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://www.digitalhealth.net/2020/06/recovering-covid-19-patients-devices/
Recovering Covid-19 patients given devices to spot dips in oxygen levels
Those recovering from Covid-19 are to be given devices which can help spot dips in their blood oxygen-levels while they recover at home.
Hanna Crouch – 5 June, 2020
The NHS is trialling the use of oximeters, combined with an app, which will make it easier to spot whether people need to be re-admitted to hospital.
The new oximeter service is being tested with more than 150 patients in sites on Watford, Hertfordshire and north London.
The trial has involved NHSX working with British digital health start-up, Huma, formerly known as Medopad.
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https://www.digitalhealth.net/2020/06/northern-ireland-epic-epr/
Northern Ireland signs with Epic for £275m EPR programme
Northern Ireland has signed a £275m deal with US firm Epic to supply electronic patient records across the country.
John Hoekema – 10 June, 2020
The landmark 10-year deal aims to underpin modernisation of health and care services across Northern Ireland. It will also see the country become one of the first parts of the UK to get fully integrated electronic health and social care record systems, replacing a patchwork of ageing legacy systems.
The £275m contract was awarded by Health and Social Care Northern Ireland (HSCNI) under a programme called ‘encompass’ and covers acute, mental health and social care services in the province. Primary care systems are not covered by the deal.
Epic will supply integrated electronic records to the five Health and Social Care Trusts in Northern Ireland plus the ambulance trust, that deliver both health and care services, and serve a population of 1.9million.
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Roundup: NHS CEO on Black Lives Matter, N Ireland signs with Epic for £275m EPR programme and more briefs
Also, NHS launches new online support for people with diabetes in this week’s Healthcare IT News roundup.
By Sara Mageit
June 12, 2020 04:21 AM
SIR SIMON STEVENS ON BLACK LIVES MATTERNHS chief executive Simon Stevens, internally shared a personal message on Black Lives Matter with all NHS England and NHS improvement staff. The need for faster action was stressed on the reality of racism and discrimination experienced by many colleagues across the NHS.
In the message, Stevens states that it would be, “wrong to marginalise this moment by trying to compartmentalise it as racism over there in America, not here in Britain.”
“It is increasingly clear that COVID-19 is having a disproportionate impact on our black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) patients, friends and colleagues. And this, in turn, has brought into stark and urgent focus the layered impacts of years of disadvantage and inequality.”
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Targeted Population Health Interventions Will Boost COVID-19 Outcomes
Health systems should target population health interventions to people with existing chronic diseases in order to improve COVID-19 outcomes.
By Jessica Kent
June 11, 2020 - The interaction of COVID-19 and existing chronic diseases – including diabetes, obesity, and hypertension – are associated with poorer outcomes from the virus, indicating that health systems should target population health interventions to these high-risk patients, according to researchers from the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.
In an opinion piece published in the British Medical Journal, the team noted that while population health strategies primarily target the elderly, underlying chronic conditions in younger people are all strongly associated with a higher risk of severe illness, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19.
The association between obesity and poor outcomes from the virus is particularly concerning. Researchers said that in the US and Mexico, more than one-third of people 15 years and older are obese. South Africa, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, and Hungary report rates of more than 20 percent.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/guide-pop-health-it-vendors-and-sdoh-tools
A guide to pop health IT vendors and SDOH tools
In this special report, we offer in-depth profiles of companies and technologies that can help providers target their population health management efforts and direct outreach for social determinants of health.
By Bill Siwicki
June 12, 2020 12:53 PM
As health systems work to meet the imperatives of quality improvement and value-based reimbursement, they’re deploying analytics tools to manage patient populations, gain insights into the needs of specific groups and direct care resources to those who need them most.
The technology available to help providers meet these complex demands – delivering treatment for chronic conditions and comorbidities in traditional care settings, while also coordinating outreach and partnerships to meet basic wellness needs such as food security and transportation – are fast-evolving.
Because of the wide-ranging and varying nature of pop health and SDOH needs, having a good understanding of how these many tools and platforms can work for specific organizational strategies is essential.
To help health system CIOs, IT professionals, clinicians, care managers and other provider leaders wade through the many technology offerings, Healthcare IT News is compiling this comprehensive special report detailing the vendors in this space. This list will be updated.
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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/finance/hospital-emr-market-hit-207b
Hospital EMR Market to Hit $20.7B
By Jack O'Brien | June 12, 2020
The compounded annual growth rate is expected to be at 7.8% for the forecast period.
The hospital electronic medical records (EMR) systems market is expected to hit $20.7 billion by 2025, according to a MarketsandMarkets report released Friday morning.
Currently, the EMR market is $14.2 billion, according to the report, and the projected compounded annual growth rate is expected to be at 7.8% for the forecast period.
The report attributes the market's projected growth to "the government mandates and support to increase adoption of hospital EMR solutions, the need to curtail escalating healthcare costs, a growing number of hospitals adopting EMR solutions worldwide."
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These open-source software developers want to give diabetics new tools to manage their condition
Tidepool has persuaded some of the biggest diabetes tech players to start opening up, which could offer diabetics new options.
By Jo Best | June 8, 2020 -- 09:34 GMT (19:34 AEST) | Topic: Digital Health and Wellness
Tidepool, which makes open-source tools to help diabetics better manage their condition, was born from CEO Howard Look's experience following his daughter's type 1 diabetes diagnosis, and frustrations with the clunky tech built for the condition.
