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.
14 January 2020.
The boundaries of digital health were decidedly blurred at CES 2020 in Las Vegas last week, with almost every technology category imaginable offering hyper-connected IoT sensors, devices and services promising to help improve some aspect of people’s health and wellness.
A diverse array of start-ups big and small, established big consumer brands such as Amazon and Apple, Proctor and Gamble and Johnson and Johnson, were demonstrating their parts of this digital health ‘eco-system of eco-systems’, the fastest growing segment of the giant tech show.
Amazon, for instance, has partnered with Mayo Clinic to include all its patient guide content on Alexa voice services. Facebook was also talking about its new preventative health tool, which prompts users to get health tests.
The Electronic Palliative and Care Co-ordination System (EPaCCS) provides a ‘single source of truth’ record for important end of life information for patients in Somerset.
Using a pre-defined workflow, EPaCCS enables GPs and other care professionals – including district nurses, out-of-hours services and palliative care professionals – to create plans in under a minute using pre-populated information from the patient’s GP record.
Once created, any care professional involved in the patient’s direct care can view and update the EPaCCS record.
Roughly 40 percent of individuals will be diagnosed with cancer throughout their lives. With this diagnosis, patients are in constant contact with their health system, leading to an increase in health information consumption.
Using data from the National Cancer Institute’s Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS), it’s clear that patients do not utilize these tools enough, regardless of a past or present cancer diagnosis. Specifically, the results show that patients with cancer are underutilizing their available online medical records and missing out on valuable information.
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FDA issues cyber warning about devices displaying patient info
January 23, 2020, 10:41 p.m. EST
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday warned providers and patients about cybersecurity vulnerabilities for certain GE Healthcare Clinical Information Central Stations and Telemetry Servers.
The FDA’s
safety communication notes that “these devices are used mostly in healthcare facilities for displaying information, such as the physiologic parameters of a patient (such as temperature, heartbeat, blood pressure), and monitoring patient status from a central location in a facility, such as a nurse’s workstation.”
Although the FDA said it is not aware of any confirmed adverse events related to the vulnerabilities, the agency warned that risks to patients may be introduced while they are being monitored.
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Yale experts offer strategies for successful clinical AI rollouts
As regulatory oversight for predictive decision support evolves, certain best practices can help health systems get the most from machine learning-powered CDS models.
January 23, 2020 02:07 PM
At HIMSS20 this March, two clinicians from Yale School of Medicine will offer their perspective and advice for safe and effective implementation of artificial intelligence-powered clinical decision support.
In Orlando, Dr. Wade L. Schulz, director of informatics at Yale School of Medicine, and Dr. Harlan Krumholz, a cardiologist and researcher at Yale University and Yale-New Haven Hospital, will offer an overview of the shifting regulatory landscape for AI and machine learning algorithms in the clinical setting – and suggest some best practices for hospitals hoping to harness these technologies as the rules governing them evolve.
Decision support tools are being changed fundamentally by AI and ML, with new predictive algorithms built from real-world electronic health record and imaging data changing the calculus for how care choices are made.
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Epic pushes out software update to help spot coronavirus
In addition to the new questionnaire alert, the company says is reaching out individually to organizations to ensure they have EHR workflows that follow CDC guidelines.
January 24, 2020 12:12 PM
Epic this week sent out an update to its healthcare customers, meant to help providers nationwide detect potential cases of the Wuhan novel coronavirus, or 2019-nCoV.
WHY IT MATTERS
If patients say they have traveled from China, or show symptoms consistent with Wuhan novel coronavirus, providers are now advised to start isolation precautions to help contain potential infection.
Epic says this new update was developed in collaboration with biocontainment experts, infectious disease physicians and others with guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
Early this week, the Epic Travel and Communicable Disease Advisory Board, which comprises of infectious disease clinicians practicing at healthcare organizations using Epic, started discussing updates to the travel screening in Epic to detect possible cases of 2019-nCoV.
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Report IDs $40.6B in potential savings on healthcare admin transactions
Huge amounts of money could be saved by transitioning from manual and partially electronic processing to fully electronic processing.
Spending on healthcare administrative transactions, like prior authorizations, claim submissions, and claim status inquiries, can be staggering, racking up costs to the tune of $40.6 billion per year, according to the new
CAQH Index .
CAQH is a non-profit alliance of health plans and trade associations focused on the business of healthcare.
It shows that of the $350 billion spent on administrative complexity, $40.6 billion or 12% of it, is associated with conducting administrative transactions.
