Here are a few I came across last week.
Note: Each link is followed by a title and few paragraphs. For the full article click on the link above title of the article. Note also that full access to some links may require site registration or subscription payment.
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/real-time-data-ring-may-predict-covid-19-in-healthcare-workers
Real-Time Data Ring May Predict COVID-19 in Healthcare Workers
Scientists are aiming to determine whether a smart ring that collects real-time data can detect COVID-19 symptoms.
By Jessica Kent
May 28, 2020 - Researchers at Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Medicine are aiming to predict COVID-19 by using a smart ring that continuously tracks real-time data and physiological changes.
The project is part of a three-pronged effort to detect COVID-19 in healthcare workers on the frontline of the pandemic.
The team recently launched a study designed to identify patterns of onset, detection, progression, and recovery from COVID-19 by observing body temperature, heart rate, breathing rate, and other measures, as well as illness symptoms like fever, cough, and fatigue.
FAU researchers are part of a global study called TemPredict, led by the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). TemPredict includes two groups: frontline healthcare workers and the general population.
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NHSX seeks remote monitoring suppliers to manage Covid-19 pressure
NHSX is seeking suppliers of remote monitoring technology to help scale solutions across the UK in response to the Covid-19 outbreak.
Andrea Downey - 26 May, 2020
In a tender notice published on 15 May, the organisation called on technology companies with “evidenced examples” of the successful use of their innovation to apply.
The remote monitoring care solutions will have a “particular focus on Covid-19 patients and the management of patients with long term conditions to support care during the next phases of the pandemic”.
Successful suppliers will form part of the Spark Dynamic Purchasing System, which enables suppliers to offer their solution to the whole public sector.
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May 28, 2020 / 3:50 AM / 2 days ago
Belgian data watchdog says state use of data to fight virus flawed
BRUSSELS, May 27 (Reuters) - Belgium’s plan to store massive amounts of personal data in a central database to help contain the spread of the novel coronavirus raises a number of concerns, the country’s privacy watchdog said as it called for more safeguards.
While a number of countries around the world have decided to use mobile contact tracing apps, the country of 11.5 million has decided to hire 2,000 people to manually track those confirmed or suspected of being infected with the coronavirus.
The Belgian plan does not seem justified, the Belgian data protection agency said in a non-binding opinion earlier this week.
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Registry Tracking Key Coronavirus Clinical Metrics for Seriously Ill Patients
By Christopher Cheney | May 29, 2020
Data in the Viral Infection and Respiratory Illness Universal Study registry includes mechanical ventilation duration and ICU length of stay.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· A primary goal of the registry is to document practice variations in the care of seriously ill COVID-19 patients.
· As of May 27, the registry has gathered data from more than 5,300 patients at 109 care sites.
· Mayo Clinic and the Society of Critical Care Medicine have launched a global coronavirus registry to track ICU and hospital care patterns.
Since the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in December, scientists and clinicians have been scrambling to determine the pathology and care pathways for the novel virus. Much remains to be learned such as amassing data about treatments and outcomes.
A key goal of the Viral Infection and Respiratory Illness Universal Study (VIRUS) registry is to gather information about practice variations in the care of seriously ill COVID-19 patients, says Rahul Kashyap, MBBS, MBA, a researcher and VIRUS registry principal investigator at Rochester, Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic.
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The COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea and its implications on the future of telehealth
“There is a lot of discussion within the government to allow telehealth services in South Korea. It is one of the ‘new normal’ after COVID-19,” said Dr Hwang Hee, CIO, SNUBH.
By Dean Koh
May 29, 2020 04:54 AM
In the third episode of the HIMSS APAC Digital Dialogue Series hosted by Dr Charles Alessi, HIMSS Chief Clinical Officer, guest speakers Dr Hwang Hee, Chief Information Officer, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, South Korea and Kim Dong-Hee, Country Leader, Philips, South Korea shared their thoughts on what was done differently to manage the COVID-19 situation in the country, and how telehealth might look like post COVID-19.
Managing the COVID-19 situation in South Korea
In a previous interview with Healthcare IT News, Dr Hwang explained that IT preparedness of hospitals and healthcare providers is key to managing outbreak of COVID-19. During the dialogue session, he attributed four main factors in South Korea’s swift and effective response to the pandemic:
- Korean citizens’ active compliance with government policies
- Dedication of medical personnel and frontline staff
- Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) intense and proactive management of the pandemic
- Efficient support of intensive care hospitals
30 designated intensive care hospitals in 16 regions in the country have been providing timely medical care to infected COVID-19 patients and Community Recovery Centers (CRCs) were also established for less serious cases.
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COVID-19 has accelerated adoption of non-contact patient monitoring technology, says Frost & Sullivan analysis
Report predicts shift away from wearables to video analytics and mobile platforms.
By Tammy Lovell
May 29, 2020 06:53 AM
Contactless monitoring systems and smartphone health applications are playing a vital role in the war against COVID-19, a report has found.
According to the analysis by Frost & Sullivan, non-contact patient monitoring technologies are gravitating toward the use of video, sound analysis and mobile-based platforms incorporating advanced technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms.
