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.
-----
https://healthitanalytics.com/news/key-use-cases-for-health-risk-assessments
Key Use Cases for Health Risk Assessments
Health risk assessments can determine the severity of illness, assist with predictive analytics, and promote chronic disease prevention.
September 03, 2021 - Understanding an individual’s risk of disease is critical to providing the best quality of care. With health risk assessments (HRAs), also known as health risk appraisals, providers can collect patient data to identify potential risk factors and address concerns.
An HRA is an instrument that collects health information. The tool can be used to assist with predictive analytic efforts and chronic disease prevention. Additionally, data developed from HRA can help determine disease severity.
What is Health Risk Assessment?
HRAs began in the 1940s with prevention strategies against cervical cancer and heart disease. Researchers thought by incorporating treatment and prevention strategies, patients would experience better health outcomes than just treatment alone.
To collect patient information as part of an HRA, providers gather data through a questionnaire. The health data is then assessed, and clinicians provide personalized feedback regarding actions that patients can take to reduce health risks and prevent chronic disease.
-----
https://www.digitalhealth.net/2021/08/exclusive-nhsx-what-good-looks-like-guidance/
NHSX publishes anticipated ‘What Good Looks Like’ guidance
NHSX has published new guidance outlining how NHS organisation should be driving digital transformation and what success looks like.
Andrea Downey – 31 August, 2021
The much anticipated ‘What Good Looks Like’ framework sets out a “clear north star” for digital success in NHS systems and organisations in England.
Published this morning (August 31), the guidance aims to build on the strides seen in digital and data during the Covid-19 pandemic by providing local NHS leaders with digital success measures they should aim to meet.
It’s hoped the guidance will help leaders and individual organisations accelerate digital transformation across the health service.
Speaking exclusively to Digital Health News Sonia Patel, chief information officer (CIO) at NHSX, said: “We want to ensure that we have ubiquitous digital and data transformation capability across the country and without a standard, we are likely to inherit lots of variation.
-----
Mount Sinai builds algorithm that reads patient EHR data to make diagnoses
Jackie Drees
September 2, 2021
New York City-based Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers developed an artificial intelligence-powered algorithm that can learn to read patient data from EHRs as accurately as the traditional, labor-intensive "gold-standard" method, the organization said Sept. 2.
The gold-standard method requires much more manual labor to develop and perform; currently, scientists use a set of established computer programs to mine medical records for new information. Storage and development of these algorithms is managed by a system called the Phenotype Knowledgebase. While the system is highly effective at correctly pinpointing patient diagnoses, it is time consuming.
The Mount Sinai researchers' new method, called Phe2vec, was built based on existing research and involves the computer learning on its own to spot disease phenotypes.
-----
September 02, 2021
Q&A: American Board of Telehealth launches certificate program tailored to primary care
The American Board of Telehealth has launched a Teleprimary Care Certificate program to help health care providers better utilize telehealth in their practices, according to a recent press release.
The program is a self-paced online course for physicians, advanced practice providers, psychologists, nurses, clinical social workers, resident physicians and administration. No prerequisites are required to enroll, and the program can be completed in an estimated 6 hours, according to the program details.
Healio Primary Care spoke with Whitney Flanagan, MBA, RN-BC, director of education for the American Board of Telehealth, to learn more about the certificate program and the importance of telehealth.
Healio Primary Care: What are the highlights of the certificate program?
Flanagan: The curriculum is focused on giving knowledge and skills for those in the primary care setting to provide excellent patient care via telehealth. It has content related to clinical practice, like physical examinations over camera and documentation, but it also goes into more operational considerations and protocols to create an efficient telehealth workflow that supports productivity while maintaining a high standard of care. The program consists of five modules: introduction; operations, workflow and productivity; legal, regulatory and ethical considerations; telepresence; and clinical application.
-----
How to Use an Early Warning System for Sepsis in the Emergency Department
Analysis | By Christopher Cheney | September 03, 2021
A sepsis early warning system at a Cleveland-based health system triggered an alert in the electronic health record and a notification message to emergency department pharmacists.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· The time to antibiotic administration from ED arrival was shorter for the early warning system intervention group compared to the standard care group (2.3 hours versus 3.0 hours).