However, huge amounts of money could be saved by transitioning from manual and partially electronic processing to fully electronic processing. In fact, the CAQH Index says that doing so would save $13.3 billion or 33% of the existing annual spending on administrative transactions.
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New Method Determines Accuracy of Predictive Risk Models
The technique can help providers assess whether a predictive risk model’s results can be trusted for a given patient.
January 23, 2020 - A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
has developed a method that determines the accuracy of predictive risk models, helping clinicians to choose better treatments for their patients.
When patients have a heart attack or stroke, providers often use risk models to determine the best treatments. These models can calculate a patient’s risk of dying based on elements such as the patient’s age, symptoms, and other factors. Although these models are useful, they often fail to make accurate predictions for many patients. This can result in clinicians choosing ineffective or risky treatments for some patients.
Together with researchers at the MIT-IBM AI Lab and the University of Massachusetts Medical School, MIT researchers built a method that can determine whether a particular model’s results can be trusted for a given patient.
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Babylon Health is building an integrated, AI-based health app to serve a city of 300K in England
After announcing a
$550 million fundraise last August, U.K. AI-based health services startup
Babylon Health is putting some of that money to use with its widest-ranging project to date. The company has inked a 10-year deal with the city of Wolverhampton in England to provide an integrated health app covering 300,000 people, the entire population of the city.
The financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed, but Babylon confirmed that the NHS is not taking a stake in the startup as part of it. The plan is to start rolling out the first phase of the app by the end of this year.
Babylon Health is known for building AI-based platforms that help diagnose patients’ issues. Babylon’s services are provided as a complement to seeing actual clinicians — the idea being that the interactions and AI can speed up some of the work of getting people seen and into the system. Some of Babylon’s best known work to date has been a chatbot that it built for the NHS in the U.K., and, in addition to working with a number of private businesses on their employee healthcare services, it is also now in the process of rolling out services in 11 countries in Asia. (In August, Babylon said it was delivering 4,000 clinical consultations each day, or one patient interaction every 10 seconds; covering 4.3 million people worldwide; with more than 1.2 million digital consultations completed to date.)
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AI-based voice analysis app monitors mentally ill patients
January 22, 2020, 11:57 p.m. EST
An interactive voice application that leverages artificial intelligence is able to track the clinical state of patients with serious mental illness by analyzing their speech samples.
The app, called MyCoachConnect, was part of a study that monitored 47 people being treated by physicians for conditions such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and major depressive disorder.
According to results of the study, published last week in the
journal PLOS One , the app’s analysis was effective and comparable to physician tracking of the well-being of the patients in an outpatient, community-based clinical setting.
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Project makes early progress in trying to standardize SDOH data
January 23, 2020, 12:05 a.m. EST
As the healthcare industry looks to electronically capture, use and exchange social determinants of health data, an effort is underway to standardize medical codes to leverage SDOH information across care settings.
The Gravity Project, which held its kickoff meeting last May, is a multi-stakeholder initiative whose goal is the standardization of key data elements necessary for documenting and sharing SDOH-related screening, diagnosis and treatment information using modern coding and exchange standards.
“We are identifying data definitions and addressing coding gaps,” says Evelyn Gallego, founder and CEO of consultancy EMI Advisors, who serves as the program manager of the Gravity Project, which is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and led by the Social Interventions Research and Evaluation Network (SIREN) at the University of California, San Francisco.
According to Gallego, the problem with current medical terminology standards is that they do not have the capacity to effectively capture, use and exchange the necessary data.
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HIT Think
How EHRs might put some guardrails around human nature
January 23, 2020, 3:43 p.m. EST
Because we have big brains and have been to the moon and have invented remarkably complex stuff, the idea persists that human beings are inherently rational. This idea is both untrue and ironic.
Rational beings, by definition, would make decisions based on proven, reliable data and learned reason. Most of the time, human beings use impulses, moods, emotions and urges to make decisions, all the while believing they are the reincarnation of Socrates himself.
But is this a bad thing?
Many researchers argue that, no, it is not a bad thing to be what we are. Trying to constantly think rationally and calculate data would be time consuming, constraining and, perhaps most importantly, would rob humans of the tremendous power to make learned instinctual decisions.
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Healthcare venture investment in 2020: Quantum computing gets a closer look
Artificial intelligence will also continue to be a big focus, as it becomes more clear which startups are succeeding in their initial target sectors. VCs are also eyeing genomics analytics tools, as well as other more practical technologies.