It predicts a shift away from wearable technology, which it says can be uncomfortable, expensive and have limited usage, in favour of non-contact technology which have the advantages of being multi-use and affordable.
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Tech optimization: Making quality and safety integral to clinical processes
In this special report, three IT experts describe technologies and strategies to boost quality improvement efforts and put patient safety at the center of the equation.
By Bill Siwicki
May 29, 2020 02:02 PM
The technologies available to ensure high-quality care and patient safety are varied, but all depend on data, especially from electronic health record systems, to ensure care providers are making the best decisions during care delivery and have developed safe treatment plans.
But making clinical decision support and advanced analytics models work together optimally is easier said than done.
In this latest installment in Healthcare IT News' technology optimization special report series, three experts in quality and safety IT – from research firms Black Book Research and KLAS Enterprises, and from IT vendor Pascal Metrics – describe some best practices to ensure these technologies work in concert toward improved outcomes and reduced medical errors.
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2020/05/29/ai-based-tech-creates-automated-post-visit-summaries/
AI-Based Tech Creates Automated Post-Visit Summaries
May 29, 2020
As someone managing a few chronic health conditions, I know what it is to feel that you can’t possibly retain all the information you get during a physician visit. No matter how well your doctor communicates, it’s inevitable some nuances will be lost when you look back at a visit, even if you take detailed notes on what was said.
For that reason, it’s good to see that tech companies are stepping up to address this aspect of documenting care, one which, as it turns out, AI is well-suited to address.
So far, much of the activity around AI-driven documentation looks worth the larger picture. Big tech companies like Microsoft are already developing technology which will ultimately deliver AI-driven hands-free visit documentation. In the future, Microsoft says, it expects to deploy what he calls ambient clinical intelligence which will write clinical documentation on behalf of doctors.
Meanwhile, startups are focusing on smaller subsets of the AI documentation market which by themselves probably seem insignificant to the juggernauts of the tech business.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/h-isac-shares-identity-management-framework-for-healthcare-cisos
H-ISAC Shares Identity Management Framework for Healthcare CISOs
Centered around governance, a new H-ISAC framework shows CISOs effective ways to implement identity and access management processes into overall enterprise security programs.
May 27, 2020 - The Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center recently released an identity management framework for the healthcare sector, designed to help chief information security officers better manage identity and access controls and bolster enterprise cybersecurity.
H-ISAC previously released its initial white paper in October 2019, detailing the need for an identity-centric cybersecurity approach in healthcare. The most recent framework aims to enable CISOs to put the approach into action.
The latest insights provide CISOs with methods to architect, build, and implement an identity system able to defend against modern cyberattacks and support key business drivers. H-ISAC designed the guide to be agnostic to organization size, structure, and other particulars.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/external-threats-outpace-insider-related-breaches-in-healthcare
External Threats Outpace Insider-Related Breaches in Healthcare
Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report finds external threats caused more healthcare data breaches than insiders last year, as the confirmed number of breaches substantially increased.
May 27, 2020 - The number of confirmed data breaches in the healthcare sector substantially increased last year, as external threats exceeded the number of insider-related incidents for one of the first times, according to the latest Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR).
For its 2020 DBIR, Verizon researchers analyzed a total of 3,950 data breaches across 16 sectors and four global regions, along with 157,525 security incidents (of which 32,002 met its quality standards). Researchers noted they focused on confirmed data breaches, rather than other incident reports.
For healthcare, there were 798 security incidents and 521 confirmed data breaches in 2019, compared to 304 incidents in the previous year. While miscellaneous insider errors, privilege misuse, and web applications were the leading causes 2018 healthcare data breaches, external threats outpaced insiders in this year’s report.
In fact, 51 percent of healthcare data breaches were caused by external actors, and insider-related breaches fell to 48 percent. Despite the slight increase in external-related breaches, healthcare does remain the leading industry for internal bad actors.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/epic-systems-takes-the-leap-to-remote-virtual-ehr-implementation
Epic Systems Takes the Leap to Remote, Virtual EHR Implementation
Following Cerner, add Epic Systems to the list of vendors that successfully launched a virtual EHR implementation.
May 27, 2020 - Valley Children’s Healthcare, which provides care for over 1.4 million children in the Madera County area of California, has completed a remote, virtual EHR implementation with Epic Systems. This is the EHR vendor’s first virtual EHR implementation.
The COVID-19 travel bans made it challenging to do a traditional in-person implementation, which requires numerous EHR vendor support staff to be on-site in the hospital. This standard implementation was not possible during the pandemic.
Not only was the entire go-live process conducted remotely, but Epic and Optimum Healthcare, a staffing and consulting services firm, teamed up to integrate seven different EHR platforms into one Epic EHR platform.
This is the first time a third party engineered a 100 percent virtual go-live. Optimum utilized 20-plus analysts and provided executive oversight to help Valley Children’s IT team execute the transition.
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Virtual checklist prepares patients for virtual care at Massachusetts General
Tanaka MJ, et al. J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2020;doi:10.2106/JBJS.20.00609.
May 27, 2020
As the COVID-19 pandemic limited options for musculoskeletal care by requiring practices to stratify patients based on the urgency of their injury, orthopedic surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital began converting existing clinical protocols to telemedicine to meet the need for care for a wider range of patients in their practice.
