To
that end, Cybersecurity Ventures estimates ransomware costs should reach $265
billion by 2031. 1 Supply-chain attacks rose by 42 percent in the
first quarter of 2021 in the United States, affecting up to seven million
people, 2 while security threats against industrial control systems
(ICS) and operational technology (OT) more than tripled in 2020. 3
Sometimes
looking at the overall numbers, it is hard to grasp the reality of a ransomware
attack’s effect on a company. To put it in perspective, here are some specific
costs: Colonial Pipeline paid a $4.4 million ransom after the company shut down
operations, global meat producer JBS paid $11.0 million, and global insurance
provider CNA Financial paid a reported $40.0 million. Additionally, a
ransomware attack on US software provider Kaseya targeted the firm’s
remote-computer-management tool and endangered up to 2,000 companies
globally. These figures do not reflect the additional costs of an attack,
including paying third parties, such as legal, PR, and negotiation firms, or
the opportunity costs of having executives and specialized teams turn away from
their day-to-day roles for weeks or months to deal with an attack and its
aftermath, or the lost revenue that results.
-----
https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/innovation/ultimate-starter-kit-remote-patient-monitoring
The Ultimate Starter Kit for Remote Patient Monitoring
Analysis
| By Sudipto
Srivastava | February 17, 2022
Health
systems have realized the importance of monitoring patients outside the
healthcare facility and are building advanced RPM programs to address this
need.
Editor's
note: Sudipto Srivastava is the vice president of digital
solutions at Hospital for
Special Surgery.
With the
exponential increase in the use of telehealth during the pandemic, patients are
now familiar with seeing their clinical team in virtual settings.
Simultaneously, health systems have realized the importance of monitoring
patients outside the healthcare facility and are building advanced remote
patient monitoring (RPM) programs to address this continued need. Creating a
scalable RPM program requires careful thought.
There can be
pitfalls in implementing a robust RPM program—from distractions like the Shiny
Toy syndrome to missed clinical alerts. It is important to remember the 4 D's:
Devices, Data, Dialogue, and Dropping charges when getting started.
-----
https://ehrintelligence.com/news/ehr-vendor-athenahealth-acquired-by-hellman-friedman-bain-capital
EHR Vendor athenahealth Acquired by Hellman & Friedman, Bain Capital
Two
private equity firms have acquired cloud-based EHR vendor athenahealth in a $17
billion transaction.
By Sarai Rodriguez
February 17,
2022 - athenahealth, an EHR vendor boasting cloud-based tech solutions,
has been acquired
by two private equity firms, Hellman & Friedman LLC and Bain Capital, for
$17 billion.
“We are
thrilled to partner with Hellman & Friedman and Bain Capital as we take the
next step in our evolution and continue our work to transform and improve the
delivery of healthcare,” Bob Segert, chairman and chief executive officer of
athenahealth, stated publicly.
“It is an
exciting time for athenahealth’s customers, employees, and partners,” Segert
added. “This acquisition confirms our position as the largest and most
innovative provider of cloud-based electronic medical record and physician
practice solutions across healthcare, and I look forward to our future as we
work together to realize our vision of creating a thriving ecosystem that
delivers accessible, high-quality, and sustainable healthcare for all.”
The EHR
vendor has been acquired twice in the last few years. In 2019, Evergreen Coast
Capital and investment firm Veritas took athenahealth private in a $5.7 billion
deal. The deal required athenahealth to merge with Virence Health, a
health provider Veritas acquired from General Electric Co.
-----
https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/79-of-patients-want-call-text-to-signal-start-of-telehealth-visit
79% of Patients Want Call, Text to Signal Start of Telehealth Visit
Most
patients, including those with chronic illnesses, wanted to be notified via
call or text that their virtual visit was about to begin rather than stand by
in a virtual waiting room, per a new poll.
By Anuja Vaidya
February 17,
2022 - Though patients have previously made their preference for virtual
waiting rooms over traditional ones known, new
survey results show that a majority of telehealth patients would rather
just be notified by a text or call when their doctor is ready to see them.
Doximity, an
online networking service and telehealth platform for healthcare professionals,
conducted the new survey last November, polling 2,000 US adults, of whom 1,000
identified as having a chronic illness.
As telehealth
becomes integrated into care delivery, questions around patient preferences
arise. The survey helps shed some light, showing that 79 percent of patients
would prefer a call or text letting them know that their doctor is ready to see
them versus having to wait in a virtual waiting room. Even among chronic illness
patients only, an overwhelming majority (81 percent) would prefer to receive a
call or text.
Patients also
displayed a strong preference for familiarity with a provider. Overall, 83
percent of patients surveyed said they would wait one to three days to see
their current doctor rather than seeing a new physician immediately.
