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://mhealthintelligence.com/news/patients-indicate-high-levels-of-satisfaction-following-telehealth-use
Patients Indicate High Levels of Satisfaction Following Telehealth Use
New
research shows that 57 to 80 percent of patients prefer telehealth when
obtaining care, revealing high levels of satisfaction with the care modality.
By Mark Melchionna
September 30,
2022 - According to new
research findings from the JD Power 2022 US Telehealth Satisfaction Study,
telehealth has become more than a temporary replacement for in-person care due
to high consumer preference and its role in expanding access to mental health
treatment.
At the
beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, many providers turned to telehealth
due to the restrictions placed on in-person care. Data collected in 2022 by JD
Power indicates that patient satisfaction with telehealth is high, with many
claiming that they now prefer it to in-person care.
“Telehealth
and digital technologies are transforming how patients seek and receive
healthcare,” said Christopher Lis, managing director of global healthcare
intelligence at JD Power, in a press release. “Telehealth has the potential to
increase access, convenience, care coordination and continuity, improve
outcomes, and fill in gaps in provider coverage, particularly in underserved
areas.”
The 2022
survey, which polled 4,306 healthcare customers between June and July, revealed
several noteworthy data points. For example, 67 percent of patients indicated
that they had used telehealth in the preceding year, which is significantly
higher than the 37 percent that did the same in 2019.
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https://patientengagementhit.com/news/opennotes-pilots-initiative-for-caregiver-engagement-data-access
OpenNotes Pilots Initiative for Caregiver Engagement, Data Access
The
OpenNotes program launching this fall will work to identify care partners,
assess their needs, and offer practical resources to improve caregiver
engagement.
By Sara Heath
September 30,
2022 - Beth Israel Lahey Health Primary Care and two other clinical
sites will
be piloting OurNotes for Care Partners, an OpenNotes project to support
caregiver engagement and data access.
Caregivers
are an essential part of a patient’s care team, often providing a wide
range of services, like emotional support and medication management, while
also participating in patient care decisions.
However,
their needs often go unnoticed. The healthcare industry has
struggled to engage family caregivers as care partners, with many
caregivers going without the health information necessary to facilitate care
for their loved ones.
This project
aims to develop a healthcare organization-specific system that leverages
technology to identify caregivers, improve caregiver-patient communication,
and connect care partners with needed services.
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https://www.digitalhealth.net/2022/09/nhs-app-reaches-30-million-sign-ups-milestone-by-4th-anniversary/
NHS App reaches 30 million sign-ups milestone by 4th anniversary
The NHS
App has recorded more than 30 million sign-ups as well as close to 450,000 new
organ donation decisions since it was launched four years ago.
Core Lydon –
30 Sep, 2022
The app was launched back in September 2018 and people are now being
encouraged to use the app to register their organ donation preferences during
Organ Donation Week (26 September – 2 October). The total number of organ
donation decisions that were registered for the first time through the app
increased 69% in a year and since last September there have been 183,000 new
decisions registered.
Susie Day,
NHS digital director of delivery, NHS App said: “Millions of people are
continuing to use the NHS App to take control of their healthcare directly from
their phone or the NHS website, with over 30 million sign-ups now recorded.
“It’s great
to see rising numbers of people using the app to register and manage their
organ donation decisions and we encourage everyone, if they haven’t already
done so, to record this important decision through the app or online.”
Figures from
NHS Digital show:
·
Organ donation preferences have been managed
over 3.7 million times through the NHS App in total, including updates to
existing decisions.
·
448,000 new organ donation decisions have been
registered.
·
4 million GP appointments were booked via the
app between September 21 and August 22.
·
Over 19.3 million repeat prescriptions were
ordered through the app between September 21 and August 22.
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https://www.digitalhealth.net/2022/09/the-christie-goes-live-with-eproms-on-new-digital-health-platform/
The Christie goes live with ePROMs on new digital health platform
The
Christie NHS Foundation Trust has gone live with an electronic Patient Reported
Outcome Measures (ePROMs) system which connects cancer patients with the trust.
