Here are a few I came across last week.
Note: Each link is followed by a title and few paragraphs. For the full article click on the link above title of the article. Note also that full access to some links may require site registration or subscription payment.
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/how-social-determinants-data-can-enhance-machine-learning-tools
How Social Determinants Data Can Enhance Machine Learning Tools
Regenstrief researchers incorporated social determinants of health data into a machine learning algorithm to improve its performance.
By Jessica Kent
October 28, 2020 - In order to provide holistic, quality care for patients, clinicians have to address the non-clinical factors that influence overall wellness – individuals’ social determinants of health.
While it is widely understood that these determinants have a significant impact on physical health, providers don’t always have the means to focus on patients’ social characteristics.
“When you look at how clinical care has been delivered up until this point, you see a lot of focus on treating patients in primary care settings,” Suranga Kasthurirathne, PhD, Regenstrief Institute research scientist and assistant professor of pediatrics at IU School of Medicine, told HealthITAnalytics.
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https://www.digitalhealth.net/2020/10/nhsx-launches-assessment-criteria-for-digital-health-tools/
NHSX launches assessment criteria for digital health tools
New standards for digital health technologies have been launched to provide clarity on how digital tools will be assessed.
Andrea Downey 26 October, 2020
NHSX has launched in beta, a Digital Technology Assessment Criteria (DTAC) to set out how digital health and social care technologies will be assessed.
It has also designed a ‘guide to good practice’ for digital and data-driven health technologies, set to be published by the NHS AI Lab in October.
“Individually these will support digital health developers to design and deliver the best products for patients and the health and care system. Together they form the beginning of a broader support package which will also include a buyers’ guide to digital technologies, and evaluation resources for the health and care system,” according to an NHSX blog post.
The DTAC aims to streamline the adoption of “safe and innovative” technologies focusing on five key areas: clinical safety; data protection; technical assurance; interoperability; and usability and accessibility.
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The Power of Data to Drive Better Public Health: Google Health | 17
Our guest is Karen DeSalvo, Chief Health Officer at Google Health. We learn how emerging technologies can help improve health care for everyone.
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Oct 30, 2020,06:36am EDT
Artificial Intelligence Platform Reduces Hospital Admissions By Over 50% In Trial
Simon Chandler Contributor
An artificial intelligence-based diagnostic tool has reduced hospital admissions by 51% among at-risk elderly patients, according to results of a trial released by health care provider Clare Medical.
Announcing the results of its trial on Wednesday, Clare Medical concluded that predicting which patients have a higher probability of experiencing medical "events" significantly reduces the probability of such events occurring. This is because its AI-based tool provides clinicians with the opportunity for early intervention.
The trial found that the use of AI-based diagnostics has significantly positive outcomes with respect to reducing a patient's risk of requiring a hospital visit within 30 days. At a time when the coronavirus pandemic is placing significant strain on the world’s health systems, such outcomes could end up saving substantial amounts of time and money for hospitals, not to mention the benefits for patients themselves.
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https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/research-news/machine-learning-finds-heart-faults-2020-10/
By Steve Bush 29th October 2020
Machine learning finds heart faults
Russian and US scientists have used machine learning to find ‘atrial fibrillation (AF) drivers’ – small patches of faulty heart muscle that can cause cardiac arrhythmia.
The team tested their approach on 11 donated human hearts and located AF drivers with an accuracy of up to 81%.
Multi-electrode mapping (MEM) is a technique that can be applied during an operation, in which an array of electrodes is pressed against tissue to measure electrical activity. But AF drivers have proved difficult to locate with sufficient reliability or accuracy using this technique – as the aim is to burn away the AF driver from within the heart tissue – called targeted ablation.
There is a technique that can accurately locate AF drivers, called sub-surface near-infrared optical mapping (NIOM), which has a resolution of 0.3mm, but is so invasive that it cannot be used inside someone during an operation.
The team posed itself the question: Could simultaneous MEM and NIOM data gathered from donated hearts be used to train a machine to accurately locate AF drivers using only MEM data.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/fda-scoring-tool-update-adds-vulnerability-risk-to-patient-safety
FDA Scoring Tool Update Adds Vulnerability Risk to Patient Safety
An update to the FDA Medical Device Development scoring tool takes into account how a medical device vulnerability would impact patient safety, improving transparent device security.
