The
multi-institutional collaboration will be led by the National Institute of
Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), and will work to create new
tools that physicians can use for personalized therapies for COVID-19 patients.
“This program
is particularly exciting because it will give us new ways to rapidly turn
scientific findings into practical imaging tools that benefit COVID-19
patients,” said Bruce J. Tromberg, PhD, NIBIB Director. “It unites leaders
in medical imaging and artificial intelligence from academia, professional
societies, industry, and government to take on this important challenge.”
An interview
with Ifan Evans, director of technology, digital & transformation, Welsh
Government Health and Social Services, who will be speaking at HIMSS &
Health 2.0 European Digital Event.
The
Welsh government has supported the Digital Communities Wales programme to
expand their digital device loan scheme by 1,100 devices and are prioritising
the supply to care homes, so residents can continue access to health services.
Welsh health minister, Vaughan Gething, has said that new virtual-consultations
fast-tracked to support non-contact consultations in NHS Wales during the
coronavirus pandemic, is here to stay.
Ifan
Evans, director of technology, digital & transformation, Welsh Government
Health and Social Services, has lead responsibility in Wales for digital and
technology policy, strategy and transformation, innovation and industry
engagement. Evans works closely with NHS and social care leaders across
Wales, and with other key stakeholders, to drive strategic change.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/how-switch-phone-video-telehealth-limited-budget
How to switch from phone to video telehealth on a limited budget
The Institute
for Family Health was mostly using telephone consults during COVID-19’s peak in
New York. Now it’s going on a tech shopping spree to better care for patients –
and boost revenue.
Bill Siwicki
August 07,
2020
The
Institute for Family Health based in New Paltz, New York, is one of the largest
federally qualified health center networks in New York State. It operates 32
community health centers located in medically underserved communities in the
Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan, which have been exceptionally hard hit by the
COVID-19 pandemic, and in Ulster and Dutchess counties, 90 miles north of
New York City.
THE PROBLEM
Together,
these centers provide roughly 650,000 visits annually, including critical
primary care, behavioral health, dental care and care-management services to
more than 115,000 patients of all ages, regardless of their ability to pay.
In
New York City, the institute is at the forefront of serving low-income patients
and other disadvantaged groups. Approximately 41% of its New York City patients
are Black and 46% are Hispanic/Latino. Additionally, many are low-income
and lack access to care, with 43% on Medicaid and 15% uninsured.
“Since
the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, our primary and preventive care services
have become even more vital: They help to ensure that high-risk, vulnerable
patient groups get the ongoing care they need, and to avert avoidable ER and
hospital use, thus maximizing the availability of hospital resources for
critically ill COVID-19 patients,” said Elizabeth Lever, CIO at the Institute
for Family Health.
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2020/08/07/how-one-health-system-is-planning-hit-for-upcoming-covid-19-surge/
How One Health System Is Planning HIT For Upcoming COVID-19 Surge
August 7, 2020
Anne Zieger
New
Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health, like its health system peers,
has gone through tumultuous times as the COVID-19 pandemic has emerged.
Despite the crisis conditions Northwell faced, the system was able to make a
rapid transition to telehealth and shift its IT infrastructure to support
clinicians’ needs.
However,
the reality is that the HIT department’s role in supporting pandemic efforts is
far from done. In fact, health leaders are now focusing on how to cope
with the inevitable next surge of COVID-19 cases. The IT team is digesting
what they’ve learned during the initial phase of the pandemic and looking for
ways to improve their response when the virus hits them hard again, according
to CIO John Bosco, who spoke to Becker’s Hospital Review.
One
of the steps Bosco has taken is to create a resurgence workgroup tackling both
technology and related clinical issues. “We will, even in the face of
significant financial loss from [the pandemic], continue to automate and make
investments in technology in recognition of the things that we need to have but
don’t, and the things we knew we needed before but didn’t pull the trigger,”
Bosco told Becker’s.
“There is a strong appetite for more automation, integration and
standardization across hospitals.”
------
https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/jama-study-warns-telemedicine-not-suitable-38-patients-over-65
JAMA study warns telemedicine not suitable for 38% of patients over 65
Barriers to
adoption include hearing issues, lack of tech abilities and visual
difficulties.
By Laura Lovett
August 05,
2020 12:29 pm
While
telemedicine may be having a boom, a new study published in JAMA warns that it may not be suitable for
everyone.
The
study, which looked at data from adults over the age of 65, found that over a
third of people weren’t ready for video visits. Researchers sited issues
ranging from difficulty in hearing to tech issues.
“Although
many older adults are willing and able to learn to use telemedicine, an
equitable health system should recognize that for some, such as those with
dementia and social isolation, in-person visits are already difficult and
telemedicine may be impossible,” authors of the study wrote. “For these
patients, clinics and geriatric models of care such as home visits are
essential.”
TOP-LINE
DATA
The
study estimated that 38% of the13 million seniors in the U.S. are not ready for
virtual visits, mainly because of inexperience with technology. That number
dropped to 32% if they were provided social support for how to set up the
call.
-----
https://www.statnews.com/2020/08/04/new-cancer-diagnoses-fell-sharply-after-coronavirus/
New cancer diagnoses fell sharply as the coronavirus pandemic first hit
By Elizabeth Cooney
August 4,
2020
By almost every measure, far fewer cancers are being
diagnosed during the coronavirus pandemic, whether the decline shows up in
screening mammograms and colonoscopies or in other tests ordered after
troubling symptoms prompt a doctor’s visit.
A
research letter published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open
notes a steep downward slope in newly identified cases of six common cancer types,
based on weekly numbers from Quest Diagnostics. The clinical laboratory’s data
add to similar analyses
conducted in May and July from the electronic medical records vendor Epic and a
July report from the COVID and Cancer Research Network on trends
in cancer-related patient encounters.
Compared
to Quest’s baseline period from January 2019 through February 2020, during the
seven weeks from March 1 through April 18, the mean weekly number of newly diagnosed
cancer patients plunged 46.4% for all six types: breast, colorectal, lung,
gastric, pancreatic, and esophageal. The biggest drop was 51.8% in breast
cancer and the smallest decrease was 24.7% in pancreatic cancer.