Cora Lydon – 23
Sep, 2022
The ePROMS is
part of the trust’s five-year strategy where it it aims to modernise its
electronic health record which includes underpinning it by openEHR data
standards. As part of that strategy, The
Christie selected Better last September to deliver a digital health platform.
ePROMs is the
first of more than 680 forms which will be digitalised by the trust using
Better’s low-code tools with 24 forms being launched across 10 cancer pathways
and a further 10 more are planned for by the end of this year
The
development of the ePROMs saw the joining up and structuring of siloed data to
be used in the forms. The data that is collected then feeds into the Better
platform, so that data from both patients and clinicians is made instantly
available trust-wide.
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https://www.statnews.com/2022/09/27/hold-accountable-doctors-who-knowingly-spread-covid-19-lies/
Doctors who knowingly spread Covid-19 lies should be held accountable
By Juliana
E. MorrisSept. 27, 2022
The California State Legislature has sent a bill to Gov. Gavin Newsom that strengthens
discipline for doctors who knowingly spread Covid-19 misinformation.
Legislation like this is sorely needed across the country.
More
than two years into the pandemic, Covid-19 misinformation still runs rampant.
Some comes from doctors spreading lies about unproven — and actually
harmful — “treatments” for Covid-19 and promoting anti-vaccine conspiracy
theories. Physicians account for three of the 12 individuals thought to be responsible for
up to 73% of anti-vaccine content on Facebook. These physicians have been
highly influential in their claims that, for example, masks suppress the immune system and that, after getting
the vaccine, “becoming sterile [is] almost a certainty.” These lies have real and potentially deadly consequences.
An
effective response to misinformation and its effects requires a multilayered
approach, including one that holds rogue physicians accountable for their
pronouncements, helping to preserve integrity within the medical profession.
As
a primary care physician, I see the effects of Covid-19 misinformation every
day. Some of my patients continue to decline getting vaccinated against
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, based on false theories about
immunizations causing death or decreased
fertility. A few have become severely ill from the virus just weeks after
saying “no” to vaccination during their visit to my office.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/over-50-of-text-in-ehr-notes-is-duplicate-clinical-documentation
Over 50% of Text in EHR Notes is Duplicate Clinical Documentation
Duplicate
content in EHR notes increases the time for physicians to determine which data
is accurate and creates viral copies of errors that can spread through clinical
documentation.
By Hannah Nelson
September 30,
2022 - More than half of all text in EHR notes is duplicated, according to
a study
published in JAMA Network Open that suggests the need for a new clinical
documentation paradigm that supports the stability of shared information over
time.
Researchers
analyzed more than 100 million notes to characterize the prevalence of
duplication in the EHR.
Duplicate
content was prevalent in notes written by physicians at all levels of training,
nurses, and therapists.
Physicians
wrote the notes with the largest amounts of novel information and the longest
notes. While comprehensive, the documentation was repetitive; physician EHR
notes included 30 percent to 70 percent duplicate content.
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AI study finds 50% of patient notes duplicated
Investigators
used natural language processing and deep learning to explore the prevalence of
patient information duplicated from prior notes in medical records.
By Andrea Fox
September 30,
2022 10:04 AM
A
new health informatics study found that clinical care documentation results in
a high prevalence of text duplication and that systemic hazards require
systemic interventions to fix.
WHY IT
MATTERS
Earlier this year, a team led by researchers from the University of
Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia used artificial
intelligence to analyze all inpatient and outpatient notes written within the
UPenn Health System from January 1, 2015, through December 31, 2020.
The
investigators quantified the text duplicated from a different author versus
text copied from the same author to find out how much duplication is present in
the electronic health record and why.
Of
the total notes for more than 1.96 million unique patients (104,456,653), 50.1%
of the words were duplicated from prior notes written about the same patient
(32,991,489,889 of 16,52, 85, 210 total words).