January 23, 2020 10:57 AM
Among the healthcare technologies venture firms be looking at most closely at in 2020, various artificial intelligence and machine learning applications are atop this list, of course. But so are more nuts-and-bolts tools like administrative process automation and patient engagement platforms, VCs say.
Other, more leading-edge technologies – genomics-focused data and analytics, and even quantum computing – are among the areas attracting investor interest this year.
"We expect 2020 to mark the first year where health IT venture firms will start to look at quantum computing technology for upcoming solutions," Dr. Anis Uzzaman, CEO and general partner of Pegasus Tech Ventures, told Healthcare IT News.
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Health IT 2020: Patient engagement, human-centered tech, interoperability
The chief medical officer and co-founder at patient engagement tech vendor Luma Health provides a view of what provider organizations can expect in the year ahead.
January 23, 2020 11:47 AM
The beginning of this new year sees keen healthcare industry observers looking forward to get a handle on what health IT will bring in the months ahead.
Healthcare IT News asked Dr. Tashfeen Ekram, chief medical officer and co-founder at patient engagement technology vendor Luma Health, to offer his observations on health IT for provider organizations in 2020. He answered by pointing to patient engagement technologies; human-centered, EHR-integrated systems; and the ever-present interoperability.
Patient engagement tech attacks costs
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True or False: Your Patients’ Health Data Is Protected by Privacy Rights?
January 23, 2020
The following is a guest article by Deborah Hsieh, Chief Policy & Strategy Officer at Ciox .
When most of your patients hear “health data rights,” they likely think of HIPAA, or the long forms they rarely read in their doctors’ offices. What they may take for granted is the protections for health data that covered entities must provide.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was passed in 1996 and is the framework on which health data protection has been constructed. The initial intent of the Act was to support the continuation of health insurance coverage and to ensure the security and confidentiality of patient information/data. The regulation fundamentally acknowledged the value of health data and the need for protections.
Where do health privacy rights start and end?
Despite the almost quarter-century that has passed since HIPAA was first enacted, there is relatively limited awareness of health privacy rights beyond compliance and legal experts. News of Google and Ascension’s partnership in November surprised the general public, including legislators, and perhaps exposed that limited awareness. One element many individuals are unfamiliar with is that the same health data that is protected when held by a covered entity – a healthcare provider, healthcare payer or business associate of one of those parties – is not protected if it is held by anyone else.
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Healthcare CIOs See Superior Tech Support As A Must-Have
January 23, 2020
For many healthcare organizations, software vendor tech support is a necessary evil. Sure, some readers of this site may have a great working relationship with their vendors’ tech support department, too many others are usually on the verge of collapse.
This lack of support is freaking out front-line users. In fact, according to a newly-released
survey conducted by Black Book Research, 84% of non-IT workers have had it with what they see as lousy technical service and basic software account support from their current EHR and HIT vendors.
I’m not surprised by this statistic. While the reasons may vary, from that I’ve seen, many of you feel that your software vendor isn’t great at customer service or isn’t completely honest about what’s going on with their products.
However, according to Black Book, this era of negative feelings may be coming to an end. The research organization recently surveyed 2,448 EHR and HIT clients to get their sense of how their vendor-customer relationship was working.
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15 ways Silicon Valley is harnessing Big Data for health
From asthma inhalers to blood-pressure monitors, companies with high-tech approaches are amassing and analyzing giant new data sources.
For many years, the biggest players in big data in healthcare were hospitals and insurers. Electronic health records (EHRs) harbor data of great value to research and clinical practice. And in the USA alone, there are more than 900 insurance companies offering medical coverage, all of which hold reams of real-world health-related claims data. But data can also be sourced from less likely places such as mobile phones, tablets and wearables.
Globally, healthcare is seeing a surge of interest in the use of big data in healthcare, and Silicon Valley is no exception. Just this past November, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, paid US$2.1 billion to acquire FitBit, for example. Here we present 15 ways Silicon Valley is harnessing big data in health.
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Google Pushes ‘Sensible’ Ideas for How to Regulate AI
Tech firms, lobbyists are pushing their vision for tech regulation as EU readies several proposals; ‘balancing potential harms with opportunities’
By Sam Schechner and Valentina Pop
Jan. 20, 2020 6:50 am ET
BRUSSELS—Silicon Valley executives and lobbyists like to say they embrace regulation. Now they’re launching a frenzy of lobbying on what they want that regulation to be—and Europe is set to be one of the first battlegrounds.
