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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How Clinical Decision Support Adherence Leads to Better Patient Data
Adhering to clinical decision support tools results in structured, standardized patient data, enabling organizations to improve care practices.
By Jessica Kent
February 27, 2020 - As the volume of healthcare data increases and the shift to value-based care accelerates, clinical decision support tools are becoming more and more critical to ensure quality care delivery.
From computerized alerts and clinical guidelines, to diagnostic assistance and patient data reports, clinical decision support (CDS) tools can help organizations improve patient outcomes, avoid complications, and reduce clinical variability.
“Clinical decision support, most often embedded in the EHR, leads to more standardized delivery of care,” John Danaher, MD, president of clinical solutions at Elsevier, told HealthITAnalytics.com. “It generates enhanced clinical outcomes, enhanced administrative efficiencies, and leads to structured patient data.”
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Babylon Health tries to rubbish noted Twitter critic as ‘troll’
Digital health AI chatbot firm, Babylon Health, has hit back at a noted Twitter critic who has persistently raised concerns about the company’s symptom triage chatbot service, describing him as a troll.
28 February 2020
Dr David Watkins, who goes by the Twitter handle @DrMurphy11, has long been a thorn in the side of Babylon, posting his detailed analysis of flaws revealed from using Babylon’s artificial intelligence (AI) tool based on hypothetical situations.
Dr Watkins said he had first alerted Babylon to the problem with their algorithm three years ago.
Earlier this week, Dr Watkins had unmasked himself at a Royal Society of Medicine event on AI and digital health, where he presented on ‘Cowboys and Unicorns: why validation is more important than valuation’.
During his presentation, he suggested there were “still fundamental flaws” in the chatbot.
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NHS team reports potential for AI in rapid detection of lung cancer
An algorithm developed by a UK tech start-up has been found to be capable of competently identifying lung cancers by a team at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust.
Owen Hughes – 26 February, 2020
The Red Dot algorithm, developed by artificial intelligence (AI) software company behold.ai, was fed a sample of chest X-rays from 1,513 patients who had been directly referred by a GP over a two-week period in June and July 2019.
The algorithm correctly identified the presence and location of 10 out of 11 incidences where cancers were later histologically confirmed through tissue samples tested in a lab..
While 1,513 examinations were analysed using the algorithm, the team was specifically interested in cases that were referred by a radiologist or reporting radiographer for a CT scan directly after an X-ray, to confirm or rule out the presence of cancer.
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Improve population health efforts by mining the medical record
February 27, 2020
Today, physician practices have significant familiarity with the principles of value-based care; however other practice priorities often take precedence over evolving into value-based reimbursement relationships. But focusing on the principles of value-based care can benefit physician practices as well as their patients and the health system. While it can be difficult for practices, whether they are primary or specialty care, to discern how to begin the value-based, population health management journey, the electronic medical record is a great place to start because it offers a wealth of insights that can help the team identify and manage patient health risks.
Starting with four areas of focus informed by the EHR, practices can propel their organization toward real results in improving patient health while simultaneously reducing the risk of hospital admissions or readmissions.
Annual Wellness Visits
Much of the success or failure of population health programs relies on proactive outreach. Such outreach can seem beyond the capabilities of some primary care practices. But as the patient’s most frequent point of contact with the health care system, the primary care practice plays a key role – some might say the key role – in the success or failure of a population health strategy.
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New Algorithm Tracks Sepsis Incidence Among Pediatric Patients
The tool could help providers to collect more accurate data on pediatric sepsis outcomes and incidence.
By Jessica Kent
February 28, 2020 - Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have developed a new algorithm that can track the epidemiology of sepsis among pediatric patients, allowing for more accurate data collection and improved treatment of the condition.
In a study published in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine, the researchers noted that tracking the incidence of sepsis is crucial for understanding the disease. Sepsis, a deadly complication to infection that occurs when the immune system turns on itself, is the leading cause of death in hospitals and contributes to high healthcare costs.
To date, there hasn’t been an effective tool for monitoring sepsis in the pediatric population, the team said. Current methods involve collecting insurance claims data or manual chart review, but these approaches are often inconsistent and leave out patient groups, such as those who transfer to a hospital for sepsis treatment when the sepsis was diagnosed elsewhere.
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Patients say portals have biggest impact on engagement, KLAS finds
– 27 Feb 2020
Most patients consider patient portals as the engagement technology that best simplifies their experience and helps them participate in their care, according to a recent KLAS Research report.
Online patient portals allow patients to engage in their care journey in multiple ways, whether viewing their health information, communicating with a provider or paying bills.
For its Patient Engagement 2020 report, KLAS surveyed more than 300 patients about which patient engagement technologies have been most impactful to them. Here are the participants' responses, based on a 100-percent scale:
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‘A completely new culture of doing research.’