October 29, 2020 - The FDA recently unveiled a new scoring system for assessing medical device vulnerabilities, an update from its previous system that was initially designed for commercial devices and didn’t account for patient safety, a move Elad Luz, head of research for CyberMDX, explained will better reflect the severity and characteristics of security flaws.
Awareness around medical device security has grown rapidly in recent years, given the FDA’s efforts to bridge the gap between device manufacturers and providers, which can bolster patient safety. Since the FDA unveiled its cybersecurity guidance for medical devices in 2016, vendors reported 400 percent more vulnerabilities per quarter: a sign of maturing security risk assessments and growing compliance.
However, many healthcare providers continue to struggle with prioritizing patch management and continue to rely on outdated, legacy platforms. A May 2019 Forescout report showed the majority of medical devices operate on legacy platforms. Given recent hacking campaigns actively scanning for known vulnerabilities, the new scoring tool will help providers move the needle on these vulnerabilities.
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Microsoft's first 'vertical cloud,' the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, is now generally available
Microsoft's Cloud for Healthcare builds on Azure, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform and is designed to deal with both structured and unstructured health data.
By Mary Jo Foley for All About Microsoft | October 28, 2020 -- 17:24 GMT (04:24 AEDT) | Topic: Cloud
Announced at Build 2020 in May, the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare is generally available today, October 28. The Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare bundles together Azure, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and Power Platform elements.
Microsoft
officials said the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare "makes it faster and
easier to provide more efficient care and helps customers support end-to-end
security, compliance, and interoperability of health data." The offering
works with both structured and unstructured data and provides customers with
options for everything from AI health bots to conducting virtual visits. It
also is designed to help patients access secure medical portals and mobile
tools for interacting with health teams and their own personal health data.
The Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare also enables access to and exchange and use
of electronic health records between patients, healthcare providers, and health
plans. Microsoft is looking to ISV and system integrators partners to integrate
with and build on top of its healthcare cloud.
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Roundup: EU adopts cross-border interoperability for contact tracing, Northern Ireland to launch health tech for care homes and more briefs
Also, Swiss medtech company launches COVID-19 antibody test.
By Sara Mageit
October 30, 2020 07:36 AM
SMART COVID-19 ANTIBODY TEST TO LAUNCH
Swiss medtech company, Bloom Diagnostics has announced the launch of its COVID-19 antibody test for professional use in the EU.
The Bloom System allows healthcare professionals to conduct COVID-19 antibody testing with real-time results using its Bloom Lab - a smart, Bluetooth enabled device which operates through the Bloom App on the user’s smartphone.
The Bloom System aims to eliminate long waiting times for COVID-19 antibody tests and relieve pressure on healthcare systems. It is also seeking approval for its home self-testing kit in Europe and the US.
The test can be used by healthcare professionals in the EU such as doctors, nurses, or pharmacists who can test for antibodies and offers additional, personalised information on each reading.
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Epic Integration With Lyft Part Of Trend Expanding EHR Borders
October 30, 2020
In a move reflecting ongoing expansion beyond its existing platform, Epic has integrated technology from ride-sharing company Lyft.
The new Lyft for Epic integration will allow health system staffers to schedule a Lyft ride home for patients directly from the patient’s record. Two hospitals—Ochsner Health and Tampa General– have agreed to test out the tool.
The partnership agreement comes as payers – especially Medicaid – have begun offering rides to patients who might otherwise skip visits and deteriorate. Health systems are increasingly opting to try out this approach.
Lyft for Epic, which integrates Lyft Concierge directly into the Epic platform, allows staffers to schedule rides from within the record. The staff members select the appointment date, pickup and drop-off time and patient name. The tool also allows hospital staffers to track the patient’s time within Epic to see when they’ll arrive.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/hhs-unveils-new-2020-2025-federal-health-it-strategic-plan
HHS unveils new 2020-2025 Federal Health IT Strategic Plan
The document describes the government's hopes for how technology goals should be prioritized over the next five years – with an emphasis on patients' access to their health data.
By Mike Miliard
October 30, 2020 05:28 PM
The final 2020-2025 Federal Health IT Strategic Plan released today by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT is laser focused – unsurprisingly, given the goals of recent rulemakings – on ensuring Americans' easy access to their own electronic health information.
ONC worked with more than two dozen federal organizations and drew upon public comment for the plan (PDF), which is mandated by the 2009 HITECH Act.