Like Look, many diabetics have long complained about the inadequate user interfaces, the poor interoperability and the lack of common standards they have to put up with in the technology they have to use. Tools for managing diabetes haven't always been as user friendly as they could be, with data from continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), for example, hard to extract and analyse using other tools.
Coming from a Silicon Valley background – Look worked at companies including Amazon and Pixar – the Tidepool CEO decided the world of diabetes needed to change. What if it were possible to design devices in a way that wasn't constrained by VC funding and aimed at benefit, not profit? He set up Tidepool to answer that question in 2013, funded initially by donations from benefactors.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/report-unsecured-misconfigured-databases-breached-in-just-8-hours
Report: Unsecured, Misconfigured Databases Breached in Just 8 Hours
Comparitech finds it takes hackers less than nine hours to compromise unsecured or misconfigured databases, with attackers proactively targeting data instead of relying on Shodan.
June 10, 2020 - New research from Comparitech shows hackers begin targeting online databases just hours after the initial setup process, finding inadvertently unsecured or misconfigured databases can be compromised in just over eight hours.
Misconfigured or unsecured databases have led to several massive healthcare data breaches in recent years. Indeed, IntSights research found about one-third of healthcare databases stored locally and in the cloud were currently exposed to the internet and putting patient data at risk.
For example, TechCrunch discovered a flaw in the back-end of LabCorp’s internal customer relationship management system was exposing patient health data in January 2020. And in August, two third-party vendors reported data breaches caused by misconfigured databases, exposing the data of nearly 90,000 patients.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/how-a-statewide-health-information-exchange-inked-its-first-client
How a Statewide Health Information Exchange Inked Its First Client
Connecticut’s health information exchange is in the process of implementing a network-of-networks concept, which bridges smaller practices with larger health systems to enhance patient data exchange.
June 10, 2020 - It took nearly two decades, multiple attempts, and millions of dollars, but Connecticut’s health information exchange has finally taken the leap by signing its first trusted partner, Connecticut State Medical Society’s CTHealthLink.
“It began in the early 2000s and for us to be at this point right now is very exciting,” Robert H. Aseltine, PhD, chair of the advisory board for CTHealthLink, said in an interview with EHRIntelligence. “The state is doing the right thing now and it seems like we’re on the precipice of finally getting a statewide HIE up and running.”
Even though it took the state many tries to establish its HIE, Aseltine said it was a no-brainer for CTHealthLink to sign on with the statewide HIE, which will be named CONNIE.
“With the state putting so many resources and so much effort and planning into this, it would be very difficult to decline,” he explained.
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US COVID-19 cases top 2 million as first protest-linked infections noted
Jun 10, 2020
Some members of the Washington, DC, National Guard—deployed over the past 2 weeks of protests and civil unrest in the wake of the George Floyd murder—have tested positive for COVID-19, a National Guard spokesperson confirmed with McClatchy news services yesterday, and US cases today topped 2 million.
Though it's not clear how many of the 1,300 troops active in DC in recent weeks are infected, the news dampens optimism that outdoor protests with masked participants would not necessarily spread the novel coronavirus. The National Guard is encouraging all troops deployed during protests to be tested for COVID-19 within 14 days.
The Nebraska National Guard has also confirmed two cases among troops activated in response to protests in Lincoln last week.
Top officials on the White House coronavirus task force voiced concerns to governors on Monday that protests would lead to a surge of new cases, according to a transcript of a phone call obtained by The Daily Beast.
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Telehealth shows promise for fostering better doc-patient relationships
In a study from Mayo Clinic Proceedings, NYU Langone and Doctor on Demand showed how patients are finding value in virtual care, with many citing a rewarding rapport with their provider.
By Mike Miliard
June 11, 2020 05:33 PM
As telehealth use continues to expand, many are wondering what the ramifications will be when, as is widely expected, virtual care becomes a much larger part of the healthcare experience going forward.
A new study published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings suggests that patients might be much more willing to engage substantially with telehealth – and may find the experience much more rewarding – than many might have assumed even a few months ago.
The peer-reviewed study was led by Dr. Tania Elliott of NYU Langone Health and co-authored with Dr. Beth A. Lown of The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare and Arwen Sheridan and Ian Tong of telehealth company Doctor On Demand.
It suggests that Doctor On Demand’s video-based visits are often leading to rewarding relationships between patients and physicians and to improved patient satisfaction.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/origins-ai-healthcare-and-where-it-can-help-industry-now
The origins of AI in healthcare, and where it can help the industry now
AWS’ chief medical officer offers some useful historical perspective, while experts from Cerner, Geisinger and Gyant discuss some of the most promising and potentially transformative use cases for artificial intelligence in healthcare today.
By Bill Siwicki
June 11, 2020 12:21 PM
Healthcare is at an inflection point. Machine learning and data science are becoming key components in developing predictive and prescriptive analytics. AI-powered applications are transforming the health sector by reducing spend, improving patient outcomes and increasing accessibility to care.
But where did AI in healthcare stem from? And what factors are driving AI use in healthcare today? Dr. Taha Kass-Hout, general manager for healthcare and AI, and chief medical officer at Amazon Web Services, offered some historical perspective during a HIMSS20 Digital educational session, Healthcare’s Prescription for Transformation: AI.
