Here are a few
I came across last week.
Note: Each
link is followed by a title and few paragraphs. For the full article click on
the link above title of the article. Note also that full access to some links
may require site registration or subscription payment.
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https://www.digitalhealth.net/2021/04/ai-tool-can-identify-risk-of-heart-attack-years-before-it-strikes/
AI tool can identify risk of heart attack ‘years before it strikes’
An
artificial intelligence tool that can identify people at risk of a heart attack
years before it strikes is now ready to be rolled out across the NHS.
Andrea Downey
– 20 April, 2021
The
CaRi-Heart tool, developed by Caristo Diagnostics and based on research funded
by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), predicts possible heart disease using
routine heart scans.
It works by
scanning “ticking-time-bomb” arteries that could become clogged to cause a
heart attack. Looking at regular heart scans the artificial intelligence (AI)
technology produces a ‘fat attenuation index score’ (FAI-Score), which
accurately measures inflammation of blood vessels in and around the heart.
It’s this
inflammation that could eventually lead to a heart attack.
Those
identified at high risk of a future heart attack can then be given personalised
medication, as well as being monitored more closely, to prevent a
life-threatening situation.
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https://www.digitalhealth.net/2021/04/new-partnership-to-develop-ai-platforms-for-faster-diagnosis-and-treatment/
New partnership to develop AI platforms for faster diagnosis and treatment
Artificial
Intelligence (AI) platforms which can provide faster diagnosis and treatments
for clinicians are to be developed as part of a new partnership.
Hanna Crouch
– 19 April, 2021
The London
Medical Imaging and AI Centre for Value-Based Healthcare and digital
transformation consultancy Answer have teamed up to help pave the way for
AI-enabled hospitals.
The platforms
will be developed to support clinicians with faster diagnosis and treatments,
personalised therapies, and effective screening across a range of conditions
and procedures.
Federated
learning – a model seeking to address the problem of data governance and
privacy by training algorithms collaboratively without exchanging the data
itself – will also be used to help address long standing privacy issues.
Beverley
Bryant, chief digital information officer for Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS
Foundation Trust and King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and senior
responsible owner for the London Medical Imaging and AI Centre for Value-Based
Healthcare, said: “This is a unique programme to implement AI at scale within
the NHS.
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https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-real-world-data-can-help-us-better-prepare-for-the-next-pandemic/
How Real-World Data Can Help Us Better Prepare for the Next Pandemic
Rapid testing
is important, but there’s a wealth of other information that could have offered
us quicker insight into the spread of COVID
·
By Joseph
Menzin, Peter
Neumann on April 22, 2021
When
we look back at the COVID pandemic, what will hindsight tell us? Will we
remember the turn of the decade as the year that finally brought real change to
pandemic preparedness, or will our eventual return to “normal” stymie our
progress?
Although
epidemiologists have long warned about the potential for global pandemics,
their admonitions have largely gone unheeded. However, industrialized animal
farming practices, increased human-animal contact, globalization, decreasing
biodiversity and other factors all point
to the likelihood of another zoonotic disease (one transmitted from animals
to humans) with pandemic potential .
A
slim silver lining of the current COVID-19 pandemic is that it can help us
better prepare for future outbreaks—if we harness what we’ve learned correctly.
In particular, we can better leverage one of the most crucial resources we have
when it comes to pandemic preparedness: real-world data.
THE IMPORTANCE OF REAL-TIME INSIGHT
The
pandemic has created a trove of data that can help us plan for future disease
outbreaks. The abundance of research on the U.S. pandemic response provides
insight into the benefits and consequences of various courses of action, and we
can leverage this knowledge for future response.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/telehealths-awkward-waiting-room-problem-and-how-one-company-aims-solve-it
Telehealth's awkward waiting room problem, and how one company aims to
solve it
Mend, a
Florida-based telemedicine platform, has released its "enhanced virtual
waiting room" to keep patients engaged.
Kat Jercich
April 23, 2021
Even
as telehealth has made many aspects of care more seamless, a few elements have
routinely emerged as points of difficulty.
Among
them is the waiting room. A new survey from LifeLink Systems out this week
found that the vast majority of patients said they'd prefer a virtual waiting room that allowed them to complete paperwork
on their phones before they got to a doctors' office.
But
as with in-person services, providers are sometimes running behind, regardless
of how much preparation the patient has undertaken.
And
unlike in a brick-and-mortar facility, patients waiting at a computer in front
of an open window screen can wonder if they've correctly followed instructions.
They may be tempted to click away – or get up and leave altogether.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/after-hours-charting-significantly-associated-physician-burnout
Global Edition
Electronic
Health Records (EHR, EMR)
After-hours charting significantly associated with physician burnout
A new study
links organizational EHR support with lower levels of physician burnout –
especially among cardiologists and neurologists.
