores the 2011 framework for moral and religious protections in healthcare. It rescinds a May 2019 rule that further bolstered moral and religious protections for healthcare workers, virtually making it easier for healthcare providers to claim a moral objection when administering healthcare to certain patients.
“No one should be discriminated against because of their religious or moral beliefs, especially when they are seeking or providing care,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement about the 2022 NPRM. “The proposed rule strengthens protections for people with religious or moral objections while also ensuring access to care for all in keeping with the law.”
HHS said the 2019 final rule loosened definitions for moral and religious protections, created new compliance rules, and retooled the enforcement mechanisms for some religious protections for healthcare workers. The 2019 final rule made it easier for healthcare workers to claim religious protections while treating patients, such as refusing to treat an LGBTQ+ patient.
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https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2799953
December 28, 2022
Assessment of Mental Health Services Available Through Smartphone Apps
Erica Camacho, MS1Asher Cohen1John Torous, MD, MBI1
Key Points
Question What do mental health smartphone apps offer patients, how has the app landscape changed, and are app popularity metrics associated with privacy?
Findings In this cross-sectional study of 578 mental health apps, an app marketplace assessment found that while more apps were collecting passive data, most apps still offered similar foundational features. There was no statistically significant correlation between privacy scores and star ratings, but there was a weak correlation between privacy scores and app downloads.
Meaning These findings suggest that apps on the marketplace offer overlapping features, and metrics such as star ratings or the number of downloads may not provide adequate information about the privacy or efficacy of mental health apps.
Abstract
Importance As more patients and clinicians are turning to mental health smartphone apps to expand access to services, little is known about the current state of the app marketplaces and what these apps are actually offering in terms of features, privacy, price, and services.
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Business of Healthcare and Value Based Care – 2023 Health IT Predictions
January 4, 2023
As we head into 2023, we wanted to kick off the new year with a series of 2023 Health IT predictions. We asked the Healthcare IT Today community to submit their predictions and we received a wide ranging set of responses that we grouped into a number of themes. Check out our communities predictions below and be sure to add your own thoughts and/or places you disagree with these predictions in the comments and on social media.
Check out our community’s healthcare business and value based care predictions.
Jon
Kimerle, Epic Alliance Manager at Pure Storage
It’s time to clean out the garage: simplification and consolidation of health
IT is our next step toward optimization. In the last few years, with new
technologies and software emerging, healthcare organizations have ended up
investing in too many varied systems or offerings. Health systems are acquiring
more complex software and technologies – as well as the people to manage them –
while they continue to keep legacy tech. More tech requires more upkeep, more
data requiring complex management, and less interoperability or communication
between dissimilar systems.
Healthcare organizations need to look at simplifying and consolidating their IT portfolio to provide operational support and actionable outcomes not delayed by overwhelming amounts of unstructured, unmanageable data or incompatible IT systems. Healthcare organizations essentially need to clean out their IT garage and look for the solutions that tackle their most critical issues while offering streamlined compatibility and impacting patient care.
Chris
Sullivan, Global Healthcare Practice Lead at Zebra Technologies
Compliance with digital health regulations will drive tech modernization. Over
60 countries have now enacted digital health regulations and/or Ministry of
Health digital mandates which include unique device identification (UDI) and
medication serialized marking. Both UDI and medication serialized marking
provide a digital identifier on medical devices used in patients, such as a
pacemaker, and medications given to patients, essentially providing the ability
to track and trace a device or medication.
As hospitals implement the digitization to comply with these regulations in 2023, they’ll also benefit by reducing adverse product recall and inventory events, falsified medical product use and accelerating HIMSS Stage 7 implementations. Additionally, labor shortages will double the medication error rate among providers, according to Forrester. Bar code medication administration and IV infusion safety systems, and electronic health records can help to provide added vigilance to intercept adverse drug events. Expect IT teams to continue to spend on technology modernization with an emphasis on laying a solid, long-term framework that can support rapid solution scaling in the years to come.
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The Healthcare Industry Has a Big Problem With Data. How Do We Fix It?
Analysis | By Paul Markovich | January 03, 2023
The pandemic has turned the spotlight on inaccessible, unusable, patient data. It's time to accept the reality that this is a comorbidity.
