Here are a few I came across last week.
Note: Each link is followed by a title and few paragraphs. For the full article click on the link above title of the article. Note also that full access to some links may require site registration or subscription payment
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/ai-for-medical-imaging-boosts-cancer-screenings-with-provider-aid
AI for Medical Imaging Boosts Cancer Screenings with Provider Aid
New research shows that a decision-referral approach in which radiologists and artificial intelligence work together for breast cancer screening is better than either’s performance alone.
July 05, 2022 - A study published in The Lancet Digital Health this month highlights how a decision-referral approach, in which radiologists work with artificial intelligence (AI) models to evaluate breast cancer screenings, achieves better results than clinicians or algorithms would have alone.
The researchers note that the rise of AI use in medical imaging has spurred significant research into the development of accurate cancer screening algorithms. Some studies suggest that AI performs on par with clinicians in terms of image interpretation, but more evidence is needed in areas such as breast cancer screening. Other research further suggests that combining the strengths of radiologists and AI leads to improved screening accuracy, but this area also requires more research.
To add to these areas of medical research, the study’s authors set out to evaluate the performance of an AI, a radiologist, and the two together when tasked with breast cancer screening. To develop the AI model, the researchers used a retrospective dataset consisting of 1,193,197 full field, digital mammography studies carried out between Jan 1, 2007, and Dec 31, 2020. These mammograms were sourced from 453,104 patients at eight separate screening centers in Germany.
Data from six of the sites were used for model development and internal testing, and the data from the other two were used for model validation and external testing. The internal-test dataset consisted of 1,670 screen-detected cancers and 19,997 normal mammography exams, while the external-test dataset contained 2,793 screen-detected cancers and 80,058 normal exams. Labels used by the model to classify the images were derived from annotations of radiological findings and biopsy information.
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/klas-caregility-teladoc-doximity-perform-well-in-virtual-care
KLAS: Caregility, Teladoc, Doximity Perform Well in Virtual Care
Caregility, Teladoc, and Doximity received high post-pandemic telehealth scores in user experience, patient access, and patient satisfaction, according to KLAS.
July 08, 2022 - A new KLAS report found that various virtual care platforms such as Caregility, Teladoc, and Doximity performed well for post-pandemic users, particularly in the areas of user experience, access to care, and satisfaction.
Following the rapid expansion of telehealth throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, there are many virtual solutions and platforms that have become a vital part of the new normal.
This KLAS report assessed various virtual care platforms, analyzing their proficiency when delivering telehealth services to consumers.
Caregility is a virtual care platform that received high scores for delivering care in complex inpatient settings. Patients described the platform as reliable, producing positive user experiences.
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Remote Patient Monitoring Can Detect In-Hospital Patient Deterioration
New research shows that a wearable remote patient monitoring device can help detect clinical deterioration among patients in the hospital.
July 08, 2022 - A study published in JMIR Formative Research showed that regular use of remote patient monitoring (RPM) at a hospital could assist in identifying patients that are at risk of deterioration, particularly those admitted to general wards.
The study was conducted at Israel-based Sheba Medical Center, one of the largest healthcare centers in the Middle East. Inclusive of various hospitals dedicated to general, maternal, pediatric, and rehabilitative care, Sheba aims to use technology to treat severe medical conditions.
According to previous research, patients residing in ward environments often experience clinical deterioration. Using a prospective observational study design, researchers aimed to determine whether a wearable RPM device can effectively identify these patients.
The final analysis included 217 patients with a median age of 71, of whom 59.9 percent were male. At the time, all participants in the study were residing in two general wards of Sheba's tertiary medical center.
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https://www.digitalhealth.net/2022/07/nhs-england-smaller-than-current-size/
NHS England to be ‘between 30 and 40 per cent smaller than current size’
The chief executive of NHS England has revealed that the organisation is expected to be between 30-40% “smaller than the current combined size of NHS England, Health Education England and NHS Digital” by the end of 2023/24.
Hanna Crouch 7 July 2022
In a letter to staff, Amanda Pritchard states the official formation of Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) on July 1, means that “NHS England must now change the way we work” adding “this means we need to reduce the size of NHS England and be rigorous about what we do”.
“This will mean significant change for NHS England,” Pritchard’s letter adds.
“We expect that, by the end of 2023/24, the new single organisation will be at least 30%, and up to 40% smaller than the current combined size of NHS England, Health Education England and NHS Digital.”
In 2021, the Wade-Gery review recommended that NHS Digital, NHSX and Health Education England should be merged with NHS England and Improvement. Former health secretary, Matt Hancock, ordered the major review into digital transformation in the NHS in July 2021. It was headed by Laura Wade-Gery to determine the critical capabilities and digital operating model needed across the three national bodies to drive the digital system transformation envisaged in the NHS Long Term Plan.