By Kat Jercich
April 23,
2021 11:25 AM
A
study published this week in the Journal of the American
Medical Informatics Association found that less after-hours
charting was associated with lower burnout scores.
The
study, which relied on survey responses from more than 25,000 physicians, found
that satisfaction with organizational EHR support was also significantly
associated with lower levels of burnout overall.
"EHR
factors are not solely responsible for after-hours charting, and other efforts
besides EHR improvements, such as team documentation and new approaches to care
team models for clinical support, may reduce after-hours charting," noted
the researchers.
WHY IT
MATTERS
Physician
burnout is a serious problem in the medical industry, associated with poor
clinical care, medical mistakes and caregiver attrition. Researchers estimate its
economic impact at $4.6 billion each year.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/apac/taiwan-s-advancement-digital-health-emram-stage-6-7
Taiwan’s advancement in digital health: From EMRAM Stage 6 to 7
In this
webinar, insights were gained on the steps Taiwan has taken towards creating a
cohesive digital healthcare ecosystem as well as what is required to create a
strong foundation in digital health.
By Roy Chiang
April 23,
2021 04:27 AM
The
HIMSS Digital Maturity Series seeks to understand if healthcare organisations
are aware of their capacity and capabilities to effectively tap into the power
of digital health. During this session which took place in early April,
healthcare experts from Taiwan shared their digital transformation stories and
thoughts on how to advance towards a digital health ecosystem.
Establishing
a strong foundation in digital health
Expenditure
on healthcare has experienced a huge surge over the years in order to cater to
burgeoning demand. This, in part, can also be attributed to the need to invest
in new technologies to increase the quality of care delivered to patients.
"The
shift towards digital – many global health systems have almost shifted
overnight to virtual visits which now opens up a very interesting opportunity
for helping people stay healthy and well," shared Anne Snowdon, Chief
Scientific Research Officer at HIMSS. A robust digital health ecosystem is
required to support and augment this huge surge in demand for online medical
care and services, she continued.
The
building block of a digital healthcare ecosystem as outlined by Snowdon, starts
with a strong governance and workforce; followed by interoperability of data
and analytics combined with the strong ability to track outcomes; and lastly,
the digital capacity to engage with patients meaningfully. Through the Digital Health
Indicator (DHI), healthcare organisations can keep track of how digitally
enabled they are. The DHI measures progress towards a digital health ecosystem
based on four building blocks. This ecosystem connects clinicians and provider
teams with people, allowing them to manage their health and wellness using
digital tools in a secure and private environment whenever and wherever care is
needed.
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/hhs-fda-backtrack-from-plan-to-deregulate-mhealth-devices-apps
HHS, FDA Backtrack From Plan to Deregulate mHealth Devices, Apps
The
federal agencies are reversing course after a Trump administration proposal to
end oversight of dozens of mHealth apps, devices and platforms drew strong
opposition from within and outside government.
By Eric Wicklund
April 22,
2021 - Federal officials are quietly withdrawing a Trump administration
plan to end regulatory review of 83 types of mHealth devices, saying the
original plan was flawed and could have put the lives of Americans using that
technology in danger.
In a notice posted
last week in the Federal Register, the Health and Human Services Department
and the Food and Drug Administration announced that they won’t enforce an
HHS notice posted on January 15 that, among other things, would have
exempted 83 class II devices and one unclassified device from premarket
notification. Another 50 devices would have been exempted from review because
there had been no reports of deaths associated with their use.
The decision
affects dozens of connected health tools, including mHealth apps, smart devices
and digital therapeutic services.
Officials
said the devices were selected based on a lack of adverse events reported in
the FDA’s Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience (MAUDE) database.
But just because adverse events aren’t reported, officials said, doesn’t mean
they aren’t happening or could happen.
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https://journal.ahima.org/cms-and-cdc-nchs-discuss-possible-biannual-icd-10-cm-pcs-code-implementation-dates/
CMS and CDC/NCHS Discuss Possible Biannual ICD-10-CM/PCS Code
Implementation Dates
April 21, 2021 at 8:00 am
By Sue
Bowman, MJ, RHIA, CCS, FAHIMA
The
ICD-10 Coordination and Maintenance (C&M) Committee, co-chaired by the
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the National Center for
Health Statistics/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC/NCHS), met
March 9-10 this year to discuss proposals for new or modified ICD-10-CM and
ICD-10-PCS codes. All ICD-10-PCS code proposals presented at the March ICD-10
C&M Committee would, if approved, go into effect on October 1, 2021. All
but one of the ICD-10-CM code proposals were presented for consideration of an
October 1, 2022 implementation date. The exception is discussed below.
