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://ehrintelligence.com/news/the-pros-and-cons-of-ehr-clinical-decision-support-alerts
The Pros and Cons of EHR Clinical Decision Support Alerts
Clinical
decision support alerts are often helpful to EHR users, but they are also
primarily linked to clinician burden and alert fatigue.
By Christopher Jason
April 16,
2021 - Clinical decision support (CDS) alerts may not seem significant on
the surface, but these alerts have the potential to save patient lives.
CDS alerts
permit clinicians to access real-time patient data, ideally resulting in
enhanced patient safety and medication accuracy. CDS alerts can also notify
clinicians about potential patient warnings to prevent errors and additional
adverse drug events from occurring.
While EHRs
are directly associated with clinician burnout, CDS tools aim to aid
clinicians.
According to researchers,
CDS is an essential aspect of EHRs that is “not merely the use of technology;
it uses technology to find meaningful information to make clinical decisions
and provide the best possible patient care.”
But while
healthcare stakeholders often view CDS alerts positively, alerts can also
result in treatment delays, clinician burden, and even carry potentially deadly
consequences.
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https://www.digitalhealth.net/2021/04/three-strategic-tech-priorities-for-digitalising-the-nhs-in-2021/
Three strategic tech priorities for digitalising the NHS in 2021
With the
NHS approaching its 73rd birthday, Satpal Biant, head of public sector at SAP,
explores what should be the health service’s top tech priorities.
DHI News Team
– 15 April, 2021IH
Next July the
NHS will celebrate its 73rd birthday. Further distribution of Covid-19 vaccines
will make it a less gloomy occasion than last year’s, but there can be no doubt
that the forces unleashed by the pandemic – most importantly digitalisation –
will continue to reshape the institution.
Digitalisation
is causing upheaval across society – from videoconferencing disrupting
traditional ways of working to the rise of dark kitchens in hospitality and the
boom of ecommerce overtaking high street shops. And as identified by the 2020/21 NHS People Plan, this digital disruption has gone
right to the heart of the NHS as well.
The impact of
the disruption will last beyond the pandemic. Of course, digitalising an
institution like the NHS is even more difficult than a retail chain. The past
year has shaken the healthcare sector – but 2021 will be the year in which the
NHS can regroup, adapt, and plot a path to the future. To get there I believe
there are three key technological priorities the NHS should focus on for the
next 12 months – coordination and interoperability; cybersecurity; and
innovation and intelligent automation.
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https://www.digitalhealth.net/2021/04/nhs-app-e-referral-service-cuts-did-not-attend-rates-by-half/
NHS App e-Referral Service cuts ‘did not attend’ rates by half
Rates of
‘did not attend’ have been reduced by half for patients who book GP
appointments and referrals through the NHS App.
Andrea Downey
– 13 April, 2021
In October
2020, NHS Digital integrated the e-Referral Service into the NHS App to give
patients more control over their appointments and save GPs time.
GPs can email
appointment booking details for the NHS e-Referral Service directly with
patients with an NHS Login. Patients are then able to securely access the NHS
Manage Your Referral website directly from the app.
Research has
shown that when patients book their own appointments, the ‘did not attend’ rate
can reduce by up to half, according to NHS Digital.
Martin
O’Keeffe, senior clinical lead at NHS Digital, said: “We’ve put the power back
into patients’ hands, giving them another digital route to book and manage
their own hospital appointments.
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https://www.politico.com/newsletters/future-pulse/2021/04/14/long-covid-mystery-sparks-a-research-revolution-794647
‘Long Covid’ mystery sparks a research revolution
By MOHANA RAVINDRANATH
04/14/2021
10:00 AM EDT
The Big Idea
THE RACE TO
SOLVE 'LONG COVID': Researchers racing to understand the lingering coronavirus
symptoms collectively known as “Long Covid” face a crucial data problem: They
don’t know exactly what they should be looking for.
Is it the
lingering cough and shortness of breath? Persistent dizziness? Prolonged loss
of smell and taste? Or maybe the long-term neurological or psychiatric effects? Entirely new
symptoms could manifest months, maybe even years, after infection, and it’s not
yet clear who’s most likely to experience them, experts say.
“We know very
little, next to nothing, and that’s mainly because we’ve been — rightfully so —
so concerned about the acute phase and how to treat people as they come down
with Covid,” said Bryan Lau, who’s co-leading a Johns Hopkins survey on
long-term effects.
Ken
Mandl, who heads the Boston Children's Hospital's Computational
Health Informatics program, said that “wiring up the health system to study
postcovid syndrome” will be a massive undertaking. “We don’t know the extent of
it, and how IT needs to change to understand it,” he added.
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2021/04/16/google-exploring-tool-designed-to-help-patients-use-their-health-records/
Google Exploring Tool Designed to Help Patients Use Their Health Records
April 16, 2021
Anne Zieger
In
recent times, Google has been working on a tool designed to help
clinicians filter complicated patient information more quickly and view it
in context. Now it’s thinking about doing the same thing for
consumers.
Google
began to test the professional tool, which it calls Care Studio, with small
groups of clinicians in Nashville, TN and Jacksonville, FL affiliated with the
Ascension system. A few weeks ago it announced that it is expanding the pilot
to embrace additional physicians and nurses.
But
the big G’s health data filtering efforts aren’t aimed just at doctors and
nurses. According to a new piece
appearing in Stat News, the search giant’s early in the process of putting
feedback on how patients might want to see, organize, and share their own
medical record data.
