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Health IT passes first big test with Hurricane Harvey
09/01/2017 10:00 AM EDT
Policymakers and health care providers can celebrate one quiet success in the wake of the Houston storm: the computers are still running.
The preservation of patient health records represents a partial vindication for the HITECH Act, the 2009 EHR stimulus package that was conceived, in part, as a way to ameliorate natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina by replacing waterlogged paper with modern technology.
Now comes the hard part: using IT to manage the health of patients whose lives will be disrupted and scattered by the storm.
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In a precision medicine landmark, FDA approves first gene therapy
Kymriah offers a fundamentally new approach to treating acute lymphoblastic leukemia in children and young adults. Now IT departments gear up for a new era.
August 31, 2017 01:05 PM
There are significant IT hurdles to overcome for widespread and efficient use of personalized medicine in the future and IT shops need to start planning for it.
Calling the move "historic," the Food and Drug Administration announced approval August 30 for the first gene therapy in the U.S.
It’s a gene therapy that hospital CIOs and IT shops, particularly those working on precision medicine initiatives, would be smart to watch since experts are already saying it is a fundamental turning point that holds promise to transform the practice of medicine.
Here’s what healthcare executives and technologists should know.
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Medical professionals catching blockchain fever
Few industries if any have embraced the Industry 4.0 era with as much zeal as healthcare. Recent years have seen modern hospitals take giant strides toward future-proofing their operations.
But in many cases, clinics are realizing that it is vital to go beyond simply modernizing equipment and investing in R&D. True industry 4.0 readiness requires the implementation of revolutionary new procedure models – and some are wondering if blockchain technology can provide precisely that.
Digital healthcare may sound like a fancy buzzword, but governments and health authorities around the world are very serious about implementing it. They see effective healthcare digitization as a long-term cost-saving, efficiency boosting strategy.
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HIT Think How blockchain could help boost healthcare security
Published September 01 2017, 2:14pm EDT
If we were to make a word-cloud of buzzwords, I have little doubt that blockchain would be represented by a very large font. Despite the potential risks and unknowns around blockchain, there does appear to be some incredibly exciting and useful implementations around this kind of technology across many industries, especially for healthcare.
Blockchain refers to a digital method of making, recording and validating transactions of virtually any kind. The technology significantly reduces the risk of fraud because it is completely transparent. The blockchain itself is like an endless digital receipt of transactions that can be used to prove that an event occurred, or that a record exists.
Blockchain technology has the potential to provide a positive influence on securing transactions associated with electronic medical records and helping to reduce fraud in healthcare.
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Industry coalition finalizes clinical decision support guidelines aimed at self-regulation
Sep 1, 2017 8:25am
Finalized guidelines from the CDS Coalition provide a baseline for self-regulating machine learning technology.
A coalition of organizations interested in making or using clinical decision support software has finalized voluntary guidelines aimed at self-regulating new technology that uses data and machine learning to assist physicians with more accurate diagnoses.
The Clinical Decision Support Coalition, led by Bradley Merrill Thompson, a medical device attorney with Epstein Becker Green, finalized draft guidelines for CDS software released in May after reviewing public comments. Although the group made several tweaks based on the comments they received, the primary emphasis of the guidelines remained focused on ensuring CDS software is transparent, is intended for a competent user—like a primary care physician or a specialist—and provides sufficient time for the user to reflect on the recommendations.
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Telemedicine fills the gap for care in the wake of Harvey
Published September 01 2017, 1:51pm EDT
With flood waters finally receding in southeastern Texas, medical services are still heavily disrupted, especially for patients seeking essential medical care.
Tens of thousands of Houston area residents remain displaced, with homes heavily damaged by flood waters. Similarly, the offices of primary care physicians have been damaged in the area. In these cases, telemedicine services are stepping into the void.
Companies that offer distant health services are seizing the opportunity to meet the need, with several companies offering virtual care services by phone or video to individuals affected by the storm.
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DirectTrust, CHIME team up to tout standard HIE
Published August 31 2017, 7:11am EDT
The College of Health Information Management Executives has teamed up with DirectTrust, a non-profit trade alliance, to promote universal deployment of the DirectTrust network among providers and payers.