On Monday, Sundar Pichai, the new chief executive of Google parent Alphabet Inc., gave a policy speech in Brussels, which is poised to release a raft of
new regulatory proposals for the tech business, including a white paper due next month on possible
rules for artificial intelligence .
Mr. Pichai’s message to policymakers: “Sensible regulation must also take a proportionate approach” to artificial intelligence, “balancing potential harms with social opportunities.”
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Healthcare faces 'double-barreled' threat from Microsoft vulnerabilities
Jan 22, 2020 10:51am
Healthcare organizations and hospitals need to patch a critical vulnerability and beef up their cybersecurity defenses in the face of several new cyber risks, security experts say.
Last week, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued an
emergency directive urging organizations to patch up critical vulnerabilities impacting Microsoft Windows operating systems.
Tech giant Microsoft last week released
software fixes to address 49 vulnerabilities, among them critical weaknesses in Windows CryptoAPI, Windows Remote Desktop Gateway (RD Gateway) and Windows Remote Desktop Client.
The National Security Agency
discovered the bug and reported it to Microsoft. Exploitation of the vulnerability allows attackers to defeat trusted network connections and deliver executable code while appearing as legitimately trusted entities, the NSA said in a cybersecurity advisory.
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Top 10 medication hazards of 2019 include selecting wrong drug on computer screens
Jan 21, 2020 11:58am
Providers are making an increasing number of mistakes selecting the wrong medication for patients on their computer screens or tablets, according to the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP).
The problem is that physicians and other providers select the wrong medication after entering the first few letters of the drug name into their technology screens, said the institute, which released its
list of the top 10 most persistent medication errors and hazards it uncovered in 2019.
Entering just the first few letters of a drug name or combination of the first few letters and product strength can allow the presentation of similar-looking drug names on computer screens, leading to selection errors, the institute said.
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What Your Period Tracker App Knows About You
These apps are popular, but they raise concerns about what happens to the very personal data they collect
By Donna Rosato
January 22, 2020
After Catherine Feintuch gave birth to her second child, a son now 2, she downloaded a free app called Flo to her smartphone to help her track her menstrual cycle. To see whether her cycle had returned to normal and to create a reliable record to discuss with her gynecologist, she input data about her period, including dates and flow levels.
Hoping to keep her information private, the 33-year-old infectious disease researcher chose to use the app anonymously, opting not to register with her email address and create an account. Still, she wonders whether some of her personal information may be getting out into the wider world.
“I understand that the app is free and I’m giving them my data in exchange for getting the service," Feintuch says. "But I don’t know what else the data I am giving them is being used for, or if the app is accessing other information on my phone.”
Feintuch, one of about 50 million women worldwide who uses a period tracker app, is right to be concerned.
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Simple Tweak to Hospital Computer Program Cuts Opioid Prescriptions
TUESDAY, Jan. 21, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Could a simple computer hack help make a dent in the opioid epidemic?
New research suggests that the number of painkillers prescribed to patients can be reduced just by lowering default computer settings that display a preset number of pills.
That simple change led doctors at two California hospitals to prescribe fewer opioids, and the approach could improve opioid prescribing practices elsewhere and help prevent addiction, the researchers said.
Prescription opioids are a key part of the U.S. opioid crisis, the authors of the new study explained.
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ONC updates HIT Playbook to aid EHR implementations by practices
January 21, 2020, 11:06 p.m. EST
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has updated a web-based resource for helping small- to medium-sized physician practices with implementing health IT.
ONC’s
Health IT Playbook , which was first developed in 2016, is a tool designed to assist clinical practices “make the most of their health IT investment and reduce the burden of electronic health records” as they adopt, optimize, upgrade or change EHR systems, according to the agency.
The guide includes strategies, recommendations and best practices to “help reduce the pain of implementing and using health IT in your practice,” states the playbook.
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Suicide research could be the mortality breakthrough of the 2020s
January 22, 2020, 11:18 a.m. EST
Bloomberg--What’s the medical breakthrough that could save the most lives in the U.S. over the next ten years? In the 2020s, medical research will likely inch forward when it comes to major killers like heart disease and cancer. But the biggest potential to save lives could lie in learning to prevent suicide.