Coronavirus outbreak changes how scientists communicate
By Kai Kupferschmidt Feb. 26, 2020 , 2:05 PM
On 22 January, Dave O’Connor and Tom Friedrich invited several dozen colleagues around the United States to join a new workspace on the instant messaging platform Slack. The scientists, both at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, had seen news about a new disease emerging in China and realized researchers would need a primate model if they were going to answer some important questions about its biology. “We put out a call to a bunch of investigators and basically said: ‘Hey, let’s talk,’” O’Connor says. The idea is to coordinate research and make sure results are comparable, Friedrich adds. (They named the Slack workspace the Wu-han Clan, a play on the hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan.)
The Wu-han Clan is just one example of how the COVID-19 outbreak is transforming how scientists communicate about fast-moving health crises. A torrent of data is being released daily by preprint servers that didn’t even exist a decade ago, then dissected on platforms such as Slack and Twitter, and in the media, before formal peer review begins. Journal staffers are working overtime to get manuscripts reviewed, edited, and published at record speeds. The venerable New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) posted one COVID-19 paper within 48 hours of submission. Viral genomes posted on a platform named GISAID, more than 200 so far, are analyzed instantaneously by a phalanx of evolutionary biologists who share their phylogenetic trees in preprints and on social media.
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NHS Tech Plan vision: Quarter of providers have no EPR
NHSX is on a mission to transform the use of technology across health and care, but faces many hurdles on the way.
February 28, 2020 10:49 AM
NHSX, the unit for digital and technology for health and care in England, has launched this week a document outlining the draft vision for transforming the use of technology across the system, as the country looks to provide ‘more joined up’, personalised and proactive services.
Following the publication of last year’s long term plan, it acknowledges the discrepancy between the “promise of technology” and the reality, as a quarter of providers have no electronic patient record and a third of social care organisations still run on paper.
“Visionary talk about AI and data will sound hollow to nurses who have to wait fifteen minutes to log on to their computers; in hospitals where patient data is stored in paper files at the end of the patients’ beds, where doctors cannot access GP records or test results without phone calls and faxes, and where the social care workforce have to rely on inconsistent paper records or faxed information when a patient is discharged into their care,” it reads.
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How Israel's largest healthcare organisation is approaching digital transformation
An interview with Professor Ran Balicer, chief innovation officer of Clalit Health Services and founding director of the Clalit Research Institute in Israel.
February 28, 2020
As healthcare systems around the world come to the realisation that they need to take action in order to become sustainable and provide the services that citizens now expect, many have turned to the use of digital, data and technology.
But it’s no secret that it's tough to crack the challenges of putting that transformation from theory to practice at scale.
Ahead of HIMSS20, MobiHealthNews caught up with Professor Ran Balicer, chief innovation officer of Clalit Health Services and founding director of the Clalit Research Institute in Israel, to talk about their approach.
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Health IT Leaders Expect To Make Broad Use Of AI and Machine Learning Technology
February 28, 2020
New healthcare AI and Machine Learning research conducted by Healthcare IT Today suggests that many industry leaders are serious about adopting healthcare AI and machine learning tools and what’s more, that these technologies are being used as part of mission-critical efforts rather than one-off pilot tests.
At the same time, it highlights the degree to which these solutions are in ferment and being thrown at a huge array of potentially viable targets.
Roughly 53% of respondents said that they were currently using machine learning and AI technologies in their organizations. The list of uses to which they’re putting these technologies is quite extensive, ranging from tentative data management attempts to embedding such tools in their core enterprise applications.
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Telehealth can help fight the novel coronavirus, but U.S. challenges could limit its potential
By Erin Brodwin
February 28, 2020
As the world braces for the spread of disease caused by the new coronavirus, public health officials are calling on clinicians and health systems to embrace a set of tools that are technically already within reach: smartphones.
This week, officials from both the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization urged hospitals and clinics to expand their use of telehealth services — also known as remote or virtual care — to help triage the sick and keep the worried well out of already-crowded medical facilities.
In the eyes of many clinicians and public health experts, telehealth’s moment has arrived.
“Telehealth can be a force multiplier that helps protect health workers and extends their reach, and should absolutely be seized upon,” Eric Perakslis, a Rubenstein Fellow at Duke University focusing on data science who previously led the technology efforts for multiple Ebola response programs in West Africa, told STAT.
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Ransomware victims thought their backups were safe. They were wrong
Ransomware victims are finding out too late that their vital backups are online and also getting encrypted by crooks, warns cybersecurity agency.
By Steve Ranger | February 27, 2020 -- 11:22 GMT (22:22 AEDT) | Topic: Security
The UK's cybersecurity agency has updated its guidance on what to do after a ransomware attack, following a series of incidents where organisations were hit with ransomware, but also had their backups encrypted because they had left them connected to their networks.