“Patients
didn’t have the opportunity to have routine screens because they were told not
to go to their doctors for routine visits,” said Harvey Kaufman, Quest’s senior
medical director and an author of the study. “And if they had some mild
symptoms, they waited or ignored them. The key is that during the real lockdown
periods, people who have screenings didn’t have routine visits.”
-----
https://ehrintelligence.com/news/nurses-report-decreased-levels-of-ehr-burnout-compared-to-physicians
Nurses Report Decreased Levels of EHR Burnout Compared to Physicians
25 percent
of nurse respondents described EHR burnout symptoms compared to 28 percent of
physician respondents.
By Christopher Jason
August 05,
2020 - Nurses experience lower levels of EHR burnout on average, compared
to their physician counterparts, according
to a recent KLAS report regarding EHR usage in nursing.
However,
though nurses are typically more satisfied with the EHR than their physician
counterparts, their needs differ and might be overlooked compared to physicians.
Numerous studies have
shown that EHRs are the primary cause of physician burnout, but limited studies
have shown the impact EHRs have on nurses.
Using the
Arch Collaborative Survey, KLAS surveyed more than 70,000 nurses, ranging from
clinical nurse specialists, medical assistants, nursing assistants, registered
nurses, and licensed practical nurses, from 189 unique health systems and
health facilities to gain insight on EHR satisfaction.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/clinical-decision-support-systems-can-promote-diagnostic-accuracy-patient-satisfaction
Clinical decision support systems can promote diagnostic accuracy, patient
satisfaction
A new study
published in PLOS ONE shows that CDS systems can assist providers in making
skin-related diagnoses without affecting consultation time.
By Kat Jercich
August 06,
2020 09:05 AM
Clinical
decision support systems have been found to help providers make safer and
better choices at the point of care. Now, a new study shows that they can also
improve patient satisfaction.
The
study, published this past week in PLOS ONE and funded by the LEO Innovation Lab,
found that using a visual clinical decision support system – in this case,
VisualDx – led to an increase in diagnostic accuracy and to patients feeling
more involved in medical decisions.
"For
this reason, a visual clinical decision support system with a wide range of
clinical images of common and rare dermatological diagnosis can be
helpful," said the research team in the study.
"These
historic times are really typified by anxiety," said Dr. Art Papier,
VisualDx's CEO, in an interview with Healthcare IT News. "We're all anxious
about COVID. … Anything you can do to reduce patient anxiety is important.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/reading-hospital-extracts-powerful-results-sdoh-techepic-ehr-combo
Reading Hospital extracts powerful results from SDOH tech/Epic EHR combo
9,000
community referral summaries have been generated for positively screened
patients; 6,000 referrals to community service agencies have been created for
high-risk screened patients.
By Bill Siwicki
August 06,
2020 10:55 AM
Reading
Hospital in Berks County, Pennsylvania, realized that addressing social
determinants of health – conditions impacted by the places people live, learn,
work and play that affect health outcomes – was a priority. It needed to be
focused on really understanding the vulnerable populations in its community and
to find existing barriers and address them to help get patients well and stay
well.
THE
PROBLEM
In
2016, as just one example, the hospital started an initiative it called Street
Medicine. This program focused on providing primary care to homeless or
housing-insecure patients where they were – shelters, soup kitchens, homeless
camps and other places, said Desha Dickson, associate vice president, community
wellness, at Reading Hospital. Staff started to think about screening patients
for housing insecurity in the emergency department; however, the hospital did
not have a mechanism to provide the screening or connect the patients to
relevant resources to meet their identified health-related social needs, she
explained.
“As
a participant in the CMS AHC model, we received grant funding to systematically
identify and address the social needs of our Medicare and Medicaid
beneficiaries,” she said. “Additional analysis would prove the ROI and that
SDOH interventions in fact do impact total healthcare costs and utilization.”
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/mayo-clinic-google-show-how-theyre-deploying-cloud-based-ai-combat-covid-19
Mayo Clinic, Google show how they're deploying cloud-based AI to combat
COVID-19
In a HIMSS
Learning Center presentation, Mayo CIO Cris Ross, Platform President Dr. John
Halamka and other experts will show how the pandemic is accelerating the health
system's infrastructure transformation.
By Mike Miliard
August 06,
2020 11:07 AM
One
of the effects of the COVID-19 public health emergency is that it has added
urgency and speed to technology transformations that were already occurring,
such as cloud migration and deployments of artificial intelligence and machine
learning.
At
few places is that shift more pronounced than at Rochester, Minnesota-based
Mayo Clinic, which six months before the pandemic arrived in the United
States had embarked on a decade-long strategic partnership with Google
Cloud.
"Our
partnership will propel a multitude of AI projects currently spearheaded by our
scientists and physicians, and will provide technology tools to unlock the
value of data and deliver answers at a scale much greater than today,"
said Mayo CIO Cris Ross at the time.
Shortly
after the partnership was announced, toward the end of 2019, the health system hired longtime CIO Dr. John Halamka as president of Mayo Clinic
Platform, tasking him with leading a cloud-hosted, AI-powered digital
transformation across the enterprise.
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2020/08/06/the-data-needed-for-transitions-to-post-acute-care/
The Data Needed for Transitions to Post-Acute Care
August 6, 2020
Andy Oram
A
large number of hospitalizations end with discharges to nursing homes,
rehabilitation facilities, and other types of post-acute care. Some patients
are aware they will require post-acute care before something such as a hip
replacement, while others are rushed to the ER and no one has time to think of
post-acute care until discharge is near.
In
all cases, finding the right facility that offers the services needed by the
patient requires a thorough and sophisticated understanding of the patient,
including both their baseline condition and the special demands of their
current hospitalization. With the rise of COVID-19, which leaves many victims
with a variety of long-term weaknesses and organ damage, sophisticated
post-acute care is even more in demand.
I
talked recently to Lissy Hu, MD, MBA, who is co-founder and CEO of CarePort Health. As a care coordination
platform providing data and services across the patient journey–from hospital
admission to post-acute discharge–CarePort’s solution is used in one-third of
all hospital discharges in the U.S. Used by more than 110,000 post-acute
providers and 1,000 hospitals across 43 states, the company clearly needs
efficient processes and unfettered access to data about both the patient and
the post-acute facility.