Google
is apparently recruiting about 300 patients for the health record study,
drawing on community health facilities academic medical centers in California,
Atlanta and Chicago that use Epic as their EMR vendor. Patients can only
participate if they use an Android device.
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2021/04/16/insights-for-cios-from-the-chime-spring-forum/
Insights for CIOs from the CHIME Spring Forum
April 16, 2021
John Lynn
As
I participated virtually in the CHIME CIO Spring Forum, I asked a bunch of
people to share their thoughts on the following question:
“What’s
one thing healthcare CIOs should be thinking about right now and why? And
what’s a practical step they can take?”
No
surprise, I got a wide variety of answers which I think could be helpful for
CIOs to consider in the context of their own organization. Here’s a
roundup of the various responses I received:
CIOs
Should Consider What Strategic Initiatives They Should Proactively Accelerate
Coming Out of the Pandemic and Being Able to Compete with New Entrants
Ed
Gaudet, CEO & Founder at Censinet,
said, “CIOs must consider the learnings from the pandemic. We accelerated
strategic initiatives such as telehealth and work from home. But these
“happened” to us. CIOs must consider accelerated strategic initiatives
proactively, specifically how do we reimagine care – in the same way work will
be different – in a way that keeps our health system relevant over the next
decade and enables us to stay ahead of what Amazon will do. I just asked this
question in a breakout and one of the CIOs suggested what Amazon is doing in
healthcare is only with their employees. Amazon aggressively tests markets
before they go all in. They have been testing healthcare over the last few
years. While they will start with their employee base, they have 1.3 MILLION
EMPLOYEES!! This is larger than most healthcare systems patient populations.”
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/ehr-vendors-talk-covid-19-lessons-learned-health-it-future
EHR Vendors Talk COVID-19 Lessons Learned, Health IT Future
Leaders
from Epic Systems, Cerner, and MEDITECH led a keynote discussion about how
COVID-19 impacted health IT and how it will look moving forward.
By Christopher Jason
April 15,
2021 - The most prominent EHR and health IT leaders across the country
said a crisis, such as COVID-19, accelerated trends that were already playing
out, ultimately leading to improved patient care.
“I was in
Washington DC on September 11, 2001, and what I see playing out on provider
healthcare right now is similar to what we saw with the transportation sector
coming out of September 11th,” Don Trigg, president of Cerner, said during the CHIME21 Spring Forum
opening keynote.
“Provider organizations
have shone brightly over the last 12 months and I think they are seen as a
critical infrastructure for how we define and think about the supply side.”
On
Wednesday, Trigg joined CEO and founder of Epic Systems, Judy Faulkner, and
MEDITETH CEO, Howard Messing, on the opening keynote panel, hosted by the
College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), to talk about
what they learned about health IT during COVID-19 and what’s next for health IT
and healthcare.
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/5-guidelines-to-establishing-a-post-pandemic-telehealth-strategy
5 Guidelines to Establishing a Post-Pandemic Telehealth Strategy
Telehealth
adoption has soared during the coronavirus pandemic, and it will be part of the
process once the crisis is over. Medical practices need to develop a strategy
now that mixes in-person and virtual care.
By Eric Wicklund
April 15,
2021 - Healthcare providers have, for the most part, enjoyed success in
adopting – and adapting to – telehealth during the coronavirus pandemic. And
many are planning for a post-pandemic future that mixes virtual visits with
in-person care.
But just
because a practice might be Zooming with patients or diagnosing over the phone
now doesn’t mean they’ll be able to do the same thing once the public health
emergency ends. Many federal and state regulations regarding telehealth access
and coverage have been relaxed to help providers adjust to COVID-19, and some –
if not all – of those freedoms will end with the PHE.
Medical
practices need to think now about adjusting their workflows for a post-pandemic
landscape, so that both providers and patients understand and benefit from
telehealth.
With
help from Relatient, a Tennessee-based developer of patient engagement
services, here are five steps that medical practices should take to establish
an effective post-pandemic hybrid healthcare service.
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https://healthitsecurity.com/news/covid-19-vaccine-cold-chain-entities-remain-key-spear-phishing-target
COVID-19 Vaccine Cold Chain Entities Remain Key Spear-Phishing Target
IBM
X-Force released an update of its December COVID-19 Vaccine Cold Chain attacks,
finding additional spear-phishing attacks targeting global entities.
By Jessica Davis
April 15,
2021 - Threat actors are continuing to target the COVID-19 vaccine cold
chain, the means of delivering and storing vaccines at safe temperatures, with
spear-phishing campaigns that leverage pharma and biomedical lures, according
to a new IBM X-Force report.
The prime
targets of the campaign are the transportation, healthcare, and IT and
electronics sectors. Researchers also found the attackers targeting government
agencies and vendors that support public health entities, among other targets.
The new
research is an update of a December
IBM X-Force report that shed light on widespread phishing tactics leveraged by
cybercriminals against vaccine supply chain organizations and other healthcare
entities.
IBM X-Force
established a cyber task force at the beginning of the pandemic to track cyber
threats targeting critical infrastructure organizations.
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https://www.techradar.com/news/apple-watch-6-could-one-day-help-detect-covid-19-if-this-trial-works
Apple Watch 6 could one day help detect Covid-19, if this trial works
By Hamish Hector 14
April 2021
It’s a very
smart watch
The
Apple respiratory study is now recruiting participants to determine if the Apple Watch 6
can detect Covid-19 symptoms. Apple announced it would be working in
collaboration with the Seattle Flu Study and University of Washington late last
year as part of the Apple Watch Series 6 reveal event.
