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://www.digitalhealth.net/2022/09/nhs-scotland-set-for-transformation-with-new-collaboration/
NHS Scotland set for transformation with new collaboration
NHS Scotland is set to transform the health of the local
population with new digital technologies and patient pathways thanks to the
launch of a collaboration between NHS, university and industry partners.
Cora
Lydon 14 Sep, 2022
NHS
Golden Jubilee’s national Centre for Sustainable Delivery, NHS Greater Glasgow
& Clyde, University of Glasgow, AstraZeneca UK and Lenus Health have all
signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which aims to improve the health of
the Scottish population and expand opportunities for clinical research.
Professor
Iain McInnes, University of Glasgow vice principal, said: “We are delighted to
be signing this important MoU, which represents a strengthening of the vital
triple helix partnership between research, industry and the NHS.
“Using
the world-changing research carried out at the University of Glasgow, we will
work together with AstraZeneca and the NHS in Scotland with the aim to deliver
more high calibre trials and ultimately improve patient care.”
Transforming healthcare services
Professor
Jann Gardner, chief executive of NHS Golden Jubilee, said: “The national Centre
for Sustainable Delivery at NHS Golden Jubilee has been set up specifically to
renew and transform healthcare services across NHS Scotland and is uniquely
positioned to deliver transformation programmes at scale through the Accelerated National Innovation Adoption pathway.
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https://www.digitalhealth.net/2022/09/lancashire-and-south-cumbria-pioneer-drones-for-pathology-deliveries/
Lancashire and South Cumbria pioneer drones for pathology deliveries
Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS providers are
revolutionising the way medical samples are delivered between hospital sites
with the use of drone technology.
Cora Lydon 12 Sep, 2022
University
Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust (UHMBT) and Lancashire Teaching
Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (LHTR) will be trialling electrically charged
drones for pathology sample deliveries, cutting delivery times across the
region by over an hour, optimising the operation of pathology labs and speeding
up access to results.
Professor
Anthony Rowbottom MBE, clinical director for pathology at LHTR, said: “This
important project will revolutionise deliveries across a specific part of
Lancashire and South Cumbria and provide valuable insight into how this can be
expanded across a larger pathology partnership network.
“Not
only will this expedite the transfer of patient samples but if successful could
provide scope for branching into other NHS services and, in the not-too-distant
future, should be seen as standard practice. In the long-term, with the right
ambition and direction, why not aspire towards potentially extending drone use
to home delivery for patients.”
The
drones will be used to transport medical samples between the Royal Lancaster
Infirmary, Westmorland General and Furness General Hospital initially. In the
second phase of the trial there will be a simulation of a potential expansion
to Royal Preston Hospital.
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https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/flo-anonymous-mode-period-tracker-app-abortion-roe/631926/
Period tracker Flo launches anonymous mode amid post-Roe privacy concerns
Published Sept. 15, 2022
Dive Brief:
- Period tracking app Flo has rolled
out an anonymous mode to protect users’ sensitive reproductive health data
months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
- The company, which has dominant
market share with 48 million monthly users and has faced regulatory
scrutiny over privacy in the past, pledged to release the mode
shortly after the court’s decision.
- The new anonymous mode gives users
the option to use the app without their name, email address or technical
identifiers associated with their health data.
Dive Insight:
The
Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
overturned decades of precedent and threw
the nation’s healthcare system into chaos. The ruling gave rise to a patchwork
system of reproductive health access in the U.S., and concerns among
pro-abortion activists and privacy advocates that states could use data from
period tracking and other reproductive health apps against patients seeking
abortion services.
In
the wake of the decision, a number of popular women’s health apps pledged to
enhance their privacy and security protocols, including Flo. The U.K.-based
women’s health app launched its anonymous mode Wednesday for all iOS users. The
company said Android users will get access next month.
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https://www.statnews.com/2022/09/15/6-tactics-to-make-artificial-intelligence-work-on-the-frontlines/
6 tactics to make artificial intelligence work on the frontlines
By Katherine
C. Kellogg, Mark P. Sendak and Suresh
BaluSept. 15, 2022
Artificial intelligence is a transformative
tool in the workplace — except when it isn’t.
For
top managers, state-of-the art AI tools are a no-brainer: in theory, they
increase revenues, decrease costs, and improve the quality of products and
services. But in the wild, it’s often just the opposite for frontline employees
who actually need to integrate these tools into their daily work. Not only can
AI tools yield few benefits, but they can also introduce additional work and
decrease autonomy.