“Our members strongly support the further development of a standards-based national platform to safely and securely exchange patient data,” says Russell Branzell, president and CEO at CHIME, a professional association representing CIOs and other healthcare IT executives.
“DirectTrust offers an infrastructure that goes hand-in-hand with our goals to assist and lead where needed to improve patient care, engage patients in their health and reduce patient safety incidents,” he adds.
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Machine learning’s impact on clinical trials
DHI Admin
29 August 2017
Machine learning is starting to show its potential in multiple fields. According to Gareth Baxendale, head of technology for the NIHR Clinical Research Network, clinical trials are no exception.
Could machine learning be used to enhance or improve the success of a clinical trial? There is much excitement around machine learning and the opportunities it can provide, and it’s already beginning to permeate every area of our digital life. In fact, you’re likely to make use of machine learning almost every day without even knowing it.
For example, Amazon’s Echo and Apple’s Siri use machine learning for speech recognition. Google’s image search, meanwhile, uses machine learning to ‘understand’ the components that make up a picture. It does a pretty good job too, spawning the meme ‘Chihuahua or blueberry muffin?’ Feel free to Google it.
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Cambridge’s MyChart patient portal has 300+ users
Laura Stevens
25 August 2017
One of the only patient portals in the UK that is directly integrated with an electronic patient record (EPR) has more than 300 active users.
Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s MyChart patient portal allows patients limited access to their health record on its Epic EPR.
Patients are able to view upcoming appointments, test results, medications, clinical correspondence, vital signs, demographic details, allergies and past appointment details.
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Wait times down, patient portal use up at practices
Aug 31, 2017 11:29am
Patients don't have to wait as long to get into the exam room during office visits.
Patients aren’t waiting as long to hear the words, “The doctor will see you now.”
In what is good news for both patients and practices, the average wait times for physician visits are down five minutes from last year to an average of only 20 minutes between the waiting area and the exam room. And at hospital-owned practices, the news is even better with an average wait time of 17 minutes, according to a survey by the Medical Group Management Association.
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EHRs at Houston hospitals remain resilient against Hurricane Harvey
Published August 29 2017, 7:19am EDT
Hurricane Harvey has dealt a tremendous blow to the residents of Houston. But for the most part, area hospitals have continued operating despite the threat of encroaching flood waters.
Houston Methodist in the Texas Medical Center took to Twitter on Sunday to dispel a rumor that it was flooding. However, on Monday, the organization also announced that elective surgeries for all its locations were cancelled through Wednesday.
Likewise, MD Anderson Cancer Center locations remained closed on Monday for outpatient services and appointments because of severe weather, while its inpatient hospital care areas were open.
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HHS Reviews HIPAA Rules Following Hurricane Harvey
Hurricane Harvey’s impact prompted HHS to release a bulletin reminding providers of HIPAA rules and how they apply in emergencies.
August 30, 2017 - Healthcare providers can face numerous challenges during natural disasters, including adhering to HIPAA rules while working to provide proper patient care through an emergency. HHS recently released a bulletin to help guide covered entities through declared emergencies, such as the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in August 2017.
The Privacy Rule specifies that patient information can be shared in disaster relief efforts and to help ensure patients receive necessary care, according to the bulletin. However, the Privacy Rule “is not suspended during a public health or other emergency,” HHS added. Instead, “the Secretary of HHS may waive certain provisions of the Privacy Rule under the Project Bioshield Act of 2004 (PL 108-276) and section 1135(b)(7) of the Social Security Act.”
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HIT Think Healthcare industry must address IoT security in its planning
Published August 31 2017, 4:18pm EDT
The internet of Things has unlocked a significant source of benefits within the healthcare industry through applications that touch nearly every aspect of daily care for patients. The IoT is being used to keep even the smallest of patients safe and healthy, while others in healthcare are using it to keep track of inventory, manage schedules, track patient history and provide necessary references.
However, some observers of healthcare IT are cautious about IoT, worried about the possibility of security breakdowns because there are so many devices connected to patients. Still, there’s significant potential for these devices to assist the healthcare industry in improving customer service, daily operations and the overall bottom line.
