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/geisinger-tests-mhealth-platform-for-chronic-pain-treatment
Geisinger Tests mHealth Platform for Chronic Pain Treatment
The
Pennsylvania health system is participating in a study that uses VR glasses and
an mHealth platform to help patients manage acute and chronic pain at home.
By Eric Wicklund
November 19,
2020 - Health systems looking for an alternative to opioids are testing
out mHealth and telehealth tools to help patients living with acute and chronic
pain.
The Geisinger
Health System, for example, is using virtual reality (VR) headsets and a connected
health platform designed by AppliedVR to treat patients, first training them on
the technology at the hospital and then sending them home to continue
treatment.
Chronic pain
“can be insidious and long-lasting,” says Michaek Suk, MD, the chairman of Geisinger’s
Musculoskeletal Institute and Department of Orthopedic Surgery. “We really want
to add more arrows to the quiver when it comes to treating these conditions,
and to make more of an impact in post-acute treatment.”
The
Pennsylvania-based health system has been testing the platform in
a study coordinated by AppliedVR, an LA company that received FDA
Breakthrough Device designation just last month to use its platform, as a digital
therapeutic to treat treatment-resistant fibromyalgia and chronic
intractable lower back pain. Both Geisinger and the Cleveland Clinic are using
the technology, with funding from a $2.9 million grant from the National
Institute of Health’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) awarded to
AppliedVR.
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/expanding-access-to-mental-healthcare-with-artificial-intelligence
Expanding Access to Mental Healthcare with Artificial Intelligence
Researchers
at University of Illinois Chicago are testing a virtual agent powered by
artificial intelligence to broaden access to mental healthcare.
By Jessica Kent
September 29,
2020 - Across the country today, it is widely acknowledged that access to
mental healthcare is just as important as clinical care when it comes to overall
wellness.
Mental health
conditions are incredibly common in the US, impacting tens of millions of
people each year, according to
the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH). However, estimates suggest
that only half of people with these conditions receive treatment, mainly due to
barriers
like clinician shortages, fragmented care, and societal stigma.
For the many
individuals suffering from anxiety and depression, these existing barriers –
coupled with the current
healthcare crisis – can significantly interfere with the ability to carry
out life activities.
“The
prevalence of mental health disorders – particularly depression and anxiety –
is high. If anything, the prevalence of these conditions has only increased as a
result of COVID-19. The need is greater than ever now,” Jun Ma, PhD, Beth
and George Vitoux Professor of Medicine at the University
of Illinois Chicago (UIC) department of medicine, told HealthITAnalytics.
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/machine-learning-predicts-how-cancer-patients-will-respond-to-therapy
Machine Learning Predicts How Cancer Patients Will Respond to Therapy
A machine
learning model was able to predict which skin cancer patients will benefit from
immunotherapies.
By Jessica Kent
November 18,
2020 - A machine learning algorithm accurately determined how well skin
cancer patients would respond to tumor-suppressing drugs in four out of five
cases, according to research
conducted by a team from NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Perlmutter Cancer
Center.
The study
focused on metastatic melanoma, a disease that kills nearly 6,800 Americans
each year. Immune checkpoint inhibitors, which keep tumors from shutting down
the immune system’s attack on them, have been shown to be more effective than
traditional chemotherapies for many patients with melanoma.
However, half
of patients don’t respond to these immunotherapies, and these drugs are
expensive and often cause side effects in patients.
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https://www.statnews.com/2020/11/18/interoperability-untapped-tool-fight-against-covid-19/
Interoperability: an untapped tool in America’s fight against Covid-19
By Bruce Broussard
November 18,
2020
As the coronavirus pandemic collides with flu season,
barriers to accessing medical information could undermine not only individual
patient care but public health. Our ability to successfully prevent, isolate, and
control outbreaks of infectious disease will depend on how we leverage data and
technology to track its spread and treat individual patients.
One lesson
emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic is that we must seize the opportunity to
modernize how Americans’ health information is managed. The flow of data
between patients’ electronic health records and public health surveillance
systems is often a manual process involving paper documents and fax machines.
Broad adoption of interoperability — the secure sharing of health
information across platforms — has the potential to dramatically improve not
only our response to the pandemic but also individual health outcomes.
The urgent
need is clear, and the technology is available. But interoperability isn’t
happening.
At its core,
interoperability is the requirement that all electronic health record systems
(EHRs) “talk” to each other, so an emergency room in Wyoming can look up an
ailing tourist’s health records in Alabama.
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https://khn.org/news/people-proving-to-be-weakest-link-for-apps-tracking-covid-exposure/
People Proving to Be Weakest Link for Apps Tracking COVID Exposure
By Rae Ellen Bichell November
19, 2020
The app
builders had planned for pranksters, ensuring that only people with verified
COVID-19 cases could trigger an alert. They’d planned for heavy criticism about
privacy, in many cases making the features as bare-bones as possible. But, as
more states roll out smartphone contact-tracing technology, other challenges
are emerging. Namely, human nature.
The problem
starts with downloads. Stefano Tessaro calls it the “chicken-and-egg” issue: The
system works only if a lot of people buy into it, but people will buy into it
only if they know it works.
“Accuracy of
the system ends up increasing trust, but it is trust that increases adoptions,
which in turn increases accuracy,” Tessaro, a computer scientist at the
University of Washington who was involved in creating that state’s forthcoming
contact-tracing app, said in a lecture last month.
In other parts
of the world, people are taking that necessary leap of faith. Ireland and Switzerland,
touting some of the highest uptake rates, report more than 20% of their
populations use a contact-tracing app.
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-apps-tracing/new-contact-tracing-apps-stir-hope-for-virus-fighters-in-u-s-states-idUSKBN27Z2SO
November 20,
20205:35 AMUpdated a day ago
New contact tracing apps stir hope for virus fighters in U.S. states
By Paresh
Dave
OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - A new
wave of mobile apps that help track exposure to the coronavirus is coming to
U.S. states ahead of the holidays as public health officials bet that recently
introduced features from Apple Inc AAPL.O and Alphabet Inc's GOOGL.O Google will
significantly boost adoption and impact.