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ResApp gets 510(k) clearance for mobile sleep apnoea test SleepCheck
It has been approved as a prescription-only software-as-a-medical device in the US.
By Adam Ang
July 07, 2022 02:51 am
ASX-listed ResApp Health has received the US Food and Drug Administration's 510(k) clearance for SleepCheckRx, its mobile sleep apnoea screening app.
Introduced two years ago, SleepCheck is an at-home test for adults who are at risk of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnoea. It screens for the condition by analysing breathing and snore sounds recorded via phone.
It has been approved as a prescription-only software-as-a-medical device on Apple smartphones in the United States. To download the app from the Apple App Store, patients will have to secure a specific code from their care providers.
ResApp plans to solicit another 510(k) clearance for SleepCheck on Android phones "in the future," according to a media release.
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https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/976674
Resilience Training Could Help Stressed-Out Healthcare Workers
Avery Hurt
July 06, 2022
Hospital workers, both those who work directly with patients and those behind the scenes, have faced enormous challenges during the pandemic, leading to significant mental health burdens, including increased stress, anxiety, and burnout. While these problems have been well documented, there has been little research on the efficacy of methods to address them. But a recent study published in JAMA Network Open looked at a program that shows promise for struggling healthcare workers.
The study looked at the feasibility of Promoting Resilience in Stress Management (PRISM), a skills-based training program designed to mitigate stress and build resilience in situations of elevated stress. This study used a program called PRISM at Work, a version of PRISM adapted for healthcare workers. Participants completed a baseline survey, attended classes, then completed a follow-up survey.
Satisfaction
Of 153 participants, 140 were female, 12 were male, and one was nonbinary. The mean age was 40.6 years, and 84% of participants were white. Just over half (53%) were in patient-facing roles (nurses, doctors, and allied health professionals), while the remaining 47% were in non-patient-facing roles (such as managers, research staff, and business office workers). The baseline scores found low levels of perceived resilience, moderate levels of stress and anxiety, and high levels of burnout/exhaustion.
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https://khn.org/news/article/digital-mental-health-companies-scrutiny-concerns/
Digital Mental Health Companies Draw Scrutiny and Growing Concerns
When Pat Paulson’s son told her he was feeling anxious and depressed at college, Paulson went through her Blue Cross Blue Shield provider directory and started calling mental health therapists. No providers in the Wisconsin city where her son’s university is located had openings. So she bought a monthly subscription to BetterHelp, a Mountain View, California, company that links people to therapists online.
Her son felt uncomfortable with his first BetterHelp therapist. After waiting several weeks, he saw a second therapist, whom he liked. But she wasn’t available the following week.Despite the switch and the wait, Paulson is grateful she was able to find her son help. “He was getting to the point where he was ready to give up trying to find someone,” she said.
Many U.S. adults aren’t able to find help because of a shortage of therapists. Nearly 40% are struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention------
Jul 01 2022
Metaverse and virtual reality are gaining a foothold in healthcare
They are "the next horizon" in healthcare, says Accenture Digital Health Technology Vision 2022 report.
More than
eight in 10 healthcare executives expect the metaverse to have a positive
impact on the healthcare industry, according to a report from Accenture.
The Accenture Digital Health Technology Vision 2022 report called the metaverse "the next horizon" in
healthcare, where surgical teams can learn new procedures without having to be
physically in the same operating room.
Another application could be found in secure authentication, for example, a
traveling patient being able to securely provide their medical information to a
caregiver without having to authenticate with a physician.
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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/payer/why-drivers-health-better-way-describe-sdoh
Why 'Drivers of Health' is a Better Way to Describe SDOH
Analysis | By Laura Beerman | July 07, 2022
Research from the Christensen Institute reveals the messages, models, and metrics that healthcare leaders need to innovate successfully.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· The Christensen Institute has made the case for drivers of health, over social determinants, as the best term to represent non-medical impacts on health outcomes.
· The reasons include a clearer, more consumer-centric lens and the limitations baked into the current wording.
· The Institute's research links the most successful drivers of health initiatives to business model innovation, with Humana's Bold Goal as an example.
"We might all be in the same storm, but we're not in the same boat."
Ann-Somers Hogg, senior research fellow-healthcare at the Christensen Institute, uses this quote to illustrate the importance of drivers of health (DOH)—and to explain why her organization prefers this term over social determinants when describing the "societal, population-level structures that influence health outcomes."