The agencies that collaborated on 2020-2025 Federal Health IT Strategic Plan – Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health and others – regulate, purchase, develop, and use health information technology to help deliver care and improve patient health at the local, tribal, state, and national level.
The goal of the strategic plan – a draft of which was published in January – is to "serve as a roadmap for these initiatives and activities, and as a catalyst for complementary activities in the private sector," according to ONC.
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Federal Health IT Plan Reaffirms Patients' Access to Health Data
By Scott Mace | October 30, 2020
HHS updates strategic plan that puts individuals first by focusing on person-centered care.
Patients demanding access to their own health information have reason to celebrate, as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on October 30 published the final 2020-2025 Federal Health IT Strategic Plan.
Developed by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), the plan, last updated in 2015, was further updated in accordance with the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Act.
The key principles of the plan include:
- Putting individuals first by
focusing on person-centered care
- Focusing on value by promoting and
pursuing activities that improve health and care quality
- Building a culture of secure access
to health information
- Putting research into action, encouraging
innovation and competition
- Developing health IT policies in transparent and accountable processes
The plan continues the momentum of the Twenty-First Century Cures Act and "reflects the federal government’s commitment to making patients’ electronic health information accessible on their smartphones,” said Don Rucker, MD, national coordinator for health IT, in a news release.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/how-a-va-hospital-developed-an-ehr-covid-19-screening-tool
How a VA Hospital Developed an EHR COVID-19 Screening Tool
Researchers at the epicenter of COVID-19 quickly developed an EHR COVID-19 screening tool to help clinicians and boost patient care.
October 28, 2020 - The development of an EHR-integrated COVID-19 screening tool can result in a population health tracking dashboard to help mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study published in Healthcare.
The first confirmed case of COVID-19 occurred in January 2020 in Washington state, with the first COVID-related US death happening at the end of February. Puget Sound, WA saw the nation’s first COVID-19 outbreak, prompting the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to give out screening recommendations shortly after.
As a result, the Veterans Affairs (VA) Puget Sound Health Care System expected an influx of COVID-19 screenings and patients at the facility. With the ever-changing protocols, VA Puget clinicians needed a way to quickly screen and test potential COVID-19 patients.
While it typically takes several months to optimize or integrate a tool into the EHR, researchers put together a team of health IT professionals, with backgrounds in health informatics, data analytics, primary care, and facility incident command to optimize and integrate a COVID-19 screening tool into the EHR system as soon as possible.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/medical-device-security-stymied-by-legacy-tech-flawed-segmentation
Medical Device Security Stymied by Legacy Tech, Flawed Segmentation
Forescout’s Connected Medical Device Security report shows improved awareness around healthcare on network segmentation and legacy devices, but other security challenges remain.
October 28, 2020 - Healthcare delivery organizations are increasingly deploying medical devices, IoT, and other medical platforms to improve connectivity and support patient care. But failed network segmentation, legacy devices, and other network failures continue to heighten risks to the enterprise, according to Forescout.
The majority of US hospitals reported falling victim to a significant security incident in the past two years. Combined with threats designed to prey on COVID-19 fears, cybersecurity risks in healthcare have remained hard to defeat.
This month alone has seen a number of hospital organizations reverting to EHR downtime after falling victim to security incidents and ransomware attacks, while ransomware hacking groups have posted data exfiltrated for more than a dozen providers.
In response, Forescout analyzed data from its Device Cloud, an internal repository that contains data from about 3.3 million devices on hundreds of healthcare networks, combined with a detailed analysis of network traffic from a range of large healthcare delivery organizations, for its 2020 Connected Medical Device Security report.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/fbi-hhs-warn-increased-and-imminent-cyber-threat-hospitals
FBI, HHS warn of 'increased and imminent' cyber threat to hospitals
With the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, they describe some of the techniques that may be used by foreign groups that could be targeting hundreds of health systems with ransomware.
By Mike Miliard
October 29, 2020 08:43 AM
In a joint alert sent Wednesday evening, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said they have "credible information" that cybercriminals are taking new aim at healthcare providers and public health agencies as the coronavirus pandemic reaches new heights.
WHY IT MATTERS
In their cybersecurity advisory, the agencies offer some detailed insights into the potential tactics that might be used by bad actors planning fresh incursions on the U.S. healthcare system as many hospitals are overrun with new COVID-19 patients.