Editor's Note: Paul Markovich is president and CEO of Blue Shield of California.
Nearly three years into the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports more than 1 million lives lost due to COVID-19 in the United States, with the World Health Organization reporting more than 6.6 million deaths globally. Many analysts put the actual number of deaths caused by COVID significantly higher than these numbers and neither estimate captures the potential long-term health effects of COVID.
One of the biggest challenges to preventing and managing illness, including COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations, and deaths, is inaccessible, unusable patient data. Despite Californians reporting increases in care quality this year compared to last, the United States’ lack of comprehensive, timely, usable, and secure digital information is perhaps the greatest barrier to improving health and improving our ability to address a pandemic at the local, state, and national level.
It’s time to accept the reality that a lack of readily available and usable patient data is a comorbidity – and it’s beyond time to fix it.
Poor information sharing as a US comorbidity
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/ehnac-announces-finalized-2023-health-it-accreditation-criteria
EHNAC Announces Finalized 2023 Health IT Accreditation Criteria
The new health IT accreditation criteria include updates to the EHNAC ePrescribing accreditation program (ePAP-EHN).
January 03, 2023 - The Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC), a non-profit health IT standards development organization, has released new versions of program criteria for its 19 accreditation programs and 3 beta accreditation programs.
The updates by the EHNAC Criteria Committee include addressing capacity planning and utilization monitoring criteria, as well as enhancements to criteria within the EHNAC ePrescribing accreditation program (ePAP-EHN).
The new developments also include improved mapping to the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and other clarifications and grammatical enhancements.
"We are excited about the finalization of this year's criteria as these critical updates not only improve our existing programs, but also expand our accreditation offerings as we bring to the industry three new beta programs focused on Explanation of Provider Payments, CARIN Code of Conduct, and Privacy by Design," Lee Barrett, executive director and CEO of EHNAC, said in a press release.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/va-oracle-cerner-ehr-implementation-slated-to-resume-in-june
VA Oracle Cerner EHR Implementation Slated to Resume in June Despite System Issues
System outages, cost overruns, and patient safety concerns have slowed the VA Oracle Cerner EHR implementation.
January 03, 2023 - The Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) EHR implementation remains scheduled to pick up in June despite deployment challenges in 2022, according to reporting from Nextgov.
A VA spokesperson told the news outlet that "VA is currently in the process of developing an updated deployment schedule" that "will be shared once approved."
VA first implemented the Oracle Cerner EHR system in 2020 at the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane, Washington. However, system outages, cost overruns, and patient safety concerns have slowed the system's rollout across the VA's network of medical centers.
A report released in July by the VA Inspector General's office revealed that the EHR implementation at Mann-Grandstaff improperly routed over 11,000 clinical orders for veterans to an "unknown queue" without clinicians' knowledge.
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Risk Estimation Intervention Reveals Hurdles for Suicide Prevention
Research shows that the implementation of suicide risk estimation analytics did not improve existing prevention practices during routine mental health encounters.
January 03, 2023 - A mixed-methods quality improvement study published in JAMA Network Open found that using suicide risk estimation analytics did not augment existing prevention practices as intended during routine mental health specialty encounters, revealing important considerations for encounter-based identification of suicide risk.
The study noted that the development and testing of suicide risk estimation analytics models, which leverage sociodemographic and clinical characteristics to quantify risk for defined patient populations, have shown promise.
However, the researchers highlighted that there is little evidence to support the routine use of estimation models during clinical encounters. Existing efforts have focused primarily on patient outreach, such as the implementation of ReachVet, which successfully used suicide risk estimation analytics to identify at-risk veterans and address care needs within the Veterans Health Administration network.
To address this gap in the literature, the researchers designed a mixed-methods quality improvement study to describe the encounter-based implementation of suicide risk estimation analytics. The study evaluated the use of an estimation analytics tool to augment existing suicide prevention practices during routine mental health encounters at Kaiser Permanente Washington.