-----
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/covid-19-impact-on-ransomware-threats-healthcare-cybersecurity
COVID-19 Impact on Ransomware, Threats, Healthcare Cybersecurity
Interpol,
Coveware, and Fortified Health Security shed light on how the COVID-19 crisis
spurred an increase in ransomware and cybercriminal efforts to take advantage
of the remote landscape.
By Jessica Davis
August 04,
2020 - COVID-19 has significantly shifted the threat landscape from
attacks on individuals and small businesses to critical infrastructure,
governments, and major corporations, according to Interpol.
Malicious cyberattacks were behind the majority of healthcare IT
security incidents, while ransomware demands soared as “big game” variants
dominated the threat landscape.
Previously,
reports showed ransomware
attacks remained consistent with the number of incidents seen during the last
half of 2019. However, the actual number of successful attacks
declined amid the crisis. But those numbers did not reflect the actual
activity ongoing behind the scenes.
According to
Interpol, cybercriminals have consistently sought to take advantage of
organizations that rapidly deployed remote systems and networks to support
the shift into a remote workforce. Hackers have also targeted the increase
in security vulnerabilities to steal data, disrupt operations, and generate
profits.
From
January to April on just one of the agency’s private sector partners, Interpol
detected about 907,000 spam messages, 737 malware-related incidents, and 48,000
malicious URLs tied to COVID-19.
-----
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/the-risk-of-nation-state-hackers-government-controlled-health-data
The Risk of Nation-State Hackers, Government-Controlled Health Data
Throughout
the COVID-19 pandemic, an increasing amount of health data is being controlled
and stored by the government. As nation-state hacking increases, the risks to
privacy will follow.
By Jessica Davis
August 04,
2020 - The COVID-19 pandemic has driven a rise in targeted, sophisticated
cyberattacks designed to take advantage of an increasingly connected
environment. In healthcare, it’s led to a rise in nation-state attacks, in
an effort to steal valuable COVID-19 data and disrupt care
operations.
The primary
culprits? Nation-state hackers with ties to the governments of Russia and
China.
While threat
actors actively targeted all sectors and users with phishing lures and fraud scams tied to the pandemic, the healthcare
sector has faced unique challenges given the rush to find a coronavirus
vaccine and the need for uninterrupted care access in the face of the
pandemic.
Beginning
in May, multiple reports from the National Security Agency, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Agency, and the UK National Cyber Security Centre shed light on these targeted efforts
against the healthcare, pharmaceutical, academic, and research
industries.
-----
https://www.forbes.com/sites/konstantinebuhler/2020/08/04/3-ways-artificial-intelligence-will-change-healthcare/?linkId=96033223#41907e43e4ed
Editors' Pick|Aug 4, 2020,10:10am EDT
3 Ways Artificial Intelligence Will Change Healthcare
Konstantine Buhler Contributor
AI
Partner at
Sequoia Capital.
It’s
no secret that healthcare costs have risen faster
than inflation for decades. Some experts estimate that healthcare will
account for over 20%
of the US GDP by 2025. Meanwhile, doctors are working harder than ever
before to treat patients as the U.S.
physician shortage continues to grow. Many medical professionals have their
schedules packed so tightly that much of the human element which motivated
their pursuit of medicine in the first place is reduced.
In
healthcare, artificial intelligence (AI) can seem intimidating.
At the birthday party of a radiologist friend, she gently expressed
how she felt her job would be threatened by AI in the coming decade. Yet, for
most of the medical profession, AI will be an accelerant and enabler, not a
threat. It would be good business for AI companies as well to help, rather than
attempt to replace, medical professionals.
In
a previous article, I expressed three ways in which I consistently see AI
adding value: speed, cost and accuracy. In healthcare, it’s no different. Here
are three examples of how AI will change healthcare.
-----
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/tech/from-telehealth-visits-to-digital-pharmacies-seniors-have-ramped-up-technology-use-during
From telehealth visits to digital pharmacies, seniors have ramped up
technology use during COVID-19: survey
By Heather Landi
Aug 5, 2020
9:00am
Seniors
have embraced technology during the COVID-19 pandemic, from booking virtual
visits with their doctors to ordering their prescriptions online.
Telemedicine
usage jumped 340% among Medicare-eligible seniors since the start of the
COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new survey.
Nearly
one-third of consumers age 64 and older say they monitor their health using a
wearable. What's more, 4 in 10 are interested in a wearable that helps
them and those around them maintain appropriate social distance, according to
the survey
from healthinsurance.com.
The survey debunks the
idea that only younger consumers widely use technology. Results were based onan
online pool of more than 1,000 Medicare eligible consumers aged 64 and older
conducted from July 17 to July 20.
-----
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/health-care-is-long-overdue-for-a-social-justice-reckoning/
Health Care Is Long Overdue for a Social Justice Reckoning
Biases in the system put the lives and well-being of women and
minorities at risk
·
By Stacey
Rosen, Jennifer
Mieres, Beth
Nash on August 3, 2020
With
protesters in many American cities marching for justice, and with the Supreme
Court delivering a historic ruling protecting gay and transgender workers from
workplace discrimination, this summer is shaping up to be a watershed moment
for equality in America. But while much of our national conversation is focused
on urgent issues like police brutality, it’s time we acknowledged that American
health care, too, is long overdue for a reckoning with systemic forms of
discrimination that have a detrimental effect on the health and well-being of
tens of millions of American women.
Take,
for example, heart disease. It’s the leading cause of death among women—but a 2012
survey conducted by the American Heart Association (AHA) found that 44
percent of women were unaware of this, with the highest percentages of
unawareness among Blacks and Latinas. Why this discrepancy? Why are so many
women more concerned with, say, breast cancer than they are with heart disease,
a condition that kills six times as many women each year?
The
AHA has explored that question, too, and found that many women reported that
their physicians seldom if ever talked to them about heart health, and, in some
cases, misdiagnosed obvious symptoms of heart disease as panic, stress or even
hypochondria.
-----
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-fallout-insight/long-term-complications-of-covid-19-signals-billions-in-healthcare-costs-ahead-idUSKBN24Z1CM
August 3,
2020 / 9:08 PM /
COVID-19 long-term toll signals billions in healthcare costs ahead
Caroline
Humer, Nick Brown, Emilio
Parodi
NEW
YORK (Reuters) - Late in March, Laura Gross, 72, was recovering from gall
bladder surgery in her Fort Lee, New Jersey, home when she became sick again.