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Houston experience shows value of planning for disasters
Published August 30 2017, 6:52am EDT
Hospital IT executives would be wise to prepare for the kind of flooding that has devastated Houston this week, particularly carefully considering the location of their servers, according to Andrew Gettinger, MD, chief medical information officer in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.
Gettinger points out that floods resulting from Hurricane Sandy in 2012 were a stark reminder that the location of organizations’ data centers can lead to catastrophic consequences.
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Medical infrastructure continuity is goal of Houston command center
Published August 30 2017, 7:14am EDT
As Houston’s hospitals continue to struggle with operational challenges in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, a command center is helping with disaster response coordination to support the resource needs of these facilities.
Established by the Southeast Texas Regional Advisory Council, the mission of the Catastrophic Medical Operations Center (CMOC) is to ensure the continuity of healthcare infrastructure and that the care needs of the region are being met.
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What's next for health information exchanges?
With many community-based HIEs establishing sustainable business models, here’s a look at how the next generation of exchanges are starting to take shape.
August 29, 2017 01:56 PM
Health information exchanges have for years been plagued by the looming question: Is HIE as a business model actually sustainable? And while few argue that they have faced challenges to basic survival, experts are now saying that many HIEs have grown strong roots. Some are even thriving.
“HIEs are alive and well and we’re moving forward to support our communities,” said Dick Thompson, chairman of the Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative, which counts 55 HIEs as members. “The exchanges have begun to readily identify value and they are monetizing that value to sustain themselves.”
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EHR vendors, provider groups want more details on the definition of information blocking
Aug 30, 2017 11:27am
Providers and EHR vendors want more information from federal agencies on the nuances of information blocking.
A group of health IT and provider organizations want federal officials to issue a proposed rule clarifying the definition of information blocking and the subsequent approach from enforcement officials.
Led by Health IT Now, the group of 13 stakeholders, including the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) and several prominent EHR vendors, recommended that the Department of Health and Human Services clarify its definition of information blocking, which is prohibited under the 21st Century Cures Act.
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How one health system makes work life easier for its doctors and advanced practice providers
Aug 30, 2017 10:39am
Multicare Health System set up a program to look for ways to make work more efficient for doctors and other providers.
Want to know how you can make work life easier for doctors? Consider the findings of one health system that had consultants shadow physicians to come up with ways to make their work more efficient.
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August 30, 2017 / 2:00 AM / a day ago
Abbott releases new round of cyber updates for St. Jude pacemakers
NEW YORK, Aug 29 (Reuters) - Abbott Laboratories said on Tuesday it will issue updates to reduce the risk of its St. Jude heart implants being hacked and to warn patients that the devices’ batteries may run down earlier than expected.
It is the second round of updates for the heart implants that Abbott has announced since buying medical device maker St. Jude Medical earlier this year.
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3 Best Practices for Balancing EHR Use and Patient Engagement
Healthcare professionals must reconcile the challenges with EHR use and improving patient engagement rates and patient-provider communication.
August 29, 2017 - Healthcare professionals have been challenged with balancing EHR use and patient engagement during the clinical encounter as technology has evolved over the past 20 years.
Providers face significant regulatory requirements for EHR use and reporting and now have to document patient charts on their computers. With the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs, money is on the line.
But the focus on clinician EHR use does not erase the need to create a positive patient experience. Instead, it creates more challenges.
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Artificial intelligence cyber attacks are coming – but what does that mean?
August 28, 2017 12.46pm AEST
Author Jeremy Straub
Assistant Professor of Computer Science, North Dakota State University
The next major cyberattack could involve artificial intelligence systems. It could even happen soon: At a recent cybersecurity conference, 62 industry professionals, out of the 100 questioned, said they thought the first AI-enhanced cyberattack could come in the next 12 months.
This doesn’t mean robots will be marching down Main Street. Rather, artificial intelligence will make existing cyberattack efforts – things like identity theft, denial-of-service attacks and password cracking – more powerful and more efficient. This is dangerous enough – this type of hacking can steal money, cause emotional harm and even injure or kill people. Larger attacks can cut power to hundreds of thousands of people, shut down hospitals and even affect national security.