CMS
and CDC/NCHS announced their consideration of an April 1 implementation date
for ICD-10-CM/PCS code updates, in addition to the current October 1 annual
update. If an April 1 code implementation is adopted, requesters of new or
modified codes would indicate whether they are submitting their code request
for consideration of an April 1 or October 1 implementation date. The ICD-10
C&M Committee would make efforts to accommodate the requested implementation
date for each request submitted, however, the committee would determine which
requests would be presented for consideration of an April 1 vs. October 1
implementation date. The first April 1 code update would be April 1, 2022.
The
current established process would be used to implement an April 1 code update,
which would include presenting proposals for April 1 consideration at the
September ICD-10 C&M Committee meeting, requesting public comments,
reviewing public comments, finalizing codes, and announcing the new codes,
consistent with the new Grouper release information. The code update process
for an April 1 implementation date would also involve the release of new code
files, coding guidelines, and coding advice on the use and reporting of new
codes through the American Hospital Association’s Coding Clinic for
ICD-10-CM/PCS publication.
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https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/549081-is-telemedicine-the-de-evolution-of-medicine
Is telemedicine the de-evolution of medicine?
By Jaspreet Rayat, Toby Chan, Richard Weinstein and James
Cooper, opinion contributors — 04/20/21 05:30
PM EDT 13
The views
expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill
Having
passed a year’s worth of COVID-19 lockdowns, stay-at-home orders,
self-quarantines and other social distancing strategies, it is a good time to
reflect on the extent to which we have shifted our lives online. We shop for
groceries, consume entertainment, get schooling and attend our yoga classes via
the web. During this rapid transformation, telemedicine became one of the major
industries that forcibly advanced. According to McKinsey & Company, in 2020, 46 percent of
consumers were using telehealth services to replace canceled health care
visits, compared to 11 percent who used such services in 2019. We pushed
doctors’ office visits online and freed patients from the shackles of waiting
rooms into the comfort of their own homes, all in the name of reducing COVID-19
exposure.
And
while this “brave new world” of telemedicine has been deemed a good thing, it
is not a panacea. Telemedicine initially was created to fill the void in
medical care accessibility for patients in remote environments. But it has
become more about survival for doctors. Like any business during the pandemic,
fewer services could be rendered because of stay-at-home orders, resulting in
less income. Physicians were not immune to this model of compensation. The Canadian Institute for Health Information reported a 50
percent reduction in emergency room visits in April 2020. This presents a
potentially dangerous scenario in which medical practices were near the brink
of bankruptcy until virtual visits quickly became the norm. Although this
appears as a win-win for patients and physicians, there is much more here than
meets the eye. From price wars to outsourcing to substandard care, we should
consider all the unintended consequences of the telemedicine trend.
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https://www.healthit.gov/buzz-blog/precision-medicine/health-it-advances-precision-medicine
Health IT Advances Precision Medicine
Kevin Chaney,
MGS; Teresa Zayas Cabán, PhD; Courtney C. Rogers, MPH; Joshua C. Denny MD, MS and
Jon White | April 20, 2021
Precision
medicine creates treatment and prevention strategies that meet
patient needs by considering individual variability in their genome,
environment, and lifestyle. While precision medicine can revolutionize health care,
it requires access to an unprecedented volume and variety of data, and an
infrastructure that rapidly brings new discoveries to
bear. Recently, we published an article in the Journal of the American
Medical Informatics Association that describes health IT’s
vital role in precision medicine based on key insights from a series of ONC
projects supporting the Precision Medicine Initiative.
Four
key health IT needs for precision medicine are:
- Determining requirements for
data
- Building robust infrastructure
- Integrating precision medicine into
clinical care
- Developing relevant policies
Data Requirements
Electronic
health data are widely available thanks to the prevalence of health IT, but not
all data are standardized or include the metadata needed for
precision medicine. To increase the availability of rich data sets, ONC’s
projects developed methodologies for collecting and
exchanging diverse data types using standardized
APIs.
These
projects also highlighted data quality issues such as accuracy,
consistency, completeness, and usefulness. In particular, these
projects highlighted a trade–off between richness of data and
simplicity of standards.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/ezekiel-emanuel-wants-big-thinking-new-government-health-it-projects
Ezekiel Emanuel wants big thinking for new government health IT projects
"We
don't need patchwork solutions. We need structural solutions," said
Emanuel, a member of President Biden's COVID-19 advisory board, in a wide-ranging
HITN interview.
By Kat Jercich
April 22,
2021 10:22 AM
When
President Joe Biden announced his intention to launch a national website to
facilitate COVID-19 vaccinations by May 1, many in the health IT industry had
flashbacks.
Some
probably had recent memories of the Trump administration's haphazard
coronavirus response – not least its move to a new data reporting system, whose two-day turnaround in the summer of 2020 led to
"chaos" for many U.S. hospitals.