Her
throat, head and eyes hurt, her muscles and joints ached and she felt like she
was in a fog. Her diagnosis was COVID-19. Four months later, these symptoms
remain.
Gross
sees a primary care doctor and specialists including a cardiologist,
pulmonologist, endocrinologist, neurologist, and gastroenterologist.
“I’ve
had a headache since April. I’ve never stopped running a low-grade
temperature,” she said.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/europe/why-data-security-sting-lurks-covid-19-s-long-tail
Why a data security sting lurks in COVID-19’s long tail
Hospital
executive minds have understandably been distracted since the start of 2020,
but the impact of the emergence of SarsCoV2 has not been limited to its
physical toll. It has also torn into data security defenses and exposed patient
privacy.
By Piers Ford
August 05,
2020 03:54 AM
The
word ‘unprecedented’
seems to have been used on a daily basis during the COVID-19 pandemic,
particularly when it comes to the impact of the virus on patients, clinicians,
resources and care delivery. But it has resonated equally strongly with
hospital chief information security officers (CISOs), with its power to either
stiffen resolve or ratchet up already stretched nervous tension as data
security faces a whole new scale and level of cyber threats.
Far
from arriving alone, the virus was accompanied by a host of cyber aggressors
with an eye on the vulnerabilities that would almost certainly be exposed in
the armour of healthcare institutions while attention and energy were diverted
to the frontline of patient care.
Threats
descended from all directions as organized cyber-crime breached hospital
defenses to launch ransomware attacks. Some agencies even identified the
hacking of coronavirus research lab systems by rival states as a real and
growing threat. At the same time, the rapid rollout of new telehealth systems
to reduce physical contact by enabling virtual patient communications and consultations
was opening up a whole new front in the health data security war.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/telehealth-seems-here-stay-so-how-can-it-be-improved
Telehealth seems here to stay – so how can it be improved?
Providers say
there are a number of logistical, regulatory and educational hurdles that must
be overcome for telehealth to reach its potential.
Kat Jercich
August 05,
2020
After
the coronavirus began spreading in the United States this past spring,
telehealth patient rates shot up in response, with some health systems
reporting a whopping 4,000% increase in appointment numbers for virtual care.
There's
no doubt, in many practitioners' minds, that telehealth has filled an existing
need both spotlighted and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. It's also
clear, despite a dip in the initial numbers, that it's not going anywhere
anytime soon.
However,
after the initial scurry to spin up an appropriate platform – sometimes within
a matter of days – providers are also noting the ways telehealth can be
improved.
Those
who spoke with Healthcare
IT News for this story made it clear that the benefits of
telehealth outweigh the challenges. But there are certainly some shortcomings
that should be ironed out. They can be addressed, providers and researchers
say, with education, platform improvement and legislation to help telehealth
live up to its full potential.
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2020/08/05/teladoc-health-and-livongo-merge-in-18-5-billion-deal/
Teladoc Health and Livongo Merge in $18.5 Billion Telehealth Deal
August 5, 2020
John Lynn
I
think we all knew that mergers and acquisitions in the telehealth space we’re
coming. You can’t have this
many telehealth companies in such a hot space and not see a lot of activity
in this regard. However, I’m not sure many of us thought that it would
start with such a mega merger of two of the hottest telehealth companies in the
space: Teladoc Health and Livongo, but that’s what’s happened. Teladoc
Health and Livongo have announced
plans to merge the companies in what amounts to a $18.5 billion deal.
This
is going to be an interesting merger to watch on a number of fronts. No
doubt it makes them the largest, most dominant players in the telehealth
space. It also offers the full breadth of telehealth options from live
video telehealth, specialty specific telehealth, direct to consumer telehealth,
remote patient monitoring, and more, but we’re also going to see how important
it is that one company has all of those options under one roof. Will that
be important the way it was important that Epic and Cerner had all of their
features and functionality in one company (Financial, EHR, Lab, Pharmacy, etc)
or are these different spaces and it will cause the merged company to lack
direction and focus?
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2020/08/05/is-it-time-to-modernize-the-epcs-eprescribing-of-controlled-substances-regulations/
Is It Time to Modernize the EPCS (ePrescribing of Controlled Substances)
Regulations?
August 5, 2020
John Lynn
While
ePrescribing has basically gone mainstream with most doctors and pharmacies
(Watch the video below for the little talked about secret of ePrescribing
“adoption”), there’s been a challenge getting the same kind of adoption of
ePrescribing when it comes to controlled substances or EPCS as it’s
called. This is not a surprise since in order to do EPCS, it requires
much stricter verification and identification to ensure the DEA who oversees
controlled substances can track and verify that the prescription is legitimate.
While
most people understand the need for stricter rules in regards to EPCS, it’s
worth realizing that the DEA created the EPCS regulations almost a decade ago
back in 2010. A lot of things have changed when it comes to technology
and security in the last decade.
The
good news is that the DEA realizes this as well and has reopened
the comment period on the ECPS interim final rule. In response to
this comment period, DrFirst put together a number
of comments on how they think ECPS could have improved usability for
doctors while still maintaining the security standards needed for controlled
substances.
Since
this is an important discussion to really understand, I sat down with Cam
Deemer, President of DrFirst to learn more
about EPCS and ePrescribing and why they made the various recommendations they
did to the DEA. In the video below, we discuss the following EPCS suggestions:
- Incorporate current industry
guidelines and standards
- Allow two authentication factors
on one device
- Adopt innovative alternatives to
two-factor authentication
- Clarify identity-proofing
requirements
- Update requirements for biometrics
-----
https://hitinfrastructure.com/news/vendors-team-up-to-accelerate-healthcare-digital-transformations
Vendors Team Up to Accelerate Healthcare Digital Transformations
A
multi-vendor framework aims to boost healthcare digital transformations by
allowing organizations to interchange solution components as business needs
evolve.
By Samantha McGrail
July 28, 2020
- NTT DATA Services recently announced
a partnership with Teladoc Health, R1 RCM, Enli, and VisitPay to build a
framework that incorporates best-in-class solutions to help boost healthcare
digital transformation journeys.
The
framework, Nucleus for Healthcare, provides advanced digital capabilities
across the care delivery continuum and allows organizations to interchange
solutions components as business needs evolve, NTT DATA said.