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Medical identity theft a growing threat
Hackers getting more sophisticated all the time - 'It's like warfare'
Whether it’s an Internet hacker stealing Social Security numbers from hospital records, a doctor’s office employee using patient data to set up phony store accounts, or an organized criminal group seeking to ransom patient information, medical identity theft is a growing crime.
Hospitals, major insurance companies and even the Veterans Administration have been targets.
That’s because medical records contain a wealth of personal and financial information, from Social Security numbers and birth dates to credit card and bank account numbers, making them invaluable to thieves looking to commit fraud, experts say.
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When malware strikes: How Nuance avoided disaster after falling victim to Petya
The wiper malware wreaked havoc across the globe in June, but Nuance managed to keep its operations afloat by putting customer needs first.
August 28, 2017 03:56 PM
Just as companies were beginning to recover from May’s massive WannaCry campaign that shut down over 300,000 devices in 150 countries, Petya wiper malware struck the world on June 27 and proved to be even more damning than the last attack.
Unlike WannaCry, Petya masked itself as ransomware to hide its true directive: to wipe systems and drives. Included in Petya’s 2,000 victims from 64 countries was Nuance Communications, a leading voice and language tool provider with a long list of healthcare clients.
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Digital divide widening in hospital EHR deployments, report says
Small, rural and safety-net organizations could do better using their IT systems for performance management and patient engagement, new JAMIA study shows.
August 28, 2017 01:18 PM
While 80.5 percent of hospitals have installed at least a basic EHR system, researchers said that just 37.5 percent of hospitals have adopted at least eight of 10 components measuring EHR use for performance measurement.
Meaningful use has done its job: More than 96 percent of U.S. hospitals are by now using certified electronic health records, according to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT. But are they all using them to their fullest potential?
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Researchers find ‘major weaknesses’ in current guidelines on emailing with patients
Aug 29, 2017 10:48am
Current guidelines on using email or secure messaging to communicate with patients are outdated and lack evidence.
Computers and smartphones have changed the way physicians communicate with patients, but industry guidelines overseeing that communication has not kept pace, according to a group of researchers at Indiana University.
An analysis of 11 guidelines covering eletronic communication between physicians and patients found “major weaknesses,” including outdated recommendations, a lack of evidence to support the guidelines and almost no focus on how to use new tools to communicate with patient effectively. Researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine’s Regenstrief Institute published their findings in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.
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In a B2B world, digital health startups thrive on targeted engagement, successful pilots
Aug 29, 2017 11:51am
Digital health startups are pivoting to a B2B model that requires collaboration with providers and payers—and plenty of patience.
Even if they started out with a consumer-facing product, digital health startups increasingly find themselves selling to health systems, payers and pharmaceutical companies.
That business-to-business model is rife with its own pitfalls that require greater patience, a more acute understanding of the industry’s needs and a willingness to engage in pilot projects, even before a product is off the ground.
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Pew Calls for ONC to Prioritize Patient Matching, Data Standardization
August 28, 2017
by Heather Landi
The Pew Charitable Trusts wrote to National Coordinator for Health Information Technology Don Rucker, M.D., asking ONC to prioritize two critical aspects of interoperability – patient matching and data standards – as ONC develops a trusted exchange framework to improve the sharing of health data.
In a letter to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), the Pew Charitable Trusts urged ONC leaders, as they develop the trusted exchange framework, as required by the 21st Century Cures Act passed into law last year, to address patient matching and challenges with data standardization.
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HIT Think 4 keys to better defend healthcare data against ransomware
Published August 29 2017, 4:30pm EDT
Healthcare IT is moving to the cloud; unfortunately, so are opportunistic hackers.
In fact, healthcare cybercrime has become so common that its costs exceed the global healthcare cloud computing market's value. In the past five years, cyberattacks against hospitals have more than doubled, costing the U.S. health system $6 billion annually. Industry researcher MarketsandMarkets valued the world's healthcare cloud computing sector at $3.73 billion in 2015, which it expects to approach $9.5 billion by 2020.