The early days of AI in healthcare
“In medicine, at the end of the day, we want to know what sort of patient has a disease and what disease a patient has, so predicting what each patient needs and delivering the best care for them, that’s ultimately the definition of precision health or precision medicine,” Kass-Hout said.
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https://ai-med.io/can-patients-ever-have-a-say-over-how-their-health-data-is-being-used/
Can patients ever have a say over how their health data is being used?
06/10/2020
Global trade in health data is not something new. Adam Tanner, Associate at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science of Harvard University and author to two books on personal data and privacy, including Our Bodies, Our Data: How Companies Make Billions Selling Our Medical Records published in 2017 wrote, back in 1956, one of the leading medical advertising agencies in New York deployed a staff to West Germany to survey the pharmaceutical market and the types of drugs that sold well.
These insights were put together into reports that were exceptionally popular among drug companies. As a result, the agency quickly expanded its data-mining business to other parts of the world and became the “heart of a for-profit global trade in anonymized patient data”. The $20 billion company still stands strong today; under the name IQVIA, after it merges with Quintiles, a clinical research company back in 2016.
A trade concerning patients but keeps them in the dark
Primarily, the company collates and processes medical records, prescriptions, insurance claims, lab test results and so on from over half a billion patient records worldwide. In the US, such business is not illegal as there are no defined rules to say who – physicians, hospitals, patients – have the explicit rights to medical records.
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Sharing Data Only Where You Want: How Octopus.sh Can Aid Healthcare
June 11, 2020
Year after year, patients fret about what clinicians are secretly doing with their medical data, while researchers strain to find data to support their experiments, and everybody complains about how hard it is to exchange data with a new doctor. I was talking recently to a UK-based software startup whose approach to identity management and data sharing may appeal to all these stakeholders. Currently, the service is in testing at the University of Cambridge and other British universities, who need to monitor identities in order to control access to various facilities.
Octopus.sh combines a number of familiar technologies in identity management, but creates an unusual distributed data repository from them. Each person or organization can set up one or more repositories for their data, called a vault by Octopus.sh. To share the data, the owner creates an intermediate repository called a dead drop location and loads selected items into it. The recipient also sets up a dead drop location.
Another important technical piece of the architectures is an access control token (ACT) that works like the certificates exchanged in identity services such as Active Directory and Kerberos–but critically, there is no third-party hub in charge of validation. Each ACT is encrypted and ensures that it represents the valid owner or recipient through an embedded signature. The owner generates an ACT and places it in the drop dead location provided by the recipient; the recipient does the reverse for the owner. Once they accept each other’s ACTs, data can be exchanged.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/health-sector-most-targeted-by-hackers-breach-costs-rise-to-17.76b
Health Sector Most Targeted by Hackers, Breach Costs Rise to $17.76B
ForgeRock’s annual consumer identity breach report found the healthcare sector was the most targeted by hackers in 2019, which has continued into 2020. And its 382 data breaches cost the sector more than $2.45 billion.
June 09, 2020 - The healthcare sector was the most targeted by hackers and cyberattacks in 2019. And its 382 data breaches cost the sector more than $17.76B billion, according to ForgeRock’s 2019 Consumer Breach Report.
The healthcare sector accounted for 45 percent of data breaches in 2019, followed by the banking, insurance, and financial sector at 12 percent. Researchers calculated the $17.76B spent on data breaches amounted to about $429 per breached patient record, up 5.14 percent from 2018.
ForgeRock researchers analyzed the data breaches affecting consumers across all sectors reported between January 1, 2019 and March 31, 2020, which were the categorized by sector. Researchers found that breaches have dramatically increased during that timeframe, both in numbers and in costs.
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COVID-19 Misinformation Turns Attention to Public Health Messaging
CDC data showed that misinformation about disinfectants and COVID-19 spread to nearly one-third of adults. This outlines a need to target public health messaging.
By Sara Heath
June 09, 2020 - One in three US adults used some sort of chemical disinfectant unsafely as a measure to protect against COVID-19, according to new figures from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. This outlines serious public health messaging and patient education pitfalls, as well as the broad spread of COVID-19 misinformation.
Following up on data outlining a spike in calls to poison control centers, the CDC surveyed 502 US adults about their knowledge of household cleaning best practices as part of COVID-19 prevention and intervention. The survey identified a number of knowledge gaps, CDC said, suggesting areas where public health messaging and education may be fortified.
Perhaps most notably, 39 percent of respondents said they engaged in at least one high-risk practice with household cleaning products. Those practices included washing food products with bleach, applying household cleaning or disinfectant products to bare skin, and intentionally inhaling or ingesting these products, CDC said.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/how-an-ehr-prescription-benefit-tool-increases-price-transparency
How an EHR Prescription Benefit Tool Increases Price Transparency
Prior to the EHR prescription benefit tool, a lack of price transparency would both turn the patient away from buying medication and increase burden for the pharmacist.
June 09, 2020 - The first question most patients ask Mehul Khakhkhar when they walk into Upgrade Pharmacy is, “how much will this medication cost?” But until Upgrade Pharmacy implemented an EHR prescription benefit tool, Khakhkhar didn’t always have a great answer for them.
“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to answer that at the time because the insurance company would dictate that, meaning we had to prepare the entire prescription before we could give them the answer,” Khakhkhar, who is a pharmacist at Upgrade Pharmacy, said in an interview with EHRInteligence.