Nucleus for
Healthcare is powered by NTT DATA’s cloud-based intelligence enterprise
platform, which provides analytics, automation, and systems integration
capabilities.
“Our goal is
to empower healthcare organizations to maximize quality and cost outcomes in
the emerging value-based healthcare economy while creating a seamless
experience across the healthcare continuum,” Mary Edwards, president,
healthcare provider, NTT DATA Services, said in the announcement.
-----
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/moderna-covid-19-vaccine-data-targeted-by-nation-state-hackers
Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine Data Targeted by Nation-State Hackers
Hackers
tied to China targeted the COVID-19 vaccine research developer Moderna in an
effort to steal data; ransomware, records theft, and an employee email hack
completes this week’s breach roundup.
By Jessica Davis
August 03,
2020 - Massachusetts-based Moderna, a research firm currently tasked with
the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, was targeted by hackers with ties
to the government of China, in an effort designed to steal valuable data,
according to Reuters.
Moderna
recently announced it entered the final phase of
its investigational vaccine trials.
The report
comes just two weeks after the Department of Justice indicted two hackers for allegedly working with China
to steal valuable data, including coronavirus research, from a wide range
of US organizations, companies, and governments.
According
to Reuters, Moderna officials confirmed they’ve discussed the
reconnaissance activities outlined in the DOJ indictment with the
FBI.
-----
https://patientengagementhit.com/news/covid-19-highlights-need-for-automated-patient-communication
COVID-19 Highlights Need for Automated Patient Communication
Distracted
by COVID-19 surges, provider communication has been waning. Automated patient
communication tools may help fill this gap.
By Sara Heath
August 03,
2020 - Automated patient communication technology may be a worthy
investment for healthcare organizations, as patient satisfaction with
communication dwindles and providers are stretched thin during the COVID-19
pandemic, according to recent survey data
from research firm Reckner, commissioned by SR Health by Solutionreach.
Using two
surveys conducted before and during the initial COVID-19 surge, researchers
observed a dip in how often different provider
communication attributes drive patient satisfaction. In other words,
patients did not acknowledge certain provider communication skills as
contributing to patient satisfaction during COVID-19 as they did before the
pandemic.
Before
COVID-19, 10 percent of patients said timely provider messages drove
satisfaction. That dropped to just 2 percent of patients saying the same during
the pandemic. Those figures remained similar when looking at whether feeling
their questions had been answered contributed to patient satisfaction.
Before
the pandemic, 9 percent of patients said feeling they had been heard by their
providers improved patient satisfaction, while none could say that during the
pandemic.
-----
https://ehrintelligence.com/news/cerner-q2-ehr-earnings-exceed-expectations-revenue-falters
Cerner Q2 EHR Earnings Exceed Expectations, Revenue Falters
Cerner
executives saw an earnings increase in Q2, but revenue fell due to the
financial impact of COVID-19.
By Christopher Jason
July 30, 2020
- Cerner announced
a 6.1 percent net earnings increase, up to $134.7 million for the second
quarter of 2020, from $127 million during the same period in 2019.
However, as expected,
the second-quarter revenue fell 7 percent from $1.43 billion in 2019 to $1.33
billion this year.
Revenue
primarily declined due to COVID-19 and Cerner folding
its revenue cycle management outsourcing services earlier this year, explained
the vendor. COVID-19 had a more significant impact than Cerner initially
expected, but it had minimal impact on low margin areas, such as travel
reimbursement and technology resale.
“Cerner’s
solid results during the pandemic reflect the commitment of our associates, the
importance of Cerner’s solutions, and the resiliency of our business model,”
Brent Shafer, chairman and CEO, said in a statement.
-----
https://ehrintelligence.com/news/fhir-based-chronic-disease-management-tool-cuts-clinician-burden
FHIR-Based Chronic Disease Management Tool Cuts Clinician Burden
Using
SMART on FHIR application technology, technology developers were able to cut
keystrokes for chronic disease management in the EHR from 18 to six.
By Christopher Jason
August 03,
2020 - A well-designed SMART (Substitutable Medical Applications and
Reusable Technologies) on FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) EHR
application that focuses on chronic disease management proved effective for
addressing clinician burden, according
to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics
Association (JAMIA).
Specifically,
the FHIR-based technology increased the number of tasks a provider could do
while decreasing the number of keystrokes necessary to do those tasks.
EHR users
commonly face EHR usability and display issues. Currently, most EHRs display
separate screens for separate sections of care in the EHR. Therefore,
clinicians must create a separate order entry module to develop clinical plans
and place orders, while using a second workflow for preventative care.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/europe/ibm-deal-provide-nhs-quicker-access-cloud-services
IBM deal to provide the NHS with quicker to access cloud services
Agreement
with UK government aims to accelerate innovation across the public sector.
By Tammy Lovell
August 03,
2020 09:18 AM
Tech
giant IBM has signed a three-year public cloud agreement with Crown Commercial
Services and the UK Cabinet Office, allowing preferential commercial terms for
public sector organisations, including the NHS.
Under
the Memorandum of Understanding, the public sector will be enabled to “embark
on a secure public cloud journey and innovate with digital solutions and
services to help evolve essential services for UK citizens,” according to an
IBM press release.
Eligible
organisations will have access to a suite of solutions including IBM Multicloud
Manager, IBM Cloud Paks, Red Hat OpenShift, Cloud Garages, Power Virtual
Servers on Cloud, VMware and Cloud Migration Services.
WHY IT
MATTERS
IBM’s
public cloud is built on a foundation of open source software with more than
190 cloud-native APIs, such as AI, blockchain, Internet of Things, serverless
and DevOps.
-----
https://www.ausdoc.com.au/opinion/how-smartphones-have-shaped-our-response-coronavirus
How smartphones have shaped our response to coronavirus
Dr Suneel Dhand
Dr Dhand is a
physician, author and speaker in the US.
5th August
2020
Around
2007-08, something was to happen that would change the course of the world and
dramatically alter most societies on the planet.
The
first smartphones were being rolled out, starting with the iPhone, and as
primitive as they initially were — a lot of people realised very quickly that
having the world at our fingertips would be a game-changer.
Let’s
go back then to 2008. Barack Obama was running for President and Beijing was
hosting the summer Olympics.