The rates of reported suicides have been creeping up over the last two decades. Even more disturbingly, CDC reports that the suicide death rate for teens increased 56 percent between 2007 and 2017. Rising suicide rates might be a result of many things— rising levels of despair, the opioid epidemic, greater access to guns, even the proliferation of Internet groups that offer people advice on how to kill themselves. It could also be that more people are reporting suicides instead of concealing such deaths as accidents.
It’s a surprisingly common form of death—more prevalent than homicide or automobile accidents. Unlike cancer and heart disease, which are leading causes of death among the old, suicide robs people of decades of life. According to CDC statistics, it is the second most prevalent cause of death, after accidents, for people between 10 and 34 and fourth for people between 34 and 54.
Because it hasn’t been all that thoroughly studied as a medical problem, there’s room to cut down on that death toll even without any remarkable technological breakthrough. A streamlined three-digit suicide hotline number, approved last month by FCC, could become one of the great public health measures of the century. Further out on the frontier, researchers are having some success using artificial intelligence to identify suicidal people—those whose lives might be saved by talk therapy or drugs.
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Philips CTO outlines ethical guidelines for AI in healthcare
The five principles all stem from the basic viewpoint that AI-enabled solutions should complement and benefit customers, patients, and society as a whole.
January 22, 2020 11:15 AM
The use of artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms in healthcare is poised to expand significantly over the next few years, but beyond the investment strategies and technological foundations lie serious questions around the ethical and responsible use of AI.
In an effort to clarify its own position and add to the debate, the executive vice president and chief technology officer for Royal Philips, Henk van Houten, has published a list of five guiding principles for the design and responsible use of AI in healthcare and personal health applications.
The five principles – well-being, oversight, robustness, fairness, and transparency – all stem from the basic viewpoint that AI-enabled solutions should complement and benefit customers, patients, and society as a whole.
First and foremost, well-being should be front of mind when developing healthcare AI solutions, van Houten argues, helping to alleviate overstretched healthcare systems, but more importantly to act as a means of supplying proactive care, informing and supporting healthy living over the course of a person's entire life.
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Epic to debut ambient voice technology assistant at HIMSS20
“Just like you use your smart speaker at home, clinicians soon will be able to say ‘Hey Epic’ to quickly get the information they need and take action,” an Epic exec reveals.
January 22, 2020 12:02 PM
Epic Systems will debut at HIMSS20 in March its ambient voice technology voice assistant called “Hey, Epic!” Epic will be in Booths 2159 and 2179.
“Just like you use your smart speaker at home to play your favorite song, clinicians soon will be able to say ‘Hey Epic’ to quickly get the information they need and take action,” said Sean Bina, vice president of access and patient engagement at Epic. “Epic’s Voice Assistant, called Hey Epic!, already is used today by nearly 20 organizations to place orders, call members of a patient’s care team, create reminders, and more.”
In the future, providers will be able to use ambient voice technology for an even broader range of requests and commands, and even complete entire visits without ever touching a mouse or a keyboard, Bina contended.
‘Show me the last cholesterol results’
“Today, providers already can activate the voice assistant from their phone to access information about their patients,” he explained. “They might ask, ‘Who is my next patient?’ Or request information like ‘Show me the last cholesterol results’ so they can prepare for each visit. They also can take action by placing orders for medications or calling the patient.”
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Providers Often Fail At Tracking Diagnostic Testing and Specialty Referrals
January 22, 2020
An industry workgroup research group has
concluded that despite the availability of HealthIT tools, many organizations don’t have a comprehensive, useful view of their diagnostic testing and specialty referral processes.
The group’s work focused on identifying gaps, failure points or breaks in their diagnostic testing and specialty referral processes, addressing these gaps, then using health IT tools to better track the results. The research was conducted by the Partnership for Health IT Patient Safety, which is part of the ECRI Institute.
To prepare for the analysis, the Partnership identified ambulatory care practices that were prepared to discuss technology solutions to their diagnostic issues.
One participant was a community-based provider with two locations specializing in family medicine. This site already had technology support in place through a vendor, and received IT recommendations through user groups, and had a user specialist in place, but still struggled with managing diagnostic testing referrals for CT, MRI and radiography services.
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Can Facebook Place Itself At The Center of Health Data Collection?
January 22, 2020
This is the tale of a quiet effort by Facebook to take over (more of) our lives, in this case by sliding laterally into the healthcare business and collecting data on our medical habits.
What I’m about to share draws on a
story appearing in
The Atlantic laying out how Facebook might be able to leverage harmless-seeming preventive care reminders to re-institute its more aggressive plans for our health data.