The CA
COVID Notify mobile app, an exposure notification app launched by California
officials for tracing during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, is
seen on an Android phone in a photo illustration in Oakland, California, U.S.
November 18, 2020. REUTERS/Paresh Dave
Colorado, Maryland and District of
Columbia launched exposure-notification apps with the new technology in the
last month, garnering over 2.3 million users combined, according to their
public health departments. California, Washington and other states expect to
follow in the next month, officials said.
Complementing human contact-tracers,
the smartphone apps use Bluetooth signals to track when people are in close
contact and anonymously alert users when a recent contact tests positive. They
emerged as promising tools early in pandemic, but technical shortcomings,
privacy concerns and dismissive attitudes in the United States toward safety
measures undercut their benefits.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/50-of-advanced-phishing-attacks-evade-leading-secure-email-gateways
50% of Advanced Phishing Attacks Evade Leading Secure Email Gateways
A new
IRONSCALES report finds as threat actors increasingly leverage social
engineering scams, nearly half of these advanced phishing attacks bypass the
leading secure email gateways.
By Jessica Davis
November 18,
2020 - Nearly half of all advanced phishing attempts, such as
spear-phishing and social engineering attacks, bypass leading secure email
gateways (SEGs), as hackers shift into more advanced schemes that prey on human
nature, according to new research from IRONSCALES.
Researchers
employed IRONSCALES Emulator, a breach and attack simulation tool, to assess
the effectiveness of Microsoft ATP and other leading SEGs in stopping advanced
email threats.
IRONSCALES
simulated real-world phishing attacks to test technical controls and review
gaps in clients’ email security infrastructure, in an effort to address the
shifting threat landscape as the majority of phishing emails do
not contain malware via links or attachments.
Instead,
most phishing emails leverage social engineering techniques, including business
email compromise (BEC), impersonations of known contacts, and other techniques,
like spoofing and fraud.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/millions-of-medical-images-exposed-as-us-fails-to-secure-pacs-flaws
Millions of Medical Images Exposed, as US Fails to Secure PACS Flaws
A year out
from a shocking report that revealed massive PACS vulnerabilities were exposing
millions of medical images and data, and NNT shows the US has failed to secure
those flaws.
By Jessica Davis
November 19,
2020 - In the Fall of 2019,
a damning report from ProPublica outlined a massive healthcare exposure:
millions of medical images generated from Picture Archiving and Communication
Systems (PACS) were left exposed and unsecured online. And the US was the
biggest culprit.
One year
later, and the US healthcare sector has still failed to close these major
security gaps, where other countries took action.
The latest
data shows that the largest offenders, just eight providers, are leaking more
than 4 million medical images and records from about 1 million US citizens.
These statistics do not include the remaining 162 healthcare entities that are
also exposing this sensitive information.
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https://patientengagementhit.com/news/ama-joins-industry-efforts-against-medical-racism-implicit-bias
AMA Joins Industry Efforts Against Medical Racism, Implicit Bias
The
industry group outlined five action items for unwinding medical racism and
implicit bias, as well as policy recognizing race as a social construct.
By Sara Heath
November 18,
2020 - The American Medical Association (AMA) has renewed its pledge to
combat racism and implicit bias in medicine by adopting
new policy principles at a Special Meeting of its House of Delegates.
“The AMA
recognizes that racism negatively impacts and exacerbates health inequities
among historically marginalized communities. Without systemic and
structural-level change, health inequities will continue to exist, and the
overall health of the nation will suffer,” AMA Board Member Willarda V.
Edwards, MD, MBA, said in a statement announcing the policy.
“As
physicians and leaders in medicine, we are committed to optimal health for all,
and are working to ensure all people and communities reach their full health
potential. Declaring racism as an urgent public health threat is a step in the
right direction toward advancing equity in medicine and public health, while
creating pathways for truth, healing, and reconciliation.”
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https://patientengagementhit.com/news/racial-health-disparities-worsened-over-20-year-period
Racial Health Disparities Worsened Over 20-Year Period
New
research showed that racial health disparities between Black and White or
Hispanic and White patients grew since the new millennium.
By Sara Heath
November 18,
2020 - Racial health disparities have only gotten worse in the past twenty
years, new
data shows, despite Congressional and research efforts to better understand
and mitigate disparities.
The study,
published in JAMA Network Open, showed that poor health indicators among Black
patients have gotten worse since the turn of the new millennium. For Hispanic
patients, diabetes, hypertension, and uninsurance disparities have worsened.
These results
come after a two-decades-long push to address racial health disparities, the
researchers from the Columbia University Irving Medical Center reported. In
1999, Congress requested the then Institute of Medicine (now known as the
National Academy of Medicine) to allocate $35 billion in funding over 20 years
to assess and address racial
health disparities.
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https://hbr.org/2020/11/balancing-virtual-and-in-person-health-care
Balancing Virtual and In-Person Health Care
by Adam Licurse, Kelly Fanning, Karl Laskowski, and Adam Landman
November 17,
2020
As we transition to a new normal for healthcare delivery,
how do we best continue virtual care alongside in-person care in the era of
Covid-19? First, practices will need to develop criteria to triage and
schedule patients for in-person or virtual visits; second, once...
The
2020 Covid-19 pandemic has seeded the U.S. healthcare system with innovations
across the care spectrum, largely focused on outpatient care delivery through
virtual care tools. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported
over an 11,000% increase in virtual visits (i.e., video- or phone-based
visits). In our academic health system, Brigham Health in Boston,
Massachusetts, we saw an overall increase in virtual visits from pre-Covid-19
to its peak in May of over 20,000% (roughly 80,000 virtual visits that month),
offered by nearly all of our ambulatory providers, and representing roughly 70%
of all outpatient care from a baseline of less than 1%.