Keeping a backup copy of vital data is a good way of reducing the damage of a ransomware attack: it allows companies to get systems up and running again without having to pay off the crooks. But that backup data isn't much good if it's also infected with ransomware -- and thus encrypted and unusable -- because it was still connected to the network when the attack took place.
The UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said it has now updated its guidance by emphasising offline backups as a defence against ransomware.
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ONC: Data Standards, Security Key to Precision Medicine Success
ONC is establishing data standards and security initiatives to accelerate precision medicine research.
By Jessica Kent
February 27, 2020 - ONC is working to advance precision medicine research by supporting projects that improve health data standards, adopting policies that support data security and privacy, and promoting data sharing among researchers.
As part of the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI), a federal effort to accelerate the next generation of health research, ONC and its collaborators are seeking to rethink data access, storage, aggregation, and analysis.
“The increasing availability of electronic health data in the 21st century has tremendous potential to ignite a new era of inquiry and discovery. With precision medicine, researchers will be able to make new discoveries about health and illness to bring a more personalized approach to patient care,” Teresa Zayas Caban, Kevin Chaney, MGS, Stephanie Garcia, MPH, Tracy Okubo, PMP and Robert Carroll, PhD wrote in a recent blog post.
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Vermont patients to be automatically enrolled in health record database
BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) Starting March 1, Vermonters will be automatically enrolled in the Vermont Health Information Exchange (VHIE), allowing doctors across the state to access their medical records when needed.
"In the past, individuals would have had to opt-in and only about 50% of Vermonters had gone to a health care provider had been asked," said Jenney Samuelson, the deputy commissioner for the Department of Vermont Health Access. "The majority of Vermonters would want their health information available."
According to Vermont Information Technology Leaders (VITL), which manages VHIE, most Vermonters have health information in the exchange and more than 2,000 health care professionals are enrolled in the provider portal to view patient health information.
"[Some patients] assume that you have access to a lot of their records," said Dr. Julie Lin, a Vermont dermatologist who uses VHIE. "And when we tell them, 'No, I have nothing, I know nothing about you, you need to tell me all over again,' they're actually frustrated sometimes."
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Tech optimization: Keeping infrastructure tech rock solid
Three healthcare IT infrastructure experts offer best practices for ensuring the foundational technologies are running optimally.
By Bill Siwicki
February 27, 2020 12:21 PM
The various technologies that make up IT infrastructure are the foundation for all the other forms of health IT that make hospitals and health systems operate effectively. As such, infrastructure technologies are among the most important in the healthcare information technology arena, and they must be operating optimally.
Here, three infrastructure technology experts from Cisco Systems, Dell Technologies and VMware offer best practices for optimizing infrastructure so that it is working best for individual healthcare provider organizations. They target their advice at healthcare CIOs and other health IT leaders who are looking to make sure their infrastructure is rock solid and humming along smoothly.
The entire business transformation journey
To fully optimize infrastructure, IT needs to plan for the entire business transformation journey to include reimagining their apps for the patient/clinician experience and then build the infrastructure for those experiences, said Kathryn Howe, Cisco healthcare director, Americas industry digital transformation.
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Why Cloud is Strategic and Challenging for Healthcare Organizations
February 27, 2020
Cloud isn’t as complex or risky as we like to believe for healthcare, but it does have far-reaching impacts across IT, business, and clinical operations. Many healthcare leaders remain hesitant about moving application or data to a Cloud platform but adhering to a few best practices can dramatically decrease the risk and provide some much-needed scale, cost savings, and data analytics. The value of leveraging a Cloud platform to drive digital transformation in a healthcare organization is the ability to personalize the patient health journey, improve data-driven decisions, and accelerate precision medicine while adhering to regulatory requirements.
Strategy, Assessment and Road Map
Like many healthcare IT initiatives, Cloud shouldn’t be considered a short-term project with a beginning and an end. Cloud is an operational state; it is a more effective way to manage workload, processes, and data. This requires in-depth analyses of current application, data, and storage needs. This assessment should include insights from business, clinical and IT experts across the organization. A comprehensive assessment will best inform the Cloud platform roadmap and implementation plan.
Like many healthcare IT initiatives, Cloud shouldn’t be considered a short-term project with a beginning and an end. Cloud is an operational state; it is a more effective way to manage workload, processes, and data. This requires in-depth analyses of current application, data, and storage needs. This assessment should include insights from business, clinical and IT experts across the organization. A comprehensive assessment will best inform the Cloud platform roadmap and implementation plan.
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Big Tech: Apple’s Mastery Of Consumer Design Could Offer Unique Healthcare Advantages
February 27, 2020
I remember when I first fell in love with an Apple computer – the day I brought home a Macintosh Performa. I opened the box, plugged it into the wall and dove into it with a passion. By today’s standards, its 33 MHz processor, 4 MB of RAM and 250 MB hard drive seems laughable, but at the time my Mac seemed to have almost miraculous powers.