"CISA, FBI and HHS have credible information of an increased and imminent cybercrime threat to U.S. hospitals and healthcare providers," officials said. "Malicious cyber actors" may soon be planning to "infect systems with Ryuk ransomware for financial gain" on a scale not yet seen across the American healthcare system.
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Delays to Information Blocking and Health IT Certification in 21st Century Cures Act Final Rule
October 29, 2020
The big news in the world of Health IT today is ONC’s announcement of the Cures Act Final rule which includes some delays to the information blocking and health IT certification requirements. These delays are an update to the Cures Act Enforcement Discretion that was announced back in April. You can check out the full Cures Act Final rule on the Federal Register.
For those mostly interested in the Cures Act delays, here’s a summary of the new compliance dates and timelines that are in the Cures Act Final rule:
Response from the health IT community has been largely positive and appreciative of the delays. There’s an acknowledgment of the impact COVID-19 has had on healthcare organizations and that a delay was helpful to many organizations. Although, some thought some of the delays were unnecessary. Here’s a few responses to the delays and final rule from those in the industry.
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2020/10/29/the-business-case-for-health-data-sharing/
The Business Case for Health Data Sharing
October 29, 2020
The following is a guest article by Vince Kuraitis, co-chair of Health Data Unbound: Innovations in Health Data Sharing for the COVID-19 Era and Beyond.
Day-by-day, the business case for data sharing is growing stronger. In this essay, I’ll describe how COVID-19 is accelerating existing healthcare trends, how data sharing is becoming a key business strategy, and how you can learn more about these developments.
COVID-19 Accelerates Existing Trends
This might surprise you — one result of COVID-19 isn’t so much a new normal as it is the acceleration of pre-existing trends. Andreasen Horowitz venture capitalist Julie Yoo wrote about this in her masterful article: Healthcare: The Great Unlock.
She lists and describes six healthcare trends that are accelerating:
- Unbundling of the hospital
- Value (or outcome) based care and payments
- Consumer or patient directly at the center
- Re-contouring of provider networks as the boundaries of clinical capacity extend beyond traditional geographic lines
- Greater interoperability of data
- Automation
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/patient-initiated-health-information-exchange-up-since-2011
Patient-Initiated Health Information Exchange Up Since 2011
User-initiated health information exchange (HIE) increased by over 32 percent at urban healthcare facilities, mostly due to increased HIE adoption.
October 27, 2020 - Patient-initiated health information exchange (HIE) usage increased over a seven-year period across all care settings, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA).
Researchers found the most significant HIE increase occurred at urban health facilities and appointments paid for by Medicare and Medicaid. Researchers tied the HIE usage increase to the HITECH Act’s meaningful use program incentives.
Researchers aimed to dissect HIE usage by utilizing patient-initiated HIE during visits over seven years. The research group intended to accumulate data to provide insights into HIE use factors and HIE during clinical encounters.
Researchers assessed patient access log files from the Indiana Network for Patient Care (INPC) HIE that connects over 115 hospitals and contains patient data on over 15 million patients. Every time a patient logged into her respective patient portal, INPC created an access log file. This method measured HIE use and data exchange outside of the health organization.
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https://www.medpagetoday.com/patientcenteredmedicalhome/patientcenteredmedicalhome/89344
Imagine Your Patient's Health Data All in One Place
— A unified medical record has its charms -- and a few kinks
by Fred N. Pelzman, MD October 26, 2020
There definitely seems to be a lot of good that's coming from newly being on a unified electronic medical record (EMR) across all of our hospital systems.
Until just recently, our hospitalized patients were taken care of on the inpatient services under one EMR, and our outpatient practices used a different one. And all of our different regional hospitals, including our two largest academic medical centers, used different systems, speaking different languages that made cross-talk nearly impossible.
Just the recent experience of bringing these all together shows how critically useful having all of our health information contained in one place could be. It could lead to better care for our patients, and a better healthcare system overall.
Somebody being admitted from the outpatient world to the inpatient world can more seamlessly be transferred across from the outpatient clinic to the emergency room to the inpatient admitting team. We no longer need to print a copy of our note and hand it to the paramedics to give to the emergency department (ED) providers so they know what we are worried about. And our colleagues in the ED can quickly and easily see our patient's past medical history, social history, medications, and allergies, with much less need for retyping a whole lot of data over and over again.
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Mayo Clinic, Google announce AI effort to boost radiation therapy for cancer
Oct 28, 2020 12:30pm
Mayo Clinic and Google Health have announced they will use artificial intelligence to improve radiation therapy planning for cancer care.