After
the May peak, health care facilities began to reopen for more routine care;
in-person volume in our system slowly grew while virtual volume fell. While the
current surge may reverse that pattern again, as of this writing virtual visits
represent about 25% of overall outpatient care – and our clinicians, practices
and colleagues across the country are asking common questions about what comes
next: How much virtual care makes sense when we do return to a new normal
state? What is the best approach to offering virtual care alongside in-person
care? How will we know whether virtual care is succeeding, and in
particular that it is reaching all patients as safely and equitably as
possible?
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/hackers-hit-covid-19-biotech-firm-cold-storage-giant-with-cyberattacks
Hackers Hit COVID-19 Biotech Firm, Cold Storage Giant with Cyberattacks
Cold
storage giant Americold and Global firm Miltenyi Biotec recently faced
cyberattacks; ransomware, an email error, phishing, and an application hack
complete this week’s breach roundup.
By Jessica Davis
November 18,
2020 - Two global firms with reported ties to the COVID-19 pandemic
response faced cyberattacks within the last week. Miltenyi Biotec reported
a system outage caused by a malware attack, while cold storage giant Americold,
previously in talks to provide storage for the distribution of COVID-19
vaccines, experienced a “cybersecurity incident.”
Miltenyi is a
global biotech firm based in Germany with offices in 73 countries, including
several in the US. The company is responsible for supplying SARS-CoV-2 antigens
for research firms tasked with working on COVID-19 treatments.
The attack
struck Miltenyi’s IT infrastructure two weeks ago, which caused issues with
some order and operational processes, including email and phone communications.
The company has since fully restored its operations.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/cerner-says-new-video-visit-platform-will-help-rural-health-systems
Cerner says new video visit platform will help rural health systems
By Kat Jercich
November 19,
2020 02:29 PM
Cerner
announced this week that it would be offering a new video care platform to its
CommunityWorks clients at no cost through the end of next year.
The
platform is aimed at addressing the healthcare needs of those living in rural
areas. Cerner says its customers' patients can receive care using their
modality of choice via the new program, which it's calling Video Visit.
"Throughout
the pandemic, we’ve seen a significantly increased desire from both consumers
and healthcare providers for virtual health solutions and rapid innovation and
adoption of existing products," said Mitchell Clark, president of Cerner
CommunityWorks, in a statement.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/ama-passes-pro-telehealth-resolution
AMA passes pro-telehealth resolution
American
Medical Association delegates adopted a policy this week directing the
organization to keep working to support telehealth advancements during and
after the COVID-19 pandemic.
By Kat Jercich
November 19,
2020 10:51 AM
The
American Medical Association this week resolved to continue advocating for
telehealth after the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly among underserved
communities.
After
physicians and medical students gathered virtually for five days, delegates
adopted a policy directing the AMA to continue working with legislators and
regulators to support telehealth advancements.
"Telehealth
and remote care services have proven critical to the management of COVID-19,
while also ensuring uninterrupted care for 100 million Americans with chronic
conditions. How telehealth will be used after the pandemic is in the balance,
and no one wants to see new access to telehealth suddenly halted," said
AMA president Dr. Susan R. Bailey in a statement earlier this week.
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2020/11/19/top-security-compliance-risks-in-telehealth/
Top Security & Compliance Risks in Telehealth
November 19, 2020
The
following is a guest article by Donna Thiel, Chief Compliance Officer at ProviderTrust.
Although
there may be numerous benefits to using telehealth services, patients and
providers should also consider the substantial telehealth risks involved.
With
the sudden uprising of COVID-19, the Department of Health & Human Services
quickly took significant steps in securing better access to telehealth
services. Now, with patients being able to talk to their doctor live through
phone or video chat, send and receive messages through email, secure messaging,
and secure file exchange, and use remote patient monitoring using home check-up
devices, telehealth
has become extremely popular due to its accessibility and safety from
COVID-19.
By
expanding U.S. telehealth offerings and utilizing such technology, this also
presents potential severe liabilities, such as a laundry list containing
cybersecurity, data, and compliance risks. As the regulations governing
telehealth still remain to be relaxed, now is the time to be vigilant regarding
various telehealth risks.
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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/covid-19/take-it-expert-faucis-hierarchy-safety-during-covid
Take It From an Expert: Fauci's Hierarchy of Safety During COVID
By Kaiser
Health News | November 19, 2020
All this time, the person I've most wanted to hear from is Fauci. He's a
straight shooter, with no apparent conflicts of interest — political or
financial — or, at 79, career ambition. He seemingly has no interests other
than yours and mine.
This
article was published on Thursday, November 19, 2020 in Kaiser Health News.
By Elisabeth Rosenthal
As
a health journalist, a physician and a former foreign correspondent who lived
through SARS in Beijing, I often get questions from friends, colleagues and
people I don’t even know about how to live during the pandemic. Do I think it’s
safe to plan a real wedding next June? Would I send my kids to school, with
appropriate precautions? When will I trust a vaccine?
To
the last question, I always answer: When I see Anthony Fauci take one.
Like
many Americans, I take my signals from Dr. Fauci, the country’s top infectious
disease expert and a member of the White House task force on the coronavirus.
When he told The Washington Post that he was not wiping down
packages but just letting them sit for a couple of days, I started doing
the same. In October, he remarked that he
was bringing shopping bags into the house. He merely washes his hands after
unpacking them. (Me too!)
Now
we are in a dangerous political transition, with cases spiking in much of the
country and Fauci and the original task force largely sidelined.
President-elect Joe Biden has appointed his own, but it can’t do much until the
General
Services Administration signals that it accepts the results of the
election. And Fauci told me he has not yet spoken with the Biden task force.
President Donald Trump has resisted the norms on government transition, in
which the old and new teams brief each other and coordinate.