I still feel that sense of unreal power and beauty when I watch someone staring at the screen of the oh-so-elegant MacBook. The simplicity and restraint of its design and the silver-white glow of its screen give it an otherworldly quality that draws you into its arm.
This kind of perfect consumer electronics design is one of the chief legacies of iconic Apple founder Steve Jobs. It’s also a powerful weapon that Apple can deploy in its fight to become a leading player in the healthcare industry.
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Industry Voices—Your digital medical data: Liberation is (almost) here
Feb 25, 2020 7:10am
In a healthcare economy largely driven by payment for services rendered instead of value provided, there’s little incentive for hospitals and physicians to freely exchange data, Darren Schulte writes. (Getty/jacoblund)
Over 90% of practicing physicians in the U.S. now use electronic medical records (EMRs). Largely gone are the days of handwritten physician notes and illegible prescriptions.
But the promise of digital data to bring about better care hasn’t fully materialized yet. Patients and providers are stuck with a fragmented and frustrating data environment, unable to easily access and share records across clinics and hospitals.
Often, the only means to obtain records are through computer printers, fax machines and copiers.
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Facebook is banning ads that promise to cure the coronavirus
Rob Price
Feb 26, 2020
- Facebook is tightening up its rules on ads that reference the coronavirus outbreak.
- It is banning ads that mentioned it if they attempt to “create a sense of urgency” around the virus or promise to cure it.
- Like other tech platforms, Facebook is has seen a wave of activity relating to the COVID-19 outbreak, including misinformation.
- The company has also said it will take down false posts about the coronavirus entirely if they put people at risk.
Facebook is tightening up its rules on ads that reference the novel coronavirus, in an attempt to curtail misinformation and fearmongering about the outbreak.
Naples loves this mac 'n' cheese street-eat
Naples street food shop T'Imballo is making take-away pasta cool. The shop revisited a typical Italian pasta bake that is called, actually, timballo, and instead...
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February 26, 2020 / 12:54 AM / a day ago
Apple, J&J to study if Apple Watch app leads to lower stroke risk
(Reuters) - Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) said on Tuesday it would partner with Apple Inc (AAPL.O) on a study to use an iPhone app and the Apple Watch to study how earlier detection of atrial fibrillation impacts stroke in people aged 65 or older.
An Apple Store employee shows the new Series 5 Apple Watch during the preview of the redesigned and reimagined Apple Fifth Avenue store in New York, U.S., September 19, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid -
Last year, Apple's Heart Study here found that the watch could accurately detect atrial fibrillation, the most common type of irregular heartbeat, according to a study that explored the role of wearable devices in identifying potential heart problems. Atrial fibrillation increases the risk of stroke more than fivefold, according to the American Heart Association.
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GoodRx Saves Money on Meds—It Also Shares Data With Google, Facebook, and Others
By Thomas Germain
Last updated: February 26, 2020
A few weeks ago, a Philadelphia resident named Marie received a prescription for a new medication, but the drug wasn’t covered by her insurance. “It was way too expensive for me to get on my own,” she says. (Like other consumers we spoke to, she asked us to withhold her last name to preserve her privacy.) “So I reached back out to my doctor. She directed me to GoodRx, and said I’d be able to afford the medicine with one of their coupons.”
The doctor was right. “The discount was about $500,” Marie says. “I was excited to go fill the prescription and not have to worry about it anymore.”
Millions of people like Marie have downloaded the GoodRx app. The price comparisons and coupons it provides can save money on prescription drugs that otherwise would be out of reach for many patients. That’s why Consumer Reports and other organizations have recommended GoodRx in the past.
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Google’s acquisition of Fitbit could pose ‘high level of risk to privacy and data protection’
The European Data Protection Board has ordered the firms to mitigate possible risks.
By Tammy Lovell
February 26, 2020 04:32 AM
The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has ordered Google to conduct “a full assessment of the data protection requirements and privacy implications” of its acquisition of wearables giant Fitbit.
In a plenary session on February 20, concerns were raised about the privacy implications of a merger of obligations under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPB).
The Board urged both firms “to mitigate possible risks to the rights to privacy and data protection before notifying the merger to the European Commission”.
It added that the EDPB will “consider any implications for the protection of personal data in the European Economic Area”.
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AMA launches new playbook to help providers with digital record sharing
AMA officials say the playbook aims to dispel some of the "myths and misconceptions from an array of complex federal and state laws surrounding patient electronic access to medical information."
By Mike Miliard
February 26, 2020 01:24 PM
The American Medical Association's new Patient Records Electronic Access Playbook aims to help physician practices more easily and efficiently share records with their patients.