The project is the first initiative in a 10-year strategic partnership between the Rochester, Minnesota-based hospital and the tech giant, announced in September 2019.
Radiation oncologists, medical physicists, dosimetrists, and service design professionals from Mayo Clinic will work together with Google Health’s AI, medical image segmentation, and user experience design experts. In addition to AI, the two companies plan to use Google Cloud and data analytics to advance the diagnosis and treatment of diseases.
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Health Data After Covid-19: More Laws, Less Privacy
The main legal safeguard for Americans’ health-care information was passed in the era of the fax machine. Here’s a look at what could improve or replace it.
Author Jacob Gershman
Published Sept. 10, 2020 11:01 am ET
Plopping down on a mattress, primping in front of a mirror or sitting on a toilet: In coming years, any of these activities could generate the most intimate data about your health, via sensors, wearables, machine-learning algorithms and data-mining systems.
Though they promise to make health care more personalized, our nonstop interactions with digital technologies and analytics are upending traditional notions of patient confidentiality.
In the U.S., the core federal law restricting the use and protecting the disclosure of health data is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA. Congress enacted it in 1996, when much of the health system was paperbound and fax-reliant.
The law’s age is showing.
Its disclosure rules, which took effect in 2003, don’t apply to personal health data in general, just the patient information flowing through the health-care system. Doctors, hospitals, pharmacies and health insurers are all bound by its requirements. But technology companies offering health-related services via sensors, apps and online portals may not be.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/patient-disability-information-needs-improved-ehr-integration
Patient Disability Information Needs Improved EHR Integration
Clinicians and front office staff have trouble documenting, accessing, and utilizing patient disability information.
October 27, 2020 - Patient disability accommodation information should be easily accessible and observed by front office staff and clinicians, but this is not always the case, according to a study published in BMC Health Services Research.
While accommodation needs are not a standard feature in most EHR software, embedding this information can boost patient care for those with disabilities. As a result, some practices are asking for better ways to view and document this information.
The study aimed to learn more about how the EHR stores patient disability accommodation needs and how hospital staff members use it.
Researchers assembled 35 clinicians and front office staff members, along with 12 patients at a federally qualified health center (FQHC) in Northern California.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/cybercriminals-seek-take-advantage-rapid-telehealth-scale
Cybercriminals seek to take advantage of rapid telehealth scale-up
A new report from Booz Allen Hamilton predicts that the explosion in virtual care offerings will change the way bad actors target health data.
By Kat Jercich
October 28, 2020 02:41 PM
The massive expansion of telehealth services in response to the pandemic is likely to change the way bad actors target data.
A new report from Booz Allen Hamilton notes that telehealth security is a patient-safety issue, considering the potentially catastrophic risks that come with service disruptions and device failures.
"Mass adoption of this technology will lead to new cybercrime focus, with an emphasis on stealing patient data to enable fraud, target health data in ransomware attacks, trick patients in social engineering schemes, and target remote patient monitoring devices," wrote the report authors.
"Cybersecurity isn’t always a priority when it comes to healthcare, but it should be. The consequences of cyber risks can be incredibly severe as healthcare data is particularly personal and sensitive," said Kelly Rozumalski, secure connected health director at Booz Allen, in a statement to Healthcare IT News.
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Report Notes CMS Program’s Success With Telehealth for Senior Care
PACE, a Medicare-Medicaid program serving thousands of seniors in 31 states, used telehealth to keep that care going during the pandemic. That success could spur more programs to use connected health in the future.
October 27, 2020 - A CMS program that provides long-term care for seniors in need of support services used telehealth to keep those connections going during the coronavirus pandemic.
The success was charted in a recent study that could serve as a blueprint for new programs that use connected health to improve home-based care and remote patient monitoring, thus keeping seniors out of nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
The study focuses on the 30-year-old PACE (Program for All-inclusive Care for the Elderly) program, created by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for seniors who need long-term support services (LTSS), or a nursing home level of care. Developed as a capitated model of care for dual-eligible beneficiaries (ninety percent are dual eligible), it provides all necessary medical care, therapies, long term care and services, meals, socialization, transportation, day center services and activities.
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/machine-learning-forecasts-prognosis-of-covid-19-patients
Machine Learning Forecasts Prognosis of COVID-19 Patients
A machine learning model can rapidly determine whether COVID-19 patients will develop complications or need to be hospitalized.