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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/technology/contacting-patients-unencrypted-email
Contacting Patients via Unencrypted Email
By Revenue
Cycle Advisor | November 19, 2020
It is important to ask the patient to sign a disclaimer that will protect
your organization in the event of a breach.
A
version of this article was first published November 19, 2020, by HCPro's Revenue Cycle Advisor, a
sibling publication to HealthLeaders.
Q:
What type of information can be sent to patients via unencrypted email?
A: If
the email contains PHI, even if it includes only the patient’s name and email
address, it needs to be encrypted.
These
days, OCR enforces the encryption provisions in the HIPAA Security Rule as it
is required.
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https://patientengagementhit.com/news/social-determinants-of-health-food-insecurity-linked-to-cardiovascular-death
Social Determinants of Health, Food Insecurity, Linked to Cardiovascular
Death
For every
1% increase in food insecurity, cardiovascular deaths go up by 0.86% for adults
ages 20 to 64 based on 2011-2017 county-level data.
By Hannah Nelson
November 17,
2020 - Food insecurity is linked to a higher rate of cardiovascular death
for adults between the ages of 20 and 64, according to a preliminary study
that analyzed county-level data from 2011 to 2017.
This comes as
medical professionals increasingly recognize the importance of the social
determinants of health, which include issues like food insecurity. This
finding gives providers stronger basis for referring patients to food programs
to mitigate downstream health consequences, like cardiovascular disease.
Researchers
used data from the National Center for Health Statistics and Feeding America’s
“Map the Meal Gap” study to analyze the average annual percent change in food
insecurity and cardiovascular mortality trends in the US.
Counties
that had the largest increase in food insecurity levels had cardiovascular
death rates that increased from 82 to 87 per 100,000 people. On the other hand,
counties that saw a decrease in food insecurity over the six years had a
cardiovascular mortality rate that remained stable at 60 per 100,000 people.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/ransomware-groups-team-up-as-hackers-shift-into-cloud-operations
Ransomware Groups Team Up, as Hackers Shift into Cloud Operations
A number
of hacking groups, including those employing ransomware, are teaming up to
expand the threat landscape and take advantage of stolen data troves in
cloud-based operations.
By Jessica Davis
November 17,
2020 - Hackers are teaming up with other cybercriminals to increase the
impact of attacks and to take advantage of troves of stolen data. Trend
Micro and Intel
471 found ransomware groups are teaming up with lesser-known actors, while
others are shifting operations to cloud-based services and technologies to increase
the monetization of their hacking efforts.
Throughout
the year—and in response to the global COVID-19 crisis, hackers have steadily
worked to take advantage of the new threat landscape provided by the rapid
adoption of remote
technologies and heightened fears amid the pandemic.
Microsoft
previously warned that attacks have significantly increased in sophistication,
as healthcare continues to be a prime target for many of these
attack vectors given its vulnerable infrastructure and the likelihood of
providers will opt to pay hacking demands.
The
latest report from Intel 471 warned that given the success of ransomware
attacks, its hacking groups are steadily developing new variants—and offering
access to corporate networks on the dark web.
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/telehealth-helps-the-mayo-clinic-adjust-to-a-new-healthcare-ecosystem
Telehealth Helps The Mayo Clinic Adjust to a New Healthcare Ecosystem
The
Minnesota-based health system is using mHealth tools and telehealth platforms
to re-imagine how it gathers data and delivers care, both inside and outside
the hospital walls.
By Eric Wicklund
November 16,
2020 - Like so many other health systems, the Mayo Clinic ramped up its
telehealth platform to address the coronavirus pandemic, adopting digital
health tools and processes that normally would have taken a decade to put in
place.
Now, the
Minnesota-based health system is dealing with the challenges associated with
sudden growth, and looking to create a connected health network that can
seamlessly accommodate both in-person and virtual care. And that means making
sure the consumer-friendly front door meshes with the clinician-friendly back
end.
Cris Ross,
the Mayo Clinic’s chief information officer, says the COVID-19 crisis forced
the health system to adapt at a rapid rate, moving from about 4 percent of
virtual visits before the pandemic to 85 percent during the roughest days of
late spring and early summer. Supported by emergency federal and state mandates
that loosened constraints on telehealth, they were able to create pathways that
improved care management for patients outside the hospital.
“We
learned a lot about what consumers like and don’t like,” Ross says, noting the
Mayo Clinic mHealth app is now used by about 70 percent of the health system’s
patients. “Now we really need to define consumer-friendly healthcare.”
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/covid-19-survey-doctors-like-telehealth-and-want-to-continue-using-it
COVID-19 Survey: Doctors Like Telehealth and Want to Continue Using It
A new
survey from the COVID-19 Healthcare Coalition finds that providers have seen
good results from using telehealth during the coronavirus, and more than half
say connected health has improved their work satisfaction.
By Eric Wicklund
November 17,
2020 - A survey of roughly 1,600 healthcare providers finds that almost 70
percent are motivated to use more telehealth because of the experiences they’ve
had during the coronavirus pandemic – and more than half say their outlook has
improved because of connected health.
The survey,
conducted in July and August by a workgroup of the
COVID-19 Healthcare Coalition – comprised of the American Medical
Association, American Telemedicine Association, Change Healthcare, Digital
Medicine Society, Mayo Clinic, Massachusetts Health Quality Partners,
MassChallenge Health Tech and MITRE – adds to the effort to continue telehealth
expansion by making permanent many of the emergency measures designed to help
providers during the crisis.
More than
three-quarters of those survey respondents, in fact, said telehealth helped
them to provide quality care for their patients.
“The
strong support shown for telehealth, as evidenced in these results, reinforces
the knowledge that telehealth is critical to how we deliver healthcare today,”
Steve Ommen, medical director of the Mayo Clinic’s Center for Connected Care
and one of the study’s investigators, said
in a press release issued this morning. “The use of telehealth during the
COVID-19 pandemic highlights its importance in care delivery. Its continued use
will be instrumental in connecting to patients everywhere.”