I’m
guessing that most people reading this were adults at that time, and can
clearly remember what life was like pre-iPhone.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/blog/has-telehealth-hit-high-watermark
Has telehealth hit the high watermark?
In recent
conversations with healthcare executives across the country, I hear the same
story: The dramatic spikes in telehealth visits in March and April have dropped
off, even as in-person visits have started climbing slowly.
By Paddy
Padmanabhan
August 04,
2020 04:02 PM
In
the immediate aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, health systems saw dramatic
spikes in virtual visits and telehealth adoption in the patient population. The
broad consensus is that the healthcare industry saw more telehealth visits in
the one month immediately following the pandemic's lockdown than in the entire
year preceding it.
A
study by non-profit group FAIR Health suggests a 4,000% increase in telehealth
claims across the country in the first few months of the pandemic.
Seattle-based Providence Health saw 70,000 patient logins and over one million
messages come in through the chatbot in the first month of the outbreak or
10-15 times more than pre-pandemic levels. Danville, Pennsylvania-based
Geisinger saw a 500% increase in telehealth visits in the first couple of weeks
after the COVID-19 outbreak.
Technology
firms such as Teladoc, Amwell, and Doctor on Demand which offer real-time video
consulting and telehealth platforms have rushed to capitalize on unprecedented
opportunities. Teladoc reported that total visits rose 92%, from 1,063,000 to
2,045,000 in the past quarter. Its competitor American Well has raised nearly $
200 million to keep up with the "skyrocketing" demand for telemedicine,
and Doctor on Demand collected $75 million for meeting the increased demand for
its platform and services.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/new-model-draws-hospital-data-help-health-officials-time-covid-19-lockdowns
New model draws on hospital data to help health officials time COVID-19
lockdowns
The framework
from Northwestern and UT Austin outlines the specific inpatient admission
thresholds to help authorities determine when communities should enact
short-term shelter-in-place orders.
By Kat Jercich
August 03,
2020 03:05 PM
Public
health officials and elected leaders around the country have continued to relax
and reinstate restrictions in response to swells of COVID-19 cases in their
areas.
This
past week, researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Texas
at Austin released a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
describing a new framework to help make those decisions.
The
model outlines specific hospital admission thresholds at which short-term
shelter-in-place orders should be enacted, according to a press release from UT
Austin.
“While
many cities have implemented alert levels and new policies, our research may be
the first to provide clear guidance for exactly what to track (hospital
admissions data) and exactly when to act (strict thresholds),” said David
Morton, paper coauthor, who is a chair and professor of industrial engineering
and management sciences at Northwestern, in a statement.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/new-ai-diagnostic-tool-knows-when-defer-human-mit-researchers-say
New AI diagnostic tool knows when to defer to a human, MIT researchers say
The system,
developed at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, can assess
X-ray images and diagnose some conditions, but also appreciates its own limits.
By Mike Miliard
August 04,
2020 11:39 AM
"The
system either queries the expert to diagnose the patient based on their chest
X-ray and medical records, or makes the diagnosis itself by solely looking at
their X-ray," CSAIL researchers explain.
Machine
learning researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab,
or CSAIL, have developed a new AI diagnostic system they say can do two things:
make a decision or diagnosis based on its digital findings or, crucially,
recognize its own limitations and turn to a carbon-based lifeform who might
make a more informed decision.
WHY IT
MATTERS
The technology, as it learns, can also adapt how often it might defer to human
clinicians, according to CSAIL, based on their availability and levels of
experience.
"Machine
learning systems are now being deployed in settings to [complement] human
decision makers," write CSAIL researchers Hussein Mozannar and David
Sontagin a new
paper recently presented at the International Conference of Machine
Learning that touches, not just on clinical applications of AI, but also
on areas such as content moderation with social media sites such as Facebook or
YouTube.
-----
https://ehealth.eletsonline.com/2020/08/govt-plans-personal-health-ids-to-bolster-digital-health/
Govt plans personal health IDs to bolster digital health
By eHealth Network
Posted on August 4, 2020
The National Digital Health Mission (NDHM), yet another
flagship initiative, is all set to be announced soon. As a part of the plan,
the government is working on a series of initiatives to bolster digital
healthcare ecosystem. It includes personal health ID for every Indians,
digitisation of health records as well as a registry of doctors and health
facilities across the country.
The Prime Minister Narendra Modi may announce the Digital
Health Mission on August 15. A TOI report states that the plan is in its last
leg and it has received in-principle cabinet approval.
“The implementation of NDHM is expected to significantly
improve efficiency, effectiveness and transparency of health service delivery
overall and accelerate India’s progress towards achievement of Sustainable
Development Goal 3.8 of Universal Health Coverage including financial risk
protection,” National Health Authority(NHA) Chief Executive Indu Bhushan was
quoted as saying by the report.
-----
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/tech/ancestry-rolls-out-more-advanced-dna-testing-to-flag-risk-heart-disease-breast-cancer
Ancestry rolls out more advanced DNA testing to flag risk of heart
disease, breast cancer
By Heather Landi
Aug 3, 2020
12:47pm
Ancestry
is stepping up its consumer DNA testing using next-generation sequencing
developed by Quest Diagnostics.
The
family history and consumer genomics company is relaunching its AncestryHealth
service with more advanced genetic testing technology to flag cutsomers' risk
for developing certain inheritable diseases.
The
sequencing-based tests replace Ancestry's previous microarray-based tests,
the company said in a release. The tests are physician-ordered, are not
diagnostic and have not been reviewed or approved by the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA).
The
advanced testing technology will help people better understand their risk for
developing certain inherited health conditions such as heart disease, breast
cancer, colon cancer and blood disorders, Ancestry said.
-----
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/tech/healthcare-groups-cheer-house-move-to-overturn-ban-nationwide-patient-identifier
Healthcare groups cheer House move to overturn ban on nationwide patient
identifier
By Heather Landi
Aug 3, 2020
12:57pm
Healthcare
and health IT groups are applauding federal lawmakers' efforts to
help establish a unique patient identifier in U.S. healthcare.
Many
health IT leaders see the investigation and creation of unique patient
identifiers as critical to solving issues with patient matching and
potentially minimizing misidentification and medical errors. And this
effort is even more crucial amid a global health crisis, the groups say.