HealthLeaders spoke with Hogg as part of her ongoing research at the Institute—founded by disruptive innovation pioneer professor Clayton Christensen—which links DOH to Business Model and Jobs to Be Done Theories while highlighting stakeholder success stories. HealthLeaders' takeaways include the importance of message, metrics, and business models for DOH success.
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https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/patientcenteredmedicalhome/99577
Unclogging the Specialist Access Pipeline
— A new patient management strategy for specialists and primary care providers
by Fred N. Pelzman, MD July 5, 2022
As we seek to improve access for our patients, for all the care they need across the spectrum of healthcare, we need to unclog the pipeline in multiple different places.
Just the other day, one of my partners at work walked into my office and said, "So, what's the best way to quickly get a biopsy for someone with a new thyroid nodule?"
Interestingly, at our institution there are multiple places this can be done. Some at the endocrinology practice do biopsies of thyroid nodules, as do many of the ENT's, and a few of the head-and-neck surgeons do as well. You can also get it done in interventional radiology.
The problem, however, is knowing who to call and how to get them in, especially when even with these multiple options we are often told that the wait is many months for each of these different locations.
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The Real Core of the Physician Burnout Problem and What to Do About It
July 7, 2022
When I watch doctors and nurses on Twitter talk about burnout, one common theme emerges. Another wellness program or yoga room is not going to help. Instead of making clinicians more resilient (they’re already extremely resilient), we need to address the core problems in healthcare that are causing burnout.
One of those core causes of burnout is the documentation burden and poorly created EHR interfaces which are built around billing rather than the physician or nurse workflow. We know this is the case, because TransformativeMed has created a workflow based on the clinician called CORES and the response from doctors is like seeing technology in medicine with new eyes.
To learn more about the problem of burnout and how the right clinician focused technology can help, I sat down with Jed S. Rosen, MD, Regional Director, Medical Informatics at LifeBridge Health and Rishi Sarna, MD, Chief Medical Officer at TransformativeMed. They share with us some of the stories of burnout in healthcare and more about what they see as the real core problem for doctors that are burnt out and leaving healthcare. Then, I ask them about how tech can be used to help solve the problem and how the clinician workflow and experience changes when you implement a clinician focused technology.
I also ask Dr. Rosen about what type of resistance he faced to this type of change. This includes resistance from the end users and how to get buy-in from others like the CFO. In my experience, many organization’s past experience with IT that didn’t deliver results makes it hard for companies that do deliver the results. Overcoming that skepticism can be a challenge, but Dr. Rosen offers some great insights on how to navigate this.
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Feds warn of North Korean ransomware threat to healthcare organizations
The joint advisory from CISA, the FBI and the Treasury Department warns of state-sponsored cybercriminals using Maui malware to target hospitals and public health agencies.
By Mike Miliard
July 07, 2022 09:48 AM
North Korea-sponsored hackers have been targeting the healthcare and public health sector in the U.S. for more than a year, according to a July 6 alert from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, along with the FBI and the Department of the Treasury.
WHY IT
MATTERS
In the advisory, North Korean State-Sponsored Cyber Actors Use Maui Ransomware
to Target the Healthcare and Public Health Sector, CISA, FBI and Treasury
allege that cyber actors have been using that novel strain of malware to target
U.S. health systems since at least May 2021.
The report outlines the tactics, techniques and procedures, indicators of compromise, and recommended mitigations specific to use of the Maui ransomware.
"Since May 2021, the FBI has observed and responded to multiple Maui ransomware incidents at HPH Sector organizations," officials said. "North Korean state-sponsored cyber actors used Maui ransomware in these incidents to encrypt servers responsible for healthcare services – including electronic health records services, diagnostics services, imaging services, and intranet services.
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Mastering the Tricky Act of Transforming Population Health With Technology
Analysis | By Scott Mace | July 06, 2022
At Franciscan Health, Chief Medical Officer Albert Tomchaney, MD, has spent more than a dozen years exploring how technology can be used to gather the right data to help clinicians make the right decisions.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
· Patient choice continues to stymie population health goals, so broad data feeds are required.
· The pandemic has set back population health progress, and healthcare organizations are now playing catch-up.
· Geisinger's ProvenCare is an example of how a health system is using technology to improve population healthcare through a patient-first approach.
Albert Tomchaney, MD, became the first chief medical officer of the Indiana-based Franciscan Alliance, which operates as Franciscan Health, in 2008. He has managed the physician practices for a time and overseen hospital operations such as pharmacy and care management. But throughout, and especially now, his focus has been on population health activities.
"If it's pop health related, or value related, I'll probably touch it somewhere along the way," Tomchaney says.