· Days alive and out of hospital at 28 days was greater for the intervention group compared to the standard care group (24.1 days versus 22.5 days).
An early warning system for sepsis embedded in an electronic health record (EHR) can have a significant impact on sepsis care, according to a recent research article.
Sepsis is a life-threatening condition caused by the body's extreme reaction to an infection. Annually, at least 1.7 million American adults develop sepsis and about 270,000 Americans die due to sepsis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The recent research article, which was published by Critical Care Medicine, describes the results of a randomized, controlled quality improvement initiative conducted at The MetroHealth System in Cleveland. The article features data collected from 598 patients, with 285 patients in the intervention group and 313 in the standard care group.
-----
https://ehrintelligence.com/news/4-use-cases-for-direct-secure-messaging-data-exchange-in-healthcare
4 Use Cases for Direct Secure Messaging, Data Exchange in Healthcare
Direct secure messaging supports data exchange for ePrescribing, ADT messaging, electronic case reporting, and COVID-19 vaccination efforts.
September 02, 2021 - As the digital health transformation continues, direct secure messaging has proven to be a valuable tool to support various data exchange efforts.
Non-profit trade alliance DirectTrust developed the Direct Standard, which lays the foundation for direct secure messaging.
According to DirectTrust, direct secure messaging is a secure communication transport system for sensitive information over the open internet.
The digital capability is a cornerstone of interoperability infrastructure across the country, connecting disparate health technologies and organizations to support a variety of data exchange efforts like ADT messaging, electronic case reporting, COVID-19 vaccination, and ePrescribing.
ADT Messaging
The CMS Interoperability and Patient access final rule’s admission, discharge, and transfer (ADT) messaging standard condition of participation requires all health facilities to send direct electronic notifications to a patient’s provider once the patient is admitted, discharged, or transferred from another facility.
-----
Stanford researchers: Telemedicine optimization requires training, interoperability
In a new Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association article, scientists highlight the gaps they still see in telemedicine and the opportunities for growth beyond the COVID-19 crisis.
By Kat Jercich
August 31, 2021 03:00 PM
Stanford-affiliated researchers Ran Sun, Douglas W. Blayney and Tina Hernandez-Boussard saw firsthand how the use of telehealth shot up during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The rapid growth in care, they said in an article published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, has also inspired discussions on the best way to use telemedicine for disease management.
"To optimize patient and provider experience through telemedicine, stakeholders need to focus on enhancing technology interoperability and usability and providing sufficient training for efficient telemedicine use," wrote Sun, Blayney and Hernandez-Boussard.
Sun, who was affiliated with the Stanford University Department of Medicine at the time she was listed as first author on the piece, now works at Johnson and Johnson.
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2021/09/02/youll-never-have-all-the-data-you-want-in-healthcare/
You’ll Never Have All the Data You Want in Healthcare
September 2, 2021
As I look at healthcare, it seems like everyone is chasing the data. Every health IT company is a data company or at least they think they are. And in many ways, every health IT company is a data company. Everything from medical devices to wearables to EHR to labs to phones to scrubs are collecting hordes of data in healthcare. The future of health IT will be built on the back of data.
What’s amazing when I talk to people is how they feel they’re limited in what they can do with the data they have. They all want more data. I often hear, “If we just had all the data, we could do [insert cool idea].” It’s fair. If we had all the healthcare data in one place in a way that was nicely structured and easily accessible, healthcare would be better for it. The innovation we could do on top of that data would be extraordinary.
Here’s the problem:
You’ll Never Have All the Data You Want in Healthcare
Every AI and machine learning algorithm I know wants more data. The more quality data you have available, the more you can do with that data. It’s going to be hard to solve revenue cycle issues if you don’t have revenue data. However, it may not be as intuitive to think that you need employee timesheet data if you want to really work on drug diversion problems. That’s why you see so many organization trying to aggregate all the data they can legally (and sometimes not legally) get their hands on. They assume the more data they have, the more they’ll be able to discover.