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/supporting-secure-data-sharing-patient-privacy-during-covid-19
Supporting Secure Data Sharing, Patient Privacy During COVID-19
Regenstrief
Institute is partnering with NIH and other organizations to promote secure data
sharing and enhance research related to COVID-19.
By Jessica Kent
November 17,
2020 - When COVID-19 began spreading across the US, the healthcare
industry quickly moved to improve its secure data sharing practices in order to
accelerate research efforts and treatment development.
Because the
crisis is occurring at such a large scale, leaders had to come up with a way to
safely share data related to the virus among different organizations.
“When
the pandemic hit, it became obvious that we should have a large COVID-19
database that people could use for research,” Umberto Tachinardi, MD, MSc,
chief information officer for the Regenstrief Institute and director of
informatics for Regenstrief and Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences
Institute (CTSI), told HealthITAnalytics.
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https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-blog/2020/november/5-tips-for-making-the-transition-from-one-ehr-to-another-as-painless-as-possible
5 Tips for Making the Transition from One EHR to
Another As Painless As Possible
November 16, 2020
by Frank Otto
Not
too long ago, doctors’ poor handwriting was notorious and a staple for jokes.
But now, most of the record-keeping in medicine has transitioned to digital
means. Over the last decade, thanks in part to the Affordable Care Act,
electronic health records (EHRs) are used in more than 98 percent of hospitals
and almost all physicians’ offices. EHRs can significantly improve the
accessibility of patient information, but have also spawned their own
challenges.
One
of those challenges is the fact that health systems will need to transition
from their current system to another, a challenge which will become more and
more common as EHRs continue to age out from first or even second generation
software. In the same way that a business might find it more advantageous to
use a more modern computer or brand, these transitions will happen. But unlike
most businesses making technology upgrades or transitions, health care systems don’t
have the luxury of making a change overnight or over the weekend when things
close or slow down. And most businesses’ switch from PCs to Macs won’t have a
potential effect on the health of their clients either.
With
that in mind, a pair of Penn Medicine researchers, veterans of the health
system’s shift to its own EHR, PennChart, took a look at the existing
literature on how health systems handled their transitions. As they examined
the understudied subject, John D. McGreevey III, MD, an associate
professor of Clinical Medicine, and Ross Koppel, PhD, an adjunct professor of
Sociology and a senior fellow of the Institute of Biomedical Informatics,
developed a 10-point checklist for health care system leaders to guide them as
they move into an EHR transition. Their findings were published in Applied
Clinical Informatics.
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https://www.digitalhealth.net/2020/11/special-report-interoperability-5/
Special
Report: Interoperability
2020
has seen the digital health landscape rapidly change in a matter of months, so
what has this meant for interoperability in healthcare? Jennifer Trueland
investigates.
Back
in February when NHSX launched its Tech Plan, interoperability was understandably
a key focus.
The
events of the following few months have only served to make the case stronger
by underlining the need for a system that ensures that a patient’s information
can be accessed at the point where it is needed, no matter where it originated.
Connection
is key
According
to Luke Readman, regional director of transformation for NHS London and senior
responsible officer for the OneLondon LHCRE, connection is key both in pandemic
and “normal” times.
“At
the point of care, any health professional with a legitimate right should be
able to see what’s happening across the whole of that patient’s care, not just
the bit they’re looking at currently,” he adds.
“We
[at OneLondon] accelerated some of these connections in the first part of
Covid, in six weeks we did maybe three or four or even six months of the work
that was planned to drive the pan-London connections in particular, because we
knew patients would be cared for in the Nightingale and the ExCel.
-----
https://hitinfrastructure.com/news/google-launches-new-artificial-intelligence-tools-for-healthcare
Google Launches New Artificial Intelligence Tools for Healthcare
The
artificial intelligence tools for healthcare include natural language
processing and machine learning, which Google says can help analyze medical
texts.
By Samantha McGrail
November 12,
2020 - Google Cloud recently launched
new artificial intelligence tools for healthcare users intended to combat
challenges with healthcare data and unstructured digital text during the COVID-19
pandemic.
The suite of
fully-managed artificial intelligence tools, which includes the Healthcare
Natural Language API and AutoML Entity Extraction for Healthcare, will assist
healthcare professionals with reviewing and analyzing large volumes of medication
documents.
“We hope this
technology will help reduce workforce burnout and increase healthcare
productivity, both in the back-office and in clinical practice,” Google
officials said in a new official blog post.
-----
https://patientengagementhit.com/news/patient-satisfaction-surveys-fall-short-for-pediatric-patients
Patient Satisfaction Surveys Fall Short For Pediatric Patients
Pediatric
patient satisfactions need to focus on elements of care important to children,
like their fears or even whether or not they get bored in the hospital.
By Sara Heath
November 16,
2020 - Healthcare organizations need a better way to survey pediatric
patient satisfaction that is inclusive and simple enough for a child—not her
parent or guardian—to complete, a group for researchers from Auburn University
said in new research.
The study, published in The
Beryl Institute’s PX Journal, concluded that the existing, albeit few and far
between, pediatric patient feedback questionnaires are too complex to yield
meaningful insights into the pediatric patient experience, warranting work to
develop a new one.
These
findings come as more healthcare professionals focus on improving the patient
experience as a part of their value-based
care efforts. The transition from volume to value has placed heavy emphasis
on a positive healthcare experience, with health payers reimbursing based on
good patient reports and organizations using patient feedback for quality
improvement projects.
-----
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/ssl-based-cyberattacks-increase-by-260-healthcare-most-targeted
SSL-Based Cyberattacks Increase By 260%; Healthcare Most Targeted
The number
of cyberattacks leveraging SSL encrypted channels to bypass legacy security
controls increased by 260 percent since 2019. And healthcare was the most
targeted sector.