Others
might have thought back to the 2013 launch of the Healthcare.gov insurance exchange portal, which initially
crashed repeatedly thanks to complex coding and crushing public demand.
"We
know that when the government tries to create IT systems, they've been plagued
with bugs," said Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, former health advisor to President
Barack Obama, who also served on President Biden's COVID-19 advisory board.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/emea/qa-year-down-road-what-has-epr-accomplished-switzerland
Q&A: A year down the road - What has the EPR accomplished in
Switzerland?
Healthcare IT
News asks Stefan Hunziker, CIO at the Lucerne Cantonal Hospital (LUKS), how the
EPD has developed in Switzerland and how the hospital has managed it.
By Anna Engberg
April 22,
2021 03:23 AM
By
April 2020 all Swiss hospitals should join a "stammgemeinschaft", a
regional community to offer a national EHR, the so-called
EPR (electronic patient record) throughout Switzerland, according to the
Federal Electronic Patient Dossier Act (EPDG).
A
year on, Healthcare
IT News asks Stefan Hunziker (pictured below), CIO at the Lucerne
Cantonal Hospital (LUKS), how the EPR has developed in Switzerland and how
the hospital plans to implement it.
HITN:
The LUKS is considered a pioneer in the Swiss healthcare system - and
the EPR is part of the Swiss digitisation strategy. How is the nationwide
implementation of the EPR going?
Hunziker:
To cut a long story short: The EPR is not yet up and running in
Switzerland and we therefore have no experience with it at LUKS. The partly
controversial discussion and the pandemic have clearly shown deficits and are
giving the digital transformation in the healthcare system a strong push. As
things stand, we assume that we will really be able to use the EPR from
autumn 2021.
However,
via our hospital information system (HIS), which we have been using at the Lucerne
Cantonal Hospital for 1.5 years, we have already been exchanging data with the
outpatient sector for some time and have also been serving the patient side
since June 2020.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/4-ways-health-it-ehrs-can-advance-precision-medicine
4 Ways Health IT, EHRs Can Advance Precision Medicine
The ONC is
attempting to propel precision medicine through API utilization, EHR
integration, policy development, and data standardization.
By Christopher Jason
April 21,
2021 - Healthcare stakeholders must enhance and address health IT data,
health IT infrastructure, EHR integration, and policy development to achieve
precision medicine, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC)
said in a new blog post.
Precision
medicine aims to improve healthcare by customizing patient care to specific
patient needs.
Advancing
precision medicine requires establishing an evidence base through extensive
research built on
genomic data at a unique scale. But as precision medicine data becomes
increasingly complex and available, health IT and EHRs must evolve to
integrate, interpret, and deliver this data.
ONC
outlined four critical health IT needs to advance precision medicine:
determining data requirements, building robust health IT infrastructure,
integrating precision medicine data into the EHR, and developing relevant policies.
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/machine-learning-tacks-evolution-of-covid-19-misinformation
Machine Learning Tracks Evolution of COVID-19 Misinformation
A new
machine learning tool could help public health officials prevent the spread of
COVID-19 misinformation.
By Jessica Kent
April 21,
2021 - A machine learning algorithm could help public health officials
identify COVID-19-related conspiracy theories on social media, potentially
reducing the spread of misinformation online, a study published in JMIR
revealed.
“A lot of
machine-learning studies related to misinformation on social media focus on
identifying different kinds of conspiracy theories,” said
Courtney Shelley, a postdoctoral researcher in the Information Systems and
Modeling Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory and co-author of the
study.
“Instead, we
wanted to create a more cohesive understanding of how misinformation changes as
it spreads. Because people tend to believe the first message they encounter,
public health officials could someday monitor which conspiracy theories are
gaining traction on social media and craft factual public information campaigns
to preempt widespread acceptance of falsehoods.”
Researchers
used publicly available, anonymized Twitter data to characterize four COVID-19
conspiracy theory themes and provide context for each through the first five
months of the pandemic.
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https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/tech/digital-mental-health-market-booming-here-s-why-some-experts-are-concerned
The digital mental health market is booming. Here’s why some experts are
concerned
by Heather Landi
Apr 21, 2021
1:03pm
The
digital mental health space was growing rapidly even before the COVID-19
pandemic but stress and anxiety brought on by the health crisis have
accelerated demand for virtual behavioral health services.
The
success of digital mental health startups means that more people can access
mental wellness than were potentially able to do so before.
“I
think the benefits are clear. We can increase access to care, at our
fingertips, and we can hopefully personalize care to our exact needs. There is
the potential to provide care that is more affordable, personalized and
accessible,” John Torous, M.D. director of the digital psychiatry
division at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston told Fierce Healthcare.
Broadly,
the digital mental health space includes direct-to-consumer apps, such as
Talkspace and Calm, apps that are designed for a clinician to prescribe, such
as reSET, which is used to treat substance use disorders and also mental health
platforms that work with employers and health plans, such as Ginger, Lyra
Health and Modern Health.