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/oregon-health-authority-approves-amazon-one-medical-merger
Oregon Health Authority Approves Amazon-One Medical Merger
Clearing this regulatory hurdle brings Amazon one step closer to acquiring One Medical's 188 in-person locations and virtual care technology, further expanding its healthcare footprint.
By Anuja Vaidya
January 03, 2023 - The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) has approved Amazon's plans to acquire One Medical, a virtual and in-person primary care organization, for $3.9 billion.
After conducting a 30-day preliminary review of the proposed transaction, the agency concluded that the merger is unlikely to significantly reduce access to affordable healthcare in the state.
"In the locations where One Medical operates in Oregon, patients have many other options to access similar types of services," the agency noted in an executive summary of the review. "OHA does not anticipate that this transaction will result in increased prices."
Further, the size of the merger does not warrant a "comprehensive review of the material change transaction," as One Medical only operates five clinics in the Portland metro area, and the transaction does not impact other areas in the state, the agency said.
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An AI that can "write" is feeding delusions about how smart artificial intelligence really is
GPT-3, which can converse and write compelling text, is more like a pseudo-intelligence than a real AI
Published January 1, 2023 7:30PM (EST)
The internet revolution has made many people rich, and the lure of outrageous fortune has tempted many to exaggerate what computers can do. During the dot-com bubble, many companies discovered they could double the price of their stock simply by adding .com, .net, or internet to their names. Now, we face an comparable AI bubble — in which many companies woo customers and investors by claiming to have a business model based on artificial intelligence.
While GPT-3 can string words together in convincing ways, it has no idea what the words mean.
If computers can defeat the most talented human players of chess, Go, and Jeopardy, they surely can outperform humans in any task — or so the thinking goes. That brings us to the recent hullabaloo about an AI program that can pen such compelling writing that it seems to be naturally intelligent. It's called OpenAI's GPT-3 large language model (LLM), and though the name is obscure to a layperson — GPT-3 is short for Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3, which doesn't explain much more — what it does is relatively simple: GPT-3 can engage in remarkably articulate conversations and write compelling essays, stories, and even research papers. Many people—even some computer scientists—are convinced that GPT-3 demonstrates that computers now are (or soon will be) smarter than humans. As a finance professor and statistician who has written several books on AI and data science, I find this belief fanciful.
Alas, it is an illusion—a powerful illusion, but still an illusion reminiscent of the Eliza computer program that Joseph Weizenbaum created in the 1960s. Eliza was programmed to behave like a caricature of a psychiatrist. When a "patient" entered an input, Eliza would repeat the words and/or ask a followup question ("You were unhappy as a child? Tell me more about that.").
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Ransomware gang gives decryptor to Toronto’s SickKids Hospital
January 1, 2023
In a New Year’s Eve apology, the LockBit ransomware gang has expressed regret for attacking Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and sent a free decryptor so files can be unscrambled.
According to Brett Callow, a B.C.-based threat analyst for Emsisoft, the gang posted a message on its site claiming the attack was the work of an affiliate and violated their rules.
“We formally apologize for the attack on sickkids.ca and give back the decryptor for free,” the note says. “The partner who attacked this hospital violated our rules, is blocked, and is no longer in our affiliate program.”
UPDATE: On Sunday evening (Jan. 1) SickKids issued a statement saying its third-party IT recovery advisors are assessing the decryptor. It also notes that IT restoration efforts “are progressing well … As of January 1, SickKids has already restored over 60 per cent of priority systems; restoration efforts are ongoing and progressing well. There is no evidence to date that personal information or personal health information has been impacted. SickKids has not made a ransomware payment.”
Some ransomware groups run on a ransomware-as-a-service model with so-called partners who specialize in developing — and spreading — malware for the initial compromise of a victim, leaving the ransomware developers to focus on their encryption code. The gang and the affiliate come to an agreement on splitting any payments the victims agree to make. In some models the affiliate will insert the ransomware after a compromise, and in other models the ransomware operators have the final say.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/mercy-virtual-care-center-deep-dive-virtual-hospital
Mercy Virtual Care Center: A deep dive into a virtual hospital
Health system Mercy's groundbreaking facility makes robust use of telehealth and remote patient monitoring – and has the results to prove the model's success.