Using
the Apple Watch 6’s blood oxygen sensor and heart rate monitor, the study hopes
to see if there is a link between changes in those levels and early signs of
respiratory illnesses, such as Covid-19. Apple hopes to launch studies in the
future that will see if these features could also detect early signs of asthma
attacks and heart failure.
If
you are interested in getting involved and fulfill the study’s criteria - which
includes being 22 or over and living in Seattle in the US - then you can visit
the Apple respiratory
study page to see if you qualify.
Could the Apple Watch detect Covid-19 specifically?
In
short, no. Unless the Apple Watch starts taking swabs like current Covid-19
tests we’re fairly confident it won’t be able to determine the exact illness
you have, though it may still be able to detect if you are experiencing some of
the symptoms and provide you with guidance on what to do.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/apac/65-hospitals-apac-are-increasing-spending-digitalisation-says-report
65% of hospitals in APAC are increasing spending on digitalisation, says
report
The report
includes data from hospitals in Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,
Singapore, South Korea and Thailand.
By Thiru
Gunasegaran
April 15,
2021 02:30 AM
A
majority of hospitals in the Asia-Pacific region are planning to increase their
spending on digitalisation in the next three years to minimise medical errors
and raise patient satisfaction, a regional survey found.
The
survey conducted by L.E.K. Consulting with over 400 hospital executives
identified trends that are defining APAC hospitals’ priorities and how they
have adapted during COVID-19.
WHY IT
MATTERS
One
of these trends is the accelerating adoption of digital health solutions, which
are primarily used to strengthen doctors’ services. For example, one in four
hospitals in Australia, China and Singapore are already employing digital
health solutions, the top two of which are remote consultations (25%) and
robot-enabled surgery (21%).
In
Japan, four in 10 executives say digital health solutions such as digital wound
management are not a priority or they are unaware of them. Still, around half
are found to be trialling or interested in such solutions.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/patient-surveillance-system-helps-reduce-sepsis-related-mortality-53
Patient surveillance system helps reduce sepsis-related mortality by 53%
Tift Regional
Medical Center aims to use the technology to save lives and significantly
reduce costs.
By Bill Siwicki
April 15,
2021 12:01 PM
Sepsis
is the deadliest and most expensive condition treated in hospital critical care
units, with septic shock carrying a 34% mortality rate. Early sepsis detection is
critical to saving lives and decreasing the cost of care.
THE
PROBLEM
In
absolute terms, hospital admissions for sepsis outnumber admissions for stroke,
acute myocardial infarction and trauma combined, so creating more integrated
sepsis and infection-prevention programs is an ever-present challenge.
As
with many hospitals, for Tift Regional Medical Center in Tifton, Georgia, the
incidence of sepsis is much higher in the intensive care unit and the emergency
department than in other parts of the hospital. The hospital needed to find a
way to re-energize its attack on sepsis in these areas in order to improve its
nurse protocols and overall bundle compliance, and reduce the
human and financial costs.
PROPOSAL
"Our
goal is to improve the care and outcomes of patients with sepsis," said
Dr. Cameron Nixon, chief transformation officer at Tift Regional Medical
Center. "To do so, our organization sought a solution that uses natural
language processing to analyze EHR patient data and unstructured text such as
those in clinical notes."
This
is critical for accurate identification of patients that need attention, and to
ensure the hospital's clinical team can respond consistently with the right
care to the right patient at the right time, he added.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/strengthening-patient-care-as-a-rural-health-information-exchange
Strengthening Patient Care as a Rural Health Information Exchange
Montana’s
statewide health information exchange launched just a few months ago and its
leaders are leveraging outside solutions to improve patient care in the rural
state.
By Christopher Jason
April 14,
2021 - It’s hard for providers in remote locations to deliver high-quality
and coordinated patient care without a rural health information exchange (HIE).
HIEs are
crucial for connecting communities and ensuring patient medical records are
available at all times. While interoperability remains a significant issue for
HIE implementation, HIE connectivity is becoming more prevalent across the
country.
According to
the 2019 American Hospital Association IT Supplement published by
the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health IT, there was nearly a
40 percent increase in the proportion of hospitals that used a national network
to find patient data between 2018 and 2019.
On
the other hand, state, regional, or local HIEs were the most common method
utilized by hospitals to find patient data from outside providers, jumping from
46 percent of providers using a smaller HIE in 2018 up to 53 percent that did in
2019.
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/microsoft-nuance-news-may-signify-next-era-of-ai-in-healthcare
Microsoft, Nuance News May Signify Next Era of AI in Healthcare
The nearly
$20 billion acquisition represents a rise in voice recognition technology and
artificial intelligence in healthcare, potentially leading to reduced clinician
burnout.
By Jessica Kent
April 14,
2021 - Artificial intelligence in healthcare has mostly existed in the
realm of the hypothetical. Clinical use cases for AI algorithms permeate the
research sector, while rarely infiltrating real-world care settings.
With the
recent news
of Microsoft’s pending acquisition of Nuance Communications, experts believe AI
may be on the verge of breaking into front-end care delivery – likely in the
form of voice recognition and virtual assistant technologies.
Nuance is a
leading provider of conversational AI and cloud-based ambient intelligence for
healthcare. The two companies will focus on using AI to listen in on consultations
between patients and providers and incorporate that information into the EHR,
which could help reduce administrative burdens and burnout among clinicians.