By Jessica Davis
November 16,
2020 - The number of cyberattacks leveraging encrypted channels to bypass
legacy security controls has rapidly increased by a staggering 260 percent
since 2019, with the healthcare sector as the leading target for these
SSL-based attacks, according to a recent ZScaler ThreatLabZ report.
SSL/TLS
encryption is the industry-standard method for protecting data in transit and
is meant to protect traffic from unauthorized access. However, hackers have
hijacked the tool to hide cybercriminal activity, “turning the use of
encryption into a potential threat without proper inspection.”
“Cybercriminals
know what security experts know: that SSL/TLS encryption is the
industry-standard way to protect data in transit,” researchers explained.
“Those same cybercriminals use industry-standard encryption methods themselves,
devising clever ways to hide malware inside encrypted traffic to carry out
attacks that bypass detection.”
-----
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/nation-state-hacking-campaigns-targeting-covid-19-research-firms
Nation-State Hacking Campaigns Targeting COVID-19 Research Firms
Microsoft
has observed several hacking campaigns led by nation-state actors with ties to
Russia and North Korea, actively targeting COVID-19 research, including firms
developing vaccines.
By Jessica Davis
November 13,
2020 - COVID-19 vaccine developers and research firms are again facing
targeted cyberattacks, with an ongoing campaign led by nation-state hackers
with ties to North Korea and Russia, according to Microsoft.
Researchers
have observed nation state threat actors targeting seven firms leading COVID-19
vaccine and treatment research, including pharmaceutical companies and
researchers in the US, Canada, France, India, and South Korea.
The campaigns
are led by the Russian hacking group known as Strontium and North Korean
hackers, Zinc and Cerium.
Cybercriminals
have ramped up their malicious attacks throughout the pandemic, from phishing
attacks and fraud
schemes tied to the coronavirus, to nation-state
attacks on coronavirus research and human-operated
ransomware attacks on the healthcare sector.
-----
https://healthitanalytics.com/news/predictive-analytics-identifies-infants-at-risk-of-drug-withdrawal
Predictive Analytics Identifies Infants at Risk of Drug Withdrawal
Predictive
analytics models were able to determine which infant patients would go on to
develop a drug withdrawal syndrome after exposure to opioids during pregnancy.
By Jessica Kent
November 16,
2020 - Predictive analytics tools could help providers identify infants at
risk of developing neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) after being exposed to
opioids during pregnancy, potentially reducing hospital costs, according to a study
conducted by a team from Vanderbilt University.
Recommendations
from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) suggest that most newborns
exposed to opioids should be kept in the hospital for four to seven days to be
monitored for development of NAS, as opposed to one to three days for infants
who have not been exposed, researchers noted.
This standard
approach can result in excessive hospital stays and increased costs, as well as
interrupted bonding time between infants and their mothers. Additionally,
providers’ inability to identify infants at high risk of NAS at the time of
birth could lead to treatment delays.
“We
estimate that around 100,000 opioid-exposed infants are born each year and many
are observed excessively,” said
Stephen Patrick, MD, MPH, MS, a neonatologist at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s
Hospital at Vanderbilt and associate professor of Pediatrics and Health Policy.
-----
https://ehrintelligence.com/news/integrating-patient-photos-into-the-ehr-increases-patient-safety
Integrating Patient Photos into the EHR Increases Patient Safety
After
integrating a patient photo into the EHR, wrong-patient order entry errors
decreased by 35 percent at a major Boston-based hospital.
By Christopher Jason
November 16,
2020 - Integrating patient headshots into the EHR decreased wrong-patient
order entry by roughly 35 percent, increased patient identification, and
boosted patient safety in the emergency department, according
to a study published in JAMA Network Open.
On a yearly
basis, clinicians at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA place over a
million orders through the EHR system. While past studies have shown clinicians
place the correct order 99.9 percent of the time, an error rate of less than
one in 1,000 orders would result in roughly 600,000 wrong-patient orders.
Patient
safety is an ongoing epidemic that healthcare organizations, stakeholders, and
EHR vendors are trying to fix.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/emea/nhs-england-report-calls-law-require-greater-sharing-patient-data
NHS England report calls for law to require greater sharing of patient
data
The draft
report leaked to HSJ examines how doctors and pharmacists can be supported to
review prescriptions.
By Tammy Lovell
November 17,
2020 06:05 AM
A draft
NHS England report on overprescribing leaked to HSJ [paywall], proposes
that the law should require wider access to healthcare data, in a bid to
improve patient safety.
The
review carried out for health secretary, Matt Hancock, highlights the issue of
poor interoperability between NHS computer systems, which means clinicians
cannot see or understand what medications patients are taking or when a
medication should be reviewed.
According
to report author, chief pharmaceutical officer Keith Ridge, prescribers should
be identified in the electronic health record (EHR) so they can be contacted by
other clinicians. He adds that a free-text box should be created in EHRs so
clinicians can explain why a certain medication has been prescribed.
In
the report, Ridge calls for “wider access” in order to ensure that “many eyes”
view prescribing data and spot any problem and for prescribing apps to make
their data openly available.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/most-clinicians-cant-access-telehealth-directly-ehrs
Most clinicians can't access telehealth directly from EHRs
Although most
providers say telehealth is positively influencing clinical outcomes, many say
challenges remain – from workflow to reimbursement rates.
By Kat Jercich
November 17,
2020 02:42 PM
According
to a survey released Tuesday by the COVID-19 Healthcare Coalition, the majority of physicians
and other qualified healthcare professionals say telehealth is positively
influencing clinical outcomes, patient experience, cost and professional
satisfaction.
Still,
challenges remain: respondents are concerned about payment rates, technology
and workflow issues that continue to present barriers to seamless virtual care.
The
survey is part of the Telehealth Impact Study prepared by the COVID-19 Healthcare
Coalition Telehealth Workgroup, which includes the American Medical
Association, American Telemedicine Association, Digital Medical Society,
Massachusetts Health Quality Partners, MassChallenge Health Tech, Mayo Clinic
and MITRE Corporation.