Prescription drug costs are a huge sticking point for both patients and providers. For patients, a hefty price tag can be the difference between getting their medications for paying their rent that month; more often than not, patients choose the rent.
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https://www.wired.com/story/health-care-online-patients-left-behind/
06.08.2020 09:00 AM
When Health Care Moves Online, Many Patients Are Left Behind
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, more doctors are turning to telemedicine. That's a problem for tens of millions on the wrong side of the digital divide.
Speaking on a landline, the patient complained of an itchy eye. On the call’s other end, physician Carla Harwell considered the possibilities, from seasonal allergies to vision-damaging herpes. Luckily, the elderly patient’s daughter was visiting during the phone consultation, so Harwell asked her to text a picture of her mom’s eye. The photo shocked Harwell. It was the worst case of bacterial conjunctivitis the doctor had ever seen.
Without the picture, Harwell would have told the octogenarian patient to call back in a few days or come to her office, risking an in-patient visit during the Covid-19 pandemic. She certainly wouldn’t have prescribed the antibacterial eye drops needed to treat the infection. “I probably would not have prescribed anything,” Harwell says. “That’s a scary thought.”
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, more of the nation’s medical care is being delivered by telephone or videoconference, as in-person care becomes a last resort for both doctors and patients. That’s a problem for tens of millions of Americans without smartphones or speedy home internet connections. For them, the digital divide is exacerbating preexisting disparities in access to health care.
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UnitedHealth execs: Patients are using telehealth for convenience, not as a necessity
Jun 10, 2020 7:30am
Telehealth use began to skyrocket back in March as patients saw virtual care as a necessity amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Patients are continuing to see doctors over video visits but for different reasons now: It's more convenient and faster than going to see the doctor in person.
This trend shows that telehealth is not just a blip on the radar and points to the future of healthcare, said Wyatt Decker, M.D., CEO of OptumHealth, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, during a company briefing on the future of telehealth.
According to data from UnitedHealth Group and consumer research company CivicScience, 29% of consumers said they used telehealth in May up from 8% in December. The percentage of consumers who don't plan to use telehealth dropped from 72% in December to 47% in May, according to a consumer poll.
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Kaiser Permanente: 8 key capabilities for a sustained response to COVID-19
Jun 9, 2020 3:30pm
As the industry braces for the next phase of COVID-19, experts at Kaiser Permanente are sharing several key capabilities that will be critical to prepare for another potential surge.
In an article for NEJM Catalyst, leaders at the healthcare giant highlight eight focus areas health systems must consider as the country reopens and offer a look at how Kaiser Permanente tackled those challenges.
A critical starting point, they write, is a robust testing program that feeds into essential contact tracing and monitoring of any spikes in cases. As of May 18, Kaiser Permanente has performed more than 233,706 diagnostic tests and is also tracking the spread telephonically through its call centers as well as secure emails between patients and doctors.
The Oakland, California-based system is also mulling greater use of patient symptom surveying and harnessing data within electronic health records to further enhance the testing effort, according to the article.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/potential-security-crisis-presented-rapid-telehealth-rollouts
The potential security crisis presented by rapid telehealth rollouts
Experts say the coronavirus pandemic acts like "blood in the water" for cybercriminals looking to exploit tech vulnerabilities.
By Kat Jercich
June 10, 2020 03:34 PM
The COVID-19 pandemic has provoked an unprecedented upswing in the use of telehealth technologies. But security experts say that rise presents vulnerabilities – and the crisis is "blood in the water" for cybercriminals.
"Any time you make a change to an IT environment, you have the potential to increase risk," said Andy Riley, executive director of security strategy at the managed-security-services vendor Nuspire.
"When you introduce rapid change, that potential goes up rapidly," Riley continued.
A "perfect storm" for cybercriminals
The need for patients and providers to minimize in-person contact has created new vulnerabilities throughout the care-provision process and has spotlighted existing ones, experts say. Reports have already emerged about bad actors, including nation-states, using the virus as a wedge to obtain information.
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Nuance, Wolters Kluwer partner for voice enabled clinical decision support
Clinical Content Search, a new embedded voice assistant tool in Dragon Medical One, links physicians with relevant CDS topics from UpToDate in response to spoken questions.
By Mike Miliard
June 10, 2020 03:57 PM
Wolters Kluwer Health and Nuance Communications have joined forces to enable clinicians with easier-access evidence-based clinical-decision support via Nuance Dragon Medical One's voice-assistant capabilities.
WHY IT
MATTERS
Through the partnership, providers now have voice-enabled access to relevant
topics in Wolters Kluwer's UpToDate CDS resource, with Dragon Medical One's
natural language processing capabilities.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center is one of the health systems that's implemented the joint technology so far, and, in a press statement, Dr. Yaa Kumah-Crystal, assistant professor of biomedical informatics and pediatric endocrinology at Vanderbilt, noted its efficiency and ease of use.
"Having the ability to interact with a system that understands natural spoken words and provide the relevant desired information saves doctors valuable time," she explained. "This, in turn, allows them to focus on patient care."
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/1-5-patients-have-found-errors-visit-notes
1 in 5 patients have found errors in visit notes
According to a new JAMA study, patients reported finding mistakes in diagnoses, medical history, medications and more – and practitioners were not always open to correcting the errors.
By Kat Jercich
June 10, 2020 11:55 AM
Patients who have access to notes from their ambulatory care visits may be able to flag mistakes, increasing record accuracy and safety engagement.