The
researchers also found that the rate of duplication increased year-over-year,
from 33% for notes written in 2015 to 54.2% for notes written in 2020.
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/fda-releases-guidance-on-ai-driven-clinical-decision-support-tools
FDA Releases Guidance on AI-Driven Clinical Decision Support Tools
The FDA
has released new guidance recommending that some artificial
intelligence-powered clinical decision support tools, like sepsis prediction devices,
should be regulated as medical devices.
By Shania Kennedy
September 29,
2022 - The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has released new guidance stating that
some artificial intelligence (AI) tools should be regulated as medical devices
as part of the agency’s oversight of clinical decision support (CDS) software.
The new
guidance includes a list of AI tools that should be regulated as medical
devices, including devices to predict sepsis, identify patient deterioration,
forecast heart failure hospitalizations, and flag patients who may be addicted
to opioids, among others.
In recent
years, AI and machine learning (ML) have been increasingly incorporated into
medical devices because these algorithms are capable of “learning” from
experience and improving performance over time.
As a result,
the FDA Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) is considering
“a total product lifecycle-based regulatory framework for these technologies
that would allow for modifications to be made from real-world learning and
adaptation, while ensuring that the safety and effectiveness of the software as
a medical device are maintained.”
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/telehealth-care-quality-better-than-in-person-for-some-measures
Telehealth Care Quality Better Than In-Person For Some Measures
New
research shows that telehealth can enhance healthcare quality, with telehealth
patients experiencing a similar or better performance in some quality measures
than patients receiving in-person care.
By Mark Melchionna
September 29,
2022 - While researching the effects of telehealth and in-person care
within a large integrated health system, a
study published in JAMA Network Open found that virtual care methods can
expand healthcare capabilities, performing on par or better than in-person care
on most quality measures evaluated.
Due to
in-person care restrictions implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, many
patients and providers turned to telehealth to ensure necessary access to
healthcare. Though telehealth use has since leveled off, it remains popular.
Thus, researchers set out to assess the quality of patient care among those who
used telehealth compared to those who did not.
Researchers
conducted a retrospective cohort study that included 526,874 patients, 409,732
of whom received only in-person care, and 117,142 participated in telehealth
visits. Of those who received only in-person care, 49.7 percent were women, 85
percent were non-Hispanic, and 82 percent were White. Of those who received
care via telehealth, 63.9 percent were women, 90 percent were non-Hispanic, and
86 percent were White.
Researchers
noted that patients in the in-person-only group performed better on
medication-based measures. But only three of the five measures had significant
differences: patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD) receiving
antiplatelets, those with CVD receiving statins, and those with upper
respiratory infections avoiding antibiotics.
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/chronic-care-patients-88-more-likely-to-use-telehealth-than-their-peers
Chronic Care Patients 88% More Likely to Use Telehealth Than Their Peers
New
research shows that telehealth use continues to impact healthcare delivery
positively and remains popular among patients, especially chronic care, female,
and mental health patients.
By Mark Melchionna
September 28,
2022 - Research
from athenahealth shows that despite a decrease in pandemic-related
restrictions, telehealth continues to improve care delivery by helping to fill
care gaps and providing various benefits aside from solely replacing in-person
visits.
athenahealth
conducted a survey that gathered information regarding telehealth use and
patient demographics. The survey, fielded by Dynata, polled 2,000 US adults
between Jan. 1, 2019, and April 30, 2022.
During the
COVID-19 pandemic, many providers turned to telehealth amid in-person care
restrictions. The survey notes that virtual visits accounted for approximately
12.1 percent of all visits during spring 2020.
Although that
figure dropped to 8.9 percent in the first half of 2022, the research indicates
that telehealth has enhanced care access and emerged as a reliable mode of
treatment delivery.