By Jessica Kent
October 27, 2020 - A machine learning-based risk score can help providers identify COVID-19 patients who are most likely to experience negative outcomes, according to a study published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.
With the rapid spread of COVID-19, health systems experienced a surge in urgent care visits and hospital admissions. To better predict which patients were at greatest risk for experiencing negative outcomes, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) developed a machine learning tool to predict the prognosis of individual patients with COVID-19.
Experts in neurology, infectious disease, critical care, radiology, pathology, emergency medicine, and machine learning designed the COVID-19 Acuity Score (CoVA) to better identify high-risk patients. The tool is based on input from information on 9,381 adult outpatients seen in MGH’s respiratory illness clinics and emergency department between March 7 and May 2, 2020.
“The large sample size helped ensure that the machine learning model was able to learn which of the many different pieces of data available allow reliable predictions about the course of COVID-19 infection,” said M. Brandon Westover, MD, PhD, an investigator in the Department of Neurology and director of Data Science at the MGH McCance Center for Brain Health.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/healthcare-ai-investment-continues-results-are-sluggish
Healthcare AI investment continues, but results are sluggish
A KLAS report finds that most health systems rely on a mishmash of artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to meet their needs.
By Kat Jercich
October 27, 2020 01:51 PM
A KLAS report released this week found that few organizations have settled on any particular artificial intelligence vendor as their choice going forward. Instead, said the report, most are using a mishmash of software and tools in order to fulfill their AI and machine learning needs.
The report authors surveyed the AI purchase decisions of 47 provider and payer organizations to examine which vendors are being considered and chosen, which of them are being replaced and why systems are choosing specific tools.
"The top factor driving purchase decisions in healthcare AI is expertise (i.e., healthcare-specific knowledge as well as ML and data science expertise)," wrote the report authors.
Conversely, organizations cited functionality, price and product maturity among the top reasons for not selecting specific vendors.
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2020/10/27/have-healthcare-cyberattacks-changed-during-covid/
Have Healthcare Cyberattacks Changed During COVID?
October 27, 2020
Over the last several years, Blackberry, the one-time mobile phone giant that taught us all how to use our thumbs to text, has been transforming themselves into a security powerhouse. The company has also been making a push into healthcare and have popped up at several Health IT conferences.
I have always been curious about Blackberry’s work in healthcare so I jumped at the chance to sit down with Thomas Pace, Vice President, Global Enterprise Solutions at Blackberry Cylance. We explored how the company is helping healthcare organizations be more secure, how cyberattacks have changed during the pandemic, and how someone might convince the C-suite to increase their cybersecurity budget.
What is Blackberry doing in the healthcare space?
“We have a full complement of solutions in the market,” Pace said. “Specifically for cybersecurity, we have a unified endpoint security (UES) platform, formerly known as the Cyclance platform, where we’re leveraging AI and machine learning.”
Pace called the technology “the next generation antivirus” and noted that the company has a renewed focus on “the enterprise of things.” In the healthcare space, this focus is primarily on medical devices.
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/what-are-the-top-challenges-of-clinical-decision-support-tools
What Are the Top Challenges of Clinical Decision Support Tools?
Clinical decision support tools can provide clinicians with actionable information, but issues with alarm fatigue and adherence can create more problems for health systems.
By Jessica Kent
October 23, 2020 - Clinical decision support systems can help organizations manage large volumes of data while enabling them to deliver quality, value-based care.
Designed to sort through large amounts of data and provide clinicians with actionable insights, these tools can suggest next steps for treatment, catch potential problems, and alert providers to information they may have missed.
However, if poorly designed or implemented, clinical decision support systems can cause more problems than they solve. Alarm fatigue, physician burnout, and medication errors are all detrimental side effects of unintuitive clinical decision support technology, with these events having a harmful impact on patient outcomes and organizations’ bottom lines.
What are the major challenges with clinical decision support implementation and use, and how can developers and provider organizations overcome these barriers?
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First VA medical center (finally) goes live on Cerner EHR as part of $16B project
Oct 26, 2020 12:43pm
The Department of Veterans Affairs' achieved a major milestone Saturday in its decadeslong, multibillion-dollar effort to upgrade its aging health IT systems.
Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane, Washington, went live with a new Cerner EHR system this weekend, the first site as part of VA's massive medical records project.