-----
Northwell Health Reduces Readmissions by 23% Via Artificial Intelligence-Driven Predictions
Analysis | By Scott Mace | September 01, 2021
Social determinants of health data drives predictions that can trigger interventions even before a hospitalization ends.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· Nonmedical data includes patient-reported legal needs, food insecurity, housing insecurity, and transportation needs, and is updated continually through AI.
· The program began in 2019 and does not include COVID-19 patients.
· The cohort included Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, mostly 65 or older, with various comorbidities.
Northwell Health, a nonprofit integrated healthcare provider with 23 hospitals and 830 outpatient facilities in New York state, reduced readmissions by 23.6% by augmenting its post-discharge workflows with artificial intelligence (AI) to better address nonclinical barriers to care and risk factors.
"This data is being refreshed several times a day, as new information about the patient is coming to the platform electronically," says Zenobia Brown, MD, MPH, vice president and medical director at Northwell Health for its population healthcare management organization.
The platform Brown refers to is provided by Jvion, AI software used to identify at-risk patients through various social determinants of health (SDOH), including non-healthcare-related data about patients purchased by Jvion.
-----
Using Health IT Data Standards to Boost Interoperability for Clinical Research
Converting data between FHIR and CDISC health IT data standards boosts interoperability of EHR data for clinical research, a new guide says.
September 01, 2021 - To leverage EHR data interoperability for clinical research purposes, health IT stakeholders should convert data between FHIR and CDISC data standards, according to an implementation guide from CDISC and HL7.
The FHIR to CDISC Joint Mapping Implementation Guide defines mappings between HL7’s FHIR standard for healthcare data exchange and three CDISC Standards: CDASH (data collection), SDTM (data tabulation) and LAB (lab data exchange).
The guide, available on CDISC and HL7’s websites, is set to help healthcare organizations boost data interoperability for clinical research purposes by streamlining the flow of EHR data to CDISC submission-ready datasets.
“This release is a significant milestone as CDISC and HL7 work together toward effectively linking healthcare and research while preserving the meaning and quality of the data,” Rhonda Facile, CDISC vice president of partnerships and development, said in a public statement.
-----
Access to EHR Clinical Notes Boosts Chronic Condition Medication Adherence
Patients with multiple chronic conditions were more likely to report greater medication adherence with access to EHR clinical notes than other patients.
September 01, 2021 - Access to EHR clinical notes may lead to greater patient engagement and medication adherence for older patients with chronic conditions, according to a study published in The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Researchers conducted a cross-sectional survey of patient portal users at three diverse healthcare organizations across the country. All participants were over age 65 and had read at least one clinical note in the year before the survey.
Previous studies have shown that older patients are less likely to be offered information related to patient portals. However, this research suggests that older patients value access to their personal health information, including clinical notes.
Most respondents had read two or more clinical notes in the year before the survey. The researchers found that patients with more than two chronic conditions were more likely than those with fewer or no chronic illness to report that reading their notes helped them stay engaged in their care.
-----
https://healthitanalytics.com/news/machine-learning-triage-tool-better-predicts-mortality-in-ed
Machine Learning Triage Tool Better Predicts Mortality in ED
A recent study shows how an interpretable machine learning tool can predict the mortality probability of emergency department patients.
September 01, 2021 - In a cohort study, researchers compared how an interpretable machine learning triage tool for predicting mortality operates in a cohort of patients admitted to the hospital from the emergency department (ED) versus standard triage scores.
ED triage is a complex clinical judgment-based process to understand a patient’s probability of survival and availability of medical resources. While scoring tools are critical in risk stratification, current score systems have shown limitations.
“To address the need for a risk tool appropriate to the ED workflow, we developed the Score for Emergency Risk Prediction (SERP) using a general-purpose machine learning-based scoring framework named AutoScore,” research authors wrote in the study.
By using the machine learning tool, researchers could provide an accurate estimate of a patient’s risk of death. The study assessed all ED patients between January 1, 2009, and December 31, 2016.
-----
https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/new-ucsf-study-touts-effectiveness-of-telemedicine-abortions
New UCSF Study Touts Effectiveness of Telemedicine Abortions
A new study conducted by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco finds that nearly all medication abortions conducted via telemedicine at a California clinic during the height of the pandemic were successful and safely done.