“Our hospital system had been set up for [telehealth] in a select patient population, but we had to expand [it] within our orthopedic practices out of necessity,” Miho J. Tanaka, MD, director of the Women’s Sports Medicine Program at Massachusetts General Hospital and member of the faculty at Harvard Medical School, told Healio Orthopedics. “Having had a background in digital imaging and image analysis, I became interested in the utility of these virtual visits because there were a lot of onscreen tools and digital concepts that could be applied to the virtual exams.”
To achieve comparable examinations across practitioners, Tanaka and colleagues established a set of protocols to follow for virtual care visits, which were published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery.
Virtual visit checklist
In the paper, Tanaka and colleagues noted a virtual visit can be optimized with the help of a virtual visit checklist provided to patients prior to the visit.
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https://www.medpagetoday.com/patientcenteredmedicalhome/patientcenteredmedicalhome/86702
COVID-19's Bright Spot: Getting Remote Monitoring Data into the EHR
— Imagine all the possibilities for this technology, says Fred N. Pelzman, MD
by Fred N. Pelzman, MD May 27, 2020
The use of reliable and well-integrated data from remote patient monitoring may prove to be one of the few bright spots that have come out of what we've learned in the recent COVID-19 pandemic.
Sending sicker and sicker patients home from the outpatient world and the emergency department, patients with multilobar pneumonia and hypoxemia we never would've not admitted to the hospital in earlier days, has helped us build systems that would hopefully inform us about who's doing well at home, who is not doing well, and who needs to be brought back in. There simply has not been capacity to admit everyone with pneumonia and borderline oxygen levels, and we had to make hard decisions.
The EHR's Role
When we send patients home from the emergency department or after an office visit with clearly suboptimal oxygen saturation, remote patient monitoring with pulse oximetry has allowed us to keep a closer eye on them compared with traditional follow-up phone calls. What we need to do now, moving forward, is build better systems for monitoring, better alerts, more timely and efficient integration into the electronic health record, and the development of tools that will look deeply at this data and help alert us that things are potentially about to go bad
Right now, we're using the simplest form of monitoring -- we have members of the healthcare team calling patients on a daily basis and asking what their temperature is, how they're feeling, whether their symptoms are getting better or worse, and what their pulse oximeter reading is, both at rest and with exertion. Much better would be direct integration of this data -- in real time -- into the electronic health record (EHR), and then having that data be filtered by a system that's keeping an eye on things, noticing trends, picking up patterns, noticing that levels, while potentially still normal, are heading in the wrong direction. This, I think, is the hope for the future, the true potential benefit, of using an integrated system-wide EHR that captures data and puts it into usable formats.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/europe/nhs-launch-london-covid-19-digital-staff-bank-platform
NHS launch London 'COVID-19 Digital Staff Bank' platform
The staff bank represents a breakthrough for inter-trust and private-public collaboration.
May 28, 2020 01:48 AM
A group of London hospitals have banded together to create the London COVID-19 Digital Staff Bank: a centralised cloud-based platform for staff recruitment. The 14 hospitals are working together in conjunction with Patchwork Health and Reed Talent Solutions to ensure that temporary staffing contracts are filled appropriately and swiftly during the COVID-19 emergency.
WHAT'S THE IMPACT
With up to a fifth of staff absent from some London hospitals as a consequence of COVID-19, there is demand for easy access to urgent, flexible shift-work. The staff bank broadcasts recruitment requests from all participating hospitals and trusts, connecting clinicians from all over London and enabling them to respond to demand wherever it is.
Healthcare workers’ credentials are verified by a secure validation system when they sign up to the cloud-based service, solving the time-, money- and resource-consuming process of hospitals having to individually verify temporary staff members. It also alleviates the need for clinicians to join multiple different staff banks to find work.
A quarter of London’s doctors have already signed up to the app.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/europe/trial-medical-robots-proving-successful-bahrain
Trial of medical robots proving successful in Bahrain
The Kingdom’s Ministry of Health confirmed that the three devices are being used in order to protect healthcare staff from excessive exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
May 28, 2020 05:16 AM
A trio of medical robots that have been undergoing trial in a Bahrain COVID-19 isolation unit have been well received by health officials so far, it has been reported.
Earlier this month, the machines comprising three models – the “Robot Net 20”, “Robot Net 21”, and the “Robot Infirmiere Nurse Robot” – were deployed to the Ebrahim Khalil Kanoo Health Centre isolation facility in Manama. The experiment, spearheaded by Bahrain’s Ministry of Health (MoH), is to assess how modern technology can minimise the direct exposure of healthcare workers to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
“During this period, we want to provide the best protection and safety to all healthcare staff and further minimise their exposure by using technology in the national efforts to fight COVID-19,” said Fatima Al Ahmed, assistant undersecretary for resources and services at the MoH. “The future plan is to use robots in providing nursing care that will be a big step to boost health services in the country.”
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New Zealand releases new COVID-19 info app for health workers
This follows the recent launch of the NZ COVID Tracer app.
By Dean Koh
May 28, 2020 12:00 AM
New Zealand’s Ministry of Health yesterday launched a new mobile app named Āwhina to help health workers access the information they need about COVID-19. Health workers can quickly filter content so they can find what is relevant to them and can also save content in the app to give them quick access to it again later.