By Bill Siwicki
January 03, 2023 11:30 AM
With nearly a decade of successfully running a virtual ICU and a virtual care hospital known today as Mercy Virtual Care Center, Mercy in St. Louis, Missouri, embarked on amplifying a new digital-first frontier in 2015: A new virtual care model of remote patient monitoring for patients living with complex conditions.
THE PROBLEM
"In our ambulatory virtual programs, we manage complex chronically ill patients," said Annie Bannister, RN, executive director of vEngagement at Mercy. "We follow these patients longitudinally, meaning when someone enrolls with us, we will manage them alongside their primary care physician and specialists throughout their entire care journey.
"Some of the chronic diseases being managed are CHF, COPD, diabetes and chronic kidney disease, with many patients living with two or more of those conditions," she continued. "The patients are enrolled in RPM through Mercy Virtual's patient engagement program, vEngagement – "v" for virtual."
The program was born out of a need to better manage the sickest tier of Mercy's patients. The sickest 5% of this cohort are responsible for 50-60% of expenditures. Despite this high-cost care, these patients experienced fragmented care, frequently cycling in and out of inpatient and outpatient settings.
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2023/01/03/healthcare-ai-2023-health-it-predictions/
Healthcare AI – 2023 Health IT Predictions
January 3, 2023
As we head into 2023, we wanted to kick off the new year with a series of 2023 Health IT predictions. We asked the Healthcare IT Today community to submit their predictions and we received a wide ranging set of responses that we grouped into a number of themes. Check out our communities predictions below and be sure to add your own thoughts and/or places you disagree with these predictions in the comments and on social media.
Check out our community’s healthcare AI predictions.
Evangelos
Hytopoulos, Sr. Director of Data Science at iRhythm Technologies
There is no doubt that AI has become mainstream in many areas. In medicine, AI
approaches are currently both developed and deployed at a rapid rate, fueled by
the dearth of data that already exist from different modalities (genetic, genomic,
images, EHR, etc.), as well as the continuous streams of data that are provided
by wearables.
The majority of models today are based on supervised learning, where labels are combined with measurements to teach an algorithm to predict unseen data. However, it takes a lot of effort to create a labeled data set and as a result, usually only a subset of the data can be labeled – thus limiting the learning capacity of the current models. In upcoming years, we can expect to see AI approaches that are based on the use of self-supervised and generative AI algorithms in order to facilitate the incorporation of a larger volume of data in model training. Supervised learning is capable of learning important features of the underlying measurements that are a richer representation of the data.
The advantage of generative algorithms is the creation of synthetic data – labels coming from a different signal domain and the important features are learned from the domain of interest. In both cases, proper validation will be required to prove the validity of the algorithms and the lack of any bias in its predictions.
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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/telehealth/one-more-time-telehealths-top-5-stories-2022
One More Time: Telehealth's Top 5 Stories of 2022
Analysis | By John Commins | January 03, 2023
We're taking one final look at HealthLeaders' most-popular Telehealth stories over the past 12 months.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· New Study Finds Telehealth Outperforms In-Person Care in HEDIS Measures.
· UnitedHealthcare Sees 2.5K% Increase in Telehealth Usage.
· OIG Audit Backs Medicare Telehealth Integrity.
· House OKs Extension of Medicare Telehealth Flexibilities Through 2024.
· Vermont Amends Assisted Suicide Law to Include Telemedicine.
New Study Finds Telehealth Outperforms In-Person Care in HEDIS Measures
New research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) finds that telehealth was superior to in-person care in 11 of 16 quality performance measures for primary care.
The study, conducted by researchers at the Robert Graham Center in Washington DC and Pennsylvania-based Wellspan Health, focused on more than 526,000 patients receiving healthcare services at roughly 200 Wellspan Health outpatient sites between March 1, 2020, and November 30, 2021, and used HEDIS (Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set) measurements.
UnitedHealthcare Sees 2.5K% Increase in Telehealth Usage
UnitedHealthcare Inc. members logged more than 28 million virtual care visits in 2021, a 2,500% increase over pre-pandemic usage, the payer says.