September 01, 2021 - A new study out of the University of California at San Francisco finds that an overwhelming number of patients who underwent telemedicine abortions at a California clinic during the height of the pandemic completed the procedure without problems.
The study, recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, testifies not only to the safety of medication abortions – which opponents have argued are unsafe – but to the value of telehealth in these procedures. Supporters say telehealth can improve access to care for women in underserved areas, while also allowing care providers to treat more patients.
“This (study) shows that there is a way for patients to have early and easy access to providers even if an in-person visit is not possible,” Sarah Yamaguchi, a board certified gynecologist at Los Angeles-based DTLA Gynecology, told Healthline. “Patients should have access to abortion early, safely, and affordably.”
Conducted by Ushma Upadhyay, PhD, MPH, Leah Koenig, MSPH, and Karen Meckstroth, MD, MPH, of UCSF, the study tracked 141 patients who received “fully remote, asynchronous medication abortion care” between October 2020 and January 2021 at the Choix clinic. Of the 110 patients on whom data was collected, 105 (95 percent) completed their abortion without intervention and five required medical care to complete the procedure.
-----
Ending Eviction Bans May Exacerbate COVID-19 Health Disparities
COVID infection risk rises even more for those with chronic illness and in low-income areas, threatening to deepen COVID-19 health disparities.
By Sara Heath
September 01, 2021 - People living in states lifting eviction moratoria face an increased risk for COVID0-19 12 weeks after the ban’s end, a trend researchers said could worsen COVID-19 health disparities.
The data, published in JAMA Network Open and collected by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), suggested that housing security has a serious impact on health equity and should be a consideration in public health policy moving forward.
More particularly, the researchers called on policymakers to reconsider lifting eviction bans, saying that it could worsen the pandemic.
“The public health rationale for eviction moratoria appears strong,” Mariana Arcaya, an MIT associate professor of urban planning and public health and the associate head of MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), said in a public statement.
-----
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/hospital-cybersecurity-ratings-catch-up-to-other-industries
Hospital Cybersecurity Ratings Catch Up to Other Industries
Hospital cybersecurity ratings historically lag behind other industries such as finance and retail, but the gap is slowly closing.
By Jill McKeon
September 01, 2021 - Healthcare organizations maintain valuable protected health information (PHI) that make them prime targets for ransomware attacks, but hospital cybersecurity ratings historically lag behind most other industries.
While hospitals achieved significantly lower cybersecurity ratings from 2014 to 2016 compared to Fortune 1000 firms, healthcare providers have been slowly closing the gap ever since, according to a study published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.
By 2017, researchers found that the gap in cybersecurity ratings compared to other industries was no longer statistically significant.
“The reduction in the gap in security rating suggests that healthcare providers are catching up to the general cybersecurity performance of large, publicly traded firms,” the study explained.
-----
Cyberattacks against outpatient, specialty clinics on the rise as data breaches double from 2018
Sep 1, 2021 11:54am
Healthcare data breaches are not only on the rise, but they are also spreading like a virus from hospitals to smaller provider facilities.
Healthcare breaches have nearly doubled since 2018 and continued to climb through the first half of 2021, according to a report by Critical Insight, a Seattle-based healthcare-focused cybersecurity firm.
The neighborhood family clinic down the street is no longer safe.
And those breaches, mostly hacking/IT security incidents, can affect millions of healthcare records.
-----
Apple plans to add blood pressure monitoring, thermometer to smartwatch: report
Sep 1, 2021 1:19pm
The Apple Watch is capable of scanning for heart conditions and calling for help after injuries. But Apple is working on a deeper set of features as part of the tech giant's bigger ambitions in health monitoring.
Apple is working on new health-related features for its smartwatch, including a tool for blood pressure measurement and a thermometer to help with fertility planning, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the plans and internal company documents.
The fertility feature could be available as soon as next year, along with potential improvements to the Apple Watch's irregular heartbeat monitoring, WSJ reporter Rolfe Winkler wrote.