"The
strong support shown for telehealth, as evidenced in these results, reinforces
the knowledge that telehealth is critical to how we deliver healthcare today,”
said Dr. Steve Ommen, medical director of the Mayo Clinic Center for
Connected Care, and one of the study’s coinvestigators, in a statement.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/fauci-touts-importance-data-sharing-amidst-covid-19-vaccine-news
Fauci touts importance of data sharing amidst COVID-19 vaccine news
At the
American Medical Informatics Association virtual annual symposium this week,
Dr. Anthony Fauci raised the possibility of registries to track which patients
had received which vaccine doses.
By Kat Jercich
November 17,
2020 11:34 AM
Top
infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Monday that, although the
prospect of a COVID-19 vaccine is heartening, the recent news from Pfizer and Moderna shouldn't mean a relaxation of vigilance over the
coming weeks.
"The
cavalry is coming, but the cavalry is not here yet," Fauci said at the
American Medical Informatics Association virtual annual symposium.
"What
we should do is we should make the hope of a vaccine motivate us even more to
be very, very stringent and very, very attentive to fundamental, simple, doable
public health measures," said Fauci.
During
his fireside chat, Fauci stressed the importance of data sharing and tracking
as integral parts of the COVID-19 response.
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2020/11/17/epic-health-research-network-a-near-real-time-medical-journal/
Epic Health Research Network – A Near Real Time Medical Journal?
November 17, 2020
John Lynn
One
of the biggest efforts coming out of Epic recently and one of the things Judy
Faulkner, Founder of Epic, is most excited about is their Epic Health Research Network. One of the
major items that has come from the COVID-19 crisis, Epic and Judy decided that
it would take too long to get the information they had available published in a
journal. Instead of waiting, they decided to start publishing their data
and findings to the Epic Health Research Network. As Judy said, “COVID couldn’t
wait months for the respected journals to publish the data.”
In
a recent
interview, Judy shared that they have 100-200 million patients right now,
but no doubt this will continue to grow and has likely already grown. One
of the early findings they shared was that kids with asthma got COVID worse
than those without. Although, that doesn’t seem to apply to older patients
with asthma. While it’s understandable that a finding like this might not
be journal ready, in a pandemic where things are moving so quickly and no one
has information on it, this information is better than flying blind.
We’ve
heard many calls for a new model of publishing for a long time. Everyone
has known that the current medical journal model took forever and often
discouraged people from publishing. However, there’s also a reason that
medical journal publishing takes so long. They want to verify the findings
and have third party experts examine the research to make sure the data matches
the results that are being presented. This is likely why no one has tried
it earlier. Although, almost everyone has recognized that the process is
causing us to miss opportunities to get data out sooner.
-----
https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/innovation/himss-ceo-standard-language-and-national-patient-identifier-are-essential
HIMSS CEO: Standard Language and National Patient Identifier Are Essential
for Interoperability
By Mandy Roth |
November 16, 2020
Further interoperability work is necessary to fuel telehealth, care at
home, and social determinants of health initiatives, says HIMSS leader Hal
Wolf.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
·
A standard language for interoperability is
essential for healthcare to move forward.
·
Resistance to a national patient identifier is
softening, but legislation is currently stuck in the Senate. Support is moving
in favor of this measure, and HIMSS expects action following the election.
·
The Global Consortium for eHealth
Interoperability is bringing together stakeholders from around the world to
address interoperability issues in unison.
Last
March, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services released two final
rulings designed to enhance healthcare interoperability. While it was a much
anticipated milestone moment, it only marks the beginning of a long road ahead,
says Hal Wolf, president and CEO of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems
Society (HIMSS).
HealthLeaders
recently spoke with the healthcare and informatics expert. In
Part 1 of this story, Wolf explains the gaps that the pandemic revealed and
the role healthcare IT and HIMSS will play in bridging the divide. In Part 2,
he explores how interoperability and a national patient identifier are key
elements in paving the way forward, and he peers into the future, offering his
predictions about how healthcare will change in the next three years. Following
are excerpts from the interview, edited for space and clarity.
-----
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/tech/why-experts-say-healthcare-needs-to-extend-interoperability-conversation-to-public-health
Why experts say healthcare needs to extend the interoperability
conversation to public health
by Paige Minemyer
Nov 13, 2020
2:26pm
Interoperability
has been a buzzword in healthcare for some time. But experts say it's critical
to look beyond medical care when thinking about sharing data.
Jacob
Reider, M.D., CEO of the Alliance for Better Health and former acting national
coordinator for health IT, said during an event hosted by Fierce Healthcare
that public health organizations need to be a part of the conversation, but
it's crucial to be cognizant of where they are in terms of ability to share
data.
And
for most, that's not very far down the path to data sharing, he said.
Bringing
these groups into the fold is beneficial both to providers' work but also to
their own efforts, he said. For example, a food pantry would benefit from
having data on people's allergies, and a homeless shelter should have access to
information on medication regimens for people staying there.
-----
https://www.blackenterprise.com/meet-the-man-behind-the-countrys-first-telehealth-company-for-marginalized-groups/
Meet The Man Behind The Country’s First Telehealth Company for
Marginalized Groups
by Dana Givens November
11, 2020
Telehealth
services have seen a giant increase in use since the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. With social distancing and quarantine
restrictions now the norm, it has made it very difficult for marginalized
populations to get access to adequate health services. According to a study published by the Journal
of the American Medical Informatics Association, Black people were
more likely to self-report telehealth use as a result of the public health
crisis.
After
seeing the struggles of those around him, one Black male entrepreneur decided
to help by creating his own telehealth service.
Benjamin
Lefever is the founder and CEO of Certintell, the country’s first telehealth company that
provides remote patient monitoring for marginalized populations. Lefever says
that he was inspired to start his business after seeing members of his family
struggle with health issues and their limited options.