In this conversation with HealthLeaders, Tomchaney describes some of the technology that the Franciscan Alliance is using to promote those objectives. This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/ambulatory-ehr-vendors-must-improve-on-ehr-usability-workflow
Ambulatory EHR Vendors Must Improve on EHR Usability, Workflow
According to a KLAS report, 70 percent of consumers want ambulatory EHR vendors to improve on EHR usability and workflow.
July 06, 2022 - Technology needs are constantly evolving for midsize and large ambulatory practices. Moving forward ambulatory EHR vendors should focus on enhancing EHR usability and workflow to align with consumer needs, the latest KLAS report noted.
When interviewing over 500 consumers regarding areas their EHR vendor needs to improve on, KLAS found that more than 70 percent mentioned ease of use/workflow, with 44 percent citing it as a top priority.
Specifically, EHR usability and workflow are lacking due to excessive mouse clicks, irrelevant information displayed within the EHR, lack of specialty-specific functionality, and poor integration that leads to disruptive screen hopping.
Despite the lack of alignment, some ambulatory EHR vendors appear to be meeting consumer needs.
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/machine-learning-models-can-predict-sepsis-related-mortality
Machine-Learning Models Can Predict Sepsis-Related Mortality
Researchers have developed machine-learning models that can accurately predict 30-day mortality in patients with sepsis-associated encephalopathy.
July 06, 2022 - A new study published in BMC Medical Research Methodology highlights how researchers developed and trained machine-learning (ML) models that can accurately predict 30-day mortality in patients with sepsis-associated encephalopathy (SAE).
SAE is a common neurological complication related to sepsis, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is poorly understood because of its pathophysiology. The condition is typically characterized by diffuse brain dysfunction secondary to infection elsewhere in the body without overt central nervous system infection, but a diagnosis can usually only be made after other conditions are ruled out. SAE has a high mortality rate, and survivors tend to develop further neurocognitive impairment in the future.
These adverse outcomes underscore the need for researchers to identify key predictors of SAE-related mortality and implement them in the development of predictive models, the study authors noted. To develop these models, the researchers gathered retrospective data from the publicly available Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care (MIMIC)-IV dataset, which contained de-identified data from 383,220 admissions to the intensive care units (ICUs) at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center between 2008 and 2019.
Patients with a diagnosis of sepsis as defined in the Third International Consensus Definitions for Sepsis were pulled as part of participant selection. Of these, patients under the age of 16, with ICU stays of less than 48 hours, with primary brain injury, pre-existing liver or kidney failure affecting consciousness, chronic alcohol or drug abuse, and severe electrolyte imbalances were excluded from the study. A total of 6,994 patients were included in the final cohort, with data from 4,897 being used to train the models and data from 2,097 to validate them.
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https://www.massdevice.com/masimo-safetynet-covid-19-hospital/
Masimo’s SafetyNet monitoring reduced length of COVID-19 hospital stays, study says
The Masimo SafetyNet [Image from Masimo]Masimo (Nasdaq:MASI) announced that a two-part retrospective study demonstrated the impact of its SafetyNet monitoring system.
Irvine, California-based Masimo’s study, led by Dr. Hemali Patel and colleagues at the University of Colorado and UC Health (UCH) in Aurora, Colorado, evaluated the impact of remote patient monitoring of COVID-19 patients using SafetyNet on hospital length of stay. Results were published in Telemedicine and e-Health.
SafetyNet uses tetherless Masimo Radius PPG SET pulse oximetry and a smartphone app to transmit continuous, home-based patient monitoring data to hospital clinicians. According to a news release, the study demonstrated a significant association between briefer hospitalization and patients discharged with SafetyNet and without home oxygen.
The researchers concluded that “home telemonitoring after discharge for patients with COVID-19 may be a safe tool that may reduce the mean duration of hospitalization and create more bed capacity,” Masimo said.
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LiveMetric’s blood-pressure ‘smartwatch’ device gets FDA clearance
Published July 1, 2022
Dive Brief:
- A smartwatch-like blood-monitoring device made by LiveMetric that’s cuff-free was granted 510(k) clearance by the Food and Drug Administration.
- LiveMetric secured the clearance after showing its LiveOne device is substantially equivalent to Tensys Medical’s TL300, a continuous blood-pressure monitor used at the bedside in healthcare facilities. The LiveOne device is a smaller, more portable spin on the technology.
- With the approval, the company is preparing to make the device available to people with high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease via health systems, insurers and self-insured employers.
Dive Insight:
Efforts to monitor high blood pressure, a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, face significant data-gathering challenges from factors including the discomfort of wearing cuffs to white coat syndrome, where people with hypertension may see their blood pressure rise from the stress of being in a clinic.