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https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/practices/case-for-electronic-hand-hygiene-compliance-monitoring-costly-infections-and-more
Here's why hospitals are looking to take a tech-enabled approach to hand
hygiene compliance
by Dave Muoio
Apr 20, 2021
11:49am
It’s
been more than 150 years since Ignaz Semmelweis, the so-called “father of hand
hygiene,” highlighted the benefits of handwashing among healthcare workers, and
yet there’s still room for improvement among provider organizations large and
small.
According
to a 2018 study
cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were an
estimated 687,200 healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in the U.S. during
2015, and about 72,000 patients
with HAIs died during their hospitalizations.
Alongside
the clinical impact, these infections have a very real cost on the healthcare
system. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) hospitalizations can
cost about
$38,500 per event, for example, while Clostridium difficile will cost about
$24,000 per event without taking into account other accompanying care.
Handwashing
is a core component of any hospitals’ infection control strategy, and there’s
little shortage of literature outlining various
hand hygiene compliance interventions and the
cost savings they can bring to an organization.
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https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/tech/global-investments-telehealth-ai-startups-reached-record-levels-q1-2021
Global investment in telehealth, artificial intelligence hits a new high
in Q1 2021
by Heather Landi
Apr 20, 2021
3:45pm
Telehealth
investment hit an all-time high of $4.2 billion in just 139 deals in the first
quarter, almost doubling the $2.2 billion raised in the same quarter a year
ago, according to CB Insights.
That's
the highest global funding for telehealth during one quarter on record,
according to the company's first-quarter 2021 report. Funding also was up 18%
from the $3.6 billion raised in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Industry
executive discussions around telehealth and its role in care delivery remain
active, based on mentions of telehealth during company earnings' calls, CB
Insights reported. During the second quarter of 2020, there were close to 1,200
mentions of telehealth on earnings calls. And, while that dropped to 517
mentions in the first quarter of 2021, it's still much higher than pre-COVID
levels.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/emea/european-data-protection-board-strengthen-sharing-health-data-between-eu-and-uk
European data protection board to strengthen sharing of health data
between EU and UK
The European
Commission has published its draft on the adequate protection of personal data
in the UK.
By Sara Mageit
April 21,
2021 06:05 AM
In
February 2021, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) published two opinions on the European Commission draft
Implementing Decisions on the adequate protection of personal data in the
United Kingdom.
The
EDPB has since announced that it has adopted its opinion on the draft adequacy
decision issued by the European Commission.
Although
the EDPB opinion is not binding, the adequacy decision will be formally implemented if
approved by the EU member states.
WHY IT
MATTERS
Adequacy
decisions are critical in granting data flows between the EU and the UK,
particularly in the post-Brexit environment. The process enables the EU to
decide whether countries outside the bloc offer an adequate level of protection
for the data of EU citizens.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/hospitals-and-health-systems-post-pandemic-and-how-prepare-future-outbreaks
Hospitals and health systems post-pandemic, and how to prepare for future
outbreaks
Dr. Muhammad
Ali Chaudhry, CEO of Emerging Health International, discusses the future of
healthcare and how technology needs to transform the industry to prepare.
By Bill Siwicki
April 21,
2021 11:29 AM
It's
been more than a year since the World Health Organization officially declared
the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. According to a McKinsey report, an estimated
25% of outpatient services could move to telemedicine, which is among the
necessary changes that could mean preparation and prevention for future health
epidemics and pandemics, said Dr. Muhammad Ali Chaudhry, CEO of Emerging Health
International, a healthcare technology and services company.
Further,
the pandemic has caused a massive impact on the healthcare industry,
accelerating transformations and hospital design needed to address the medical
priorities of their populations and respond effectively to emergencies such as
epidemics and pandemics, he added.
To
get an idea of what needs to happen in healthcare in the years to come, Healthcare
IT News interviewed Chaudhry to gain his expertise in healthcare
transformation and healthcare technology.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/congressional-watchdog-issues-recommendations-va-it-system-overhaul
Congressional watchdog issues recommendations for VA IT system overhaul
The agency
has been attempting to replace its decades-old core financial system with an
integrated one for years.
By Kat Jercich
April 21,
2021 12:25 PM
The
U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a report this week making
recommendations for the ongoing Department of Veterans Affairs' IT
modernization program.
As
noted in the GAO
report, the VA has been attempting to replace its aging financial and
acquisitions systems with an integrated system for years.
The
latest deployment, in November 2020, followed some IT best practices – but the
cost and schedule estimates "only minimally or partially met" many
others, said the report.
"Following
information technology management best practices on major transformation
efforts … can help build a foundation for ensuring responsibility,
accountability, and transparency," wrote report authors.