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/canadian-mhealth-app-takes-aim-at-preventing-deadly-drug-overdoses
Canadian mHealth App Takes Aim at Preventing Deadly Drug Overdoses
A
healthcare provider in Ontario is testing out an mHealth app that allows the
user to activate an alarm after taking a drug, with the app automatically
notifying emergency officials if the alarm isn't turned off.
By Eric Wicklund
April 14,
2021 - Healthcare providers in Canada are testing out a unique mHealth app
designed to reduce overdose deaths among active drug users.
NorWest
Community Health Centres in northwestern Ontario will be the first provider in
Canada’s most populous province to pilot the Lifeguard app. Developed by
Lifeguard Digital Health, the app is activated by the user before he or she
uses a drug, and includes an alarm that grows louder from one to five minutes
after activation. If the user fails to cut off the alarm, a text-to-voice call
is sent to emergency medical dispatchers advising them of a potential overdose.
The connected
health service takes aim at an issue that killed more than 2,000 people in
Ontario in 2020, an increase of almost 60 percent over the previous year. The
Ontario roll-out, coordinated by the District of Thunder Bay Social Services
Administration Board, is funded in part by a one-time grant from Ontario’s
Ministry of Health through the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
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https://www.thecut.com/article/mental-health-therapy-apps.html
Mar. 29, 2021
The Therapy-App Fantasy
An
overwhelming demand for counseling has spawned slickly marketed companies
promising a service they cannot possibly provide.
By Molly Fischer
The summer of
2020, recalls Hillary Schieve, was hard. The pandemic was bearing down across
the country, protests over racial injustice were erupting, and her sister’s
breast cancer had become terminal. Schieve moved her sister into her house to
take care of her; at night, she would watch the news and wonder how she was
going to keep it together. Then her sister died, and a few weeks later,
Schieve’s brother unexpectedly died too.
“When my
brother died,” she said, “that’s when I fell apart.” She was having anxiety
attacks; she was crying all the time. She wanted to find a therapist to talk
to, so she started making calls but no one could fit her in for weeks. She was
frustrated and unsure of what to do next. “I’m sitting at my counter, and a
commercial comes on with Michael Phelps,” she remembered. It was an ad for the
therapy app Talkspace. “I was like, I don’t know, maybe I should try that.”
Talkspace is
part of a growing field of services that promise mental-health care via
smartphone. And unlike many of the problems tech start-ups have set out to solve,
this one actually exists: It’s hard to
find a therapist. Maybe you have insurance, so you look up a list of
in-network providers, start cold-calling, and hope to reach someone with an
opening. Maybe you ask for recommendations from friends and hope someone they
know takes your insurance or has out-of-pocket rates you can afford. Maybe you
don’t know anybody with a therapist and the prospect of getting one yourself
seems risky or shameful. Maybe you don’t know anyone with a therapist because
there aren’t any therapists around to see — approximately 33 percent of
counties have no records of licensed psychologists.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/integrating-a-covid-19-discharge-pathway-tool-into-the-ehr
Integrating a COVID-19 Discharge Pathway Tool into the EHR
The
COVID-19 discharge process can be complex, but a Colorado-based health system
integrated an EHR tool to improve patient care and mitigate clinician burnout.
By Christopher Jason
April 13,
2021 - An EHR-integrated COVID-19 discharge pathway tool can boost patient
care and mitigate clinician burnout during the pandemic, according to a study published
in the American Journal of Medical Quality.
Patients who
tested positive for COVID-19
are especially vulnerable during the discharge process, which throughout the
pandemic was fragmented. While some clinicians provided isolation guidance
post-discharge, others focused on follow-up protocols.
The
researchers integrated the COVID-19 discharge pathway solution at UCHealth
system, including the University of Colorado Hospital (UCH) and 11 additional
hospitals, to standardize the care transition process and improve patient
safety.
The
research group aimed to build consensus on discharge readiness criteria,
collect and summarize discharge criteria for various discharge locations, and
establish standard primary care provider follow-up protocols for patient
monitoring.
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https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/tech/judy-faulkner-ehr-executives-lay-out-what-s-horizon-for-healthcare
What's on the horizon for healthcare beyond COVID-19? Epic, Cerner and
Meditech executives share their takes
by Heather Landi
Apr 14, 2021
12:08pm
The
COVID-19 pandemic has exposed major logistical challenges in healthcare as
collecting and sharing medical data is still often a manual process.
The
nation's public health reporting infrastructure needs to be modernized,
and COVID-19 vaccine records need to be digitized, industry stakeholders say.
Howard
Messing, CEO of Meditech, a company that provides software for hospitals to
collect and store electronic medical records, saw this firsthand when receiving
a COVID-19 vaccine.
"I
had my vaccination a few weeks ago and it was a card table, next to a hot
dog stand in Fenway Park, with not a computer in sight. Clearly, we’ve got to
figure out how to do this better. We can’t rely on paper records anymore,"
he said.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/emea/axa-and-microsoft-join-forces-build-digital-healthcare-platform
AXA and Microsoft join forces to build digital healthcare platform
The launch
follows a successful pilot scheme in Germany and Italy.
By Tammy Lovell
April 14,
2021 01:40 PM
European
insurance giant AXA has announced it is launching a digital healthcare platform
in partnership with Microsoft.
The
platform is available to AXA customers in Germany and Italy, following a
successful pilot last year, which included a self-assessment tool,
teleconsultation and medical concierge for appointment booking.
Roll-out
is planned for the United Kingdom, Belgium, Spain and Switzerland by 2022,
followed by other countries worldwide.