-----
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/hipaa-technical-safeguards-basic-review
HIPAA Technical Safeguards: A Basic Review
It’s
critical to review the requirements of HIPAA technical safeguards to ensure
that your healthcare organization is compliant and able to keep PHI safe.
By Editorial Staff
February 17,
2022 - While no healthcare organization can eliminate the possibility of
facing a data breach, implementing HIPAA technical safeguards can go a long way
toward mitigating
cyber risk.
Under the
HIPAA Security Rule, healthcare organizations are required to keep electronic protected
health information (ePHI) safe from external and internal threats via
technical, administrative, and physical safeguards.
Healthcare
data breaches occur nearly every day, and threat
actors are constantly shifting their tactics and targets to adapt. In
response to the ever-changing cyber threat landscape, it is crucial that
healthcare organizations implement technical safeguards that are current,
comprehensive, and compliant.
What are
HIPAA technical safeguards?
According to
the HIPAA
Security Rule, technical safeguards are “the technology and the policy and
procedures for its use that protect electronic protected health information and
control access to it.”
-----
https://www.healthdatamanagement.com/articles/organizations-interested-in-earning-qhin-designation-but-questions-abound?id=129302
Organizations interested in earning QHIN designation, but questions abound
Some say
Qualified Health Information Networks offer great potential opportunity to
boost national data exchange if challenges can be overcome.
Feb 17 2022
Marla
Durben Hirsch
Much of what
will be required of the qualified health information networks that will
facilitate nationwide data exchange under the Trusted Exchange Framework and
the Common Agreement is still unknown.
But that has
not stopped several organizations from expressing interest in applying for the
job of running a QHIN.
TEFCA was
created to carry out a requirement under the 21st Century Cures Act to
facilitate nationwide interoperability. The QHINs
will be the cornerstone of this data exchange, connecting to each other and
to their participants and subparticipants.
The QHIN application
process is expected to begin in the second quarter, says Mariann Yeager, CEO of
the Sequoia Project, the Recognized Coordinating Entity in charge of
designating QHINs and providing oversight.
-----
https://journal.ahima.org/data-analytics-skill-sets-to-have-in-todays-data-decision-support-environment/
Data Analytics Skill Sets to Have in Today’s Data Decision Support
Environment
Healthcare
organizations are facing tremendous obstacles in the current healthcare
climate, with staff shortages, burnout of medical professionals, and hospital
admissions at an all-time high.
February 16, 2022 at 7:58 am
By
Lesley Clack, ScD, MS, CPH; Shannon H. Houser, PhD, MPH, RHIA, FAHIMA; Michelle
Martin, MEd, MBA, RHIA, FAHIMA; and Joanna Ward, MA, RHIA
Healthcare
organizations are facing tremendous obstacles in the current healthcare
climate, with staff shortages, burnout of medical professionals, and hospital
admissions at an all-time high. All of these factors, alongside rising
healthcare costs, are requiring many organizations to make numerous difficult
decisions.
In
order for senior leadership to make informed decisions, critical data must be
obtained, analyzed, and displayed in a format that is accurate and trustworthy.
How does senior leadership get the data necessary to make decisions, and who is
the responsible party? A data analyst in health informatics and information
management can fulfill this role.
According
to an article from Columbia Engineering, “It’s no hyperbole to say that modern
society runs on data. Humanity generates an incredible two and a half
quintillion bytes of data daily with no signs of slowing down.” But what is
data analytics, and why is it important to healthcare?
Masters in Data Science defines data analytics as the
“process of analyzing raw data to find trends and answer questions, and the
definition of data analytics captures its broad scope of the field.” There are
four primary types of data analytics: descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and
prescriptive. Each type has a different goal and a different place in the data
analysis process. This article will detail the skill set needed to work in data
analytics, as well as how selected data analytics impact healthcare
organizations and procedures to ensure data integrity.
-----
https://www.cleveland.com/coronavirus/2022/02/next-generation-vaccines-help-for-paralyzed-patients-cleveland-clinic-unveils-top-10-medical-innovations-for-2022.html
Next generation vaccines, help for paralyzed patients: Cleveland Clinic
honors Top 10 Medical Innovations for 2022
Published:
Feb. 16, 2022, 9:02 a.m.
By Julie Washington, cleveland.com
CLEVELAND,
Ohio — The next generation of mRNA vaccines, as well as treatments for type 2
diabetes and postpartum depression are among the innovations that earned spots
on the Cleveland Clinic’s Top 10 Medical Innovations for 2022.
The list of
breakthrough technologies, chosen by a committee of Clinic experts, was
announced Wednesday.