A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that one-fifth of patients who read ambulatory care notes reported finding a mistake in those notes, and 40% of those regarded the error as serious.
"Among patient-reported very serious errors, the most common characterizations were mistakes in diagnoses, medical history, medications, physical examination, test results, notes on the wrong patient, and sidedness," the study authors explained.
WHY IT MATTERS
By 2014, Massachusetts-based Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Geisinger and the University of Washington Medicine had all made EHR information available for almost all ambulatory and surgical practices and for all types of practitioners through the OpenNotes initiative. Since then, the project has continued to gain momentum, with more than 40 million patients able to gain visibility into their clinical notes.
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Results from 1,392 Physician Survey by Sermo on Telehealth and Patient Volumes
June 10, 2020
While the volume of patients seen by physicians has fallen in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, the number of telehealth visits they handle has shot up dramatically, according to a recent survey. Meanwhile, the need to use telehealth to see patients during the pandemic has led a sizeable number of doctors to offer telehealth visits for the first time.
The survey was conducted by physician site Sermo, which connected with 1,392 physicians in nine countries to complete its research.
According to the survey, most US respondents have seen volume fall, with 81% reporting mild to significant declines, though another 14% said it had actually increased. This nets out to a total of 67% of doctors who have seen volume decrease.
While Sermo didn’t ask survey participants which services had become less popular, it seems likely that the volume of elective options (including some high-reimbursement services) and some routine check-ins have shrunk. This is not good financial news for doctors as has been highlighted by many industry leaders.
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Apple adds anonymous symptom and health info sharing to its COVID-19 app and website
Darrell Etherington @etherington / •
Apple has updated its own COVID-19 iOS app and website with new features to allow users to anonymously share info, including their age, number of existing health conditions, symptoms, potential exposure risks and the state in which they’re located. This info, which is not associated with any of their personal identifying data in any way, according to the company, will be used in an aggregated way to help inform the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and improve the organization’s COVID-19 screening protocol.
The app will also use the aggregated data to assist public health agencies and the CDC in their efforts to help the public with the best available information about potential risk factors around COVID-19, and around what constitutes exposure and exposure risk.
Apple launched its coronavirus screening app and website back in March, providing not only screening tools to help provide users with guidance on whether or not they should seek testing, but also tips on preventative measures, including hand-washing and best practices for sanitization.
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https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/10/covid19-data-mobility-network-tech/
Can location data capture how well the Covid-19 response is working? A joint effort aims to find out
By Erin Brodwin
June 10, 2020
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, tech giants have chipped in on a panoply of efforts to shore up data that can help track, trace, and curb the spread of the virus, from Apple and Google’s collaboration on contact tracing technology to Amazon’s funding for several pandemic-related research projects.
But an independent group of researchers thinks it has a better way to lend a hand.
The group, called the Covid-19 Mobility Data Network, includes public health researchers and data scientists across a smattering of institutions, including Harvard and MIT. Two of its co-founders were early members of a task force involving tech companies and the White House that has struggled to make a meaningful impact. They have since left and are now focused on scaling up the network’s research.
The group is using aggregated movement data from Facebook and other companies to assess potential pitfalls of public health interventions and have been regularly sharing their findings with state and local public health authorities across the country, as well as foreign governments.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/hhs-unveils-detailed-covid-19-guidance-to-enhance-data-reporting
HHS Unveils Detailed COVID-19 Guidance to Enhance Data Reporting
HHS wants researchers to gain more demographic patient data, such as gender, race, and zip code, to help mitigate COVID-19.
June 08, 2020 - The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced standardized COVID-19 data reporting guidelines to ensure public health officials have access to comprehensive and accurate patient data in an effort to fight the pandemic.
The additional guidance includes information about gender, race, and zip code, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) noted an increase in minority cases since March. As states begin to open, detailed demographic data is required to gauge hot spots and enhance decision making.
“HHS and the entire Trump Administration are deeply concerned that COVID-19 is having a disproportionate impact on certain demographics, including racial minorities and older Americans,” said HHS Secretary, Alex Azar.
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https://patientengagementhit.com/news/virtual-rounding-led-to-humanized-patient-experience-measures
Virtual Rounding Led to Humanized Patient Experience Measures
At U Chicago Medicine, a virtual patient rounding system had an intended result: strong human connections woven into the patient experience.
By Sara Heath
June 08, 2020 - When the COVID-19 outbreak became widespread at the beginning of March, Susan Murphy, RN, BSN, knew she’d have to revamp how the patient experience team at U Chicago Medicine addresses patient health concerns.
Through her work as a nurse and as the hospital’s chief experience officer, Murphy has zeroed in on patient rounding procedures. Patient rounding helps clinicians assess patient sentiment and needs to make changes in real-time, and has been a core part of Murphy’s understanding of improving patient experience.
“One of the main tactics that I’ve learned in my career being a nurse and being in the experience arena for many years, is to round with and talk to patients and create conversations with them about their stay while they're here,” she told PatientEngagementHIT in an interview.
For the past six years, U Chicago Medicine has utilized a nurse rounding platform from Vocera to understand how patients are experiencing their hospital stay in real-time. The platform lists questions that spark conversations between patient experience leaders and patients about the level of care. Clinicians take this feedback to the care team to make improvements.
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Adapting Social Determinants of Health Screening for Remote Care
A digital system for social determinants of health screening has helped Allina Health adjust as it cuts down on in-person healthcare access.