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https://patientengagementhit.com/news/patient-portal-use-in-mental-health-is-up-but-digital-literacy-key
Patient Portal Use in Mental Health Is Up, But Digital Literacy Key
Although
research noted increases in patient portal use in mental health, digital health
literacy and accommodations for all patient populations are still needed to
reach full potential.
By Sara Heath
September 29,
2022 - Patient portal use in mental health is getting more common, but
still, only about half of those with self-reported anxiety or depression are
using the health IT, according to data
published in Psychiatry Research Communications.
Moreover, the
study found considerable disparities in patient portal use based on gender,
age, income, and race or ethnicity.
The
healthcare industry has thrown a lot of its efforts behind the patient portal,
lauding the health IT as the bedrock of patient engagement. As a key metric in
the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs, patient portal use and
patient data access were argued to be the defining
factor in patient activation. A patient cannot self-manage an illness when
she does not have access to her medical information, experts have reasoned.
And although
leading industry groups, including the Office of the National Coordinator for
Health IT (ONC), have conducted extensive research about patient
portal use and adoption—and the barriers to access—less is known about how
the technology is used in the mental health space.
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https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/innovation/whenever-there-s-chaos-there-s-opportunity-says-stanford-health-care-chief-data-scientist-dr-nigam-shah.html
'Whenever there's chaos, there's opportunity,' says Stanford Health Care
chief data scientist Dr. Nigam Shah
Giles Bruce – 29 Sep, 2022
The
first supercomputer for artificial intelligence in medicine was developed at
Stanford University in the early 1970s. So it makes sense that the health
system affiliated with the university recently named its inaugural chief data scientist to integrate AI
into patient care.
But
before unveiling cool, innovative tools, Nigam Shah, PhD, has been spending his
first few months in the role at Palo Alto, Calif.-based Stanford Health Care
trying to prove that AI is actually useful in healthcare.
"The
chatter tends to be about: Is it fair? Is it going to impact people? Is it
going to increase disparities? Is it going to put people out of work?" Dr.
Shah told Becker's.
"Very few places, if any, ask the question that if we use AI to guide
care, will we get any value?"
Dr.
Shah and some colleagues recently analyzed assessments of 15 healthcare AI models. They found
that of the 220 items of information requested, more than half focused on the
model itself, while only four pertained to fairness and none looked at usefulness.
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https://www.nextgov.com/cxo-briefing/2022/09/hhs-needs-ensure-telehealth-patients-and-providers-understand-privacy-risks/377700/
HHS Needs to Ensure Telehealth Patients and Providers Understand Privacy
Risks
By Alexandra
Kelley,
Staff Correspondent
September 27,
2022
An oversight report underscored the need for improved patient privacy and
security disclosures following the pandemic-related telehealth boom.
The federal
government needs to take stronger action in informing Medicare patients about
their rights to privacy and security surrounding their medical and health data
following the dramatic surge in telehealth uses during the COVID-19 pandemic,
according to a new oversight report.
The
Government Accountability Office examined the telehealth care used by the
Health and Human Services Department for Medicare patients during the height of
the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to a sudden influx in need, HHS officials
temporarily waived select Medicare restrictions on telehealth.
While
the need for in-home, remote medical care was critical during the onset of the
pandemic, the GAO reports that stricter procedures are needed to enforce
telehealth providers’ disclosure of privacy and security risks associated with
virtual treatment.
The
HHS Office of Civil Rights “encouraged covered providers to notify patients of
potential privacy and security risks. However, it did not advise providers of
specific language to use or give direction to help them explain these risks to
their patients,” the report said. “Providing such information to providers
could help ensure that patients understand potential effects on their protected
health information in light of the privacy and security risks associated with telehealth
technology.”