Ambulatory home blood-pressure monitoring (ABPM) devices that may provide a more accurate picture of a patient’s condition have a cuff that can disturb wearers and only take intermittent readings.
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Healthcare leaders are optimistic about metaverse disruption, report says
The metaverse has significant potential to disrupt traditional healthcare delivery in the long term, according to a recent Accenture report. While it will likely take time for providers to begin building their own digital environments in the metaverse, healthcare leaders said they believe metaverse technologies will have a positive impact on healthcare.
By Katie Adams
Post a comment / Jul 5, 2022 at 3:41 PM
The metaverse — a domain of the internet in which users immerse themselves in interactive digital environments — has significant potential to disrupt traditional healthcare delivery in the long term, according to a recent report from Accenture.
For the report, Accenture surveyed 391 healthcare executives across 10 countries. More than 80% of them said they believe the metaverse will have a positive effect on the healthcare industry.
The metaverse has two primary functions, according to Kaveh Safavi, senior managing director at Accenture Health. The first is the “Internet of Place,” which refers to spaces in the metaverse that will virtually transport users to almost any world they can imagine. Safavi said that this could one day allow people to easily interact with clinicians, peers and enterprises at a distance.
The second is Web3 or the “Internet of Ownership.” Web3 is an evolving term that the report used to describe the utilization of technologies like blockchain and tokenization to build a more distributed data layer into the internet, allowing data to be owned and validated by metaverse users. Healthcare organizations could shift part of their operations to the metaverse and maintain their own internal virtual environments, Safavi said. This will allow employees to work from anywhere and collaborate based on data that they can authenticate.
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/over-half-of-americans-unlikely-to-use-telehealth-post-pandemic
Over Half of Americans Unlikely to Use Telehealth Post-Pandemic
A new survey shows that though a large number of Americans favor the continuation of telehealth services, a little over half do not plan to use them after the pandemic has ended.
By Anuja Vaidya
July 06, 2022 - Though many Americans think it would be good if virtual options like telehealth continued to be accessible post-pandemic, more than half (52 percent) said they are unlikely to continue to use virtual care modalities, according to a new survey.
The survey, which was conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and The SCAN Foundation, polled 1,001 US adults between May 12 and 16. Questions focused on Americans' changing behavior as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve.
Many respondents said that virtual community events (54 percent), remote work (54 percent), and telehealth (48 percent) are "good things that should continue" after the pandemic is over. But a majority plan to leave behind certain pandemic behaviors, like having groceries delivered (66 percent) and receiving care through telehealth (52 percent), after the public health crisis has ended.
Though telehealth may provide various benefits to adults over 50, only 16 percent of people in this age group said they are highly likely to continue using the care modality after the pandemic. In contrast, 22 percent of adults between the ages of 18 and 49 said they would continue to receive care virtually.
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https://apnews.com/article/covid-technology-health-only-on-ap-fbf24abaaa800b00f1f10ae70b67af68
Many won’t rely on virtual options after COVID: AP-NORC poll
By HANNAH FINGERHUT and R.J. RICOJuly 5, 2022
WASHINGTON (AP) — Many Americans don’t expect to rely on the digital services that became commonplace during the pandemic after COVID-19 subsides, according to a new poll, even as many think it’s a good thing if those options remain available in the future.
Close to half or more of U.S. adults say they are not likely to attend virtual activities, receive virtual health care, have groceries delivered or use curbside pickup after the coronavirus pandemic is over, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Less than 3 in 10 say they’re very likely to use any of those options at least some of the time.
Still, close to half also say it would be a good thing if virtual options for health care, for community events and for activities like fitness classes or religious services continue after the pandemic.
“Rather than this either-or, I think we’re more likely to be facing a hybrid future,” said Donna Hoffman, director of the Center for the Connected Consumer at the George Washington School of Business. “People have found convenience in some of these virtual options that just makes sense, and they don’t necessarily have anything to do with like keeping you safe or the pandemic even though they came of age during the pandemic.”
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Protecting Half the Sky; implications of the Roe ruling
Besides reversing the ruling that had ensured women’s access to abortion services, the Supreme Court ruling affects privacy of healthcare information.
Jul 06 2022
Director of community and education, WEDI
Back in 2009 when I was thinking about going to grad school but wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to study, I read “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide,” and my world was changed. Deeply moved by the lives of a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth, I was drawn to pursue a mission to help transform the lives of women in developing nations.
Fast forward to this past Friday, and my world was changed again. Bodily autonomy – the foundation upon which other human rights are built – has been taken from women by the U.S. Supreme Court. The fetal heartbeat law has already gone into effect in South Carolina where, I live. I no longer have to travel to developing nations to help women that are being denied healthcare, because this ruling serves to deny lifesaving medical treatment in more than half of the United States.