By Sara Heath
June 04, 2020 - June 04, 2020 - If you asked her in January, Ellie Zuehlke, director of Community Benefit and Engagement at Allina Health, would have said the health system would fully implement its virtual strategy, including digitizing its social determinants of health screening and referral, in about five years. She couldn’t have imagined that just a few months later the health system would have pivoted to digital in less than a week.
“In March, our world flipped upside down and we in Minnesota basically shut our clinic,” Zuehlke said to PatientEngagementHIT. “People joke about it but it's really true. We implemented our five-year virtual strategy in five days.”
At break-neck speed, Zuehlke and partners in the health technology and accountable communities departments revamped technology from NowPow. This tool allows providers to assess a digital social determinants of health screener and provide virtual links to community-based services that can meet the needs detected in the screener. The technology also enables virtual connections between the highest-risk patients and healthcare navigators.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/08/technology/coronavirus-test-sites-startups.html
The Idea: Build It, and They Can Find Coronavirus Tests
Three start-up veterans who created an online directory of testing sites are among a wave of volunteers contributing to the virus fight.
· June 8, 2020
For the past two months, the 9-to-5 jobs at their recruiting software company were just the start of a busy workday for Joe Essenfeld, Boris Kozak and Matt Geffken.
After a short break for dinner and a little family time, the three friends would jump on an 8:30 p.m. Zoom call with a dozen other volunteers to work on AllClear, a website to help people find information about testing locations for Covid-19, and stay at it until 2 or 3 a.m.
AllClear now has a directory of more than 10,000 locations in the United States where people can be tested for Covid-19 or for antibodies to the coronavirus. The listing for each location is displayed on a map and contains information such as the test type and whether an appointment is necessary.
The excitement of doing something new felt familiar to the three men, who worked together at Jibe, a software company Mr. Essenfeld started. Last year, Jibe was sold to iCIMS, a recruiting software company where they still work. But there is no financial reward awaiting them this time. They have already spent $35,000 of their own money for something that they promise won’t ever make a cent.
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How the Patient Portal Improves Health Outcomes in Chronic Illness
Frequent patient portal users yielded 2 percent fewer hospitalizations and 2 percent fewer hospital readmissions.
By Sara Heath
June 08, 2020 - Getting more patients on board to actively use the patient portal could drive better patient engagement in care and boost healthcare outcomes, according to new research out of the University of Texas Austin.
The study, published in MIS Quarterly, found that meaningful patient portal use results in fewer hospitalizations, a decrease in emergency department visits, and lower readmission rates. When frequent patient portal users do get admitted into the hospital, it’s often for a shorter period than patients who do not use the patient portal.
All of these outcomes could result in considerable cuts in healthcare costs, the researchers said.
“The study is good news for hospitals and patients alike,” Indranil Bardhan, the study’s lead research and a professor of information, risk and operations management in UT Austin’s McCombs School of Business, said in a statement. “Effective use of patient health information systems is a good predictor of future patient behaviors and health outcomes.”
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Mozilla Announces Second Three COVID-19 Solutions Fund Recipients
June 8, 2020
Innovations spanning food supplies, medical records and PPE manufacture were today included in the final three awards made by Mozilla from its COVID-19 Solutions Fund. The Fund was established at the end of March by the Mozilla Open Source Support Program (MOSS), to offer up to $50,000 each to open source technology projects responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. In just two months, the Fund received 163 applicants from 30 countries and is now closed to new applications.
OpenMRS is a robust, scalable, user-driven, open source electronic medical record system platform currently used to manage more than 12.6 million patients at over 5,500 health facilities in 64 countries. Using Kenya as a primary use case, their COVID-19 Response project will coordinate work on OpenMRS COVID-19 solutions emerging from their community, particularly “pop-up” hospitals, into a COVID-19 package for immediate use.
This package will be built for eventual re-use as a foundation for a suite of tools that will become the OpenMRS Public Health Response distribution. Science-based data collection tools, reports, and data exchange interfaces with other key systems in the public health sector will provide critical information needed to contain disease outbreaks. The committee approved an award of $49,754.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/nemours-changing-way-it-sees-data-new-analytics-tech
Nemours is changing the way it sees data with new analytics tech
All forms of data analysis have evolved at Nemours Children’s Health System, and it's now able to make correlations that it was not able to before.
By Bill Siwicki
June 09, 2020 12:23 PM
Nemours Children’s Health System had a big challenge around electronic information: It needed to change its culture, to move to a model where staff started pursuing data versus just receiving data.
THE PROBLEM
And the health system has addressed this problem. By shifting that culture over time and bringing on IT tools to help, along with training, the organization has evolved significantly, said Rishi Muchhala, manager of enterprise intelligence at Nemours Children’s Health System.
“We’re seeing across the organization more people becoming comfortable with using dashboards and interacting with data,” he said.
“Our overall business is now getting more value out of answering the unknowns with data and by seeing data all in one place. Our team’s role has shifted from repeatedly building dashboards and reports to really enabling the organization. We now have about 60% to 70% of our organization that we touch with analytics one way or another.”
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It’s About Clinical Navigation not Just Provider Matching
June 9, 2020
Provider Matching has always sounded like something that should be relatively easy, but like everything else in healthcare, it is more complex than it appears. If all you had to do was match a patient’s needs with a physician who had the right expertise, there wouldn’t be a whole category of solutions in this space. This has always been a bit of a mystery for me so I decided to find someone who could help me better understand this space.