The company is expected to release its seventh version of the Apple Watch in the coming weeks, but most of its more ambitious health-related improvements aren’t expected before 2022.
According to internal documents and people familiar with Apple's plans, the tech giant has broader ambitions for its smartwatch, including the ability to detect sleep apnea, provide medical guidance when it senses low blood oxygen levels and, perhaps one day, spot diabetes, per the WSJ article.
-----
Data privacy laws in the US protect profit but prevent sharing data for public good – people want the opposite
August 30, 2021 10.32pm AEST
Authors
Cason Schmit Assistant Professor of Public Health, Texas A&M University
Brian N. Larson Associate Professor of Law, Legal Argumentation and Rhetoric, Texas A&M University
Hye-Chung Kum Professor of Public Health, Texas A&M University
In 2021, an investigation revealed that home loan algorithms systematically discriminate against qualified minority applicants. Unfortunately, stories of dubious profit-driven data uses like this are all too common.
Meanwhile, laws often impede nonprofits and public health agencies from using similar data – like credit and financial data – to alleviate inequities or improve people’s well-being.
Legal data limitations have even been a factor in the fight against the coronavirus. Health and behavioral data is critical to combating the COVID-19 pandemic, but public health agencies have often been unable to access important information – including government and consumer data – to fight the virus.
We are faculty at the school of public health and the law school at Texas A&M University with expertise in health information regulation, data science and online contracts.
-----
https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/focusonpolicy/94284
Technology Tackles a Persistent Clinical Problem: Unwarranted Variation
— Using tech to produce useful feedback seems to be working
by David Nash, MD, MBA, FACP August 30, 2021
Remember when almost everyone accepted a doctor's clinical decision without question? It wasn't so long ago that diagnosis and treatment were considered medical arts, and any decision made by a doctor was assumed to be correct. John (Jack) Wennberg, MD, MPH, deserves considerable credit for revealing that this is not -- and perhaps never was -- the case.
More than 50 years ago, Wennberg first described four distinct types of unexplained variation in clinical practice: underuse of effective care, variable outcomes attributable to quality of care, misuse of preference-sensitive treatment, and overuse of finite resources. As we entered the 21st century, he observed that there continued to be substantial variation in the utilization of health services that could not be explained by corresponding variation in patient illness or patient preferences.
The concern here is not the occasional error made by a surgeon in an urgent situation or an important finding that was inadvertently overlooked by an overworked doctor. The concern is unwarranted variation in treatment decisions -- i.e., different doctors proceeding differently under very similar clinical circumstances. Far from being inconsequential, these differences can increase the risk of physical and financial harm to the patient.
Despite extensive research into this disturbingly widespread issue, it persists, and efforts to curb it have had modest success at best. Although decades of research have improved our understanding of the underlying causes for unwarranted variation, we haven't found a "cure". Some aspects of the issue might be addressed via encouraging adherence to existing standards and published professional guidelines. What we lack are effective ways to prevent poor decisions before they are made.
-----
https://healthitanalytics.com/news/improving-cancer-treatment-patient-outcomes-with-genomic-testing
Improving Cancer Treatment, Patient Outcomes with Genomic Testing
NYU Langone’s genomic testing has led to improvements in cancer treatments and patient outcomes.
August 31, 2021 - New York University (NYU) is using a new kind of genomic testing to improve cancer treatment and patient outcomes.
Cancer has proven to be difficult to manage for patients and healthcare providers. From diagnosis to treatment, the disease presents many obstacles and complications. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), cancer was the second leading cause of death in the United States in 2019, resulting in nearly 600,000 deaths.
The genome profiling test is the creation of Matija Snuderl, MD, Director of Molecular Pathology and Diagnostics in the Department of Pathology at NYU Langone.
According to Snuderl, the NYU leadership team decided a few years ago to develop a next-generation sequencing test for cancer patients. The NYU Langone Genome Profiling of Actionable Cancer Targets (PACT) can find changes in the DNA code of 607 genes linked by previous studies to the development of multiple cancer types
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/emea/nhsx-launches-guidelines-new-digital-maturity-ratings
NHSX launches guidelines for new digital maturity ratings
The new seven key measures aim to prevent NHS trusts from influencing the system to win central funding.