WHY IT MATTERS
The online resource is meant to help providers understand some of the complex legal requirements and operational challenges access to digital health information, according to AMA, and to help them better integrate record-sharing into their daily practice.
The online resource is meant to help providers understand some of the complex legal requirements and operational challenges access to digital health information, according to AMA, and to help them better integrate record-sharing into their daily practice.
The four-part playbook offers an array of educational information and resources – describing case scenarios and offering tips to ensure patients’ privacy is protected even as their right to access is preserved.
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Consumer Technology Association develops healthcare AI standard
Billed as the first of its kind, the ANSI-accredited spec defines terms such as assistive intelligence, synthetic data and others related to how artificial intelligence is used in healthcare.
By Mike Miliard
February 26, 2020 03:28 PM
Billed as the first of its kind, the ANSI-accredited spec defines terms such as assistive intelligence, synthetic data and others related to how artificial intelligence is used in healthcare.
The Consumer Technology Association this week announced the development of what it's calling the first-ever ANSI-accredited standard for the use of artificial intelligence in health care.
WHY IT MATTERS
Part of CTA’s new initiative on AI, the standard, developed with input from some 50 tech firms large and small, is meant to define and characterize various aspects of AI in healthcare, and is the first in a series meant to "set a foundation for implementing medical and health care solutions built on AI," according to the CTA.
Part of CTA’s new initiative on AI, the standard, developed with input from some 50 tech firms large and small, is meant to define and characterize various aspects of AI in healthcare, and is the first in a series meant to "set a foundation for implementing medical and health care solutions built on AI," according to the CTA.
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MIMIT Health integrates EHR and CRM, slashes patient data entry time
The multi-specialty group saved two hours of data entry time per patient per day by integrating its Salesforce CRM with its Medstreaming EHR using Bridge Connector integration technology.
By Bill Siwicki
February 26, 2020 01:07 PM
MIMIT Health is a nine-location, multi-specialty group of independent physicians, surgeons and other providers headquartered in Melrose Park, Illinois.
THE PROBLEM
Data in the provider organization’s electronic health records system, billing systems, revenue cycle systems, patient engagement system and marketing systems all resided in separate silos. It was very difficult for staff members to integrate, coordinate or even connect in any way possible. And all proposed solutions were extremely expensive, cumbersome and time-consuming.
“This led to incredible inefficiencies, poor patient outcomes, increases in patient and employee dissatisfaction, physician dissatisfaction, and loss of revenue,” said Dr. Paramjit “Romi” Chopra, founder and CEO of MIMIT Health. “Physician and employee burnout was extremely high due to the inefficiencies and duplication of data and information management in different systems.”
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Vocera to unveil ambient voice listening tech at HIMSS20
Caregivers with the clinical communications vendor’s Smartbadge can say “Hey, Vocera,” to initiate calls, voice messages, responses to events and alerts, or broadcasts to care teams or rapid response teams.
By Bill Siwicki
February 26, 2020 12:15 PM
At HIMSS20 next month, communications IT vendor Vocera will be debuting ambient voice capabilities to wake its wearable Vocera Smartbadge to allow caregivers to issue a command or instruction.
Any clinician wearing a Vocera Smartbadge will be able to communicate with the Vocera Platform and connect with the right person or resource by simply saying, “Hey, Vocera” or “OK, Vocera.” These simple phrases enable clinicians and other users to interact instantly with the wearable device without touching it.
Even while scrubbed or wearing gloves
Clinicians can simply say the wake word to their Smartbadge and start communicating and collaborating completely hands-free, even while scrubbed in or wearing surgical gloves. Communication via the Smartbadge can include calls, voice messages, responding to events and alerts, or broadcasting to care teams or rapid response teams.
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University of Alabama Birmingham Embeds Workflow Apps In Cerner EHR
February 26, 2020
In theory, there’s nothing exciting about an academic medical center deciding to embed apps within its EHR. In this case, however, it seems to me that there’s a little bit more going on than usual. Let’s see what you think.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham is working with a vendor named TransformativeMed to integrate extra functionality into its EHR. The general idea seems to be to help EHR users get more quickly to the data they need and have that data presented in a usable, intuitive fashion.
One of TransformativeMed’s technologies is its Core Work Manager App, which digs up information and presents it in a specialty-specific format. Its output includes a patient list which also provides the most recent set of issues the patients present. It also feeds information to clinical teams intended to help them organize rounds, convey discharge readiness and conduct handoffs.
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Cutbacks by Ancestry, 23andMe Signal a Shakeout for DNA Industry
Privacy fears hinder a once-hot business, dialing up pressure to deliver on its health-care promises
By Kristen V Brown
February 25, 2020, 11:00 PM GMT+11 Updated on February 26, 2020, 5:52 AM GMT+11
Consumer DNA-testing firms are closing up shop and cutting jobs, as a lull in sales forces the industry to move beyond the genealogy tests that turned a handful of well-funded companies into household names.