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2021/04/21/meditech-integrates-genomics-into-their-ehr/
MEDITECH Integrates Genomics Into Their EHR
April 21, 2021
John Lynn
Genomics
is one of the most exciting parts of healthcare. It’s also one of the
most complex and challenging topics out there. As genomic sequencing
prices have dropped and genomic research has accelerated, I know of no area of
healthcare that’s more exciting than genomics.
While
genomics has shown so much progress and promise, I’ll admit that any genomics
discussion gets complex really quickly. With that complexity, I’ve always
wondered how EHR vendors were going to approach genomics. We all know
that genomic medicine will eventually get to the bedside, but how it was going
to get there wasn’t clear to me. In fact, I’d often talk about EHR APIs
and say that these APIs were needed because there was no way an EHR vendor was
going to do all that was needed for genomic medicine (let alone hundreds of
other third party apps).
While
I still think this is true when it comes to APIs, MEDITECH recently announced
their new MEDITECH
Expanse Genomics solution that gives a great view on how MEDITECH is
working to move genomic medicine to the clinician. I’d describe their
approach as making the key genomic data available to clinicians at the bedside and
layering on specific genomic decision support (that’s my new term for clinical
decision support based on genomics) using their partner FDB (First Databank).
-----
https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/innovation/pandemics-wake-healthcare-it-faces-new-realities
In Pandemic's Wake, Healthcare IT Faces New Realities
Analysis
| By Scott Mace |
April 21, 2021
Care is
morphing to mix of real and virtual, powered by cloud and consumer demands. The
desktop phone may be fading.
KEY
TAKEAWAYS
·
As virtual care activity subsides somewhat, the
new normal appears to be a mix of virtual, real, synchronous, and asynchronous
communication with patients.
·
Prospects look favorable for payers to continue
to offer reimbursement for virtual care, said the CIO of Mass General Brigham.
·
Cook Children's is building a "tech
bar" into new hospital, where physicians will refer patients for mobile,
digital apps to manage their health.
New realities
in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic are reshaping healthcare IT in ways that
affect leadership, employees, and patients, according to a panel of healthcare
system executives convened virtually during the recent virtual CHIME21 Spring
Forum, presented by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives
(CHIME).
Various
changes include:
- Moving to a hybrid of virtual and
in-person meetings
- Shifting to certain patient
monitoring and visits at home instead of in hospitals or clinics
- Consumerization of healthcare
- Accelerating a move to and dependency
on cloud-based platforms
- Questioning the expense of
traditional desktop phones
"As
people are starting to go back into getting care, which is good, we're seeing
virtual care numbers now going down," said Rasu Shrestha, MD, MBA, chief
strategy and transformation officer and executive vice president at Atrium Health.
-----
https://ehrintelligence.com/news/using-team-based-approaches-to-ehr-usability-ehr-optimization
Using Team-Based Approaches to EHR Usability, EHR Optimization
Sixty-one
percent of clinician respondents said the EHR SWAT team initiative improved EHR
usability.
By Christopher Jason
April 20,
2021 - A multidisciplinary team focused on EHR optimization is effective
at improving EHR usability and ultimately mitigating clinician burnout, according
to a Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) Open
case report.
It is common
for clinicians and health IT experts to emphasize EHR vendor and EHR
implementation. However, sustaining the technology and enhancing EHR usability
comes down to EHR optimization.
Better EHR
usability leads to higher EHR adoption rates, fewer clinical errors, lower
clinician burnout rates, financial benefits, and improved patient safety.
A
group of researchers established a multidisciplinary “EHR SWAT Team” to combat
clinician burden and improve EHR usability. This team consisted of ten
individuals, including one chief medical information officer, two clinical
informatics nurses, three clinical applications team members, one health
information management specialist, and one pharmacy informatics specialist.
-----
https://patientengagementhit.com/news/tripathi-patient-data-access-about-culture-not-compliance
Tripathi: Patient Data Access About Culture, Not Compliance
Patient
data access under the 21st Century Cures Act is a first step in building a
culture of patient empowerment, ONC Head Micky Tripathi said.
By Sara Heath
April 20,
2021 - The latest moves out of the Office of the National Coordinator for
Health IT (ONC) directly target patient data access by requiring healthcare
organizations to host open access to a patient’s own medical record. But that’s
just the first step in a long road toward better patient empowerment and
engagement, according to ONC’s newly minted leader Micky Tripathi, PhD, MPP.
Mere days
before the world turned upside down from the novel coronavirus, ONC dropped its
final
information blocking rule delivering on certain parts of the 21st Century
Cures Act. Among other things, the rule calls on healthcare providers to
utilize application programming interfaces (APIs) to allow patients to connect
to their own EHRs.