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https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/providers/podnosis-artificial-intelligence-healthcare-how-payers-invest-social-needs
'Podnosis': Broadening artificial intelligence's scope in healthcare, how
payers can invest in social needs
By Teresa Carey
Sep 28, 2022 06:00am
While
there has been a lot of hype about artificial intelligence radically
transforming healthcare, adoption has been slower and more measured than
previously predicted. Instead of replacing doctors, clinicians are using AI as
a tool to improve everything from their diagnoses to billing practices. Last
year, healthcare AI startups raised $12.4 billion. That’s nearly double the
previous year. But there are some concerns, such as privacy around using
patients' data. Fierce Senior Editor Heather Landi talks with John
Halamka, M.D., who leads Mayo Clinic’s digital health and AI projects, to find
out about what is standing in the way of more widespread use and what
organizations should be doing to protect patients’ data.
Also
on the podcast, we'll discuss social factors that in fact play a
significant role in a person’s overall health like poverty, racism, unequal
access to healthcare or lack of education. Healthcare industry insiders are
aware of this challenge. So, with that backdrop, payers have invested
significantly in bringing on the expertise necessary to tackle these social
needs both at scale and across a variety of communities. At UnitedHealthcare,
that work is led by Alex Billioux, M.D. He chats with Fierce Healthcare's
senior editor Paige Minemeyer to discuss how payers can address social needs to
really make a difference in these challenges.
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https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/ai-and-machine-learning/how-google-mayo-clinic-and-kaiser-permanente-say-theyre-addressing-health
How Google, Mayo Clinic and Kaiser Permanente tackle AI bias and thorny
data privacy problems
By Dave Muoio
Sep 28, 2022 08:00am
Provider
and tech organizations alike often say that artificial intelligence, if fully
realized, could herald a new paradigm for healthcare delivery.
Even
today, teams across major names like the Mayo Clinic, Google and Kaiser
Permanente are working on tools that can rapidly scan images to predict medical
diagnoses, skim medical records to highlight optimal clinical decisions for
practitioners, triage patients, streamline administrative tasks and nudge consumers
toward healthier tasks or information.
But
those same AI evangelists are also quick to acknowledge the numerous barriers
and pitfalls where the technology has so far stumbled. Chief among these are
issues of privacy, transparency and equity.
“Everyone
should have the opportunity to achieve the full benefits of AI from their
healthcare system,” Michael Howell, M.D., chief clinical officer and deputy
chief health officer at Google, said Monday during an online discussion about
healthcare AI. "We should work systematically to eliminate those
barriers.”
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/new-free-software-enables-3d-image-sharing-pacs
New free software enables 3D image sharing in PACS
The new
software, developed in-house at San Diego-based Rady Children's Hospital,
allows physicians to easily view and interact with 3D patient models, saving
time and improving patient care.
By Andrea Fox
September 28,
2022 01:24 PM
Created
by a collaborative team at the Rady Hospital's Helen and Will Webster
Foundation 3D Innovations Lab, or 3DI Lab, this freely available software is
being touted as the first-ever tool of its kind.
WHY IT
MATTERS
With
Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine standardization software, or
DICOM doctors can use the standard picture archiving communication system
imaging to import and export individual patients’ 3D models.
Previously,
3D imaging was accessible only with specialized software.
Called
Media2DICOM, the software developed at Rady allows image technicians to either
convert videos of patients’ 3D models or the 3D datasets themselves into standardized
DICOM files.
The
files are then embedded within patient medical records and accessible through
the healthcare facility’s PACS, where other patient media, such as computerized
tomography and magnetic resonance imaging scans, are also available.
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2022/09/28/vocal-markers-move-toward-clinical-use/
Vocal Markers Move Toward Clinical Use
September 28, 2022
Andy Oram
Readers
of this publication probably have heard of the impressive
advances in analyzing voice patterns for disease. These automated models
can monitor so many people efficiently that they have potential applications in
public health as well as diagnosis and treatment.
A
simple app on a cell phone can detect
unusual patterns in speech that suggest when a person is depressed or
anxious, is losing cognitive function, or has pulmonary disease.
But
there are several
reasons that “prediagnostic” data from popular devices can’t be trusted:
lack of regulation, user error, lack of information about the device’s
operation, etc.