At least three companies have closed down or suspended their operations over the past year, while the two DNA-testing bellwethers, Ancestry.com LLC and 23andMe Inc., each cut approximately 100 jobs in recent weeks. Others have pulled tests from the market thanks to slow sales.
A seemingly insatiable appetite for discovering the secrets of the human genome made home-testing kits runaway hits. Ancestry gained more than 10 million users between 2017 and 2019, after growing to just five million in the five previous years combined. Rival 23andMe saw its sales quintuple in two years, from two million customers in 2017 to more than 10 million last year.
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‘Have a voice:’ How social media can amplify physician impact
February 21, 2020
David Rubin
MAUI, Hawaii – Using social media as a health care professional comes with many benefits and opportunities. But it also comes with many dilemmas and responsibilities, according to a presenter at the GUILD Conference. Specifically, in inflammatory bowel disease, studies show patients use social media to manage their disease and gather information from experts.
“The standard ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence and justice … can actually apply to social media,” David Rubin, MD, University of Chicago section chief of gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition, said during his presentation. “You can use your social media platform and your expertise to increase health care access, you can use it to help people to reduce the likelihood of harm by sharing credible health information and you can also advocate on behalf of patients like many of us do.”
Rubin reported that while these platforms can help extend a physician’s reach in a positive way, various case studies have revealed they can also be destructive. In one case study, a GI accidentally “friended” a patient, which led to a lawsuit and was categorized as abuse and in violation of the do no harm tenant of medicine.
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Mobile Patient Portal Access Can Improve Diabetes Care
February 24, 2020
Patient access to portal self-management tools through mobile devices may help significantly improve diabetes care, according to a new study.
Patient portals work to enhance communication with the health care team and offer a convenient means to viewing laboratory test results and ordering prescription refills. In chronic conditions such as diabetes, ongoing disease self-management is crucial for optimal patient outcomes, and technology can help further support this.
The study, which was published in JAMA Network Open, evaluated whether the addition of mobile portal access is associated with adherence to oral diabetes medications and glycemic levels for patients with diabetes.
The cohort included 111,463 patients with diabetes treated at Kaiser Permanente Northern California from April 1, 2015 to December 31, 2017. All patients in the study had an oral diabetes prescription at baseline with no insulin use.
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BITMARCK and RISE are on schedule with German EPR implementation
The IT service provider has been working with the Austrian company on the initiative since 2019.
By Anna Engberg
February 25, 2020 03:44 AM
IT service provider the BITMARCK Group has announced that the development of the electronic patient record (EPR) for the German healthcare market is on track.
BITMARCK has been commissioned by the German federal parliament to carry out the technical implementation of the EPR for over 80% of statutory health insurance companies.
Since mid-2019, the company has been working on the project with Austrian firm RISE (Research Industrial Systems Engineering).
WHAT HAPPENED
Germany’s statutory health insurance funds are required by law to provide their insured persons with the EPR from the beginning of January next year.
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ONC lists new goals for aligning clinical and research technology infrastructure
The nine National Health IT Priorities for Research are meant set an agenda that will enable medical research to happen more quickly and effectively, officials say.
By Mike Miliard
February 25, 2020 11:08 AM
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has put forward some new plans for better aligning the technology needs of clinicians and medical researchers, listing nine key priorities to better support IT-enabled research breakthroughs.
WHY IT MATTERS
ONC's National Health IT Priorities for Research: A Policy and Development Agenda was developed in collaboration with federal partners other healthcare stakeholders, incorporating findings from medical literature review, interviews and in-person workshops.
ONC's National Health IT Priorities for Research: A Policy and Development Agenda was developed in collaboration with federal partners other healthcare stakeholders, incorporating findings from medical literature review, interviews and in-person workshops.
Its goal, according to ONC, is to work toward a nationwide health information technology infrastructure that "supports alignment of the clinical and research ecosystems where research happens faster, better, and easier, and new knowledge is available at the point of care to improve outcomes."
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8 Ways Practices Are Investing in Patient Experience Now
February 25, 2020
Providing a great patient experience is slowly shifting from a differentiator to a survival tactic. In a world where reimbursements are tied to patient experience and where online ratings can impact patient volume, practices can’t afford not to focus on experience. But are practices investing in patient experience?
Healthcare IT Today recently sat down with Andrew Hadje, Assistant Director, Association Content at the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) to find out. During our conversation Hadje shared tangible, actionable ways practices and medical groups are improving patient experience. Throughout the year, MGMA has been gathering feedback and information from its members on this important topic.
Here are 8 ways practices are working to keep and delight patients:
1. Let patients book online
Being able to book an appointment online can be the difference between a patient using your clinic and a patient using someone else’s. We all have busy lives. We want to be able to book an appointment when it is convenient for us, which may not necessarily be during your office hours.