These medical
advancements have the potential to transform healthcare in the coming year, the
Clinic said. The committee considered technologies developed by the Clinic as
well as other research centers.
The list of
breakthrough medical innovations is even more important this year, because it
highlights aspects of medicine outside of COVID-19, said Geoffrey Vince,
executive director of Cleveland Clinic Innovations and chair of biomedical
Engineering at the Clinic. He led the committee that compiled the top 10 list.
“We have nine
non-COVID-19 technologies which may not have come to the public view if it
wasn’t for this this top 10 list,” Vince said. “It’s things that people should
pay attention to if they’re interested in the field.”
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2022/02/17/fine-balance-between-empowering-patients-and-offloading-tasks/
Fine Balance Between Empowering Patients and Offloading Tasks
February 17, 2022
John Lynn
Life
is a tricky balance and is often about perspective. For example, when you
go into the grocery store these days you now see all of these self check out
options. It’s easy to see why stores like self check-out. They only
have to have 1 person there covering multiple checkout stations. That’s a
lower cost to them. While this is clear for the store and why they’ve
made the change, the customer experience varies.
For
example, many see self check out as the store forcing the customer to do the
work. They feel like the store should do the checkout and pay for the
people to provide that service. This makes some sense. At self
check out, you’re basically working at the store as a checker for a few
minutes. On the other end of the spectrum is people like me. I LOVE
self check out. I hated sitting in lines waiting to be checked out (self
check out has reduced lines) and I love being in control of the speed of how
quickly I’m checked out. Maybe I have some control issues here, but self
check out is so much faster for me and I love it.
The
reality here is that neither perspective is wrong. And stores have to
balance the reality of customers with different views and feelings about
checkout. The same is true in so many parts of healthcare.
------
https://ehrintelligence.com/news/chime-launches-new-health-technology-to-boost-health-information-access
CHIME Launches New Health Technology to Boost Health Information Access
The
technology will focus on delivering healthcare leaders better health
information access involving topics such as artificial intelligence, machine
learning, clinical care delivery, and patient engagement.
By Sarai Rodriguez
February 15,
2022 - The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME)
recently announced the launch of its new health technology, Digital Health
Insights, in an effort to increase health information access, according to a
recent press release sent to journalists.
Digital
Health Insights will aim to provide CHIME members with the latest resources on
the most pressing healthcare issues to keep up with major shifts in healthcare
delivery. The topics covered will include information on artificial
intelligence and machine learning, clinical care delivery, cybersecurity,
digital health leadership and transformation, patient engagement and
experience, and virtual care.
“The launch
of DHI this week is the latest CHIME initiative to bring new knowledge
resources to even more healthcare industry leaders,” Steve Lieber, CHIME’s
chief analytics officer, said in the press release. “Over the coming weeks and
months, we will be launching additional tools that will give providers and
solution companies insights, survey research data, and analysis from the world
of digital health technology.”
Health
leaders using the Digital Health Insights websites will receive access to
tailored content on a weekly basis, the press release stated.
-----
https://patientengagementhit.com/news/convenience-technology-use-can-boost-patient-satisfaction
Convenience, Technology Use Can Boost Patient Satisfaction
A
convenient healthcare experience fueled by technology will improve patient
satisfaction and drive patient retention.
By Sarai Rodriguez
February 16,
2022 - A convenient and technology-driven healthcare experience has become
an essential factor in boosting patient satisfaction, as roughly 4 in 5
Americans want the ability to use technology when managing their healthcare experience,
according to a Harris Poll conducted
on behalf of Tegris.
The survey
comprising responses from 2,000 healthcare consumers nationwide uncovered
that 7 in 10 healthcare consumers would consider switching to another provider
that offered more appealing services.
The report
highlighted several factors that could persuade patients to leave their
existing healthcare providers. Thirty-five percent of healthcare consumers
stated same-day appointments for non-routine issues would influence them to
switch providers.
Nearly
3 in 10 respondents would consider switching to a provider with a convenient
location. In fact, a convenient healthcare experience is more important than
having a designated healthcare provider for 59 percent of consumers.
-----
https://icd10monitor.com/three-steps-to-improve-cdi-for-good/
Three Steps to Improve CDI for Good
February 14, 2022
Glenn Krauss,
RHIA, BBA, CCS, CCS-P, CPUR, CCDS, C-CDI, PCS, FC
There
is a three-step process for improving the CDI process, bringing it closer to
true clinical documentation integrity.
All hospitals
and health systems are facing continuing financial challenges associated with
dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. While news reports note that the Omicron
variant is trending downward, there is inarguably no shortage of hospitalized
patients with healthcare worker burnout and widespread shortages of qualified
healthcare professionals, including nurses, respiratory therapists, and even
physicians. The National Hospital Kaufman Hall Flash Report for January 2022
provides real-time financial data that highlights these financial challenges
hospitals and health systems are dealing with: (Kaufuman
Hall Flash Report).