The Health Ministry developed the app with feedback from people working in the health sector, and by learning from approaches taken in other countries to get information about COVID-19 to health workers.
As of 27 May, New Zealand reported no new cases of COVID-19 for a fifth consecutive day. There is also currently no one in New Zealand receiving hospital-level care for COVID-19.
Last week, New Zealand launched its NZ COVID Tracer app, which is designed to support rather than replace existing contact tracing processes. The app will create a “digital diary” of the places that users visit through the scanning of QR codes displayed at the entrances to business premises, other organizations and public buildings.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/three-ways-providers-get-hipaa-right-access-wrong
Three ways providers get HIPAA right of access wrong
In their HIMSS20 Digital session, privacy policy experts Deven McGraw and Jodi Daniel offer a deeper look at digital patient-access, the APIs that enable it – and the mistakes healthcare organizations make when providing medical records.
By Bill Siwicki
May 28, 2020 12:36 PM
The HIPAA Privacy Rule Right of Individual Access guarantees that patients can get copies, physical or digital, of their healthcare records from their providers. Simple as that.
But then again, it’s not as simple as it might first sound. Many provider organizations misinterpret this area of HIPAA law. One mistake can lead a hospital, health system or group practice into noncompliance with HIPAA – the consequences of which can include substantial fines.
Where a right goes wrong
Deven McGraw, chief regulatory officer at Ciitizen, a company that helps consumers get digital copies of their medical records, is very familiar with the places where provider organizations get the HIPAA Privacy Rule Right of Individual Access wrong.
In her recent HIMSS20 Digital educational session on the subject, Patient Access to Medical Records: The Rocky Road to APIs, McGraw – who also served as chief privacy officer at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT – offered some detailed insights into how providers should be thinking about this law, especially in light of new patient-access rules from ONC and CMS.
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2020/05/28/top-live-video-telehealth-companies-list/
Top Live Video Telehealth Companies List
May 28, 2020
Spoiler Alert: Here’s the live video telehealth list. Keep reading for background & future plans.
A few weeks ago, as telehealth started to explode, I realized how important understanding the telehealth market was going to be for those who read Healthcare IT Today. Plus, having been through the golden age of EHR software otherwise known as meaningful use, I’d seen first hand some of the things that healthcare organizations need when a new technology becomes must have technology. One of those things is a list of the companies that are working in that space so they can evaluate the various options. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a list like that which worked well for healthcare organizations, so we started creating our own.
Looking at it now, it’s easy to see that we’re at the start of what I think is fair to call the golden age of telehealth. We won’t dive into all the great things about this change, but needless to say, it’s amazing how COVID-19 has woken up healthcare organizations to telehealth solutions literally overnight. The problem I’ve seen is that anything that touches the patient remotely or communicates with the patient is now calling themselves telehealth. This makes it hard for healthcare organizations to cut through the noise and know which options are really ones they should consider.
Plus, I knew that it was just a matter of time before a healthcare organization, CIO, or physician friend was going to ask me “What’s the best telehealth solution?” I wanted to make sure I had a good answer for them.
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Many Hospitals Will Implement Robotic Process Automation Within Next Few Years
May 28, 2020
Research collected over the course of last year suggests that hospitals plan to implement robotic process automation and AI technologies over the next few years.
The study, which was compiled by HIT vendor Olive, includes data collected by Sage Growth Partners at the 2019 HLTH and Becker’s Revenue Cycle conferences. Respondents included 89 executives whose roles included chief medical information officer, IT director and manager, revenue cycle manager and data analysis leader at hospital systems and independent hospitals in the US.
Olive’s research concluded that most healthcare leaders were familiar with the idea of process automation, with just 8% of respondents with the title “director” and 16% with that of “manager” reporting that they weren’t aware of such technology.
Meanwhile, surveyed hospital leaders said they viewed automation as capable of addressing several important issues, including operational redundancies and a need to free up workers to handle critical needs.
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The Evolving Role of Fax in Interoperability in Healthcare
May 28, 2020
The following is a guest article by Doug Clayton from WestFax.
The origin of the modern fax machine dates back to the 1960’s. From that analog origin to enterprise-scale cloud fax, we have seen the evolution of fax from simple point to point document exchange to something extremely powerful and capable.
Some pundits see fax as standing in the way of forward progress, but the truth is that HIPAA secure fax is evolving and already providing interoperability and automation capabilities now.
For healthcare organizations, one of the biggest obstacles in the interoperability race has been the industry’s lack of clear data standards. While these new standards evolve, fax is the workhorse doing the heavily lifting. With the recent release of FHIR v4 we now have a standard that is normative as all future versions of FHIR must be backward compatible with V4. While some herald it as the golden child of Interoperability, it still faces challenges with adoption and issues with two way communications among stakeholders.
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https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/25/ai-systems-training-data-sex-bias/
AI systems are worse at diagnosing disease when training data is skewed by sex
May 25, 2020
The artificial intelligence model showed great promise in predicting which patients treated in U.S. Veterans Affairs hospitals would experience a sudden decline in kidney function. But it also came with a crucial caveat: Women represented only about 6% of the patients whose data were used to train the algorithm, and it performed worse when tested on women.