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At Walgreens, Complaints of Medication Errors Go Missing
By Ellen Gabler
· Feb. 21, 2020
Pharmacy employees at Walgreens told consultants late last year that high levels of stress and “unreasonable” expectations had led them to make mistakes while filling prescriptions and to ignore some safety procedures.
But when the consultants presented their findings at Walgreens’s corporate offices this month, there was no reference to the errors and little mention of other concerns the employees had raised.
That’s because senior leaders at Walgreens had directed the consultants to remove some damaging findings after seeing a draft of their presentation, a review of internal emails, chat logs and two versions of the report shows.
In one instance, Amy Bixler, the director of pharmacy and retail operations at Walgreens, told them to delete a bullet point last month that mentioned how employees “sometimes skirted or completely ignored” proper procedures to meet corporate metrics, according to the chat logs and the draft report.
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The Health 202: Artificial intelligence use is growing in the U.S. health-care system
THE PROGNOSIS
The use of artificial intelligence is proliferating in American health care — outpacing the development of government regulation.
From diagnosing patients to policing drug theft in hospitals, AI has crept into nearly every facet of the health-care system, eclipsing the use of machine intelligence in other industries. More than half of health-care insiders said the industry is ahead of other fields in AI adoption in a survey published in January by KPMG International Cooperatives.
Meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers have yet to pass comprehensive legislation regulating the artificial technology's impact on a variety of industries and the personal data it mines to become smarter. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (D-N.Y.) introduced bills in April to provide oversight by the Federal Trade Commission of personal data collected by AI, but none have progressed beyond committee.
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02-20-20
From video games to bots that bleed, the future of doctor training looks wild
Medical schools and training hospitals are looking to games and super-realistic robots to prepare doctors for their day-to-day procedures.
Imagine a mouth wide and open. It’s your job to feed a plastic line of tubing past the teeth, over the tongue, past the red dangling uvula, down the throat, and into the trachea near the lungs. You are trying to ensure the person to whom this mouth belongs is getting oxygen.
As you send the tubing further into the throat, you see a butterfly-shaped opening to the airway. It flexes as air pulses in and out. At the top of it is a small tumor. You wait for the airway to flare open and then push the tube through. You hit the side of the tracheal wall instead. The mouth coughs repeatedly and you have to pull the tube out.
What you’re experiencing is a simulation of a medical procedure called tracheal intubation created by a company called Level Ex. The startup makes smartphone video games for doctors to help them train on procedures and certain medical tools. There are games for intubation, colonoscopies, pulling off a polyp with forceps, administering anesthesia, or even pulling a Lego out of a someone’s esophagus (a procedure known as bronchoscopy).
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February 25, 2020 / 12:06 AM /
Drug pricing review group signs deal with Aetion for patient data
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER), a small but influential Boston-based research group, has signed a deal with private technology company Aetion to help it use patient health data in its reports on whether individual drugs are priced properly.
Large national regulators, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and United Kingdom’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), are considering increasing the use of data gathered outside of clinical trials on the effectiveness of treatments, often referred to as real-world data.
The FDA is running a pilot project using Aetion’s technology to analyze insurance claims to try to replicate clinical trial results, as part of a requirement to comply with healthcare legislation called the 21st Century Cures Act. It is seeking to determine under what circumstances such data could replace clinical trials, which have long been the foundation of medicine regulation.
Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is a board member at Aetion.
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German health minister Jens Spahn presents draft law for patient data protection
Data protection and usage in the electronic patient record (EPR) will be regulated by the new act, which received both criticism and praise.
By Anna Engberg
February 24, 2020 03:47 AM
The draft for the German Patient Data Protection Act (PDSG) is now available, federal health minister Jens Spahn announced at the end of January.
The draft bill, now subject the vote of the federal government, is intended to regulate access rights to patient data in the electronic patient record and digital health applications, but also to make use of it to the benefit of patients.
If the draft is passed in its present form, numerous provisions will come into force that promote the self-determination of patients with regard to their health data, such as the possibility of data donation without personal reference for scientific research, the regulation of electronic patient record access rights for physicians under patient sovereignty, the right of insured persons to have their treatment data made available, and also their one-time instruction in EPR use.
Furthermore, numerous deadlines have been set, including for gematik, the company for telematics applications of the health card, to provide an ePrescription app. In order to strengthen semantic interoperability in the German healthcare system, the PDSG provides for binding terminologies and standards such as SNOMED.
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Healthcare should approach consumer-generated data cautiously, expert says
Dr. Eldesia Granger of The MITRE Corporation guides healthcare leaders on how to work with consumer-generated data. At HIMSS20, she’ll highlight MITRE’s framework for handling this emerging information source.