The
platform will rely on technology in the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare,
including Azure API for Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources
(FHIR), which enables patient insights without compromising patient
privacy.
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2021/04/14/how-healthcare-leaders-are-leveraging-existing-tech-to-fight-covid-19-and-the-lesson-this-offers/
How Healthcare Leaders Are Leveraging Existing Tech to Fight COVID-19 and
the Lesson This Offers
April 14, 2021
Anne Zieger
When
the pandemic first began to spike, many providers struggled to offer even the
minimum of care to afflicted patients whose lives were in danger. Some
doubtless chose to invest in new solutions to address the flood of COVID
patients, but others hunkered down and used what they had on hand.
After
a year plus of coping with COVID, however, healthcare leaders have had time to
reflect on what they’ve done to date and what they should take away from the
experience. One of the biggest lessons providers seem to have learned
that in fighting this bug, they need to see their efforts as a marathon rather
than a sprint. They’re getting a powerful reminder that tools in which they
invest in today may be all that stands between them and catastrophic future
events.
As
they’ve gotten a better handle on the pandemic, health leaders have identified
several technologies they have in-house that have helped them scale up for the
longer term. For example, Drew Ivan, chief product and strategy officer and
Sonal Patel, chief customer success officer at Lyniate, shared with us that customers are
using their interoperability solutions to integrate telehealth with EHRs and
billing tools within virtual care.
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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/clinical-care/improving-interoperability
Improving Interoperability
Analysis
| By PSQH |
April 14, 2021
How
physicians can support better technology development.
This
article was originally published April 13, 2021 on PSQH by
Megan Headley.
Healthcare
technology innovation is moving faster than ever as technology companies push
tremendous disruptions into this critical sector. However, these disruptions
often fail to acknowledge existing workflows and how best to support
clinicians. As every physician who has bemoaned the time demand of entering
data into EMR systems knows, when technology solutions address a given need,
they often create other challenges.
Often the
blame goes to a lack of interoperability—the ability of information technology
systems and software applications to communicate, exchange data, and put this
exchanged information to use. Ideally, data exchange standards would allow
data to be shared across clinicians, labs, and facilities, regardless of the
application or software vendor.
“We see this
phenomenon [of interoperability challenges] all the time, and the root cause is
lack of communication,” says Dr. Jeffrey Zavaleta, a board-certified
anesthesiologist at Cook Children’s and chief medical officer at Graphium
Health, a software provider for anesthesia practices.
From
Zavaleta’s perspective, a lack of communication is often due to siloed
departments. While physicians, administrators, and IT professionals may be
looking at the same problem, they are likely interpreting solutions through
different lenses.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/how-to-enhance-ehr-use-measures-to-mitigate-clinician-burnout
How to Enhance EHR Use Measures to Mitigate Clinician Burnout
Scientifically
tracking EHR use measures could improve clinician well-being and ultimately
mitigate clinician burden.
By Christopher Jason
April 13,
2021 - To effectively boost EHR optimization and reduce clinician burnout,
healthcare stakeholders must develop EHR use measures that are actionable,
usable, transparent, and trustworthy, according to a JAMA Network op-ed
from American Medical Association and Yale School of Medicine leaders.
Scientific-based
methods could effectively track EHR use and performance, op-ed authors
Christine Sinsky from the AMA, and Harlan Krumholz and Edward Melnick, both
from Yale, wrote.
Extended EHR
use, documentation, excessive EHR inbox messages and notifications, and
other EHR
usability issues can result in clinician burnout. According to a recent
study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics
Association (JAMIA), ambulatory physicians spend more than five hours on the
EHR for every eight hours of scheduled patient time.
This
EHR use study, plus many
more, revealed EHR performance measures and variations that led health IT
professionals and developers to increase focus on patient care and clinician
burnout.
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/how-a-unified-big-data-infrastructure-can-boost-population-health
How a Unified Big Data Infrastructure Can Boost Population Health
Lee Health
is working to unify information from clinical systems, claims, labs, and more
to build a big data infrastructure and enhance population health management.
By Jessica Kent
April 13,
2021 - For organizations seeking to improve their population health
management capabilities, big data is a critical part of the journey.
Gathering
information from different sources – such as claims, medical records, and lab
systems – can help providers paint a picture of patients’ health, target
resources to those who need them most, and measure health outcomes.
At Lee
Health, leaders recognized the need for a solution that would help them build
an infrastructure to unify data from these different sources, resulting in
improved care management and population
health management applications.
“We have been
on a population health journey for about four years,” Robert Millette,
executive director of population health at Lee Health, told HealthITAnalytics.
-----
https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/biden-administration-to-lift-restrictions-on-telemedicine-abortions
Biden Administration to Lift Restrictions on Telemedicine Abortions
The
administration has announced that it will allow healthcare providers to
prescribe abortion-inducing drugs via telehealth without an in-person exam for
the remainder of the public health emergency.
By Eric Wicklund
April 13,
2021 - The Biden Administration is supporting the use of
telehealth to facilitate medication abortions during the coronavirus
pandemic.
Acting US
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Janet Woodcock told the American
College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists this week that the agency would be
lifting restrictions on prescribing abortion-inducing medications, allowing
healthcare providers to prescribe mifepristone and monitor the procedure via
telehealth.
“Those in
need of an abortion or miscarriage management will be able to do so safety and
effectively by acquiring mifepristone though the mail — just as they would any
other medication with a similarly strong safety profile,” ACOG Chief Executive
Officer Maureen Phipps told
Politico, which broke the news on Monday.