As some readers will recall, in 2018, Facebook kicked off a projected intended to combine its user information with hospital-patient data to improve patient outcomes. The project, which was spearheaded by a mysterious-sounding Facebook group known as Building 8, would eventually create technology offering providers updates on, among other things, social determinants of health. Theoretically, this could have been cool. What companies knows better than Facebook how developed your friend network and support groups are?
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How Fast Can A New Internet Standard For Sharing Patient Data Catch Fire?
The demand for freer exchange of healthcare information is creating an electronic health record market estimated to reach $38 billion by 2025.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
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Medical professionals have been storing personal health information in electronic form for more than a decade, but it is cumbersome for patients to gather disparate computer and paper records scattered across doctors' offices, hospitals and medical labs.
Wouldn't life be easier if you could view your full medical history with a few taps on your smartphone?
The consolidation of medical records may be on its way, as technology companies prod the health care industry to embrace an internet-based common standard for storing and sharing patient information. It's known as FHIR and pronounced "fire" — a catchier way of saying Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources.
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Opt-In Health Information Exchange Drive Administrative Burden
States with opt-in policies were 7.8 percent more likely to experience regulatory health information exchange barriers.
January 20, 2020 - Administrators working in states requiring opt-in consent for health information exchange (HIE) carry greater burden than those working in states with singular opt-out policies. However, hospitals that are technologically less advanced than others, also express higher levels of administrative burden,
according to a study in the
American Journal of Managed Care .
With HIEs becoming more prevalent across the country, consent policies are a main focus for administrators and patients.
States with opt-in policies, which require the patient to explicitly give permission for her data to be included in the HIE, usually prioritize patient privacy. Meanwhile, opt-out policies require patients to specifically request their data not be included on the HIE, meaning they ensure high patient participation in HIEs.
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HIT Think
How interoperability will help unlock the value of clinical data
January 21, 2020, 3:38 p.m. EST
We’re more than 20 years into an accelerating cycle of digital transformation, with healthcare stuck in a seemingly endless state of “transforming.”
Unlike other industries, healthcare clings stubbornly to stale, fragmented information architectures—systems that frustrate efforts to create the kind of information liquidity and transparency that is standard in banking, retail and other transactional industries.
Data—and particularly clinical data—is becoming the currency of healthcare, and this asset is often trapped within systems that limit its access, flow and transactional value.
NDHIN has created a secure statewide medical record sharing network for providers and consumers.
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New tool from NIST aids in managing privacy
January 21, 2020, 3:41 p.m. EST
The National Institute of Standards and Technology is offering a new tool for managing privacy risk within healthcare and other industries.
The tool was created in a collaboration between NIST—which promotes innovation and industrial competitiveness—and multiple stakeholders across industries.
The NIST privacy framework offers privacy protection strategies to aid entities in using and protecting personal data. “Privacy is more important than ever in today’s digital age,” says Walter Copan, the Undersecretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology.
NDHIN has created a secure statewide medical record sharing network for providers and consumers.
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Amazon just filed a bunch of international trademarks for ‘Amazon Pharmacy’
Published Tue, Jan 21 20202:58 PM ESTUpdated 2 hours ago
Amazon bought an Internet pharmacy business called PillPack in 2018.
At the end of 2019, it introduced ‘Amazon Pharmacy’ branding to the service.
Now, Amazon is filing trademarks for ‘Amazon Pharmacy’ in other countries, including Australia and Canada.
Analysts say Amazon is poised to disrupt the $934.8 billion dollar global pharmaceutical industry.
Amazon has filed to trademark “Amazon Pharmacy” in Canada, the U.K. and Australia, signaling a potential move into selling prescription drugs outside of the U.S.
According to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office website, Amazon filed for the patent on Jan. 9, 2020. The status is listed as pre-formalized. The trademark also lists other areas that Amazon Pharmacy could move into including surgical, medical dental instruments and pharmaceutical as well as medical and veterinary preparations.
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Putting patients at the heart of a digital hospital
Dr Afzal Chaudhry, director of digital and CCIO at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, writes about the organisation's eHospital programme.
January 21, 2020 07:58 AM
Over the past ten years, we have focused efforts on enabling our staff, across Cambridge University Hospitals, to use advanced digital technology to improve patient safety and support the delivery of consistently and ever-increasing high-quality patient care.