This portion
of the ONC information blocking rule intends to improve patient data access,
ultimately boosting patient empowerment and engagement in her own care. The
logic follows that patients who understand their own current health and
wellness levels are able to better engage in patient-provider communication,
shared decision-making, and ultimately chronic care self-management or
prevention.
After
a brief delay to let healthcare organizations focus more on the COVID-19
pandemic, the patient data access provision under the information blocking rule
went
into effect earlier this month, a first step in an overall cultural change
that will put the patient at the center of care.
-----
https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20210413.13025/full/
In Digital Health, Partnerships Between Business And Academia Are Needed
To Advance Health Equity
April 16, 2021 10.1377/hblog20210413.13025
We
have witnessed multiple digital health inequities in the past year, from
disparities in access to health care video visits to challenges in scheduling
COVID-19 vaccination online. It is clear that we need digital health
transformation that is focused on reducing these gaps.
During
the past 18 months, we—health care researchers with expertise in health
technology and implementation science—launched a digital health incubator at
University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Called UCSF S.O.L.V.E. Health
Tech, the incubator is focused explicitly on health equity; it connects
public health and medical expertise with digital health companies to adapt,
test, and evaluate products to better reach and meet the needs of diverse
populations.
The
incubator is rooted in our work in the public health care delivery system in
San Francisco. Specifically, UCSF S.O.L.V.E. Health Tech focuses on ensuring
that digital health tools work better for individuals with high medical and
social needs who face structural barriers to health and health care, such as
individuals from racial/ethnic minority groups and those facing poverty or
other socioeconomic challenges in the US. These are the patients served in our
delivery system at the San Francisco Health Network, and they are not a small
segment of the health care landscape in the United States, given the growing
linguistic and racial/ethnic diversity of the US and the substantial market
share of Medicaid nationwide (for example, Medicaid provides insurance for one-third of all Californians).
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/nurses-give-ehr-usability-f-new-study
Nurses give EHR usability an 'F' in new study
The report
also finds that poor electronic health record user-experience is associated
with nurse burnout.
By Kat Jercich
April 20,
2021 02:07 PM
A
study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association
found that more favorable electronic health record usability scores are
associated with lower odds of burnout – and those usability scores have
tanked.
Researchers found that among 1,285 nurses who responded to
a November 2017 survey about usability and burnout the
mean nurse-rated EHR usability score was 57.6.
The
research team categorized this with a grade of "F."
"To
our knowledge, this is the first study to measure nurses’ perceptions of
EHR-usability nationally using a standardized metric," wrote the
researchers.
-----
https://www.ausdoc.com.au/practice/call-arms-story-vaccine-hunters
A call to arms: The story of the 'vaccine hunters'
Ordinary
citizens in the US are using technology to ensure left-over COVID-19 vaccines
don't go to waste
12th April
2021
By Antony Scholefield
Say what
you like about the US health system (there’s a lot that can be said), but it
has managed to get more than 130 million COVID-19 vaccine doses into people’s
arms.
At
least a small proportion of those are because of groups calling themselves
‘vaccine hunters’.
These
hunters target vaccine doses left over from cancelled appointments.
Sometimes
they physically hang around clinics; sometimes they just keep an eye on online
booking sites.
-----
https://ehrintelligence.com/news/modifying-ehr-prescribing-settings-can-improve-prescribing-patterns
Modifying EHR Prescribing Settings Can Improve Prescribing Patterns
A simple
and effective way to curb opioid prescriptions is to modify the EHR default
prescribing settings.
By Christopher Jason
April 19,
2021 - Optimizing EHR opioid prescribing default settings can boost
prescribing patterns, according to a study published in JMIR Publications.
Furthermore, reducing the duration of an opioid prescription and cutting down
the quantity of pills could minimize the chance of opioid dependence and
overdose.
The opioid
epidemic continues to be a significant issue across the United States.
According to
HHS, over 70,000 people died from a drug overdose in 2019, and over 10.1
million people misused prescription opioids throughout 2019.
Increased
chronic opioid use is linked to higher doses and longer opioid therapy
durations. To combat the opioid epidemic, clinicians can reduce prescription
rates. Health systems can also leverage prescription drug monitoring programs
(PDMPs) and computerized provider order entry (CPOE) systems to reduce
prescribing rates and simplify the prescribing process.
To
reduce opioid quantities and reduce overprescribing, the research team
evaluated the default Epic Systems EHR prescription settings at Thomas
Jefferson University Hospitals. The health system’s CPOE consists of four
opioid prescription entry fields: dose, frequency, duration, and quantity.
-----
https://healthitanalytics.com/news/supporting-equitable-vaccine-distribution-with-ehr-data
Supporting Equitable Vaccine Distribution with EHR Data
Leaders at
Jefferson Health are leveraging EHR data to develop strategies around equitable
vaccine distribution.