Our research on the introduction of 15 AI clinical decision
support tools over the past five years at Duke Health has shown that the key to
successfully integrating them is recognizing that increasing the value for
frontline employees is as important as making sure the tools work in the first
place. The tactics we identified are useful not only in biopharma, medicine,
and health care, but across a range of other industries as well.
Here
are six tactics for making artificial intelligence-based tools work on industry
frontlines.
Increase end-user benefits
AI
project leaders need to increase benefits for the frontline employees who will
be the actual end users of a new tool, though this is often not the group that
initially approaches them to build it.
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https://medcitynews.com/2022/09/integrated-evidence-how-patient-data-derived-from-digital-healthcare-delivery-can-drive-innovation/
Integrated evidence: How patient data derived from digital healthcare
delivery can drive innovation
For a long
time, doctors’ offices, large or small, operated under a seeming contradiction;
even […]
By Stephanie Reisinger
Sep 15, 2022
at 4:32 PM
For a long
time, doctors’ offices, large or small, operated under a seeming contradiction;
even as modern medicine pushed the frontiers of innovation, providing new
treatments and sometimes cures for devastating diseases, so much of our
healthcare system remained stuck in the pre-digital past. The most obvious
example is one that many of us have experienced – the floor to ceiling “walls”
of file cabinets full of paper patient records. Fortunately, this innovation
gap is closing (and these file cabinets are disappearing!) faster than ever.
In fact,
today, some of the most exciting innovations in healthcare extend beyond new
therapeutic approaches and breakthrough medical devices. The digitization of
all aspects of healthcare delivery is dramatically changing how healthcare is
provided across the U.S. and around the world. From electronic medical records
(EMRs) that document a patient’s healthcare status during a visit to their
doctor, to virtual/telehealth visits and consumer healthcare apps that monitor
all aspects of an individual’s health status – digital healthcare delivery is
transforming healthcare.
A
consequential output of healthcare digitization is the generation of electronic
patient data – and enormous amounts of it — of which clinical researchers have
taken notice. For decades, clinical research relied almost exclusively on
capturing patient data de-novo, either on paper or electronic forms in clinical
trials for often narrowly selected patient populations and highly prescriptive
treatment protocols. These trials have undeniably produced high-quality
evidence related to the safety and efficacy of the investigational drugs
studied; however, the generalizability of clinical trial results to “real
world” care settings are often not well understood. Additionally, the lack of patient
diversity in trials remains a significant problem — primarily because clinical
trials are typically executed within large academic medical centers that are
inaccessible to uninsured, or rural populations.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/tampa-general-gains-clinical-and-operational-rewards-its-command-center
Tampa General gains clinical and operational rewards with its command
center
In the first
two years of the program, the health system reduced length of stay by half of a
day, cut out 20,000 excess days and saved $40 million by eliminating
inefficiencies.
By Bill Siwicki
September 16,
2022 11:46 AM
Tampa
General Hospital faced high occupancy levels, increasing patient volumes and
higher acuities – beds were filled with more patients who were also sicker.
THE
PROBLEM
To meet the needs of
the community, the organization needed to transform its operations to increase
access to the health system, including emergency department, inpatient and
procedural services.
This was an
initiative that could not wait, said Ronetta Lambert, senior director
of CareComm operations at Tampa General Hospital.
"While Tampa
General is undertaking a master facility plan to grow physical space, that is
not an immediate solution," she explained. "We needed to be able to
safely treat more patients within our existing footprint.
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https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/innovation/cignas-evernorth-adds-new-apps-its-digital-health-platform
Cigna's Evernorth Adds New Apps to its Digital Health Platform
Analysis
| By Eric Wicklund |
September 16, 2022
The health
plan is one of several healthcare organizations to develop a list of curated
digital health apps and programs that can be prescribed for members or
integrated into connected care treatments.
Digital
health apps give healthcare organizations an opportunity to direct resources to
patients in need of specialty care, but matching the right resources to the
right patient is difficult when the marketplace features hundreds of thousands
of apps.
To tackle
that dilemma, health systems like Kaiser Permanente, UC Davis, Froedtert, and
Banner Health and health plans like Cigna, Optum, and Express Scripts are
developing formularies, or platforms that contain vetted apps and digital
health programs. Healthcare providers are then able to prescribe apps that meet
the requirements for efficacy and privacy.
Evernorth,
the health services business of Cigna, recently added five new digital health
platforms to its Digital Health Formulary, giving members access to care
management resources to address sleeping issues, inflammatory conditions,
anxiety, and substance abuse.
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https://ehrintelligence.com/news/user-focused-ehr-design-needed-to-drive-care-improvement
User-Focused EHR Design Needed to Drive Care Improvement
EHR design
and training must focus on end-user needs to ensure health IT does not add to
clinician burden, AMCI panelists said.