Relying previously on paper patient records and multiple aged IT systems with limited integration and capabilities, our eHospital digital maturity programme, established in 2010, was born out of our desire for data-driven clinical care and safety improvements through the use of digital technology. In 2013, following business case approval and external assurance, we embarked upon an NHS first-of-its-kind digital transformation; comprising a ‘built by our hospital staff for hospital staff’ fully integrated electronic patient record (EPR) system combined with a trust-wide refresh of our entire computing estate and IT service support.
Investing in our people has been essential from the outset. Over 100 hospital staff with varying skills and expertise - clinicians, clinical support staff, administrators, operational, managerial and analytical staff - joined the eHospital programme team in 2013 and configured the Epic Foundation System for the UK. The recent (2019) Epic implementations undertaken by Great Ormond Street Hospital and University College London Hospitals have been based on this UK Foundation platform, as will the Royal Devon & Exeter implementation due this summer (2020).
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How integration of SDOH data is helping improve opioid response, pop health
A Regenstrief informatics expert will show at HIMSS20 how the Indiana Network for Population Health is evolving as 'novel data infrastructure' to address the root conditions for better health.
January 21, 2020 02:02 PM
As hospitals and health systems have become more aware of the key value of social determinants of health, the questions have shifted somewhat. Now, many providers and public health agencies are focused on more nuts and bolts questions: related to data aggregation and integration into electronic health records and clinical workflows.
At HIMSS20 in March, one public health expert from Regenstrief Institute Center for Biomedical Informatics will explain how health information exchanges can help – and show the state of Indiana is beginning to make headway with some key social determinant use cases.
Regenstrief's creation of the Indiana Network for Population Health aims to enable new applications using social, genetic, environmental and other data for individuals and populations, says Brian E. Dixon, director of public health informatics at the Indianapolis-based Regenstrief, an NGO affiliated with Indiana University.
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Remote patient monitoring to gain big momentum in 2020
"2019 was kind of the trial run or dress rehearsal for RPM reimbursement," says one expert. "2020 will be the culmination of all those efforts."
January 21, 2020 10:42 AM
While there is a large and growing market for remote patient monitoring technologies, with particular benefits for the older population, simplification of connection technologies – Bluetooth for one – will be key to the broader adoption of RPM in 2020.
The vast majority of hospitals and health systems – 88 percent – have invested in or plan to invest in remote patient monitoring technologies as part of their transition to a value-based care model, according to a 2019 Spyglass Consulting report.
Smartphones and tablets are among the mobile technologies in focus, which can be combined with telehealth video conferencing and healthcare wearables, as well as the deployment of electronic health record-based patient portals.
"There are now numerous RPM solutions out there, including a select few that have had very positive outcomes toward meeting the quadruple aim – improved patient experience, improved clinical experience, better outcomes and lower costs," Eric Rock, CEO of Vivify Health, a provider of connected healthcare delivery solutions, told Healthcare IT News.
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My Top 5 Healthcare Innovation Targets for 2020
January 21, 2020
Now that I’ve shaken off the holiday malaise and gotten back to business, I’ve begun to wonder which areas of healthcare will become the new hotness for the coming year. After tossing off a short LinkedIn post on this subject, I decided to dig in further and share my conclusions with you.
By the way, in picking areas I believe healthcare leaders should target for 2020 innovation efforts, I’m quite consciously drawing on both my personal and professional experiences. As both a chronically ill patient and a professional HIT observer, I’m coming at these spaces with both myself and the industry in mind.
Anyway, with no further ado, my top picks for healthcare innovation targets in 2020 include the following five niches, in no particular order:
Imaging AI
We’re already seeing signs, both clinical and administrative, that these technologies can streamline care processes and improve clinical results. Now, let’s see some real breakthroughs. At the moment, I’m seeing more innovation like the
AI-driven tool from vendor IDx which can independently detect diabetic retinopathy, but there are many, many more which have the potential to trigger exponential changes in imaging this coming year. For example, I’d like to see a really smart mashup of connected devices, imaging results and telemedicine. Any takers?
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Hospitals Give Tech Giants Access to Detailed Medical Records
Deals with Microsoft, IBM and Google reveal the power medical providers have in deciding how patients’ sensitive health data is shared
By Melanie Evans
Jan. 20, 2020 5:30 am ET
The breadth of access wasn’t always spelled out by hospitals and tech giants when the deals were struck.