Adding to these current financial challenges are payers that are still
maintaining and expanding their cost-containment, profit-centered initiatives
to downgrade hospital level-of-care decisions by physicians to observation,
deny care under the auspices of lack of medical necessity, challenge
physicians’ clinical judgment and medical decision-making on the basis of
clinical validation diagnosis determinations, and lastly, challenge coders’
assignment of ICD-10 diagnosis and procedure codes, with the goal of
downgrading MS-RG assignment. One must not overlook payers or their contractors
reviewing inpatient stays two to three years after initially paying the claim
to claw back monies from the provider, utilizing the above rationale. A
physician colleague of mine recently equated the healthcare revenue cycle to a
cat-and-mouse game, with the payer controlling the upper hand just because they
control the purse strings. What strategies can a hospital or health system
consider, mount, and deploy in a concerted attempt to level the playing field
with the payers and alleviate roadblocks thrown up by the payer to deny
much-needed reimbursement for patient care services rendered?
A Historic Background to CDI
Most hospitals and health systems have invested heavily in clinical
documentation integrity (CDI) initiatives, both in the inpatient and outpatient
setting, with the goal of optimizing revenue through better physician clinical
documentation. Interest in clinical documentation improvement, now known as
clinical documentation “integrity” programs, became entrenched, with consulting
companies promoting their programs as means of maximizing revenue through
capture of additional diagnoses impacting case mix index and reimbursement.
-----
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/infection-control/cdc-cms-call-for-rebuilding-health-system-after-patient-safety-measures-drop.html
CDC, CMS call for rebuilding health system after patient safety measures
drop
Gabrielle Masson – 15 February 2022
As
patient safety declines amid the pandemic, the U.S. must rebuild a healthcare
delivery system in which safety is embedded in every step of a process, with
clear metrics that are aggregated, assessed and acted on, according to an
analysis published Feb. 12 by The
New England Journal of Medicine.
The
article was penned by Lee Fleisher, MD, chief medical officer and director at
CMS; Michelle Schreiber, MD, deputy director for quality and value at CMS;
Denise Cardo, MD, director of the division of healthcare quality promotion for
the CDC's National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; and
Arjun Srinivasan, MD, associate director for healthcare-associated infection
prevention programs in the division of healthcare quality promotion at CDC's
National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases.
Since
the COVID-19 pandemic began, metrics tracking healthcare-associated infections
and other complications of care indicate
significant deterioration of multiple patient safety measures.
"It
is abundantly clear that the healthcare ecosystem cannot ask clinicians and
staff to work harder," the authors wrote, "but must instead provide
them with more tools and an environment built on a strong foundation of
wellness and on instilling and rewarding a culture of safety."
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/report-shows-overwhelming-patient-interest-post-pandemic-virtual-care
Report shows overwhelming patient interest in post-pandemic virtual care
Research from
the telehealth platform Doximity finds that nearly three-quarters of patients
surveyed say they plan to keep receiving at least some care virtually.
By Kat Jercich
February 16,
2022 03:32 PM
In its second
"state of telemedicine" report, virtual care platform vendor Doximity
found that roughly three-quarters of patients surveyed said they plan to
continue using telehealth after the pandemic.
The report, which surveyed 2,000 patients and more than 1,000
physicians, found evidence that virtual care had helped build trust among
users.
"The
results of our study suggest doctors and patients alike have found it easy and
convenient to adopt telemedicine, so much so that they plan to continue using
it after the pandemic," said Doximity VP of product Peter Alperin in a
statement.
WHY IT
MATTERS
The Doximity
report sought to forecast future telemedicine trends by analyzing telehealth
adoption across its user base from January 2020 through June 2021 and
conducting a study of patients’ experiences with telemedicine during the same
time frame.
-----
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/02/16/the-accuracy-limits-of-data-driven-healthcare/?sh=5178d10c4623
Feb 16, 2022,09:00am EST|147 views
The Accuracy Limits Of Data-Driven Healthcare
David
Talby
Forbes Councils Member
Algorithms
are only as good as the quality of data they’re being fed. This is not a new
concept, but as we begin to rely more heavily on data-driven technologies, such
as artificial intelligence (AI) and other automation tools and applications, it’s
becoming a more important one.
Recent
research from MIT found a high
number of errors in publicly available datasets that are widely used for training
models. An average of 3.3% errors were found in the test sets of 10 of the most
widely used computer vision, natural language processing (NLP) and audio
datasets.