Even before Roe was overturned, the maternal mortality rate in our country was higher than any other developed nation. Those who live in rural areas, women of color and low-income populations will absolutely be the most affected by these new laws on reproductive health. A study estimating the effects of an abortion ban on maternal death by the University of Colorado, Boulder, found that among Black women, maternal deaths could increase by one-third. Black women are already three times more likely to die of pregnancy-related causes than white women. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has made health equity a priority through the Equity Action Plan, and the high court ruling on women’s health have no place in an equitable health system.
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ACMI warns Roe v. Wade reversal could impact records privacy
The professional health IT association is concerned that authorities could access information in EHRs, apps when enforcing new abortion restrictions.
Jul 06 2022
Editor-in-Chief, HDM
An organization representing healthcare IT pros is raising concerns that the recent Supreme Court ruling overturning the Roe V. Wade decision on abortion services may affect the privacy of patients’ medical records.
The American College of Medical Informatics released a statement warning that the decision could put long-standing privacy protections at risk.
ACMI is a college of elected fellows from the United States within the American Medical Informatics Association.
Several other professional medical associations, including the American Hospital Association and the American Medical Association, have also issued statements voicing concerns about how the high court’s ruling will affect healthcare services.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/senators-sound-alarm-privacy-call-hipaa-update
Senators sound the alarm on privacy, call for HIPAA update
The risks to patients in a post-Roe v. Wade world demand new protections, they say, calling on HHS to amend the Privacy Rule to ensure that information cannot be shared with law enforcement agencies targeting individuals who have an abortion.
By Mike Miliard
July 06, 2022 10:13 AM
In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on July 1, Senators Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., called on HHS to use its powers to ensure the HIPAA Privacy Rule is better positioned to protect the health information of patients seeking reproductive healthcare.
The Supreme Court's recent decision overturning Roe v. Wade has created "profound uncertainty for patients concerning their right to privacy when making the deeply personal decision to have an abortion," said the senators.
As policy experts have noted, the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision has ushered in not just a fraught new era for reproductive health, but also one for data privacy.
The HIPAA Privacy Rule – which healthcare organizations have called to be modernized for years, even before the recent SCOTUS ruling – is now insufficient to protect the health information of patients.
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Merative, a new data company, formed from IBM's healthcare analytics assets
Francisco Partners has completed its purchase of Watson Health's data analytics tools and is spinning them off into an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based business.
By Mike Miliard
July 05, 2022 10:19 AM
Six months after scooping up the health analytics assets of IBM Watson Health, private equity firm Francisco Partners announced this past week that it is using them to launch a new healthcare data company, called Merative.
WHY IT
MATTERS
Francisco Partners says Merative will combine these assets to help
"deliver value across the global healthcare ecosystem, serving clients in
life sciences, provider, imaging, health plan, employer, and government health
and human services sectors."
Merative's products will be focused across six areas, according to Francisco Partners, bolstered with new resources for investment, acquisitions, partnerships and growth:
· Health Insights
· MarketScan
· Clinical Development
· Social Program Management and Phytel
· Micromedex
· Merge Imaging
Gerry McCarthy, who was previously CEO of Francisco portfolio company eSolutions and has served as president of TransUnion Healthcare and as an executive at McKesson, has been chosen to lead Merative.
"Merative has market-leading products, top clients and talented leadership," he said. "With the commitment, support and deep experience of Francisco Partners, we will invest heavily in expanding the reach of these products as we continue to work with clients to improve healthcare delivery, decision-making and performance."
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2022/07/06/july-is-patient-portal-a-thing-of-the-past/
Is Patient Portal a Thing of the Past?
July 6, 2022
The following is a guest article by Liza Dzhezhora, Healthcare IT Analyst at Itransition.
For years, patient portals have been considered the most efficient tool for patient engagement. According to the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) Stat poll, by 2018 patient portals were employed by about 90% of the surveyed providers.
However, this titanic effort in patient portal development alone seems to be insufficient for portal adoption: the same poll reports that barely 30% of patients use these solutions, year after year. So are portals a thing of the past or is it still possible to revive them? We’ll look into the matter.
What’s wrong with patient portals?
In
fact, the wave of patient portal deployment wasn’t caused by patients’
interest. In fact, it was
healthcare providers’ initiative or, should we say, their need to comply with
Meaningful Use
Stage 2 requirements. This federal regulatory document called for sharing EHR
data with
patients to improve their engagement and independent health management. Patient
portals
have to be made a key tool enabling patient onboarding, with providers who
managed to enroll
their patients receiving a monetary incentive.