The shortcomings of that high-profile algorithm, built by the Google sister company DeepMind, highlight a problem that machine learning researchers working in medicine are increasingly worried about. And it’s an issue that may be more pervasive — and more insidious — than experts previously realized, new research suggests.
The study, led by researchers in Argentina and published Monday in the journal PNAS, found that when female patients were excluded from or significantly underrepresented in the training data used to develop a machine learning model, the algorithm performed worse in diagnosing them when tested across across a wide range of medical conditions affecting the chest area. The same pattern was seen when men were left out or underrepresented.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/sens.-ask-fbi-cisa-how-to-protect-covid-19-medical-research-data
Sens. Ask FBI, CISA How to Protect COVID-19 Medical Research Data
Four Senators ask the FBI and DHS CISA whether more resources are needed to protect COVID-19 medical research data, as Chinese hackers continue to target the intellectual property.
May 25, 2020 - The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency are being asked how they’re defending against attempts to hack COVID-19-related research data, following reports that hackers tied to the People’s Republic of China are targeting the intellectual property.
On May 13, the FBI and CISA released an alert to COVID-19 research organizations, warning that threat actors are targeting these entities, and it’s likely many have been compromised. In the past, CISA has accused China of similar attacks on supply chain relationships, as well as targeted attempts to gain access to medical research for blackmail purposes.
The FBI is currently investigating the latest round of attacks on COVID-19 research firms, as hackers move to identify and steal valuable intellectual property and public health data, from potential vaccine information to testing from the networks and workforce of COVID-19 researchers.
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/ai-driven-supercomputer-helps-with-covid-19-response-recovery
AI-Driven Supercomputer Helps with COVID-19 Response, Recovery
Penn State researchers are using an artificial intelligence-powered supercomputer to find COVID-19 treatments and explore ways to help the world recover.
By Jessica Kent
May 26, 2020 - A supercomputer powered by artificial intelligence is helping a team at Penn State’s Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS) find solutions for COVID-19 now and in the future.
Researchers are leveraging supercomputing and artificial intelligence capabilities to uncover possible treatments and therapies for COVID-19, as well as ways to help the world recover socially, economically, and psychologically.
“Our researchers’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been phenomenal and the speed and insights that they have shown in creating evidence-based guidance and solutions in support of medical, social and policy responses has been nothing short of inspirational,” said Jenni Evans, professor of meteorology and atmospheric science and ICDS director.
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https://patientengagementhit.com/features/how-adventhealth-saved-patient-experience-during-covid-19
How AdventHealth Saved Patient Experience During COVID-19
At AdventHealth, critically ill patients weren't going to stay at their bedsides alone, even during COVID-19. Virtual family visits salvaged patient experience.
May 22, 2020 - Earlier this month, a patient experience leader held up a video chat to a 20-year-old woman giving a frail but celebratory thumbs up. This was the first time the woman’s parents were able to connect with their daughter after she was admitted to AdventHealth with COVID-19.
The coronavirus pandemic has been a blight on family engagement, with most healthcare organizations needing to prohibit visitations. These video visits have been a part of AdventHealth’s efforts to bring some semblance of normalcy to the patient experience and connect loved ones during a significant medical crisis.
“Visitor restrictions are, of course, so hard on our families and on our caregivers because we know how important having the support of a loved ones is for our patients,” said Pam Guler, MHA, FACHE, CPXP, LSSMBB, the vice president and chief experience officer at AdventHealth. “We also know how important it is for our families to be able to be there with their loved one and to keep everyone safe.”
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/4-ways-congress-can-leverage-health-it-to-curb-covid-19
4 Ways Congress Can Leverage Health IT to Curb COVID-19
Pew’s project director of Health Information Technology indicated a scenario where Congress can help mitigate COVID-19 and future health emergencies by enhancing current health IT systems.
May 26, 2020 - Pew Charitable Trusts outlined four ways that policymakers in Congress can build on existing systems and policies to strengthen the nation’s public health infrastructure for COVID-19 and future endeavors.
A national infrastructure for health information exchange (HIE), advancing standards for application programming interfaces (APIs), encouraging better data standards, and fixing current patient matching flaws are all doable health IT tasks that Congress can execute to mitigate COVID-19.
“As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to upend daily life and put millions of Americans at risk, it is also highlighting the gaps in the nation’s ability to electronically share data among health care facilities, laboratories, and public health authorities,” wrote Ben Moscovitch, project director of Health Information Technology at Pew.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/asia-pacific/managing-covid-19-ttsh-experience
Managing COVID-19: The TTSH Experience
Technologies adopted to tackle the COVID-19 situation at TTSH included the Staff Surveillance System (S3), Command, Control and Communications (C3) system and a real time location system (RTLS).
By Dean Koh
May 26, 2020 02:09 AM
Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) is the largest hospital under the National Healthcare Group (NHG) with 1600 beds located in the central part of Singapore. Co-located at TTSH is the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID), a 14-storey, 330-bed purpose-built facility set up by the Ministry of Health to enhance infectious disease outbreak management and public health preparedness for the nation.