Given
that accuracy baselines are often at or above 90%, this means that a lot of
research innovation amounts to chance — or overfitting to errors. Data science
practitioners should exercise caution when choosing which models to deploy
based on small accuracy gains on such datasets.
These
findings are particularly concerning when it comes to AI applications in
high-stakes industries like healthcare. Outcomes in this field have the ability
to prevent disease, accelerate the development of life-saving medicine and help
us understand the spread of disease and other critical health trends. While
accuracy in healthcare is vital to success, it’s also rife with complexities
that make this extremely challenging.
-----
https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/technology/penn-medicine-touts-success-digital-care-coordination-platform
Penn Medicine Touts Success of Digital Care Coordination Platform
Analysis
| By Eric Wicklund |
February 16, 2022
The
Pennsylvania health system is pointing to a recent survey that shows the
digital health tool, which is now marketed by a company spun out of Penn Medicine,
improves real-time care coordination.
Penn Medicine
is touting the results of a study showing the value of a digital workflow tool,
developed at the health system, that allows providers to better coordinate care
between teams.
The tool,
called CareAlign, pulls data from the electronic health record and allows
multiple providers to access from different locations and schedule services,
such as tests and specialist consults. It’s designed to give the patient’s care
team real-time access via mHealth devices to the patient’s care management plan
as it’s designed and updated.
According to a study recently published in Applied Clinical Informatics,
the digital health tool saw widespread use across three hospitals in 2016, and
has been positively reviewed by clinicians in surveys taken in 2016 and 2018,
with steady use over at least four years.
Penn Medicine
has since spun the service into a digital health company called CareAlign,
which markets the tool to other health systems.
-----
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/ransomware-demands-data-leaks-skyrocketed-last-year
Ransomware Demands, Data Leaks Skyrocketed Last Year
The 2022
CrowdStrike Global Threat Report found an 82% increase in data leaks resulting
from ransomware as well as an increase in ransomware demands.
By Jill McKeon
February 15,
2022 - In its annual threat report,
CrowdStrike observed an 82 percent increase in data leaks resulting from
ransomware in 2021. CrowdStrike researchers tracked more than 50 targeted
ransomware events per week on average.
In addition,
the report found that the average ransom demand increased to $6.1 million in
2021, signifying a 36 percent spike compared to 2020. The findings bolstered
those of other recent reports and underscored the growing threat of ransomware
and data breaches across all sectors.
The
healthcare sector ranked sixth in the number of ransomware-based data leaks,
jumping from 94 in 2020 to 154 in 2021. Overall, every sector analyzed saw
significant increases in cyber threats throughout the last year compared to
2020.
The
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recently released a
report that revealed that 14
of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors were targeted in ransomware attacks
last year, further solidifying the grim nature of today’s cyber threat
landscape.
-----
https://parkinsonsnewstoday.com/2022/02/14/digital-biomarkers-cellphone-finger-taps-analysis-identifies-parkinsons/?cn-reloaded=1
Analyzing Finger Taps, Voice on Cellphone May Help in Diagnosis
by
Steve Bryson PhD |
February 14, 2022
Collecting
finger tapping, voice, and walking data on a smartphone to be digitally
processed by deep machine learning tools can accurately distinguish between
people with and without Parkinson’s
disease, a study of more than 7,000 people reported.
This
approach, known integrative digital biomarkers, may help to diagnose the
disease in its early stages and provide a more convenient way to monitor
patient symptoms and progression, its scientists suggested.
The
study, “Heterogeneous
digital biomarker integration out-performs patient self-reports in predicting
Parkinson’s disease,” was published in the journal Nature Communication Biology.
Tremors,
slow movements, and rigidity are hallmark symptoms
of Parkinson’s disease.
Mobile
devices and built-in sensors can convert these abnormal movements into digital
signals to measure and monitor symptoms.
-----
https://www.healthdatamanagement.com/articles/broad-industry-coalition-seeks-lasting-telehealth-policy-approach?id=129289
Broad industry coalition seeks lasting telehealth policy approach
More than 300
healthcare organizations sign a letter to Congress demanding study and action
to make permanent regulatory changes.
Feb 15 224
min read
Fred
Bazzoli
A wide array
of healthcare organizations is pushing for permanent changes in telehealth
policy that would assure extensions of waivers and permissions granted because
of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The
initiative produced a letter
signed by 336 organizations that want permanent reform in telehealth policy,
reflecting the experience gained from emergency efforts enacted as part of an
emergency response to the pandemic.
The broad
industry backing seeks reform to alleviate the uncertainty surrounding current
emergency measures, which are continued only because the Biden Administration
is extending them because of the current public health emergency. That is
creating significant uncertainty for the U.S. Healthcare system, the letter’s
backers say.