On
Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the six-bill FY2021
minibus package that includes the Labor-Health and Human
Services appropriations bill. As part of the bill, the House approved by
voice vote the bipartisan Foster-Kelly Amendment, which strikes Section
510 of the Labor-HHS bill and removes the ban on using federal funding to
create patient identifiers.
The
long-standing ban has stifled innovation around patient identification issues and
has prevented the Department of Health and Human Services from engaging the
healthcare community to develop and advance a comprehensive nationwide patient
matching strategy, according to healthcare leaders.
-----
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/hospitals/trump-administration-issues-emergency-order-to-expand-telehealth-boost-rural-health-care
Trump signs executive order to expand telehealth, boost rural health care
By Heather Landi
Aug 3, 2020
5:43pm
President
Donald Trump issued an executive order Monday to support healthcare in rural
areas by permanently expanding some telehealth services beyond the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) officials said they plan to issue a
proposed Physician Fee Schedule rule that will cement some regulatory
flexibilities enacted during the public health emergency to reimburse for
telehealth visits. Examples include emergency room visits, nurse consultations,
and speech and occupational therapy, they said.
CMS'
annual Physician Fee Schedule and Quality Payment Program updates Medicare
payment rates.
These
telehealth expansions would build on the work CMS has done during the public
health emergency to more than double allowable telehealth services, greatly
expanding access to high quality care, officials said.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/blog/how-create-and-maintain-productive-secure-home-work-environment
How to create and maintain a productive, secure home work environment
Collaboration
tools are undergoing drastic version updates and feature overhauls on a very
frequent basis, which force security departments to keep a close eye on
upcoming changes to determine whether their standards will still be met.
By Dan Costantino
August 03,
2020 11:47 AM
Collaboration
tools are undergoing drastic version updates and feature overhauls on a very
frequent basis, which force security departments to keep a close eye to
determine whether their standards will still be met.
Remote
working was a growing trend among American businesses long before the COVID-19
pandemic of 2020 struck. As technology has continued to advance and promote
more information sharing and collaboration, managers and employees alike have
identified the opportunity to continue being productive without requiring a
trip to the office.
The
appetite for remote work has varied greatly from industry to industry and
business to business. Many leaders still struggle to adopt a remote model for a
variety of reasons, while debates about productivity, teamwork, morale and
safety are taking place every day. One of the more common factors discussed
from both productivity and security perspectives is distractions.
According
to a recent study conducted by JPD, 54% of employees working
from home feel they are more distracted, while 29% experience more distractions
in the office. The study surveyed over 2,000 Americans who typically work from
the office but are now doing so from their homes.
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2020/08/03/can-withings-convince-clinicians-to-trust-its-wearables/
Can Withings Convince Clinicians To Trust Its Wearables?
August 3, 2020
Anne Zieger
As
some of you may know, connected health company Withings
just finished raising $60 million to build a strong presence in the
healthcare industry. For most of its existence, Withings has focused on selling
to consumers, so this marks a major turning point for the company.
The
question now is whether Withings — along with giants like Fitbit and Apple —
can convince doctors to rely on devices they once saw as toys. Though some
providers are experimenting with using
wearables for remote monitoring, they are still in the minority, and it’s
hard to say when others will follow in their footsteps.
Over
the past few years, Withings has been through a few twists and turns. In 2016,
it was acquired by Nokia, but just two years later a group including the
company’s original founders and some of its investors bought the company back
from the telecom giant.
When
his group re-acquired the company, it resolved to focus only on medical-grade
products and services, according to Withings CEO Mathieu Letombe. Executives
made this decision, in part, because business customers were asking them to do
it, Letombe said.
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2020/08/03/inching-closer-to-a-national-patient-identifier-house-passes-removal-of-ban-on-national-patient-id/
Inching Closer to a National Patient Identifier – House Passes Removal of
Ban on National Patient ID
August 3, 2020
John Lynn
Little
by little, we’re working towards a National Patient Identifier. For those
not familiar with the topic, the US government in a section of the federal
budget has banned HHS from even working with the private sector to develop a
national patient identifier. However, the House of Representatives thanks
to leadership from Representative Bill Foster (D-IL) and Representative Mike
Kelly (R-PA) have passed a bill to remove this ban.
“On
behalf of our patients and caregivers, Intermountain Healthcare applauds House
passage of the Foster-Kelly Amendment and looks forward to a future in which
patients can accurately, safely, and consistently be matched to their health
data across the care continuum,” said Ryan Smith, Vice President and Chief
Information Officer at Intermountain Healthcare.
The
Patient ID Now coalition which includes American College of Surgeons, the
American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), the College of
Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), Healthcare Information
and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), Intermountain Healthcare and Premier
Healthcare Alliance, issued a press
release with details on the work they did to help get this passed in the
House.
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2020/08/03/healthcare-cios-speeding-up-social-determinants-of-health-efforts/
Healthcare CIOs Speeding Up Social Determinants Of Health Efforts
August 3, 2020
Anne Zieger
New
research has concluded that healthcare CIOs see analyzing social determinants
of health data as a top priority going forward, along with tackling data
interoperability and cybersecurity.
The
focus
group study, which was conducted by LexisNexis Risk Solutions, involved
bringing together a group of CIOs who were members of CHIME. Focus group leads
asked the CIOs what their priorities were as they struggled to meet the needs
of providers during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
One
of three top priorities cited by the CIOs was tackling social determinants of
health, an issue which has come “screaming to the forefront” as leaders have
noted the extent to which the virus has impacted vulnerable populations.
When
asked how they were currently addressing SDOH issues, CIOs seemed to still be
grappling with the basics. Most said they largely didn’t have a unified,
enterprise-wide strategy for doing so. While most of the CIOs said that they
were gathering SDOH data via surveys, some aren’t collecting or aggregating
such data on an enterprise level. Also, just a few said they had the ability to
package SDOH as useful for clinical decision support and business intelligence
for providers, the LexisNexis report noted.
-----
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/singapore-to-make-travellers-wear-electronic-tags-to-enforce-quarantine-551247
Singapore to make travellers wear electronic tags to enforce quarantine
By Staff Writer on
Aug 4, 2020 11:20AM
As the city-state gradually reopens its borders.
Singapore
will make some incoming travellers wear an electronic monitoring device to
ensure that they comply with coronavirus quarantines as the city-state
gradually reopens its borders, authorities said.