In the second episode of the HIMSS APAC Digital Dialogue Series hosted by Dr Charles Alessi, HIMSS Chief Clinical Officer, guest speaker Dr Tan Cher Heng, Assistant Chairman Medical Board (Clinical Research and Innovation), TTSH provided insights on how his hospital made use of digital technologies in managing COVID-19 cases. They are joined with Barry Chaiken, Clinical Lead, Healthcare, Tableau, who is the supporting partner of the episode.
CHALLENGES POSED BY COVID-19
When Singapore entered DORSCON Orange on 7 February, one of TTSH’s key challenges was to ensure that visitors and patients were adequately screened for infection, to prevent transmission to the hospital’s patients. 24/7 surveillance checkpoints were established at all entrances in the campus, which were manned by the hospital’s administrative staff who volunteered to step out of the comfort of their offices.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/hospitals-facing-big-hurdles-public-health-data-reporting
Hospitals facing big hurdles to public health data reporting
Hospitals are having a hard time reporting data to public health agencies, according to a new JAMIA study, which finds patchwork data sharing, "often occurring via fax or phone."
By Kat Jercich
May 27, 2020 09:14 AM
Hospitals may encounter administrative or logistical hurdles when reporting data to public health agencies – which, in turn, can hinder essential information tracking in times of infectious disease outbreaks.
In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, Harvard Business School researchers used data from the 2018 American Hospital Association Annual Survey and IT supplement to examine the barriers hospitals faced when trying to meet meaningful use requirements.
One significant challenge, researchers found, was the ability of agencies to receive the data hospitals were mandated to send.
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https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/future-apis-first-depends-building-value-patient-access
May 27
The future of APIs first depends on building value for patient access
Patients want access to everything, according to focus groups interviewed by the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Susan Morse, Managing Editor
The final interoperability rules released in March are expected to be implemented over the next two years, to boost the exchange of data through new Application Program Interfaces and FHIR standards.
The Pew Charitable Trusts set out to learn how ready patients, providers and vendors are to use the new standards and what they expect from them.
The public policy organization held focus sessions with patient, provider and vendor groups and released the results in a HIMSS20 Digital session, The Future of APIs: Patient, Provider, and Vendor Perspectives.
Health information technology project director Ben Moscovitch and senior associate Ashley Ashworth said they conducted nine focus groups.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/onc-sequoia-project-extend-interoperability-collaboration
ONC, Sequoia Project extend interoperability collaboration
The public-private partnership has been re-upped for another year as Sequoia continues to help implement and build out community support for TEFCA.
By Mike Miliard
May 27, 2020 11:49 AM
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT will continue to work with the Sequoia Project to roll out the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) for another year, after securing $1.1 million of new funding for the interoperability effort.
WHY IT MATTERS
ONC selected the Sequoia Project to serve as recognized coordinating entity for TEFCA implementation in September 2019, tasking the private-sector group with developing, updating, implementing and maintaining the common agreement parts of the interoperability framework.
As recognized coordinating entity (RCE), Sequoia is in charge of aspects such as its common agreement and Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN) and the technical framework of TEFCA, thus ensuring transparency and building broad industry engagement.
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Northwestern University Partners To Create Wearable for Tracking COVID-19 Symptoms
May 27, 2020
Researchers at Northwestern University have partnered to create a wearable device that can track key COVID-19 symptoms when patients discharge from the hospital to their home.
The University researchers are working with the Chicago-based Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, a translational research hospital in which clinicians, scientists and technologists work to bring research in physical medicine and rehabilitation to patients.
The device, which was designed in an engineering lab at Northwestern, uses specialized algorithms created by AbilityLab scientists. It builds on technology created to monitor patients recovering from strokes developed by a team led by Arun Jayaraman, a research scientist at the AbilityLab who is leading algorithm development for the COVID wearable project.
Jarayaman’s team is working with the lab run by John Rogers, head of the Querrey Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering.
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Telehealth Expansion During Coronavirus Pandemic Changing Physician-Patient Relationship
By Christopher Cheney | May 27, 2020
Methods for promoting a strong physician-patient relationship during telehealth visits include orienting and engaging the patient.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· To establish relationships with new patients or patients who have a history of infrequent visits, physician practices should have a proactive communication strategy.
· From a business perspective, the major impact of virtual visits has been on reimbursement.
· Physician practices should have a telemedicine strategy that accounts for patients who do not have adequate Internet access for video visits such as providing services via phone calls.
The dramatic growth of telemedicine during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is having a significant impact on the physician-patient relationship.
In March, when the pandemic took hold in the United States, telehealth visits increased 50%, according to Frost and Sullivan. With in-person medical visits associated with the risk of coronavirus infection, virtual visits emerged as a safe and effective way for patients to meet with their doctors in many circumstances.
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As Chinese authorities expand use of health tracking apps, privacy concerns grow
By Josh Horwitz and Brenda Goh on May 27, 2020 2:12PM
QR codes set to play broader role in daily life as local authorities dream up new uses .
China's health tracking QR codes, which have played a key part in the country's successful containment of the coronavirus, now look set to play a much broader role in daily life as local authorities dream up new uses for the technology.