However,
in the majority of cases, patient centricity behind portal development was only
nominal: portals often had cumbersome and confusing interfaces. What’s more,
quite often
patients had no idea the facility offered a portal at all, let alone used the
tool.
So
is it the end of portals? It is unless providers find common ground with their
patients in this
regard.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/guidance-needed-on-information-blocking-rule-research-implications
Guidance Needed on Information Blocking Rule Research Implications
While the information blocking rule applies to clinical research data sharing, it is unclear how organizations should negotiate the law in the context of existing regulations.
July 05, 2022 - Federal guidance is needed on information blocking rule implementation for research data sharing, according to a Health Affairs article.
While electronic health information (EHI) holds the potential to advance clinical research, a lack of incentives and standardized procedures to share EHI with researchers has hampered this progress, the authors wrote.
While HIPAA and the Common Rule set conditions for sharing identifiable data for research, those regulations do not mandate that EHI be shared, giving entities that produce EHI broad discretion over researcher access.
However, the information blocking (IB) provision of the 21st Century Cures Act may limit that discretion. Information blocking is defined as any practice likely to interfere with the access, sharing, or use of EHI otherwise permitted by law.
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/ahrq-offers-tips-for-picking-mental-health-mhealth-apps
AHRQ Offers Tips for Picking Mental Health mHealth Apps
Providers, patients, and payers will benefit from an AHRQ brief that evaluates mental health mHealth apps.
June 30, 2022 - To assist in the process of selecting resources, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) issued a brief called “Evaluation of Mental Health Mobile Applications” to help healthcare experts pick out mental health mHealth apps.
Through the new brief, AHRQ aims to aid providers, patients, and payers in selecting mental health mobile applications and seeking the best fit based on various features. AHRQ said picking out apps is often tedious, so a more streamlined approach is needed.
Specifically, the report covers three areas: risk and mitigation strategies, functions, and mental health app features.
Risk and mitigation strategies cover the risk profile for the app, particularly the levels of integrity it brings and potential issues one may experience. Functions cover descriptive aspects ranging from accessibility to costs, along with organization levels and security details. The mental health app features cover journaling and mood description, along with functionality.
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Google Tackles Data Privacy, Plans to Delete Location History at Abortion Clinics
Google says it will delete location history when users visit abortion clinics, domestic violence shelters, and other facilities, signifying an increased focus on data privacy.
By Jill McKeon
July 05, 2022 - Google announced plans to heighten its data privacy practices and said it would delete location history when users visit abortion clinics, domestic violence shelters, fertility centers, weight loss clinics, addiction treatment centers, and other facilities, Google senior vice president Jen Fitzpatrick explained in a Google blog post.
Location history is a Google setting that is off by default, and users can manually or auto-delete location data at any time. Rather than leaving this responsibility in the hands of individual users, Google said it would start automatically deleting select location data when its systems identify that a user visited one of the aforementioned places. The blog post said that the change would take effect “in the coming weeks.”
Fitzpatrick outlined plans to continue promoting transparency and user control. Google recently introduced a new data safety section on Google Play, which sheds light on how apps collect, transmit, and secure user data.
“For Google Fit and Fitbit, we give users settings and tools to easily access and control their personal data, including the option to change and delete personal information, at any time,” the post continued.
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OCR Issues Patient Privacy, HIPAA Privacy Rule Guidance After Roe v. Wade Ruling
HHS OCR expressed its support for a patient’s right to safe and legal abortion and provided resources for protecting patient privacy in the wake of the Roe v. Wade ruling.
By Jill McKeon
July 05, 2022 - The HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued guidance on patient privacy and rights under the HIPAA Privacy Rule that can help patients maintain security and privacy in light of the recent Roe v. Wade ruling.
The guidance contains information on how and when the HIPAA Privacy Rule restricts disclosures of protected health information (PHI) and how patients can safely and securely use their personal cell phones or tablets to access their health information.
The first guidance serves to remind HIPAA-covered entities and their business associates that they can only disclose PHI without a patient’s authorization in select circumstances outlined in the HIPAA Privacy Rule.
“The Privacy Rule permissions for disclosing PHI without an individual’s authorization for purposes not related to health care, such as disclosures to law enforcement officials, are narrowly tailored to protect the individual’s privacy and support their access to health services,” the guidance stated.
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https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/976520
How Racist Is Your Algorithm?
Every time Nathan Chomilo, MD, uses a clinical decision support tool, he tells his patients they have a choice: he can input their race, or keep that field blank.
Until recently, many clinicians didn't question the use of race as a datapoint in tools used to make decisions about diagnosis and care. But that is changing.