ArmadaHealth is a health data science company that makes tools and provides services that help consumers get the care they deserve. They provide well researched, data-driven physician directory information to help patients find the right provider that truly matches their unique clinical needs, insurance coverage, demographic preferences, and geographic location.
I had the opportunity to sit down (virtually of course) with Dr. Suzanne Clough, Chief Medical Officer at ArmadaHealth to dive into the world of provider matching. Right off the bat, I knew I had found the right person to speak with. Dr. Clough wasn’t afraid to call things the way she saw them – calling healthcare a “hot mess” and throwing her hands up while saying “things should be easier!”
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https://news.yahoo.com/babylon-health-admits-gp-app-211422702.html
Babylon Health admits GP app suffered a data breach
Leo Kelion - Technology desk editor
BBC • June 10, 2020
Babylon Health has acknowledged that its GP video appointment app has suffered a data breach.
The firm was alerted to the problem after one of its users discovered he had been given access to dozens of video recordings of other patients' consultations.
A follow-up check by Babylon revealed a small number of further UK users could also see others' sessions.
The firm said it had since fixed the issue and notified regulators.
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New mHealth Study Uses Wearables to Identify COVID-19 Symptoms Early
Evidation Health is working with the Health and Human Services Department on a study aimed at using mHealth data to identify people who have been infected with the coronavirus as early as possible.
June 05, 2020 - An mHealth data company is working to develop software that would enable providers to identify people with COVID-19 symptoms through remote patient monitoring platforms.
California-based Evidation Health is using funding from the Bill Gates Foundation and the Health and Human Services Department’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to launch the telehealth project, which will gather sleep and activity data and self-reported symptoms from 300 people at high risk of acquiring the coronavirus.
“Many infected individuals are asymptomatic but still able to spread the virus, making efforts to prevent and slow transmission of COVID-19 difficult,” Luca Foschini, PhD, Evidation’s co-founder and chief data scientist, said in a press release. “This initiative will use novel behavioral and physiological data to more effectively identify when and where people may contract COVID-19, and can potentially enable real-time interventions to limit spread and monitor outcomes.”
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Calling Police Investigations ‘Contact Tracing’ Could Block Efforts to Stop Covid-19
Privacy fears may keep people from downloading proximity apps
After the May 25 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer was recorded and streamed on Facebook, protests against police brutality erupted across the city.
Following days of demonstrations last week, Minneapolis police and the Minnesota State Patrol arrested dozens of protesters. On May 30, in a televised press conference that was also broadcast on Twitter, Minnesota Department of Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington said that law enforcement had begun “contact tracing” those taken into custody.
“We’ve begun making arrests,” Harrington said. “We’ve begun analyzing the data of who we’ve arrested. We’ve begun doing, almost similar to our Covid [work]. It’s contact tracing. Who are they associated with? What platforms are they advocating for?”
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The AI Revolution: Giving Docs a Diagnostic Assist
By Anne Harding
HealthDay Reporter
MONDAY, June 8, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Back before coronavirus took over the headlines, every week seemed to bring another report about artificial intelligence besting human doctors at everything from diagnosing skin cancer to spotting pneumonia on chest X-rays.
But these artificial intelligence (AI) tools -- computer programs that get better at performing a task by being "trained" on the right kind of data -- are years away from being used to help diagnose real-life patients, according to the doctors helping to develop and test them.
"We still have a lot of unknowns in terms of generalizing and validation of these systems before we can start using them as standard of care," said Dr. Matthew Hanna, a pathologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
Generalizing means building an AI tool that can be used in multiple hospitals, and validation involves testing and adjusting an AI tool to ensure it's accurate.
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UK government releases details of COVID-19 data-sharing deals with big tech firms after legal action threat
Contracts reveal NHS shared personal patient details with Microsoft, Google, Palantir and Faculty.
By Tammy Lovell
June 08, 2020 12:24 PM
Contracts released by the UK government have revealed that personal health information about millions of NHS patients was provided to private tech firms involved in the COVID-19 datastore project.
The project announced in March intended to collate data from health and social care organisations in order to “provide a single source of truth” about the pandemic.
However there were concerns about privacy issues, with MPs asking questions in parliament about the deals with private firms and more than 13,000 people joining a call for transparency.
Political website openDemocracy and tech justice firm Foxglove sent legal letters demanding transparency about the agreements, which were revealed hours before court proceedings were due to start on 5 June.
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'Alert fatigue and clinical burnout are a very real phenomenon'
Experts from the UAE, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the US shed light on the “information challenge” faced by health professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic.
June 08, 2020 02:05 AM
In a recent virtual panel hosted by HIMSS in collaboration with Elsevier, key discussions, lead by industry experts, highlighted the importance of integrating the latest information, guidelines and care protocols at the point of care during a health crisis. Interesting insights were shared by the speakers outlining how and why the consistent adoption of evidence-based practices should become a new standard going forward.
During the webinar discussions, panellist, Dr Abdul Hameed Chagla, the director corporate hospital affairs & quality assurance, Doctor Sulaiman Al Habib Medical Group in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia said: “We overrun our clinicians unintentionally and sometimes with information that may not be of use. If a physician receives many alerts that are not relevant, there is a chance of one relevant and important alert being ignored.