The
announcement comes on the heels of a March ruling by the US Supreme Court that
put back in place FDA guidelines that require in-person exams before providers
can use telehealth to prescribe mifepristone. That ruling was in response to a
July 2020 federal district court ruling that eliminated the in-person exam
during the public health emergency, saying it imposed a “substantial obstacle”
to access to care.
-----
https://patientengagementhit.com/news/google-tiptoes-into-patient-data-access-consumer-medical-records
Google Tiptoes Into Patient Data Access, Consumer Medical Records
The
company is gathering user feedback about patient data access preferences,
potentially for a second try in the medical records space.
By Sara Heath
April 13,
2021 - Google could be getting back in the medical records game, with the
tech giant testing out key patient data access preferences potentially in hopes
of building something akin to Apple Health Records, STAT first reported.
Specifically,
Google is asking users how they would like to view, organize, and share their
own health records. That type of user data could help inform future moves in
the consumer medical records space.
The study
will engage individuals receiving care from community and academic medical
centers in Northern California, Atlanta, and Chicago. Participating healthcare
organizations must use Epic Systems EHR and patient users must use Android
phones.
In a
statement obtained by STAT, Google said it is “running a user feedback program
to test features that give users the ability to collect health information from
their provider patient portals.” Google confirmed that it will encrypt all user
feedback data and will not sell the data or use it for Google ads.
-----
https://ehrintelligence.com/news/ehr-adoption-barriers-facilitators-in-behavioral-health-facilities
EHR Adoption Barriers, Facilitators in Behavioral Health Facilities
A
behavioral health-centered and well-designed EHR workflow could improve EHR
adoption in behavioral health facilities.
By Christopher Jason
April 12,
2021 - Behavioral health EHR developers and hospitals should recognize end
users’ perspectives on specific barriers and facilitators before EHR
implementation, according to a study featuring survey responses published in JMIR
Publications.
For instance,
enhanced EHR training and education are essential starting points. Survey
respondents also wanted improved standard practices, such as
behavioral health-specific EHR documentation and a seamless mental health
workflow into the EHR system.
Mental and
behavioral health are growing and essential fields of medicine. Roughly 25
percent of US adults report a mental health diagnosis, such as anxiety or
depression, or experience emotional distress. Furthermore, the US has the
highest suicide rate and second-highest drug-related death rate compared to
other high-income countries, according
to a recent Commonwealth Fund brief.
Nevertheless,
although EHR adoption continues to climb across healthcare, behavioral health
EHR adoption lags behind its counterparts. According to the ONC
Health IT Dashboard, only 49 percent of psychiatric hospitals have
certified EHRs compared to 89 percent of rehabilitation centers, 87 percent of
children’s hospitals, and 59 percent of long-term care hospitals.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/biden-outlines-health-it-funding-priorities
Biden outlines health IT funding priorities
The extensive
list includes billions in funding for public health data modernization,
broadband and 5G expansion, social determinants of health, cybersecurity and
more.
By Kat Jercich
April 13,
2021 02:08 PM
The
Biden administration this past Friday released a letter outlining President Joe Biden's request
for fiscal year 2022 discretionary funding in advance of Congress's annual
appropriations and budget process.
The
letter, addressed to Appropriations Committee Chair Sen. Patrick Leahy,
D-Vermont, along with several other top federal lawmakers, includes a range of
proposals that reflect Biden's broader agenda.
"The
consequences of this broad disinvestment are plain to see. We know that
anticipating, preparing for, and fighting a global pandemic requires a robust
public health infrastructure. Yet, going into the COVID-19 pandemic, funding
for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was 10 percent lower than a
decade ago, adjusted for inflation," wrote Shalanda D. Young, acting
director of the Office of Budget and Management.
"The
President believes now is the time to begin reversing this trend – and the
expiration of nearly a decade of budget caps presents a unique opportunity to
do so," Young added.
-----
https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/technology/report-healthcare-hacking-incidents-rose-42-2020
Report: Healthcare Hacking Incidents Rose 42% in 2020
Analysis
| By Revenue
Cycle Advisor | April 13, 2021
The study
found that hacking incidents increased for the fifth consecutive year.
Hacking
incidents in healthcare increased dramatically as organizations dealt with the
novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic throughout 2020, according to a recent
report from Protenus, a Baltimore-based healthcare analytics company.
The 2021
Breach Barometer, which was published by Protenus in March, covers 758 health
data breaches reported to HHS, the media, or other sources during the 2020
calendar year.
The
study found that hacking incidents increased for the fifth consecutive year.
Overall, 470 hacking incidents were reported in 2020, an increase of 42% from
the previous year.
The
data showed that hacking incidents against healthcare organizations have been
steadily rising:
- 2016: 126 hacking incidents
- 2017: 178
- 2018: 222
- 2019: 330
- 2020: 470
-----
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/how-healthcare-must-handle-data-extortion-ransomware-attacks
Healthcare’s Data Extortion Problem, and How to Prepare for Ransomware
Data
extortion attempts are now occurring in at least 70 percent of all ransomware
attacks. How can healthcare providers best combat these pervasive tactics?
By Jessica Davis
April 12, 2021
- Data extortion was once seen as a rare, or potential threat, rather than
a pressing issue, while ransomware and subsequent downtime were
greater concerns for healthcare cybersecurity. But attackers have
since shifted tactics, leveraging data theft in the majority of ransomware
attacks prior to encryption victims' data.
The extortion
technique was first popularized by the Maze
hacking group, which had a penchant for targeting healthcare given its troves
of sensitive data.