By Sara Mageit
August 31, 2021 09:50 AM
NHSX leaders are working on a new assessment framework that aims to improve the current digital maturity index and support trusts to digitise more quickly.
The guidance calls for patients to be able to digitally access their care plans and test results, for trusts to explore new ways of delivering care such as remote monitoring and consultations, and to improve care through the use of electronic prescribing systems.
WHY IT MATTERS
As the current index is purely based on self-assessment, the new framework will introduce a more representative system, which is expected to involve a process of peer review against seven key measures of digital maturity.
The new process will allow the NHS to focus on outcomes and prevent trusts from influencing the system to win central funding. The framework will strengthen the aim of digitising NHS services and build on the progress made in adopting digital tools during the pandemic.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/emea/nhsx-sets-out-digital-guidance-nhs-trusts
NHSX sets out digital guidance for NHS trusts
The new framework calls for new ways of delivering care.
By Tammy Lovell
August 31, 2021 0:44 AM
NHSX has published new digital guidelines for NHS leaders and organisations.
The ‘What Good Looks Like’ framework aims to give NHS managers clear instructions on using digital in their service.
It calls for patients to be able to digitally access their care plans and test results, for trusts to explore new ways of delivering care such as remote monitoring and consultations, and to improve care using electronic prescribing systems.
Local bodies will be given access to an online knowledge base which will include blueprints, standards, templates, real-life examples and best practice guides for the new guidelines.
The guidance will be followed up with an assessment process to be outlined by NHSX later this year, so NHS services can identify gaps and prioritise areas for investment and improvement.
-----
HIMSS publishes its first-ever report on Connected Health maturity in APAC
159 e-health professionals from the APAC region were surveyed on where their organisations stand when it comes to Connected Health technologies.
August 31, 2021 10:17 PM
In an organisation-first, HIMSS has published a report exploring the maturity of Connected Health in the APAC region.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT
The HIMSS Insights State of Connected Health in APAC: 2021 report features findings from a survey of 159 e-health professionals in the APAC region, top-level discussions on some of the challenges and opportunities to Connected Health, and a case study on how one of the region's leaders in digital health is fostering person-enabled health by leveraging digital technologies.
WHY IT MATTERS
During a highly contagious pandemic where it’s crucial to limit physical interaction while reducing the burden on an already strained healthcare workforce, the value of virtual care cannot be overstated. In the broader scheme of things, Connected Health technologies have the power to enhance patient engagement, patient access to care, and patient empowerment.
Several countries in the APAC region only introduced guidelines for Connected Health services as stopgap measures to ride out COVID-19, with future plans still unclear. And with vaccination programmes being rolled out and the world already moving into a “new normal”, stakeholders need to understand what the challenges to Connected Health are in the long-term, and how these challenges can be overcome to ensure its longevity.
-----
DirectTrust Acquisition Aims to Boost Data Exchange, Interoperability
DirectTrust has acquired a health IT consortium in a move that is expected to expand interoperability use cases for secure health data exchange.
August 31, 2021 - DirectTrust has acquired the assets of health IT consortium and certification body SAFE Identity, including its Trust Framework, in an effort to expand interoperability use cases for secure health data exchange.
DirectTrust has created a new division, DirectTrust Identity, to house the SAFE Identity’s Trust Framework which supports healthcare identity assurance and cryptography.
New and current members of both organizations will rely on DirectTrust to manage policies and infrastructure supporting secure data exchange.
“Our acquisition of SAFE Identity’s assets is truly a groundbreaking moment for DirectTrust and the entire electronic healthcare information industry,” Scott Stuewe, president and CEO of DirectTrust, said in a press release. “SAFE Identity and DirectTrust are like-minded organizations with memberships that share common goals.”
“Both the DirectTrust and SAFE Identity trust framework communities seek to enable safe and secure transactions through the use of identity-assured credentials backed by a public key infrastructure and consensus-based policies,” Stuewe continued.
-----
DirectTrust acquires SAFE Identity, aims to expand interoperability use cases
Execs say the acquisition will allow members to offer new services to their clients, such as strong credentials that can be used for signing documents and authenticating to systems, including with federal agencies.