While
telehealth encounters have declined from the height of the pandemic nearly two
years ago, use of these services is rising among consumers, who appreciate the
convenience and immediacy of telehealth-enabled encounters. The breadth of
support for telehealth within the industry recognizes increasing acceptance
among industry organizations.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/disability-documentation-ehr-can-improve-care-quality
Disability documentation in the EHR can improve care quality
An article in
Health Affairs shows that standardizations in the electronic health record
could also facilitate value-based care and create research opportunities.
By Kat Jercich
February 15,
2022 12:17 PM
A
recent article in Health
Affairs called the electronic health record an "underrated
medium" for improving care and pushed for the standardization of
structures for documenting disabilities.
"In
medical school, we spend a lot of time learning how to take a patient’s medical
history. We practice asking specifically worded questions in a structured way
to develop 'muscle memory' and allow us to focus on the nuanced content of our
conversations," wrote Trisha Kaundinya, the cofounder of the Disability
Advocacy Coalition in Medicine, in the piece.
"But
many of us do not learn how to ask patients about disability, whether it
affects their daily lives, and what accommodations they need to optimize
communication and quality of life," Kaundinya continued.
WHY IT
MATTERS
As
Kaundinya notes, a lack of provider training about how to
approach patients with disabilities may compromise quality of care.
With
that in mind, she proposes a range of strategies, including implementing EHR
standardizations to record disability and accommodations.
-----
https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/forefront.20220209.110739/
The Need For Disability Documentation In The Electronic Health Record
February 14, 2022 10.1377/forefront.20220209.110739
In
medical school, we spend a lot of time learning how to take a patient’s medical
history. We practice asking specifically worded questions in a structured way
to develop “muscle memory” and allow us to focus on the nuanced content of our
conversations. But many of us do not learn how
to ask patients about disability, whether it affects their daily lives, and
what accommodations they need to optimize communication and quality of
life.
This
lack of training—when coupled with societal biases about disability, which many
physicians share—compromises our care of patients with disabilities. For
example, a recent study found that more than one-third of US physicians knew little or
nothing about their legal responsibilities per the Americans with Disabilities
Act, which includes providing reasonable accommodations in the health care
setting. Additional data from this national survey found that only 40 percent
of physicians felt strongly confident that they could provide the same
quality of care to patients with disabilities and patients without
disabilities. These threads of compromised care for this population contribute
to adverse health outcomes.
An
underrecognized medium for improving the quality of care for patients with
disabilities is the electronic health record (EHR). Electronic record-keeping
is a ubiquitous part of training for medical students of my generation.
Alongside learning how to take a medical history, we learn how to use the EHR
to write organized notes, review important interval events that occur between
medical visits, and anticipate ancillary services needed. Health care professionals
also rely on the EHR as capsules of vital information about their patients.
Robust
use of the EHR is an opportunity to improve the quality of our documentation of
disability and accommodations—and thereby better our quality of care for
patients with disabilities.
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2022/02/15/study-says-patients-like-mayo-clinics-care-hotel-virtual-care-approach-for-surgical-care/
Study Says Patients Like Mayo Clinic’s “Care Hotel” Virtual Care Approach
for Surgical Care
February 15, 2022
Anne Zieger
A
new study has concluded that Mayo Clinic’s hybrid Care Hotel is working well
for patients, offering them an opportunity to handle stressful aspects of
surgery in a lower-stress environment and saving them money.
Mayo’s
Care Hotel is a virtual medicine hybrid care model implemented at Mayo’s
Florida location in July 2020. Mayo designed the model, which focuses on
serving patients following small and low-risk surgical procedures, to speed up
recovery as well as preserve hospital capacity for those that need it.
In
a study
published in the journal Annals of Medicine and Surgery, the authors describe
the experience and feedback received from 102 patients admitted to the Care
Hotel.
Patients
were referred to the on-campus hotel by either a primary surgical or
interventional team before surgery. Once signed up, patients were educated
about the program, which offers vital sign monitoring, nursing, neurologic
assessments, dressing changes, urinary catheter, drain management and
education, as well as breakthrough non-opioid pain and nausea medication, which
is administered by paramedics.
-----
https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/innovation/researchers-using-digital-health-tools-design-digital-twin-patients
Researchers Using Digital Health Tools to Design a 'Digital Twin' for
Patients
Analysis
| By Eric Wicklund |
February 14, 2022
Researchers
at the University of Miami School of Medicine have launched an NIH-funded study
to create a 'digital twin,' which would stand in for the patient on any tests
or new treatments to determine whether they're effective.
Researchers
at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine are creating a “digital
twin” that would replace the patient during tests and treatments.