It marks progress in the latest effort to upgrade the VA's system, a $16 billion technology project that's been plagued by delays, leadership turnover, and infrastructure problems since it kicked off in 2018.
According to Mann-Grandstaff officials, the transition to Cerner's EHR means veterans receiving care at the facility and at its outpatient clinics will use the new My VA Health online portal to schedule, review and cancel health appointments, refill their prescriptions, send secure messages to their VA providers, and manage their current health records.
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Smartphone app speeds up stroke diagnosis, triaging patients to CT scans quicker
Marty Stempniak | October 26, 2020 | Artificial Intelligence
Scientists have developed a novel smartphone application that uses artificial intelligence to diagnose a stroke in less than four minutes.
The tool does so by analyzing a patient’s speech patterns and facial movements and can make the determination with the accuracy of an ER doc, researchers claim.
“Brain is time,” as the saying goes. And emergency providers have precious moments to triage, deciding whether to send patients to a neurologist or for an often “expensive and time-consuming radioactivity-based scans,” noted investigator James Wang.
“Currently, physicians have to use their past training and experience to determine at what stage a patient should be sent for a CT scan," Wang, PhD, a professor of information sciences and technology at Penn State, said in a statement issued Oct. 22. "We are trying to simulate or emulate this process by using our machine learning approach."
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/how-the-nations-top-kidney-care-network-boosted-interoperability
How the Nation’s Top Kidney Care Network Boosted Interoperability
Fresenius Kidney Care knew it needed to increase interoperability and patient data exchange after the emergence of COVID-19.
October 26, 2020 - Dr. Emel Hamilton, vice president of Clinical Support and Informatics at Fresenius Kidney Care, knows interoperability and patient data exchange is not unique to the nation’s leading network of dialysis facilities.
However, due to COVID-19 and the need for enhanced interoperability, Hamilton and her team needed to make a fix to improve interoperability throughout Fresenius Kidney Care’s 2,500-plus facilities.
As a result, the massive care center recently connected to CommonWell Health Alliance and, subsequently, the Carequality interoperability framework to boost patient data exchange across its over 190,000 patients.
“Fragmentation of care is ubiquitous within the medical community,” Hamilton told EHRIntelligence. “Consider the patient’s clinical picture as a mosaic of information: Every provider holds a few pieces of this information, but nobody has the whole clinical picture. Even if the clinician receives faxes of discharge summaries or office notes, these records are often incomplete and missing important details of the patient’s medical history.”
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/digital-divide-remains-despite-big-covid-19-tech-innovation
Digital divide remains, despite big COVID-19 tech innovation
Even as massive resources have been marshaled to quickly develop new tools, the pandemic still disproportionately affects the populations who may not have access to them.
By Mike Miliard
October 26, 2020 04:09 PM
During a presentation this past Friday as part of HIMSS Global Health Equity Week, a public health expert from the UN offered his thoughts on some of the challenges and opportunities for worldwide digital health improvement.
In the discussion, Health Equity: A Global Perspective, Ahmed El Saeed, thematic lead in health at the United Nations Technology Innovation Labs Programme (UNTIL), spoke with HIMSS CEO Hal Wolf.
They described impressive and quickly scaled advances in healthcare technologies since the start of the COVID-19 crisis – but decried the fact that an array of social factors also often conspires to keep vulnerable populations from experiencing their full benefit.
"On one hand, we have a lot of innovation being thrown against the wall, a lot of people scrambling for more information and utilizing it in effectively just-in-time capture," said Wolf. "But then we look up and we see this disproportionate impact of COVID-19. Are we fundamentally looking at a widening of a digital divide in such a situation?"
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https://histalk2.com/2020/10/23/weekender-10-23-20/
Weekly News Recap
- Tibco will acquire Information Builders.
- Teladoc Health announces that several Livongo executives will leave once the acquisition has been completed.
- LabCorp uses the capabilities of two recent acquisitions to connect patients to drug company remote clinical trials.
- Patient safety solutions vendor RLDatix acquires provider credentialing software company Verge Health.
- A new report from Center for Connected Medicine and KLAS finds that the surge in telehealth will end if emergency payments go back to pre-COVID levels, as 80% of health systems say they will stop doing them.
- Allscripts files a trademark lawsuit against telemedicine and urgent care company CarePortMD, saying the name is too similar to that of CarePort Health, which Allscripts is selling to WellSky.
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Enjoy!
David.