By Kat Jercich
August 31, 2021 10:21 AM
The nonprofit health alliance DirectTrust announced Tuesday that it had acquired the assets of SAFE Identity, including its trust framework.
As an industry consortium and certification body supporting identity assurance in healthcare, company representatives say SAFE Identity has maintained one of the longest-standing trust frameworks in healthcare.
"With its incorporation into DirectTrust, the SAFE community is about to embark on a new chapter to remain in lockstep with the progress being made in the realm of digital identity across healthcare," said Kyle Neuman, currently managing director at SAFE and the incoming director of trust framework development at DirectTrust.
DirectTrust representatives declined to disclose the deal's financial details.
-----
DirectTrust Expands Trust Framework with SAFE Identity Acquisition
August 31, 2021
While many people know DirectTrust for their work with direct secure messaging, over the years they’ve been doing more and more work when it comes to building Trust Frameworks. Creating a trust framework that is trusted and respected by multiple organizations is a hard process, but a powerful one when done right.
This is what makes the news that DirectTrust is assuming the assets of SAFE Identity really interesting. For those not familiar with SAFE Identity, they provide a trust framework for the Biopharmaceutical industry where high levels of identity assurance are particularly important. Going forward, SAFE Identity’s trust framework will be called DirectTrust Identity and managed by DirectTrust and those in the SAFE Identity Policy Management Authority (PMA) will become DirectTrust members.
-----
https://ehrintelligence.com/news/clinician-burden-mitigation-goes-beyond-ehr-optimization-to-culture
Clinician Burden Mitigation Goes Beyond EHR Optimization to Culture
Clinician burden mitigation efforts such as EHR optimization could be enhanced through workplace culture interventions that focus on positivity.
August 30, 2021 - Current efforts to mitigate clinician burden, such as EHR optimization, can be enhanced through organizational interventions focused on cultivating positive emotions into daily workflows, according to a study published in The Joint Commission Journal of Quality and Patient Safety.
From November 2018 to May 2020, researchers engaged five health system and physician practice sites in an organizational pilot intervention that focused on cultivating positive emotions to mitigate clinician burden. The intervention included a comprehensive culture assessment, leadership and team development, and redesign of clinical workflow.
The study authors noted that this research differs from other clinician burden intervention studies, as it goes beyond individual skills and coping methods to focus on team culture and interactions, leadership, workflow processes, and use of technology. The study also focused on embedding positive emotion practices into daily workflows, which is not common in most widely adopted improvement methods.
In general, the intervention focused on building skills for all team members to create more meaningful connections with others to create more positive emotions in each interaction.
-----
https://today.tamu.edu/2021/08/27/why-do-men-seek-health-information-online/
Why Do Men Seek Health Information Online?
Men who have multiple medical conditions and frustrations with healthcare are more likely to turn to the internet for information, a Texas A&M study suggests.
By Lauren Rouse, Texas A&M University Health Science Center August 27, 2021
In a recent study, a multidisciplinary team of Texas A&M University researchers identified reasons why men seek health information online. The study specifically looked at middle-aged and older African American and Hispanic men living with one or more chronic conditions.
While previous research has identified disparities in seeking web-based health information, few studies have explored the correlation between web-based health information seeking based on factors such as race, gender, age and the presence of chronic health conditions.
Ledric Sherman, assistant professor in the Department of Health and Kinesiology at the Texas A&M University College of Education & Human Development, along with colleagues Matthew Lee Smith, co-director of the Center for Population Health and Aging and Kirby Goidel, political science professor in the College of Liberal Arts, along with Caroline Bergeron of Employment and Social Development Canada, recently published their findings in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.
“Despite the prevalence of chronic conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease among middle-aged and older populations, utilization of preventive health services remains low,” Sherman said. “This is especially true among males, who traditionally underutilize clinical and community-based health resources. However, little is still known about the reasons why men underutilize health services, and this is the main reason for conducting this study.”
-----
https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/why-femtech-needs-move-past-reproductive-healthcare
Why femtech needs to move past reproductive healthcare
Women face a lack of digital health options for menopause and senior care.