Embedded in the popular WeChat and Alipay smartphone apps, the codes use self-reported and automatically collected travel and medical data to give people a red, yellow or green rating indicating the likelihood of having the virus.
To walk around freely, people in China must have a green rating and since February they have been asked to present their health QR codes to gain entry into restaurants, parks and other venues.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/covid-19-proves-need-for-national-health-it-infrastructure
COVID-19 Proves Need for National Health IT Infrastructure
Two medical professionals said COVID-19 has put the spotlight on the need for a national health IT infrastructure.
May 21, 2020 - The spread of COVID-19 illustrates the need for a national health information technology infrastructure, according to an article published in JAMA.
To help curb the pandemic, health organizations and researchers need timely, accurate, and reliable health information.
Specific to the current case of coronavirus, researchers need to know how many individuals tested positive for COVID-19, demographic data from those individuals, the number of individuals who are seen at health facilities, how many were hospitalized and how they were taken care of, and the length of the hospital stay.
Vice President Mike Pence and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), requested hospitals report COVID-19 testing data directly to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/netwalker-ransomware-expands-operations-targeting-healthcare
NetWalker Ransomware Expands Operations, Targeting Healthcare
NetWalker ransomware actors have exploited the healthcare sector throughout the COVID-19 crisis. Now, the hackers are pairing up with other cybercriminals to gain enterprise access.
May 22, 2020 - The NetWalker ransomware threat actors – a serious threat to the healthcare sector – has ramped up its business model, transitioning into a Ransomware-as-a-Service (Raas) model in an attempt to partner with other seasoned cybercriminals, according to a recent Advanced Intelligence report.
The healthcare sector has been a prime target for NetWalker through the pandemic. The hacking group was behind the ransomware attack on the website of Champaign-Urbana Public Health District in Illinois in mid-March.
In March, Microsoft detailed some its tactics alongside other human-operated ransomware groups, such as Maze and REvil. These groups all rely on similar techniques, such as credential theft and lateral movement, before later deploying a ransomware payload.
In the last two months as the impact of the pandemic increased, NetWalker has become “extremely active.” And it’s new business model will allow the group to collaborate with other cybercriminals who’ve already gained access to large networks and have the capability of disseminating ransomware.
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https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/cio-nebraska-medicine-digital-transformation/578345/
CIO case study: Understanding Nebraska Medicine's technology backbone, years in the making
The coronavirus tested Nebraska Medicine and University of Nebraska Medical Center's cloud- and mobile-first strategy.
May 21, 2020
A hallmark of well-executed technology deployment is the absence of fanfare. No alarms blare, few users hiccup and stakeholders acknowledge a job well done. The coronavirus pandemic tested technology's ability to run quietly in the background, as new, distributed constraints cropped up.
"When IT is invisible, it's really working," said Brian Lancaster, CIO of Nebraska Medicine and the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Many industry peers are not invisible right now, he told CIO Dive.
Lancaster is the CIO of two organizations operating in concert. Nebraska Medicine is the healthcare business, a clinical enterprise where nurses, doctors and pharmacists operate. UNMC is a teaching and research facility with faculty and students across six colleges.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/these-companies-offer-top-ehr-optimization-help-says-klas
KLAS weighs different strengths of EHR optimization services
In its new report, the research firm rates clinical optimization services for their ability to alleviate clinician burnout by streamlining workflows, boosting application performance and improving training.
By Mike Miliard
May 26, 2020 04:36 PM
Electronic health records are now nearly ubiquitous – and dissatisfaction with their UX and usability is arguably almost as widespread.
But an array of consultants and other firms and clinical-optimization services offer health systems assistance with customization and training, in order to boost the performance of their EHRs. In its most recent report, KLAS assesses the field.
In exploring the various strengths of the firms – Atos; Chartis Group; Impact Advisors; Navin, Haffty and Associates; and Nordic – KLAS looked at how they help with three specific areas:
- workflow refinement, which it defines as help with redesigning clinical processes to boost efficiency and effectiveness
- application enhancement: adjusting interfaces and controls on the screen to supposed better workflows
- clinician training, to help EHR end users get the most out of their daily experience with the technology as they deliver care
"Provider organizations often turn to clinical optimization firms when they lack sufficient resources or expertise internally to meet their goals in the desired time frame," KLAS explained – often when new systems are rolled out, upgraded or standardized on a single platform. "Many organizations use different firms for different levers."
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FDA pushes need for plasma donations, with Mayo Clinic giving registry support
The Mayo clinician leading the expanded access program describes how it's managing the task of plasma collection, with hopes that COVID-19 antibodies can help other patients fight off the disease.
May 26, 2020 10:34 AM
As part of its COVID-19 response, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in April launched a nationwide expanded access program to collect and provide convalescent plasma to patients in need across the country. Plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients contains antibodies that may help fight the disease.
Mayo Clinic is serving as the lead institution for the program, coordinating with other industry, academic and government organizations.
Dr. Michael Joyner, a Mayo Clinic physiologist researcher, is coordinating a national registry, known as USCovidPlasma.org, to increase availability of experimental convalescent plasma for patients in the hospital.
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CareMount Medical uses telehealth now to avoid health crisis later
Patients were cancelling their non-COVID-19 appointments to avoid the virus. The medical group went from six to 1,500 daily telehealth visits to tend to regular care needs.