"While the COVID-19 pandemic triggered an unprecedented spike in the number of virtual care visits, we are seeing that telehealth has staying power even as many people have returned to in-person appointments," UnitedHealthcare CMO Donna O'Shea, MD, tells HealthLeaders.
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Top Healthcare IT Today Resources, Articles, Videos, and Podcasts
January 2, 2023
As we kick off a new year, I thought it would be fun to take a quick look back at some of the top resources, articles, videos, and podcasts we shared in 2022. I find it fascinating to see what resonated with people. Plus, no doubt you’ll find something interesting that you missed.
Most Visited Healthcare IT Resource Pages
These resources are a lot of work to create and update, but we know that you all love them since you visit them a lot. Check out our top resource pages.
Most Visited Healthcare IT Today Articles Published in 2022
- Fujitsu fi-8170 Scanner Review for Healthcare Organizations – People seem to love the product reviews we do. We’ll be doing more of them in 2023
- Balancing Budget and Need for Updates: The Struggles of Keeping Physician Practices Alive – The struggle is real. Not sure why this article did so well, but maybe because so many are struggling and looking for some ideas and hope.
- HIMSS 2022 Announcements and Solutions – While HIMSS is facing some really interesting competition, the Healthcare IT Today community still wanted to know what was happening at HIMSS.
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2022/12/31/weekly-roundup-december-31-2022/
Weekly Roundup – December 31, 2022
December 31, 2022
Welcome to our Healthcare IT Today Weekly Roundup. Each week, we’ll be providing a look back at the articles we posted and why they’re important to the healthcare IT community. We hope this gives you a chance to catch up on anything you may have missed during the week.
Measuring Indoor Air Ventilation on a Massive Scale. One of the biggest challenges of public health is measuring proxies for health (such as air quality or wastewater contents) without being obtrusive. Andy Oram spoke to Sam Molyneux at Poppy Health about their promising technology to measure air circulation in enclosed spaces through devices that are inexpensive and easy to deploy. Read more…
Patient Centricity Can Drive Digital Transformation. It’s no secret that healthcare has shifted to digital experiences. John Lynn asked members of the Healthcare IT Community to share their thoughts on how digital transformation enables more personalized care, whether through a digital-first experience or through back-office process automation that gives clinicians more time with patients. Read more…
More Providers Are Charging Patients for Portal Messages. Anne Zieger highlighted the trend of Chicago-area hospitals charging a fee for patient portal responses about new symptoms or new prescriptions. Fees top out at $35 – much less with insurance, though – and to date only represent 1% of all portal messages. Read more…
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Consumers Favor Digital Health, But Only Through One Platform
Analysis | By Eric Wicklund | December 29, 2022
A new survey by PYMNTS and Lynx finds that consumers are very interested in accessing and managing their healthcare and insurance services via digital health, but they don't want to use several different portals or apps to get there.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· Roughly four of every five consumers surveyed want to use a unified digital platform to manage information about their healthcare and insurance benefits.
· Half of those consumers have experienced problems accessing healthcare insurance or services.
· Those who have used digital health platforms say the technology saves time and improves access to care and benefits, while also imprvoing their knowledge of what they can access and use.
The key to consumer digital health adoption is ease of use, whether it's for clinical care or paying for that care.
That's the take-away from Healthcare In The Digital Age: Consumers See Unified Platforms as Key To Better Health, a survey of more than 2,500 consumers by PYMNTS and financial technology company Lynx. It found that roughly 80% of those surveyed want to use a digital health platform to manage both care and insurance benefits, but half have had problems accessing what they want. With that in mind, about 80% want that access to come on a single digital platform.
"The synergy of one unified platform is clear," the report states. "Better access to information about insurance coverage, medical care, and financial details — when combined with improved information about providers, prescription medications, and pharmacy benefits as well as upgraded channels to share information with providers — can ultimately help consumers manage all tasks related to their care and well-being as well as facilitate coordination among insurers, financial services providers, care providers, and pharmacies."
Consumers have been demanding more digital health options for years, based on the success they've had with these platforms in the travel, hospitality, and retail industries. And while the healthcare industry has acknowledged the need to move toward consumer-directed healthcare, the transition has been slow and often painful.
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Enjoy!
David.
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