The scope of data sharing in these and other recently reported agreements reveals a powerful new role that hospitals play—as brokers to technology companies racing into the $3 trillion health-care sector. Rapid digitization of health records and privacy laws enabling companies to swap patient data have positioned hospitals as a primary arbiter of how such sensitive data is shared.
“Hospitals are massive containers of patient data,” said Lisa Bari, a consultant and former lead for health information technology for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Innovation Center.
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Partners to integrate clinically, digitally with primary care platform
January 19, 2020, 10:29 p.m. EST
Boston-based Partners HealthCare is becoming clinically and digitally integrated with One Medical, the nationwide membership-based primary care platform that combines digital health and in-office visits.
Partners HealthCare, founded by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, is partnering with One Medical, which currently operates two Boston locations but is planning to open new locations in eastern Massachusetts during the next few years.
The collaboration between the two organizations is intended to achieve greater care coordination between One Medical’s primary care practice and specialists at Brigham and Women’s and Massachusetts General.
“We’re committed to enhancing the patient experience through innovation, in order to have a greater impact on those who need care,” says Lynn Stofer, president of the Partners Community Physicians Organization. “Our relationship with One Medical will help achieve that by offering expanded access to a reimagined primary care experience with a tightly integrated network of world-class specialty care when needed. We hope to create the type of experience that patients expect and deserve.”
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IoT: A Promising Prescription for Healthcare
January 20, 2020
The following is a guest article by Rob Mesirow, Partner and Connected Solutions/IoT Leader at PwC .
Though the Internet of Things (IoT) is proving its value in many industries, perhaps the most significant benefits to consumers can be found in healthcare. Here’s a prime example: Health organizations can deploy IoT to remotely monitor patients’ blood pressure, glucose and other devices and collect their data while they’re at home, enabling medical professionals to continuously track patients and identify those who need assistance. When used with analytics software, this technology can also be used to ensure that patients are taking their medicine on schedule and are complying with their doctor’s instructions.
Being able to gain essential insights like these by monitoring patients remotely is attracting a lot of interest from healthcare organizations. In fact, 35% have already begun using IoT for this purpose, and 47% plan to do so within the next two years, according to PwC’s “2019 IoT Survey: Speed operations, strengthen relationships and drive what’s next.”
Though gaining insights into patients’ care and well-being is obviously a meaningful benefit, it’s not the only value IoT provides to healthcare organizations. The top five benefits, according to the IoT survey, are improving the customer experience, security, the supply chain, decision-making, and employee safety.
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Can we ever trust Google with our health data?
The technology company will need to persuade patients to hand over some of their most personal information
Hannah Kuchler in San Francisco 20 January, 2020
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Weekly News Recap
Masimo buys NantHealth’s Connected Care business for $47 million in cash.
ONC publishes a draft of its “2020-2025 Federal Health IT Strategic Plan” for public comment, due March 18.
Physicians spend 16 minutes per encounter doing EHR work, according to a Cerner study that reviewed client data from its Lights On Network.
Medsphere raises $40 million in new funding to support growth and pursue acquisitions.
R1 RCM acquires SCI Solutions for $190 million just days after SCI announced its acquisition of Tonic Health.
Former US Senator Bill Frist, MD launches CareBridge, a Nashville-based technology company that will use an initial $40 million in funding to improve home healthcare.
Teladoc will acquire telehealth platform vendor InTouch Health for $600 million in cash and TDOC shares.
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Special Report: Shared Care Records
With giving the best treatment to a patient increasingly depending on the contributions of a range of health and social care professionals across a broad geography, the need for shared access to records is becoming ever-more pressing. So, almost two years since the five first-wave LHCRE sites were selected, what was the impact on the shared records and is there a recipe for success? Maja Dragovic investigates.
The future of shared care record programmes appears to be bright with NHSX CEO Matthew Gould confirming in June 2019 that the Local Health and Care Exemplars (LHCREs) are here to stay.
The first five – Greater Manchester, Wessex and One London, Thames Valley and Yorkshire and Humber – were selected to serve as exemplars for the rest of the country on how to embark on the shared records train. And their journey is already having a positive impact across the board.
Positive impact
System C and Graphnet’s director, Markus Bolton, whose system for shared care records is being used by three of the LHCREs (Greater Manchester, Thames Valley and Hampshire), believes that exemplars have legitimised and energised the market.
“Shared records are completely transformational. If you deploy a shared record correctly, then it saves lives, improves patient care, it has massive impact on the service, it’s a driver for transformation,” Bolton adds.
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Enjoy!
David.