Nobody
is relying on vocal markers for diagnosis yet, according to David Liu, CEO of Sonde Health. But the analyses are
useful input to doctors’ diagnoses. I talked to Liu recently about what Sonde
Health is doing in India and other parts of the world with vocal markers.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/usa-health-cuts-sepsis-mortality-rate-with-oracle-cerner-ehr-workflows
USA Health Cuts Sepsis Mortality Rate With Oracle Cerner EHR Workflows
The Sepsis
Performance Improvement team included a diverse representation of departments
to oversee the adoption of workflow changes within the Oracle Cerner EHR.
By Hannah Nelson
September 27,
2022 - After implementing
new Oracle Cerner EHR workflows and alert algorithms, USA Health reduced its
sepsis mortality rate by 16.5 percent.
The health
system initiated a performance improvement effort in early 2021 to reduce
mortality by improving early identification and evidence-based treatment of
sepsis.
The team set
out to identify opportunities to support staff in providing evidence-based care
to patients through cross-department collaboration among pharmacy, nursing,
quality, IT, and physicians. Ultimately, they implemented a sepsis alert
algorithm in August 2021. Oracle Cerner deployed alert workflows and PowerPlans
with client-developed sepsis content in October 2021.
The alert
algorithms, along with better workflow and alert response options, were aimed
at supporting near real-time patient monitoring and early identification and
treatment of sepsis.
-----
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/981445
Sharpen Your Telehealth Skills: 9 Tips for Doctors
Maya Ordoñez
September 26, 2022
In
early April 2020, family medicine Kyle Leggott, MD, was logging into a
telehealth visit from his Aurora, Colorado, home. He'd shifted to 100% virtual
visits but was struggling with one thing.
Connection.
Not
the internet kind, but the human kind. The kind that helps you earn a patient's
trust and can be hard to form through a computer screen.
Today,
Leggott was meeting with James and Sarah, an older couple at risk for
COVID-related complications. Five minutes in, the doorbell rang, the mail
carrier leaving a package. Leggott cringed as his two dogs starting barking and
racing to and from the door.
Leggott
started to apologize, but James's and Sarah's faces lit up. "Is that an
Australian shepherd?" they asked. Turned out, the pup looked just like
their old dog, Roy, who'd been with them for 15 years but recently passed away.
That's
when James and Sarah opened up. Holed up in their mountain home, they hadn't
interacted with anyone in weeks. They missed Roy dearly and seeing Leggott's
dogs brought them joy in a time of anxiousness and isolation. To this day,
though James has passed away, Leggott makes sure his dogs are at his feet for
every virtual visit with Sarah.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/blog/lose-covid-19-public-health-emergency-keep-progress
Lose the COVID-19 public health emergency, but keep the progress
Healthcare
organizations must urge the Senate to pass critical telehealth legislation, and
enact at least a two-year extension of the important PHE-era policies while
working toward a permanent solution.
By David Gray
September 27,
2022 11:09 AM
When
President Joe Biden recently declared on national television that “the pandemic
is over,” he offered a glimpse into the strategy his administration will be
using on COVID-19 going forward: We’re ready to move on.
Biden’s
statement, which divided the public health community and the public, has
wide-reaching implications for the fate of connected health and vital
telehealth services.
In
January 2020, then-Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services Alex Azar signed the first Public Health Emergency declaration,
declaring COVID-19 a national emergency. The PHE has been renewed every 90 days
and is currently set to end on Oct. 13, 2022, unless it’s renewed yet
again.
All
signs point to the PHE extending for another 90-day period until January 2023
because the 60 day advance notice wasn’t given in August, but the
president’s latest statement indicates this could be the final renewal, and the
PHE may finally expire in the new year.