Called the
MLBox, it would use digital health wearables and smart devices in the home to
collect biological, clinical, behavioral and environmental data on a patient,
then create a model that could be used to test out new treatments before
they’re tried on the actual patient.
The project
is being spearheaded by the Miller School’s Media and Innovation Lab (TheMIL),
along with Amazon Web Services and the Open Health Network, and will initially
focus on treatments for sleep issues, such as sleep apnea, and their link to
serious health concerns like dementia and heart disease.
“We want to
demonstrate that this kind of individualized data capture can spur a new line
of research and personalization in healthcare,” Azizi Seixas, PhD, founding
director of TheMI, an associate director for the Translational Sleep and
Circadian Sciences Program at the Miller School of Medicine, and one of the
nation’s leading experts on sleep health, said in a press release. “With the capacity to discover
everything we can about the individual, we can change the relationship between
people and their health.”
-----
https://ehrintelligence.com/news/va-improving-ehrm-data-standardization-for-clinician-needs
VA Improving EHRM Data Standardization for Clinician Needs
After a
GAO report revealed data quality concerns earlier this month, VA has made
“significant improvements” to its EHRM data standardization processes, an
official said.
By Hannah Nelson
February 14,
2022 - The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has completed most of the
data standardization needed for its EHR Modernization (EHRM) effort, according
to reporting
from FedScoop.
The
Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report
earlier this month that revealed clinicians had experienced challenges with the
quality of migrated data from VA’s legacy VistA EHR to the new Cerner
Millennium and HealtheIntent systems.
On Thursday,
Laura Prietula, acting deputy chief information officer for the VA EHRM, said
that uniformly transferring
veteran EHR data to the platforms has required the EHRM Integration
Office to make “significant improvements” to its processes.
“We’ve
learned a lot around the lack of standardization,” Prietula said
during AFCEA Bethesda‘s 14th annual health IT event. “And it may not just
be because of the data models themselves, but also some processes that we need
to change or policies.”
-----
https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/telehealth-use-dropped-to-8-in-2021
Telehealth Use Dropped to 8% in 2021
New data
reveal a 13 percent rise in telehealth use during the first six months of the
COVID-19 pandemic, but usage has since dropped as surges slowed.
By Mark Melchionna
February 14,
2022 - Though telehealth is still on the rise, new data from the Peterson-
KFF Health System Tracker revealed how the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic
might affect outpatient visit preferences.
As the
COVID-19 pandemic became more prominent in mid-2020, the government increased
access to telehealth, removing regulatory barriers and reforming payment
policies. The motive behind this choice was to limit exposure to the deadly
disease and maintain pandemic safety protocols.
The
new brief contains data regarding telehealth use between March 2019 and
August 2021, which shows trends before and during certain stages of the
COVID-19 pandemic. The analyzed data came from Epic Cosmos, a HIPAA-defined
limited data set of over 126 million patients.
Although
telehealth use has decreased since the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is
sustaining a relatively high utilization rate compared to 2019.
-----
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/cisa-observes-increased-critical-infrastructure-ransomware-threats
CISA Observes Increased Critical Infrastructure Ransomware Threats
CISA, the
FBI, and the NSA observed ransomware attacks against 14 of the 16 US critical
infrastructure sectors last year.
By Jill McKeon
February 11,
2022 - A joint
advisory by cybersecurity authorities in the US, Australia, and the United
Kingdom underscored increasing critical infrastructure ransomware threats that
will likely continue to grow in the coming months and years.
The
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI), and the National Security Agency (NSA) observed ransomware
attacks against 14 of the 16 US critical infrastructure sectors last year.
“Ransomware
tactics and techniques continued to evolve in 2021, which demonstrates ransomware
threat actors’ growing technological sophistication and an increased ransomware
threat to organizations globally,” the advisory stated.
The advisory
provided information on ransomware trends and prevention tactics for
organizations across the world to mitigate threats and spread awareness. The
healthcare and public health sector, one of the 16 US critical infrastructure
sectors, was hit especially hard by ransomware in 2021. Most
of the largest healthcare data breaches of the year (by the number of victims
impacted) resulted from orchestrated cyberattacks.
------
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/emea/eu-vaccine-passport-paves-way-digital-identity-pitfalls-lie-ahead
The EU vaccine passport paves the way for digital identity – but pitfalls
lie ahead
The EU
announced that it's preparing to extend the digital
COVID certificate by a year, until June 2023. On 31 March, it will
publish a report on the technology’s regulation, and Brussels-based Frieda
Klotz finds out more.
February 14,
2022 07:29 AM
Vaccine
passports, crucial to managing the pandemic, have led to a rapid advance in
digital health technology. The Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders said in a statement that they allowed freedom of movement
during the pandemic: “Without this extension, we risk
having many divergent national systems, and all the confusion and obstacles
that this would cause.”