By Emily Olsen
August 12, 2021 07:23 pm
When it comes to femtech, digital health has options for women concerned about fertility, pregnancy and period tracking. But there just aren’t a lot of choices for older women who need help with menopause or senior care, said Reenita Das, global client leader healthcare and life sciences at Frost & Sullivan.
“We need to be really thinking about the needs and challenges of senior women, women over 60,” she said at a presentation at HIMSS21. “Currently we have very little [in the way of] solutions and products and technologies. Most of our work and growth has been around the fertility and menstruation and pregnancy area.”
The disparity doesn’t come from lack of need. Women ages 15 to 40, the focus of reproductive health technology, and women over 40, who need menopause and senior care, made up nearly equal parts of the global population in 2020, said Chandni Mathur, senior industry analyst for digital health at Frost & Sullivan.
She counted only about 20 digital health options for women over 40, while women of reproductive age had more than 100.
-----
Trinity Health's RPM program drops 30-day readmissions rate from 16% to 6%
The massive health system's patient-compliance and patient-satisfaction numbers are quite high, at 85% and 96%, respectively.
August 30, 2021
Trinity Health has 94 hospitals across 24 states.
In 2017, the health system – which has 100 continuing care locations, including home care, hospice, PACE programs and senior living facilities – was in a bind, facing double-digit hospital readmissions of 16% across its high-risk Medicare population.
THE PROBLEM
Trinity needed to reduce readmissions to single digits. The plan was to offer remote patient monitoring to Medicare patients across its 14 home care sites to avoid preventable hospitalizations and unnecessary visits to the emergency department.
In doing so, Trinity also hoped to receive readmission incentives from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, avoid penalties, and reduce costs as it transitioned to value-based care reimbursement.
Further, Trinity knew that reducing readmissions was the right thing to do. Entering the hospital, or even going to the ED, is tremendously disruptive to the lives of patients.
-----
https://www.statnews.com/2021/08/30/three-surprising-trends-seniors-telemedicine-use-pandemic/
3 surprising trends in seniors’ telemedicine use during the pandemic
By , and Aug. 30, 2021
The explosive growth in telemedicine has been hailed by some as an important “silver lining” of the Covid pandemic, if such a thing can exist for such a vast tragedy. In the first terrifying weeks of the pandemic, most people did not go to their doctors’ offices for medical care and telemedicine quickly evolved from a fringe service to a major mode of care delivery.
The CEO of one telemedicine company described his company experiencing a decade’s worth of growth in just a few weeks.
For the nation’s older adults and other Medicare beneficiaries, telemedicine has been an essential lifeline during the pandemic. On March 17, 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced that it would reimburse all providers for telemedicine services rendered to any patient. In a blog post, then-CMS Administrator Seema Verma described how the number of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries using telemedicine each week increased from fewer than 15,000 at the beginning of 2020 to nearly 1.7 million by April of that year
Since Verma’s post, the pandemic has continued in waves, with a toll of more than 630,000 dead in the U.S. alone, four-fifths of whom are older adults. What has happened in older adults’ use of telemedicine during this time?
-----
https://histalk2.com/2021/08/27/weekender-8-27-21/
Weekly News Recap
- Allscripts sells 2bPrecise.
- ManpowerGroup will acquire Ettain Group, which had previously acquired Leidos Health.
- Ginger will merge with Headspace at a combined valuation of $3 billion.
- Connect America will acquire 100Plus.
- Two NextGen Healthcare board members, including its founder, attempt to install new board members in claiming that board chair Jeffrey Margolis is impeding shareholder value.
- Former VA CIO Roger Baker warns that its homegrown Vista system will need to remain operational for several years as Cerner is installed and will require funding.
- Google Health’s teams and projects are decentralized as its health division is shut down.
- Inovalon announces that it will be acquired by a private equity firm for $7.3 billion.
- Cerner SEC filings indicate that the compensation package given to incoming president and CEO David Feinberg totals $35 million in his first 15 months, although much of that is in the form of restricted shares that won’t vest immediately.
-----
Enjoy!
David.