Without
action from Congress, most of the telehealth flexibilities will cease, cutting
off telehealth access to a majority of Medicare beneficiaries. It would also
stall much-needed progress to fully integrate telehealth as a central element
of healthcare delivery. We cannot afford to let that happen. Patients and
providers deserve to have continued access to every tool at their disposal.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/health-system-cisos-offer-tips-building-cybersecurity-muscle-memory
Health system CISOs offer tips for building cybersecurity 'muscle memory'
Rigorous and
routine training for incident response across the enterprise is critical to
maintaining patient safety in the event of a cyber attack, say three security
leaders.
By Andrea Fox
September 27,
2022 08:00 AM
By
focusing on broader incident response training efforts – which involves
medical, operational and other teams – as part of overall emergency
preparedness programs, healthcare providers will be better positioned to
maintain and deliver patient care when systems are breached and potentially
disabled following a cyberattack.
Cyber
attacks risk patient care
A
recent study by the Ponemon Institute involving more than 640 healthcare IT and
security leader participants found that while most of the provider
organizations experienced nearly an attack each week last year, 57% also say
these attacks are resulting in adverse impacts on patient care.
Half
of respondents cited an increase of complications from medical procedures – and
20% reported an increase in mortality rates.
"This
report aligns with the reality that healthcare organizations are facing in
terms of the effects to patient safety," said Anahi Santiago, chief
information security officer at Delaware-based ChristianaCare.
She
and other healthcare cybersecurity leaders spoke with Healthcare
IT News about the connection between cyber hygiene and patient
safety and how to prepare for healthcare cyber attacks.
-----
https://ehrintelligence.com/news/meaningful-use-ehrs-may-be-key-to-improved-quality-of-care
‘Meaningful Use’ EHRs May Be Key to Improved Quality of Care
Hospitals
that meet the “Meaningful Use” EHR requirements were able to improve quality of
care and reduce patient mortality rates more than other hospitals.
By Hannah Nelson
September 26,
2022 - The use of EHRs has resulted in improved quality of care, according
to a study
published in Journal for Healthcare Quality.
In 2011, CMS
established the “Meaningful Use” program, now known as the “Promoting
Interoperability Program,” which offers financial incentives to providers who
effectively use EHRs in a way that promotes public health reporting and
interoperability.
University of
Missouri researchers analyzed the impact of EHRs on mortality rates for
patients with various medical procedures and conditions.
The study
included more than five million patients in 300 hospitals, which merged large
datasets from EHRs, the American Hospital Association, and CMS.
The
researchers found three main categories:
- Hospitals that meet the “Meaningful
Use” requirements with their EHRs
- Hospitals that fully implement EHRs
but not in a way that meets the “Meaningful Use” requirements
- Hospitals that have either none or
only partially implemented EHRs.
-----
https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/new-digital-masks-touted-means-protecting-patient-privacy
Sep 22 2022
New 'digital masks' touted as means of protecting patient privacy
The
technology could effectively remove identity attributes, and was met with a
positive reaction by patients with ocular diseases.
Jeff Lagasse,
Editor
Technologists
writing in the journal Nature
have created a digital "mask," dubbed the DM, which they say offers a
pragmatic approach to safeguarding patient privacy in electronic health records
and during virtual healthcare visits.
There appear
to be clinical benefits to the DM as well.
The
technology is based on real-time 3D reconstruction and deep learning, and is
meant to retain the clinical attributes contained in patient videos, while
minimizing access to nonessential biometric information. This is designed for
added personal privacy in clinical practice.
Early
experimental results show that with the DM, examination videos of patients with
ocular disease can be precisely reconstructed from 2D videos containing
original faces. A clinical diagnosis comparison showed that ophthalmologists
achieved high consistency in reaching the same diagnosis when using the
original videos and the corresponding DM-reconstructed videos.
This
technology could effectively remove identity attributes, and was met with a
positive reaction by patients with ocular diseases. They expressed an
increasing willingness to share their personal information and have it stored
digitally with this added layer of biometric protection.