But costs are hardly the only concern. Cloud attacks like the WannaCry ransomware that infiltrated U.K. hospitals this May put patients' lives at risk. Once inside a system, viruses wreak havoc, blocking patient records and infecting other connected devices.
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Data Analytics Helped Mercy Slash $4.3M in Nursing Costs
Alexandra Wilson Pecci, August 28, 2017
Combining data from the hospital's existing SaaS scheduling application with predictive analytics is helping schedulers identify and stop nurse leakage.
At Saint Louis-based health system Mercy, like most other hospitals and health systems, nursing labor is one of the top expenses.
According to Curtis Dudley, vice president of Mercy's integrated performance solutions, that number tops $800 million annually.
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Surviving Hurricane Harvey: How to avoid a disastrous recovery
Published August 25 2017, 4:17pm EDT
As Hurricane Harvey takes aim at the Texas coast today, IT departments at organizations in the storm's path are bracing for the worst.
It is expected that the storm could reach Level 3 in intensity by landfall. But the high winds are only part of the problem. The greatest destruction can come with the flooding that accompanies the storm.
Harvey will soon put to the test the disaster recovery plans that coastal Texas companies have made. But the storm also serves as a reminder to organizations for the need of strong backup and recovery plans at all times. A crisis or emergency rarely gives advance warning.
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Deloitte, PwC lead KLAS rankings of global health IT consulting firms
U.S. providers can learn from this KLAS study by seeing how well firms they could use stack up against one another when it comes to professional perception.
August 25, 2017 10:08 AM
Deloitte and PwC headline lead a newly released list of firms that non-U.S. provider organizations are considering for health IT consulting work, according to new rankings from Klas. Deloitte is widely considered for their advisory and implementation work while PwC is looked at almost exclusively for IT advisory engagements, the report said.
KLAS said the report is its first-ever study on consulting firms for providers outside the U.S., highlighting how 89 healthcare IT consulting firms are perceived by 90 provider organizations abroad.
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In East Africa, drones deliver critical medical supplies. What’s holding the U.S. back?
Aug 28, 2017 12:17pm
Several countries in East Africa are using drones to deliver medical supplies to people in remote areas, far surpassing medical drone usage in countries like the U.S. that have a more robust infrastructure and more resources.
Tanzania and Rwanda have partnered with a California company to quickly transport units of blood and medical supplies, according to RealClear Health. In Rwanda the drones have covered more than 62,000 miles and delivered 2,600 units of blood since October.
But Robert Graboyes, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University writes that Federal Aviation Administration restrictions limit that potential in America despite the fact that many rural parts of the country could benefit from the use of drones.
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Why cardiology provides an interesting challenge for digital health innovation
Aug 28, 2017 11:32am
The American College of Cardiology's chief innovation officer says there's a lot of hype about using AI to treat heart attacks and strokes.
For many specialties, health technology provides a way to improve access to care or enhance treatment while a patient is in the office.
The unique challenge of emergency cardiac care is that it greatly benefits from improved foresight. It’s an exciting opportunity for digital health to fill the void, but that has yet to fully materialize, according to John Rumsfeld, M.D., chief innovation officer with the American College of Cardiology.
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How 18 industries rank on cybersecurity
Government was ranked third from last in a ranking of 18 major industries based on cybersecurity practices, according to the 2017 U.S. State and Federal Government Cybersecurity Report.
For the report, Security Scorecard analyzed more than 500 federal, state and local government agencies and compared the combined group to 17 other industries on 10 security risk categories: web applications; network security; leaked credentials; hacker chatter; social engineering; exposed administrative portals; Domain Name System health; patching cadence; endpoint security; and malware presence.
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HIT Think Why disaster recovery is never just a drill
Published August 28 2017, 4:05pm EDT
Many years ago, I worked from a 30-story office building along Wacker Drive in downtown Chicago. We were a short stroll away from the Sears Tower (now called the Willis Tower).
Every year, there would be an annual fire drill, no doubt needed to meet insurance and Chicago Fire Department requirements. We’d see the posted notices in the lobby and next to the elevator doors, announcing the time. Once in our offices, a manager would let us know what we were going to do.
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Enjoy!
David.