By Bill Siwicki
May 26, 2020 11:47 AM
As people stay home to avoid exposure to COVID-19, healthcare leaders across the country worry about the potential long-term health implications of patients putting off their general medical appointments and procedures. Could there be a future health crisis as a result of, for example, missed routine cancer screenings or delayed testing for chronic conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure?
THE PROBLEM
Dr. Scott Hayworth, president and CEO of CareMount Medical, the largest independent multi-specialty medical group in New York State with more than 650 physicians, worries that over the next couple of years the country could see a spike in preventable disease and death because of missed or delayed screening for skin cancer, gynecological issues and other health conditions.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on our practice, as it has on all medical practices across the country,” Hayworth said. “During the pandemic, we have experienced a significant decrease in patient volume; we could not perform elective procedures; and we substantially increased our telehealth utilization. One of the serious concerns we’ve had during the pandemic revolves around patients with chronic conditions such as hypertension or diabetes obtaining needed care.”
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26 May 2020 | 19:00 GMT
PAL Robotics Customizable Bots Could Be the Next Frontline Workers
The robots could interact with COVID-19 patients, check their temperature, and even provide entertainment
THE INSTITUTE Scientists around the world are pushing hard to develop new technologies to support frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. While much of this tech includes assistive tools to support frontline workers with their tasks, some researchers have their eye on ways to reduce the need for these employees to conduct high-risk tasks—by giving the jobs to robots.
One of those researchers is IEEE Member Francesco Ferro, CEO of PAL Robotics. He contacted The Institute to let us know about the company’s arsenal of customizable robots.
Based in Barcelona, the company’s base models are designed for a variety of tasks, including socializing with people and transporting items. PAL Robotics has been exploring ways to use its existing base models—or build upon them—to aid in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The effort has involved a lot of collaboration and adaptation in a short amount of time.
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China’s plan to make health tracking permanent on phones stirs concern
· Dow Jones
China has created a smartphone tool to trace and track the movement of potential coronavirus patients. Now, plans to make that kind of health tracking permanent are stirring concerns in a country where personal privacy was once said to be an afterthought.
Anger spread across Chinese social media sites over the weekend following an announcement that officials in the eastern city of Hangzhou could create a permanent version of a smartphone-based health-rating system developed to fight COVID-19. The news led some internet users to accuse the city of exploiting the pandemic to expand state monitoring of residents.
The controversy came days after Baidu chief executive Robin Li, a member of a Chinese political advisory body currently convening in Beijing as part of the country’s annual legislative conclave, proposed new rules to rein in the collection of sensitive personal information as part of efforts to fight the coronavirus.
Chinese authorities have aggressively touted the deployment of digital surveillance in helping to contain the spread of COVID-19. In addition to tracking potential patients with temperature-detecting cameras and smartphone location data, officials have also used QR code-based health-rating apps to manage the movement of residents depending on their risk of exposure.
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https://www.livemint.com/news/india/the-coming-of-age-of-e-health-platforms-11590324836814.html
The coming of age of e-health platforms
9 min read . Updated: 24 May 2020, 09:18 PM IST Mihir Dalal
- Most healthcare startups are seeing an unprecedented surge in demand. Is a unicorn around the corner?
- Despite the regulatory environment becoming clearer and increasing customer interest, startups could face opposition from local pharmacy groups
MUMBAI : Two decades ago, Alexander Kuruvilla launched the telemedicine business for Narayana Hrudayalaya, a hospital chain in Bengaluru. But because of poor internet access and a generally low-technology infrastructure—patients would often make payments through demand drafts—the business struggled to take off. “What was missing was instant gratification—patients wouldn’t instantly get consultations, doctors wouldn’t get the fees due to them on time," Kuruvilla said.
In his present position as chief healthcare strategy officer at online healthcare platform Practo Technologies Pvt. Ltd, Kuruvilla has no such problems. Since the first week of March, Practo has registered a five-times jump in daily doctor consultations from customers, with general physicians, gynaecologists, dermatologists and psychiatrists most in demand.
To cope, Practo was forced to shift dozens of employees from other business lines to the consultation team. “We’ve been working 15-16 hours every day for the past eight weeks. We wake up to this. We sleep to this," Kuruvilla said.
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Canada to ramp up COVID-19 testing and tracing, recommend digital app
By Steve Scherer on May 25, 2020 1:31AM
Works closely with Apple and Google.
Canada will ramp up COVID-19 testing and contact tracing as it gradually lifts restrictions and is working closely with Apple and Google on a mobile phone app to help, the prime minister said on Friday.
In his daily news conference, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the federal government was already helping Ontario, the most populous province, with contact tracing and was open to do the same for the other 12 provinces and territories.
Businesses and citizens "need to know that we have a coordinated approach to gradually reopen that is rooted in science, evidence and the ability to rapidly detect and control any future outbreaks," Trudeau said.
Canada's total cases rose to 81,765 on Friday, and deaths were up less than 2% to 6,180, official data showed. With contagion slowing in recent weeks, provinces have begun lifting quarantine restrictions, but in some areas, like Ontario, testing and tracing has lagged.
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Enjoy!
David.