-----
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/oracle-plans-rewrite-vas-cerner-ehr-system-fix-outages-amid-increased-scrutiny-congress
Oracle plans to 'rewrite' VA's Cerner EHR system to fix outages amid
increased scrutiny from Congress
By Heather Landi
Sep 22, 2022 06:00pm
Tech
giant Oracle promised lawmakers this week that it would revamp the beleaguered
Cerner computer system being deployed at Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals.
The
company acquired Cerner only months earlier and is now focused on righting the
ship on the $16 billion medical records system project that has been
plagued by delays, leadership turnover and infrastructure problems since it
kicked off in 2018.
VA signed
a $10 billion deal with health IT company Cerner in May 2018 to
move from the VA’s customized VistA platform to an off-the-shelf EHR to
align the country’s largest health system with the Department of Defense
(DOD), which has already started integrating Cerner’s MHS Genesis system.
The
VA has pushed off deployment of its new EHR system to additional medical
facilities until 2023 to address outages that have plagued the software at
current sites. Recent watchdog reports found that the new EHR system had caused
nearly 150 cases of patient harm at a Spokane VA hospital.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/blog/agile-practices-they-re-not-just-software-development
Agile practices – they’re not just for software development
At Penn
Medicine, agile methods have been adopted by a number of information technology
teams, including teams that support its enterprise EHR, data analytics, IT
operations and systems administration.
By Glenn Fala
September 26,
2022 10:29 AM
Agile
software development methodologies such as Scrum and Kanban have been widely
adopted by industry software development teams. Although agile practices
originated in the realm of software development, other types of information
technology teams can benefit from adopting similar approaches.
Fundamentally,
agile methods are a set of practices that help teams to collaborate, organize
their work, and see it through to completion.
Agile methods for software development
Agile
methodology has emerged as a widespread practice for software development in
response to the frustrations common in traditional software development
projects, with their distinct, lengthy phases of scoping, requirements
definition, design, build, and testing. Each of these sequential phases can
take months, leading to long software development cycles.
Especially
in large organizations, traditional software projects can be difficult to
manage and unsatisfying for those involved. If you’ve ever had to grapple with
business requirement documents that are hundreds of pages long, or if you’ve
sat through requirements and design walkthroughs for days on end, only to be
disappointed by the software that was eventually delivered nine to12 months
down the road, you’ll understand those frustrations.
-----
https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/innovation/healthcare-executives-plot-path-forward-digital-health-transformation
Healthcare Executives Plot a Path Forward With Digital Health
Transformation
Analysis
| By Eric Wicklund |
September 26, 2022
CIOs and other healthcare executives gathered in Boston this week for the
HealthLeaders Innovation Exchange, where they talked about moving past the
pandemic and into a new era of connected health.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
·
Roughly two dozen healthcare CIOs and other
executives gathered this week in Boston at the HealthLeaders Innovation
Exchange to talk about innovation strategy.
·
Many agreed that innovation and digital health
transformation weren't taken seriously until the pandemic, and health systems
are now trying to figure out how to plan a long-term strategy that balances
innovation with sustainability.
·
They also pointed out that innovation isn't
limited to one department head or one department, but needs input and support
from all the levels of the healthcare system to succeed.
As
the healthcare industry seeks to regain its footing after the pandemic, those
in charge of innovation strategy are looking to balance lessons learned from
COVID-19 with the need to be on solid financial ground.
That's
a challenging task, say health system CIOs and other executives attending the
HealthLeaders Innovation Exchange this week in Boston. In many cases, health
systems have adopted telehealth and digital health out of necessity, to deal
with COVID-19, but they haven't really put the work into shaping a long-term strategy.
"For
the better part of the last decade we've been paying lip service to digital
transformation," said Saad Chaudhry, MSc, MPH, CHCIO, CDH-E, chief information
officer at Annapolis, Maryland-based Luminis Health. The pandemic "was a splash of water in
everyone's faces."
-----
Enjoy!
David.