“Alert fatigue and clinical burnout are a very real phenomena for healthcare teams, especially with the COVID-19 crisis,” Dr Chagla emphasised.
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COVID-19: Malaysia’s pandemic approaches and its impact on telehealth
"Moving on post-pandemic, we really have to revise our Telemedicine Act and think about whether we are going to have new regulations or policies,” said Dr Fazilah Shaik Allaudin, Senior Deputy Director, Medical Development Division, MOH, Malaysia.
By Dean Koh
June 08, 2020 02:01 AM
In the fourth episode of the HIMSS APAC Digital Dialogue Series hosted by Dr Charles Alessi, HIMSS Chief Clinical Officer, guest speakers Professor Dr Tunku Kamarul Zaman bin Tunku Zainol Abidin, Director, University Malaya Medical Center (UMMC) and Dr Fazilah Shaik Allaudin, Senior Deputy Director, Medical Development Division, Ministry of Health (MOH) Malaysia spoke their respective organizations’ approach to containing the outbreak and discussed COVID-19’s impact on telehealth in Malaysia.
UMMC and MOH’s approaches to containing the pandemic
In terms of dealing with challenges and uncertainties caused by COVID-19, UMMC utilized integrated information systems to:
- Track and manage crucial supplies such as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
- Manage healthcare workers and tracing their movements to minimize risk
- Optimize patient care and ensure that relevant information is delivered effectively
- Maintain surveillance of disease clusters and tracking treatment plans of patients
An important consideration that Professor Dr Tunku Kamarul Zaman mentioned was the psychological impact of COVID-19 on healthcare workers, which was brought up to him via his virtual meetings and interactions from their collaborators in China, such as Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
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Congressional watchdog: VA has been missing key stakeholders in EHR update
A report released from the GAO said the agency's modernization efforts are leaving out critical participants whose know-how could help with design, functionality and implementation.
By Kat Jercich
June 08, 2020 02:11 PM
Three years ago this week, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs chose Cerner to modernize its aging VistA electronic health record. The agency has been working with halting progress toward that goal since then.
But a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office said the new EHR implementation process must include input from a wide array of key stakeholders and staff – something that hasn't always been the case at the VA.
"Participation of such stakeholders is critical to ensuring that the EHR system is configured to meet the needs of clinicians and support the delivery of clinical care," the report read.
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The Estonian foreign ministry helps companies take their smart health solutions to the world
By Sten Hankewitz / June 9, 2020
The Estonian foreign ministry is helping the country’s companies that produce smart digital solutions to enter foreign markets by putting them in touch with useful contacts through foreign missions and a network of business diplomats.
“Estonia’s e-health solutions have attracted international attention and several specific projects have found cooperation partners on foreign markets, thanks to the foreign ministry, even amid the crisis,” the ministry said in a statement.
According to Andres Rundu, the undersecretary for external economic policy and development cooperation, there is currently a greater demand for innovative health solutions due to the coronavirus crisis.
“The solutions of several companies that have contacted us have been put into practice abroad thanks to the joint efforts of the business diplomacy and development cooperation divisions of the foreign ministry,” Rundu said.
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2020/06/08/digital-therapeutics-blip-or-lasting-trend/
Digital Therapeutics – Blip or Lasting Trend?
June 8, 2020
Prior to COVID-19, mental and behavioral health was gaining momentum as a healthcare priority. Funding was starting to flow into mental health services and the technologies to support it. One of those technologies was telehealth – an effective way for patients to “visit” with their Psychiatrist. Another was digital cognitive behavior therapy solutions (digital therapeutics) which allow providers to treat more patients more effectively. Then the pandemic arrived and mental health became even more important.
Dr. Derek Richards, Chief Science Officer at SilverCloud Health, a company that creates internet-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy programs, was kind enough to answer a battery of questions in an email interview on the topic of digital mental health, cognitive therapy and digital therapeutics.
What is digital cognitive behavior therapy?
Generally speaking, digital therapy offers three benefits that are of high interest to healthcare providers who operate on the one-to-one therapy model: scalability, accessibility and affordability. Simply put, it allows them to increase the number of patients they see; the platform circumvents traditional barriers that prevent access to mental health therapy, and it dramatically decreases care delivery costs (91% reduction compared to face-to-face therapy). In the U.S., as many as 43.8 million adults will experience some form of behavioral or mental illness in a given year. In 2018, 56 percent of those wrestling with these mental difficulties did not receive care because of treatment barriers, including stigma, limited or exhausted budgets, and geographic remoteness – that’s over half the mental illness population. Mental therapy is in need of a transformation, and digital therapeutics are a proven alternative.
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https://histalk2.com/2020/06/05/weekender-6-5-20/
Weekly News Recap
- Amwell files IPO documents.
- Two major medical journals retract influential coronavirus-related articles that analyzed encounter data from Surgisphere, a tiny company whose capabilities and transparency were questioned by experts who found flaws in the articles.
- R1 acquires Cerner’s RevWorks RCM outsourcing business for $30 million.
- Private equity firm Rubicon Technology Partners takes a majority position in patient access center platform vendor Central Logic.
- Change Healthcare acquires retail pharmacy technology vendor PDX for $208 million.
- Virtual diabetes clinic vendor Onduo names former National Coordinator Vindell Washington, MD, MHCM as interim CEO.
- Tested hospital EHRs failed to flag potentially harmful medication ordering problems one-third of the time.
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Enjoy!
David.