The hackers
banked on providers needing constant access to their information and fear of
potential data leaks in their efforts to make the most profit at their victims'
expense.
The
group has since disbanded but researchers believe the actors simply shifted to
deploying the Egregor
variant. Clop, Avaddon, Astro, DarkSide, and a host of other hacking
groups are leveraging extortion in “secondary infections.”
In
fact, VMWare researchers saw an increasing number of long-term cyberattack
campaigns across the digital healthcare supply chain. The attacks are likely
behind the surge in data extortion attempts, which is fueling the cybercrime
market.
-----
https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/acute-direct-to-consumer-telehealth-leads-to-more-follow-up-care
Acute Direct-To-Consumer Telehealth Leads To More Follow-Up Care
Direct-to-consumer
telehealth patients had 4 percent more follow-up encounters compared to
patients who had initial in-person acute care visits.
By Hannah Nelson
April 09,
2021 - Patients who accessed care for upper respiratory infections through
direct-to-consumer telemedicine platforms were more likely to have
follow-up appointments than patients who had their initial visit in-person,
according to a University of Michigan study
that suggests potential setbacks of on-demand telemedicine.
The research,
published in Health Affairs, questions whether shifting to direct-to-consumer
telehealth services for initial care is successful in reducing acute
care costs.
Researchers
analyzed data from a large insurer for over 28,700 direct-to-consumer virtual
visits and 57,400 in-person visits for acute respiratory infections from 2016
to 2019.
While most
visits did not result in follow-up care, 10.3 percent of the patients first
seen through a direct-to-consumer telehealth visit had a visit in the following
week, compared to 5.9 percent of those whose first visit was in person.
-----
https://www.healio.com/news/primary-care/20210409/primary-care-providers-overestimate-likelihood-of-disease-before-after-certain-tests
April 09,
2021
Primary care providers overestimate likelihood of disease before, after
certain tests
By
Janel Miller
Providers
in the primary care setting often overestimate the probability of a diagnosis
before and after testing, suggesting that many are “unaccustomed to using
probability in diagnosis and clinical practice,” researchers said.
“This
research grew out of seeing a clear disconnect between how we taught testing to
medical students and how we practice clinically,” David
J. Morgan, MD, MS, professor of epidemiology and public health
at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, told Healio Primary Care. “We
teach testing as math equations and 2x2 tables but that doesn’t translate to
patient care.”
Morgan
and colleagues surveyed 553 practitioners — including resident physicians (n =
290), attending physicians (n = 202) and nurse practitioners (n = 61) — and
asked them to estimate the likelihood of disease in four clinical scenarios
that are common in primary care: pneumonia, cardiac ischemia, breast cancer and
UTI.
“Each
scenario was created for a general situation but included essential details to
calculate true risk for patients (eg, age and absence of any risk factors for
breast cancer in mammogram screening questions),” the researchers wrote. “The
primary outcome of testing questions was to accurately identify the probability
that a patient had disease after positive or negative results.”
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/benefits-and-future-remote-patient-monitoring
The benefits and future of remote patient monitoring
A physician
expert in RPM discusses why the technology is so important to patient care and
outcomes, and describes what needs to happen to capitalize on its promise.
Bill Siwicki
April 12,
2021
At
the start of 2020, widespread adoption of remote patient monitoring was still
in the distance. The technology was struggling to get off the ground despite it
being available for years.
Most
of the hesitancy on RPM implementation seemed to be because of limited
reimbursement opportunities as well as lack of incentives for providers
offering such services.
Then
COVID-19 hit. The pandemic exposed the need for the rapid adoption of
increasingly innovative digital health technologies. And while telehealth, a
key component of this, has received much of the focus and spend, RPM has been
gaining traction since the beginning of the pandemic.
Healthcare
IT News interviewed Dr. Lucienne Ide, founder and chief health
innovator at Rimidi, a cloud-based remote patient monitoring technology company,
to gain her insights and expertise into the state of RPM – and where it goes
from here.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/emea/european-digital-health-revolution-wake-covid-19
The European digital health revolution in the wake of COVID-19
As the region
starts to take measures to build resilient health care systems in response to
the pandemic, Healthcare IT News takes a closer look at the big digital health
investments made in a few key markets.
By Sara Mageit
April 12,
2021 07:56 AM
Although
European health systems have faced the most challenging public health threat
they have ever experienced, the promising side effects have undoubtedly been
the disruptions catalysed by digital health. During this time of crisis,
digital health has stepped in to provide expedient health care services that
offer effectiveness, safety and even humanity for patients suffering from
chronic conditions or who need immediate health care. In recognition of this, the European Commission recently proposed the EU4Health
programme as part of a COVID-19 recovery response programme. The initiative
aims to raise €5.1 billion for the digital transformation of the EU health
sector and ensure preparedness for future cross border health threats.
Germany
Germany
has steadfastly remained at the forefront of the digital health transformation
during the pandemic by continually innovating and adapting legislation
accordingly. In 2019, DiGA Fast-Track was created by the Digital Healthcare
Act (DVG) and various legislative changes, which meant that apps could be
prescribed by doctors and costs are reimbursed through German health insurance.
On 5 October, eleven months after the Germany federal government passed the
DVG, two health apps officially became available for prescription.
However,
the acceptance of digital health has not always been so widely present in
Germany. Dr Susanne Ozegowski, head of corporate development and digitisation
at Techniker Krankenkasse (TK) and HIMSS EMEA advisory board member, told Healthcare
IT News: "In Germany, until three years ago, digital health
didn't play a big role. There were a few fitness and wellness apps but hardly
any digital health applications which had a relevant impact when it came to the
diagnosis and treatment of diseases.