-----
https://www.fastcompany.com/90555218/google-amazon-nvidia-ai-medical-transcription
·
11-13-20
Why Google, Amazon, and Nvidia are all building AI notetakers for doctors
Automated medical transcription that’s actually accurate could save
doctors a huge amount of time, and the tech giants are getting in on the
action.
By Ruth Reader
For
doctors, taking notes and inputting them into electronic medical records is so
cumbersome that they often have to use human medical scribes to do it for them.
That’s changing as more hospital systems turn to artificial intelligence-based
transcription tools.
However,
some doctors feel the tools available today are just not accurate enough. “If
there were a really smart voice transcription service that was 99% accurate, I
would definitely use it,” says Bon Ku, an emergency room doctor at Thomas
Jefferson Hospital University and director of the university’s Health Design
Lab. “A lot of times, I feel like I’m a data-entry clerk.”
For
the last several years, big tech companies have been jockeying to be the one
who finally delivers the kinds of tools doctors have been craving.
This
week, Google launched open source machine learning software to help doctors make
sense of patient medical records. The platform is composed of two programs.
One, an API for healthcare-related natural language processing, scans medical
documents for key information about a patient’s journey, puts it into a
standard format, and summarizes it for the doctor. It can pull from multiple
sources of information like medical records as well as transcribed doctors’
notes. The goal is to create an easy way for doctors to review a patient’s past
care. The second, called AutoML Entity Extraction for Healthcare, is a low-code
tool kit that helps doctors to pull out specific data from a patient’s record,
like information about a genetic mutation. Both tools will be available for
free until December 10, 2020 for doctors, insurers, and biomedical companies.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/change-healthcare-unveils-new-sdoh-analytics-tools
Change Healthcare unveils new SDOH analytics tools
Social
Determinants of Health Analytics is meant as a resource to help health systems
plan for and implement community programs as part of their population health
management efforts.
By Mike Miliard
November 16,
2020 03:46 PM
Change
Healthcare on Monday announced the launch of a new resource, Social
Determinants of Health Analytics, that's designed to help providers, payers,
life science companies and others make better use of socioeconomic and
geodemographic information.
WHY IT
MATTERS
SDoH Analytics is a HIPAA-compliant dataset that links deidentified claims data
with information on other factors such as education level, ethnicity, financial
stability, housing status and more – mapping the correlations between
social determinants, clinical care and patient outcomes.
Change
Healthcare, the new offering, is designed to help organizations across the
healthcare ecosystem to better assess and implement social programs to help
reduce costs and improve patient outcomes. It can be used in three ways:
First,
customers can receive customized reports that spotlight SDoH factors that can
impact emergency room utilization, and inpatient and ambulatory visits across
different segments of patient populations.
Second,
the tool can be added to existing systems that track social-determinant
data to help close information gaps and improve patient engagement and quality
outcomes.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/frontline-workers-say-they-spend-more-time-ehrs-patient-care
Frontline workers say they spend more time on EHRs than patient care
Clinicians
struggle with connectivity, integration and system failures, according to a new
report from SOTI.
By Kat Jercich
November 16,
2020 01:12 PM
Although
frontline health workers tend to be well-connected, they spend significant time
fixing technical problems and attending to patient records – cutting into their
time caring for patients themselves.
According
to a report this week from IoT vendor SOTI, a third of respondents to a
wide-ranging survey on frontline workers said their employers had introduced
new systems and technologies to help cope with the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Still,
said the report, the clinicians struggled with connectivity, integration,
glitches and system failures.
"The
picture that emerges is of a system which, due to a lack of integration, is not
fulfilling the potential of what is possible with existing devices and
platforms," wrote report authors.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/emea/better-tech-improves-patient-care-two-thirds-uk-healthcare-workers
Better tech improves patient care for two-thirds of UK healthcare workers
Sixty-four
per cent of UK healthcare workers experience IT issues during their working
week, only a third of their time is actually spent helping patients.
By Sara Mageit
November 16,
2020 05:35 AM
Findings
from the new Critical
Technology for Critical Care: The State of Mobility in Healthcare 2020/21 Report,
commissioned by enterprise mobility and IoT management provider, SOTI has been released, showing the impact of outdated
technology on healthcare workers during the pandemic.
The
report shows that more than two-thirds (68%) of UK healthcare workers (55%
globally) agree that investment in new or better technology could help save
lives.
WHY IT
MATTERS
During
the COVID-19 pandemic, many healthcare providers have turned to technology to
help ease the burden caused by the virus, while also enforcing social
distancing measures. In fact, the report found that 23% of UK healthcare
workers (33% globally) said that new systems and/or technology have been
introduced by their employer during the pandemic.
-----
https://histalk2.com/2020/11/13/weekender-11-13-20/
Weekly News Recap
- Health Catalyst announces Q3
results that beat Wall Street expectations for revenue and earnings.
- Providence will implement Nuance’s
Dragon Ambient Experience for EHR documentation and will co-develop
solutions covering other areas.
- Australia’s SA Health is given
another $146 million to complete its years-overdue implementation of
Allscripts Sunrise.
- Ambulatory surgery center software
vendors HST Pathways and Casetabs announce plans to merge.
- Managed care company Centene will
acquire AI-powered healthcare analytics vendor Apixio.
- HHS OIG imposes additional
Corporate Integrity Agreement terms on EClinicalWorks, including requiring
the company to notify customers that its EHR creates a material risk of
patient harm.
- Sky Lakes Medical Center says that
its October 27 ransomware attack, recovery from which is continuing, will
hit its bottom line hard and will require replacing 2,000 computers.
- University of Vermont Health
Network, whose systems remain offline from an October malware incident,
has regained access to a week’s worth of patient schedules.
- The VA’s 16,000-employee Office of
Information and Technology publishes its fiscal year report, which primarily
addresses the COVID-related challenges it met.
-----
Enjoy!
David.