February 24, 2020
Consumer-generated data increasingly is being used to forecast health outcomes, risks and healthcare utilization. In the absence of ethical standards to guide consumer-generated data use in healthcare analytics, there may be harms to patient privacy and autonomy, disruption of trust in the patient-provider relationship, or marginalization of individuals or populations.
Healthcare organizations and their vendors increasingly are using consumer and lifestyle data. This consumer and lifestyle data, referred to as consumer-generated data, includes data such as an individual’s purchase transactions, social media presence, internet searches, wearables data, etc.
While consumers may be aware of organizations using their consumer-generated data for marketing purposes, they are largely unaware that organizations are now using consumer-generated data alone, or integrated with clinical data, to make inferences regarding their health.
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Survey Points to Payer, Provider Differences In Health Data Strategies, But Also Much Common Ground
February 24, 2020
Results from a new healthcare industry survey suggest that while payers and providers are somewhat at odds when it comes to data management, their strategies still have much in common.
The survey in question was sponsored by Change Healthcare and the HealthCare Executive Group conducted by InsightDynamo. It draws on responses from 445 healthcare leaders across payer, provider and third-party vendor organizations and was conducted in late 2019,
Broadly speaking, payers and provider respondents have found common ground in several areas, including the need to address Social Determinants of Health, consumerism in healthcare and the potential for AI and machine learning to transform the industry.
Both payers and providers reported that smart AI technologies are improving operations and health system efficiency (payers 38%, providers 56%) and reducing costs (payers 28%, providers 42%). Both sides also agreed that AI and machine learning are having an impact on consumer engagement, with roughly a third of both groups (payers 36%, providers 39%) saying that seeing tangible results working with these technologies.
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HHS Unveils Strategy to Reduce EHR Burden for Clinicians
By John Commins | February 24, 2020
Recommendations aim to reduce the effort and time required by clinicians to meet reporting requirements, record health information, and improve the functionality and intuitiveness of EHRs.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· HHS' Strategy on Reducing Regulatory and Administrative Burden Relating to the Use of Health IT and EHRs, was mandated by the 21st Century Cures Act.
· The final report, the end product of a draft, issued in November 2018, was led by the ONC and CMS and includes input from the more than 200 comments.
The federal government has released its long-awaited plan to reduce red tape and other administration snarls that create time-eating obstacles for doctors using health information technology.
The Department of Health and Human Services' Strategy on Reducing Regulatory and Administrative Burden Relating to the Use of Health IT and EHRs, mandated by the 21st Century Cures Act, aims to reduce the effort and time required by clinicians to meet reporting requirements, record health information, and improve the functionality and intuitiveness of EHRs.
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Healthcare has many use cases for 5G and IoT but no infrastructure to support it
Hospital leaders are tracking the technologies but not making any implementation plans yet.
At a hospital, the Internet of Things (IoT) makes more sense than in many other places. Consider: The ROI of connecting blood pressure cuffs, bed monitors, infusion pumps, and other monitoring devices, not to mention tracking staff, inventory, and patients and other use cases.
Healthcare leaders see even more use cases for 5G, from quickly transmitting scans to expanding telemedicine and to using augmented realitiy and virtual reality experiences to treat patients.
What about 5G and IoT use cases? Healthcare has plenty of those, but neither the infrastructure nor room on the IT priority list to implement. Tech leaders are more focused on electronic medical records, interoperability, and machine learning. Costs become the other big problem associated with each technological advance. Hospital IT budgets may not be up to the task of securing all those smart devices or building a network to connect them.
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Special Report: Cybersecurity
Despite cybersecurity mainly keeping out of the headlines in recent times, the importance of data security still remains. Claire Read explores why continuing investment in cybersecurity is crucial and the impact it has on the NHS.
As lead for digital health at Imperial College London’s Institute of Global Health Innovation, Saira Ghafur spends much of her working life thinking about cybersecurity in healthcare. But she says it’s when she puts on her other hat – that of a respiratory medicine consultant – that the need to highlight its importance to all NHS staff becomes particularly clear.
“If you ask my clinical colleagues: ‘Tell me about cybersecurity,’ they look at you blankly,” reports Ghafur. “People need to understand that [as frontline staff] we are guardians of data and any cyber attack, any cyber threat, has got to be seen as a patient safety issue.”
It was an argument put forth in a report she and colleagues published last year, urging continuing investment in cybersecurity even as WannaCry starts to fade somewhat into history. Certainly, there is no doubt that the mass of attention-grabbing pledges and promises of national support that followed the serious impact of the attack on the NHS have passed. But, interestingly, Ghafur does not see that as necessarily a bad thing.
“I think initially post-WannaCry we saw that flurry of activity. There was a lot going on from the national perspective in terms of capital investment as well. There was the announcement of the big price tag [projects] – £150m and everyone upgraded to Windows 10.
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Enjoy!
David.