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2021/04/12/microsoft-accelerates-industry-cloud-strategy-for-healthcare-with-the-acquisition-of-nuance/
Microsoft Accelerates Industry Cloud Strategy for Healthcare with the
Acquisition of Nuance
April 12, 2021
Healthcare IT News
Microsoft
Corp (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Nuance Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: NUAN) today
announced they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Microsoft
will acquire Nuance for $56.00 per share, implying a 23% premium to the closing
price of Nuance on Friday, April 9, in an all-cash transaction valued at $19.7
billion, inclusive of Nuance’s net debt. Nuance is a trusted cloud and AI
software leader representing decades of accumulated healthcare and enterprise
AI experience. Mark Benjamin will remain CEO of Nuance, reporting to Scott
Guthrie, executive vice president of Cloud & AI at Microsoft. The
transaction is intended to close this calendar year.
Microsoft
has accelerated its efforts to provide industry-specific cloud offerings to
support customers and partners as they respond to disruption and new
opportunities. These efforts include the Microsoft
Cloud for Healthcare, introduced in 2020, which aims to address the
comprehensive needs of the rapidly transforming and growing healthcare
industry. Today’s acquisition announcement represents the latest step in
Microsoft’s industry-specific cloud strategy.
Nuance
is a pioneer and a leading provider of conversational AI and cloud-based
ambient clinical intelligence for healthcare providers. Nuance’s products
include the Dragon Ambient eXperience, Dragon Medical One and PowerScribe One
for radiology reporting, all leading clinical speech recognition SaaS offerings
built on Microsoft Azure. Nuance’s solutions work seamlessly with core
healthcare systems, including longstanding relationships with Electronic Health
Records (EHRs), to alleviate the burden of clinical documentation and empower
providers to deliver better patient experiences. Nuance solutions are currently
used by more than 55% of physicians and 75% of radiologists in the U.S., and
used in 77% of U.S. hospitals. Nuance’s Healthcare Cloud revenue experienced
37% year-over-year growth in Nuance’s fiscal year 2020 (ended September 2020).
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2021/04/12/the-art-of-the-possible-practical-five-lessons-for-navigating-the-journey-to-a-digital-hospital/
The Art of the Practical: Five Lessons for Navigating the Journey to a
Digital Hospital
April 12, 2021
The
following is a guest article by Richard Scully from Atos.
While
the vision of the Digital Hospital has been much talked about in health systems
all over the world, relatively few organizations have yet realized it. Yet the
realities of delivering a digital hospital are less about purchasing the
high-tech of tomorrow, and more about harnessing what you already have today.
Rapidly
evolving technologies, together with Covid-19, demographic and economic
impacts, are changing hospitals all over the world. With ageing infrastructure
in some countries and an almost universal demand for more beds, hospital
executives and governments are rethinking their strategy and create hospitals
without borders. Now more than ever, they need to find innovative ways to
optimize inpatient and outpatient settings, connect with patients and citizens,
and accelerate digital transformation.
What
is a digital hospital?
Even
the definition of a digital hospital can vary depending on who you ask. At Atos,
we see the implementation of a digital hospital as follows:
- Optimize, redesign and/or build new provider
processes, management systems and facilities by enabling an underlying
digitized networking infrastructure of interconnected assets
- Orchestrate data and workflow via
artificial intelligence to coordinate valuable services and insights
which were not previously possible in order to meet the Quadruple Aim of
delivering better patient experience, better health outcomes, lower costs
of care and better staff experiences.
-----
https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/technology/ai-can-improve-clinical-documentation-reduce-physician-burden
AI Can Improve Clinical Documentation, Reduce Physician Burden
Analysis
| By Scott Mace |
April 12, 2021
AHIMA and
3M describe benefits of artificial intelligence in improving clinician
workflows.
Healthcare
systems can utilize technology to generate data integrity and data compliance,
as well as improve workflows, and achieve value-based care models, according to
a new white paper from American
Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and 3M Health Information Systems.
Following the
direction of an expert group of clinicians and clinical documentation integrity
(CDI) professionals, the resulting white paper, Elevating Clinical Documentation Integrity with Compliant
Technology Adoption, describes the benefits of computer-assisted clinical
documentation.
“When CDI is
done well, it can lead to better patient care and reduced burden on
physicians,” said AHIMA President Katherine Lusk, MHSM, RHIA, FAHIMA.
“Artificial intelligence-supported technologies like computer-assisted
physician documentation (CAPD) are game-changers for patients and providers
alike, taking time-consuming work and processes and creating actionable
information that can lead to improved health outcomes.”
-----
https://histalk2.com/2021/04/09/weekender-4-9-21/
Weekly News Recap
- KKR acquires a majority interest in
behavioral health EHR/PM vendor Therapy Brands.
- Firefly Health raises $40 million.
- A magazine article questions the
claims and effectiveness of behavioral therapy apps.
- Massachusetts General Hospital will
collaborate with drug manufacturer AstraZeneca on digital health solutions
for disease management.
- The Indian Health Service seeks help
with developing a strategic plan for IT.
- Bright Health acquires Zipnosis.
- The federal government’s information
blocking and EHR transparency rules take effect.
- A two-system study of EHR usage
finds that ambulatory physicians spend five hours on the EHR for each
eight hours of scheduled clinical time.
- Bank of America acquires AxiaMed.
-----
Enjoy!
David.