"I've almost universally had patients appreciate that someone actually told them that their kidney function was being scored differently because of the color of their skin, or how they were identified in the medical chart along lines of race," Chomilo, an adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota Medical School, in Minneapolis, said.
Chomilo is referring to the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), which combines results from a blood test with factors such as age, sex, and race to calculate kidney function.
The eGFR weighed an input of "African American" as automatically indicating a higher concentration of serum creatinine than a non–African American patient on the basis of the unsubstantiated idea that Black people have more creatinine in their blood at baseline.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/blog/sentient-ai-convincing-you-it-s-human-just-part-lamda-s-job
Sentient AI? Convincing you it’s human is just part of LaMDA’s job
In order for an artificial intelligence to truly be sentient, it would need to be able to think, perceive, and feel rather than simply use language in a highly natural way.
By Chirag Shah
July 05, 2022 10:26 AM
As any great illusionist will tell you, the whole point of a staged illusion is to look utterly convincing, to make whatever is happening on stage seem so thoroughly real that the average audience member would have no way of figuring out how the illusion works.
If this were not the case, it would not be an illusion and the illusionist would essentially be without a job. In this analogy, Google is the illusionist and its LaMDA chatbot – which made headlines a few weeks ago after a top engineer claimed the conversational AI had achieved sentience – is the illusion. That is to say, despite the surge of excitement and speculation on social media and in the media in general, and despite the engineer's claims, LaMDA is not sentient.
How could AI sentience be proven?
This is, of course, the million dollar question – to which there is currently no answer.
LaMDA is a language model-based chat agent designed to generate fluid sentences and conversations that look and sound completely natural. The fluidity stands in stark contrast to the awkward and clunky AI chatbots of the past that often resulted in frustrating or unintentionally funny "conversations," and perhaps it was this contrast that impressed people so much, understandably.
Our normalcy bias tells us that only other sentient human beings are able to be this "articulate." Thus, when witnessing this level of articulateness from an AI, it is normal to feel that it must surely be sentient.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/st-lukes-university-health-proves-telehealth-good-person-care
St. Luke's University Health proves telehealth is as good as in-person care
And telemedicine provides the flexibility to pivot along the care journey and maintain a consistent care continuum for patients from wherever they are.
By Bill Siwicki
July 05, 2022 11:55 AM
St. Luke's University Health Network realized it needed technology that could help expand care across its 14 hospitals throughout Eastern Pennsylvania and Western New Jersey spanning both urban and rural areas.
THE PROBLEM
The organization was looking for a way to not only expand network coverage but also to reduce time to consult. It also wanted to expand access to care whenever patients needed it, which St. Luke's knew would require additional clinical coverage. The provider organization realized through virtual care it could enable its clinicians to see patients much faster.
"Another problem we had was with the number of solutions we were using," noted Jody McCloud Missmer, behavioral health network administrator, St. Luke's University Health Network.
"We had multiple platforms in place so it was important that we could find a solution that worked within our EHR, to make the process simpler for our care team members and would be sustainable for the long term.
"We also needed to make sure the solution could accommodate language preferences to meet the needs of our diverse patient population," she added.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/03/abortion-data-privacy-prosecution/
Texts, web searches about abortion have been used to prosecute women
The data privacy risks associated with abortion aren’t hypothetical. Cases in Mississippi and Indiana could preview how digital evidence could be used post-Roe.
By Cat Zakrzewski, Pranshu Verma and Claire Parker
July 3, 2022 at 9:20 a.m. EDT
Paramedics arrived at Latice Fisher’s Mississippi home to find a baby in the toilet, lifeless and blue, the umbilical cord still attached. The child — roughly six pounds and more than 35 weeks along — was rushed to the hospital, where it was pronounced dead.
Fisher, a mother of three, told paramedics she had not known she was pregnant. But she later admitted to a nurse that she had known about the pregnancy. And after she voluntarily surrendered her iPhone to police, investigators discovered that Fisher, a former police dispatcher, had searched for how to “buy Misopristol Abortion Pill Online” 10 days earlier.
While there is no evidence Fisher took the pills — court records indicate only that she “apparently” bought them — her search history helped prosecutors charge her with “killing her infant child,” identified in the original indictment as “Baby Fisher.” The 2017 case is one of a handful in which American prosecutors have used text messages and online research as evidence against women facing criminal charges related to the end of their pregnancies.
Since the Supreme Court on overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling on June 24— opening the door to state bans on abortion from the moment of conception — privacy experts have warned that many more pregnant people and their abortion providers could find themselves in similar circumstances. While some fret over data maintained by period trackers and other specialty apps, the case against Fisher shows that simple search histories may pose enormous risks in a post-Roe world.
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Enjoy!
David.