The
EU views the Digital COVID Certificate (EUDCC) as a success, but for
software developers, the story is more nuanced according to Matthew Comb,
a doctoral student doing research on digital identity at the University of
Oxford. The EUDCC, which has been adopted by 27 EU states and 18 other
countries, uses barcodes in the certificates which are not encrypted,
Comb warns, making them vulnerable to cybercrime and abuse.
Potential target
For
decades, coders have been striving to develop a common approach to digital identity,
which would let users verify their identity without providing extraneous
personal details or even their name. The need for a
COVID certificate arose just a little too early, Comb explains to Healthcare
IT News: “If this had happened maybe two or three years later
the infrastructure would have been in place.”
The
EU’s certificate program deploys cryptographic key pairs – random
characters in no particular order – to digitally sign users’ data in order to
later prove the data is authentic. The regional certifying authority signs the
certificate with a private key. To verify that data, the barcode readers we see
in airlines and restaurants use a public key, one that is in the public domain.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/ai-health-cant-leave-older-people-behind-says-who
AI for health can't leave older people behind, says WHO
A policy
brief from the World Health Organization offers strategies for combating ageism
and bias in machine learning technologies.
By Kat Jercich
February 14,
2022 11:43 AM
The
World Health Organization released a policy brief this past week aimed at
combating age-related bias in health-related artificial intelligence tools.
The
brief, "Ageism in artificial intelligence for
health," proposes a wide range of measures to ensure older people are
effectively engaged in the processes, technologies and services affecting them.
"The
implicit and explicit biases of society, including around age, are often
replicated in AI technologies," said Alana Officer, unit head of
demographic change and healthy aging at the WHO.
"To
ensure that AI technologies play a beneficial role, ageism must be identified
and eliminated from their design, development, use and evaluation,"
Officer continued.
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2022/02/14/what-keeps-healthcare-from-sharing-data-as-nimbly-as-financial-services-do/
What Keeps Healthcare from Sharing Data as Nimbly as Financial Services
Do?
February 14, 2022
Andy Oram
Healthcare,
like finance, is a huge and highly regulated sector of society with many
different types of institutions that have to exchange data. Both sectors have
defined standards in the pursuit of seamless data exchange, and both now have a
modern standard (FHIR in the case of
healthcare; FIX in the case of
finance) that meets the expectations of today’s programmers.
(To
get technical, these expectations involve RESTful interfaces that exchange
structured XML or JSON formats over HTTP and that can be programmed in the
language of the developer’s choice.)
Finance
has reached the promised land of seamless data exchange. But healthcare, as we
all know, has not. What are the differences between these two major sectors
that might explain healthcare’s lag?
Incentives
Cynics
have long claimed that health institutions hold patient data hostage in order
to prevent patients from switching to other providers. Finance, in contrast,
depends on being able to transfer funds and information with competitors. I am
willing to entertain this notion, but I don’t think it’s enough to explain the
stubborn resistance of data to sharing in healthcare.
-----
https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/technology/survey-despite-benefits-seniors-arent-using-mhealth-apps
Survey: Despite the Benefits, Seniors Aren't Using mHealth Apps
Analysis
| By Eric Wicklund |
February 11, 2022
A new survey
conducted by the University of Michigan and supported by the AARP finds that
less than one in every three seniors is using an mHealth app, andf those
numbers are even lower for seniors who should be using them.
Senior care
advocates say mHealth apps could do a world of good for people over 50 who want
to live healthy lives and stay in their own homes, but a new survey finds that
less than a third actually use that resource.
According to an online and phone survey of some 2110
seniors ages 50-80 taken in August 2021 by the National Poll on Healthy Aging,
based at the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and
Innovation and supported by the AARP, only 44% have ever used an mHealth app,
and only 28% are using one now. That’s stunning news considering the emphasis
being put on virtual care these past two years to deal with the pandemic.
“Now that
most older adults have at least one mobile device, health-related apps can
provide an opportunity to support their health-related behaviors, manage their
conditions and improve health outcomes,” Pearl Lee, MD, MS, a geriatrician at
Michigan Medicine who worked on the poll report, said in a press release.
-----
https://histalk2.com/2022/02/11/weekender-2-11-22/
Weekly News Recap
- AndHealth, founded by CoverMyMeds
co-founder Matt Scantland, exists stealth mode and raises $57 million in
funding.
- Germany-based Ada expands its Series
B round to $120 million and plans aggressive expansion to the US.
- Senators form a commission to
consider updating HIPAA.
- Best in KLAS named.
- NThrive will acquire Pelitas.
- Premier reports Q2 results.
-----
Enjoy!
David.