By Jessica Kent
April 19,
2021 - With the broadening availability of COVID-19 vaccines, it seems the
US is finally beginning to see the light at the end of the pandemic-enveloped
tunnel. After more than a year of uncertainty and unease, the vaccines
represent the opportunity to return to some semblance of normalcy.
However, this
optimism has been clouded by concerns about equitable
vaccine distribution and access. The virus’s disproportionate impact on
racial and ethnic minorities, as well as socioeconomically disadvantaged
populations, has established a need for strategies around vaccine distribution.
At Jefferson
Health, a system with 14 hospitals throughout greater Philadelphia, leaders
took action to meet this need.
-----
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/fed-joint-advisory-patch-these-5-vulnerabilities-under-active-attack
Fed Joint Advisory: Patch These 5 Vulnerabilities Under Active Attack
Nation-state
threat actors with ties to Russia are actively exploiting five publicly known
vulnerabilities to compromise a range of entities within the US and its allies.
By Jessica Davis
April 19,
2021 - The National Security Agency, the Department of Homeland
Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the FBI
released a joint alert, warning that nation-state threat actors from Russia are
actively targeting and exploiting five publicly known vulnerabilities to
compromise US networks.
The news
followed the Biden Administration’s sanctions
against the Russian government, which formerly attributed SolarWinds Orion
supply-chain attack to the country’s foreign service: the Russian Foreign
Intelligence Service (SVR) actors, also known as APT29, Cozy Bear, and The
Dukes.
“The U.S.
Intelligence Community has high confidence in its assessment of attribution to
the SVR,” according to the White House statement. “The SVR’s compromise of the
SolarWinds software supply chain gave it the ability to spy on or potentially
disrupt more than 16,000 computer systems worldwide.”
“The
scope of this compromise is a national security and public safety concern,” it
added. “Moreover, it places an undue burden on the mostly private sector
victims who must bear the unusually high cost of mitigating this incident.”
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/geisinger-lowers-click-rate-phishing-emails-more-50
Geisinger lowers click rate on phishing emails by more than 50%
David
Stellfox, a cybersecurity communications specialist at the Pennsylvania-based
health system, offers an in-depth look at how they did it.
By Bill Siwicki
April 19,
2021 10:51 AM
As
an art of cyber subterfuge, phishing keeps getting more crafty. Bad actors
continue to create malicious emails that are convincing innocent workers at
healthcare and other organizations the messages are authentic. And many workers
click on them, starting a stream of problems.
This
is why it's up to CISOs and other cybersecurity professionals to train workers
how to identify phishing emails and not click on them or download their
malware-infested attachments.
Danville,
Pennsylvania-based Geisinger has had great success with its anti-phishing
training, lowering the click rate on malicious emails by 50%.
Healthcare
IT News interviewed David Stellfox, cybersecurity communications
specialist in the information security office at Geisinger, to get the lowdown
on how exactly Geisinger achieved its success against phishing.
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2021/04/19/cios-confirm-healthcare-startups-have-a-tough-road/
CIOs Confirm Healthcare Startups Have a Tough Road
April 19, 2021
Colin Hung
A
panel of healthcare CIOs at the CHIME Spring
Forum confirmed what startups have known for a long time – the odds are
stacked against them. The panel confirmed that health systems prefer to work
with incumbents on new solutions rather than adopt ones from startups. However,
startups with strong clinical champions, seamless integration with existing
systems and that truly address an unmet need, will get a shot at earning their
business.
The
“How Providers and Health Tech Startups are Transforming Care” panel at the
CHIME Spring featured 3 CIOs from US health systems:
The
panel was moderated by Carina Edwards, CEO of Quil
Health.
-----
https://histalk2.com/2021/04/16/weekender-4-16-21/
Weekly News Recap
- Digital health vendor K Health, insurer
Anthem, and investment firm Blackstone form Hydrogen Health.
- CHIME will integrate its Spring
Forum into Vive, an annual health IT event it will co-host with the HLTH
conference beginning next March.
- Mayo Clinic launches Remote
Diagnostics and Management Platform.
- The VA reaffirms that it will not
bring its second Cerner site live in Columbus, OH until it has completed a
strategic review of the project and shared the results with Congress.
- AI solutions vendor Olive acquires
Empiric Health, which offers AI-powered surgical analytics software.
- Google will conduct a user feedback
study as it prepares to develop a consumer-facing health record tool
similar to Apple’s Health Record app.
- Microsoft announces that it will
acquire Nuance in a deal worth nearly $20 billion.
- HHS extends TeleTracking’s COVID-19
hospital operating data collection and reporting for a third six-month
term.
- US News & World Report
highlights the legal efforts of Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian to
leave the 51-hospital Providence system, with a key issue being clinical
standardization as enforced by configuration of Epic.
-----
Enjoy!
David.