From
August 11, the devices will be given to incoming travellers, including citizens
and residents, from a select group of countries who will be allowed to isolate
at home rather than at a state-appointed facility.
Similar
measures using electronic wristbands to track peoples' movements during
quarantine have been used in Hong Kong and South Korea.
Travellers
to Singapore are required to activate the device, which use GPS and Bluetooth
signals, upon reaching their home and will receive notifications on the device
which they must acknowledge.
-----
https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/new-initiative-aims-to-apply-consumer-mhealth-to-pandemic-planning
New Initiative Aims to Apply Consumer mHealth to Pandemic Planning
The CTA's
new Public Health Tech Initiative will study how consumer-facing mHealth and
telehealth platforms can be used to shape the detection of and response to
future public health emergencies, like a pandemic.
By Eric Wicklund
July 27, 2020
- A new task force aims to shine the spotlight on the role that
consumer-facing mHealth and telehealth technology can play in tackling
pandemics.
The Consumer
Technology Association today announced the launch of the
Public Health Tech Initiative, a collective of more than a dozen healthcare
providers and companies – many with a significant connected health footprint –
aimed at creating opportunities for the use of consumer technology in dealing
with public health emergencies like COVID-19.
“Digital
health services, including telehealth and remote patient monitoring have gained
a lot of momentum in the recent months,” David Rhew, MD, Microsoft’s global
chief medical officer and the PHTI’s co-chair, said in a press release. “These
tech solutions, along with others such as AI and data technology will be an
essential part of health response plans for future public health emergencies.”
-----
https://healthitanalytics.com/features/healthcare-data-sharing-connects-the-dots-for-covid-19-and-beyond
Healthcare Data Sharing Connects the Dots for COVID-19 and Beyond
The
COVID-19 pandemic has pushed healthcare to engage in data sharing and research
partnerships, facilitating new strategies that many hope will endure after the
crisis subsides.
July 31, 2020
- When one considers the healthcare industry, it’s easy to picture the
entire ecosystem existing as one massive, cohesive machine – a system
seamlessly working to achieve the goals of quality care, lower costs, and
improved outcomes.
If one were
to take a closer look, however, they would see that the industry is a little
more complicated than that.
Healthcare
often operates as an entity with many different moving parts. And while those
parts do share a common, overall aim, they typically function in
isolation.
Research
institutions, provider organizations, pharmaceutical companies, and other
healthcare bodies usually conduct their efforts on disparate digital systems,
making it difficult to access relevant health data and draw actionable
conclusions. Add regulatory and privacy constraints to the mix, and healthcare
data sharing becomes an incredibly challenging task.
-----
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=42da91f1-21d9-494d-ab42-dc293784a3b4
A quantum leap?: how the NHS use of technology has been catalysed by
covid-19
Addleshaw
Goddard LLP
THE
COVID-19 PANDEMIC HAS LED TO A STEP-CHANGE IN THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE
SECTOR. THIS ARTICLE EXPLORES THE IMPACT OF THE CURRENT SITUATION AND THE
PROSPECTS FOR LONG-TERM SHIFTS.
The
current pandemic has led to a sea change in how the NHS provides healthcare.
The nature of the coronavirus has made face-to-face contact a method of last
resort, leading to shifts in how patients are treat. The need to free up ward
space to treat COVID-19 patients has fuelled innovations to allow as many other
patients as possible to receive care elsewhere. This article outlines some of
the key areas where new technology has been developed or existing systems have
been scaled up to meet present challenges. It follows on from our previous
article, COVID-19 – Lessons learned so far and next steps for NHS
infrastructure which considered how the NHS has adapted its physical
infrastructure to the circumstances.
Perhaps
the most dramatic use of technology has been in allowing distanced
communication within the NHS. The need for socially-distanced methods of
treating patients has led GP surgeries to provide the vast majority of their
appointments by phone or video call.
Whilst
there had been a steady uptake of remote consultations over the past few years,
the pace of current change cannot be overstated: one NHS Wales video
appointment system was rolled out to 88% of GPs within a month of being
launched. Primary care providers are now able to procure various technological
solutions from the new GP IT Futures framework, which replaced the old GP
System of Choice framework at the end of last year, pre-pandemic.
-----
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dr-google-will-see-you-now-hnn2t6hb9
Dr Google will see you now
Sharing
patients’ medical records was once taboo, but the coronavirus has changed all
that — and Silicon Valley’s big beasts can sniff profits in the NHS’s data gold
mine
Sabah
Meddings and Peter Evans
Sunday
August 02 2020, 12.01am BST, The Sunday Times
IN NUMBERS
£11.8m The
amount spent on developing the track and trace app
£5bn Estimated
cost of a fully traceable database
65m People
whose records are held on NHS database
When
patients suffering from Covid-19 are given an NHS chest x-ray, the results are
viewed by more than the hospital clinicians. Each image, entered into a
computer, forms part of a national database to help ministers plan how to
tackle the pandemic.
Responsibility
for gathering and making sense of these images lies not with the publicly
funded health service, but a tech start-up called Faculty that claims to be
home to “Europe’s most experienced team of artificial and machine-learning
specialists”.
Faculty has
friends in high places. It is run by Marc Warner, a data science expert who has
taken a lead role in the data response to the pandemic. His brother, Ben, also
a data scientist, was recruited to Downing Street by the prime minister’s most
senior adviser, Dominic Cummings, after running the Conservative Party’s
successful election modelling. Faculty is being paid almost £1m for the
Covid-19 NHS task.
-----
https://histalk2.com/2020/07/31/weekender-7-31-20/
Weekly News Recap
- HIMSS pushes out its 2021
conference from March to August in Las Vegas.
- Allscripts will sell its EPSi
business to Strata Decision Technology for $365 million.
- New investment in WellSky values
the company at $3 billion.
- Irregularities are found in HHS’s
$10 million contract with TeleTracking for a COVID-19 hospitalization
tracking database.
- The COVID Tracking Project says
that COVID-19 hospitalization data is now unreliable, partly because of
HHS’s abrupt switch to a new system and accompanying data element changes.
- Private equity investments in
Edifecs value the company at $1.8 billion.
- A surgery journal retracts an
article in which the authors created fake social media accounts to search
for photos or comments by surgery residents that they deemed
unprofessional.
-----
Enjoy!
David.