By Hannah Nelson
September 15,
2022 - According to an article
published in JAMIA, future EHR systems must become more user-focused to enable
providers to deliver improved care.
A panel
sponsored by the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) at the 2021
AMIA Symposium addressed the question: “Are Electronic Health Records dumbing
down clinicians?” The panel gave examples of how EHR use can worsen clinicians’
performances along with important benefits.
One
clinician-panelist noted that end-users are hesitant to question clinical
decision support from EHR platforms. Too many false positive alerts can limit
clinicians’ abilities to respond to rare critical alerts.
Another
panelist detailed the adverse effects of EHR use on nurses. A concern is that
EHR use obscures the nursing narrative about each patient.
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/artificial-intelligence-tool-helps-combat-antibiotic-resistance-misuse
Artificial Intelligence Tool Helps Combat Antibiotic Resistance, Misuse
Florida
researchers have developed a clinical decision-making tool to help determine
whether a case of pediatric diarrhea is caused solely by a virus, thereby
improving antibiotic stewardship.
By Shania Kennedy
September 15,
2022 - A new study
published in JAMA Pediatrics found that an artificial intelligence (AI)-based
clinical decision-making tool can help improve antibiotic stewardship for diarrheal
disease in settings with poor sanitation and hygiene.
According to
the World Health Organization (WHO), diarrheal disease
is the second leading cause of death in children under 5 years old. The disease
caused the deaths of 370,000 children in 2019. Viruses cause many cases of
diarrhea, but cases of the condition resulting from septic bacterial infections
are on the rise.
Some diarrhea
cases facilitate the need for antibiotics, but the varied causes of diarrheal
disease require other treatment options. However, most pediatric diarrhea cases
in developing countries are treated with antibiotics, regardless of the
condition’s cause, according to the study authors.
“That means
the vast majority of cases are treated inappropriately,” said Eric J. Nelson,
MD, PhD, a University of Florida (UF) Health physician, a tenured associate
professor in the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions’
environmental and global health department, and one of the study’s lead
authors, in the press
release.
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/physician-uptake-of-telehealth-rpm-higher-than-other-digital-health-tools
Physician Uptake of Telehealth, RPM Higher Than Other Digital Health Tools
Remote care
tools have seen the largest increase in physician adoption since 2016, with
more physicians noting their importance as digital health adoption rises, a new
survey shows.
By Anuja Vaidya
September 15,
2022 - As digital health adoption among healthcare providers increases,
the most significant growth was seen in adopting digital tools that support
remote care, like virtual visits and remote patient monitoring (RPM), according
to
a new survey.
Conducted by
the American Medical Association, the
survey polled 1,300 US physicians. This is the third in a series of
surveys. The AMA conducted the same survey in 2016 and 2019, polling the same
sample of physicians recruited by WebMD.
Survey
results show a massive increase in the adoption of digital health tools, with
the average number of tools used by a single physician growing from 2.2 in 2016
to 3.8 in 2022.
This spike in
adoption can be seen across age groups and genders. In 2016, the average number
of digital health tools in use by a physician between the ages of 28 and 40 was
2.1 and by a physician between 51 and 65 was 1.7. These figures jumped to 3.8
in both groups by 2022.
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https://www.healthdatamanagement.com/articles/ceos-digital-strategies-come-up-short?id=131050
CEOs: Digital strategies come up short
Senior
healthcare leaders say IT can help transform healthcare, but they acknowledge
that their organization’s strategies need more work.
Sep 06
2022
Marla
Durben Hirsch
Contributing
editor
CEOs
acknowledge that information technology will play a vital role in transforming
healthcare. But few say that their organization has created a digital strategy
that looks far enough into the future, according to a global survey of 200
leaders of midsize and large healthcare provider organizations.
Many CEOs
also view the challenges in adapting to new technologies as a potential barrier
to transformation, according to the recently released KPMG survey report: 2021 Healthcare CEO Future Pulse.
The survey
shows that top executives see many ways that technology can help address key
issues, including improving workforce retention, enhancing customer service,
offering patient-centric care, shifting to delivering more care outside the
hospital and dealing with new payment models.
“The CEOs are
realizing the importance of technology. The ones that value technology will do
better. The ones that keep it in the back office will not do as well,” says
David Chou, a long-time CIO in the healthcare industry and founder of davidchou.health.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/developing-trust-healthcare-ai-step-step
Developing trust in healthcare AI, step by step
A new
analysis examines how artificial intelligence in medicine can impact clinical
decisions and identifies the steps that could build more trust in machine
learning models from doctors and patients.
By Andrea Fox
September 15,
2022 10:18 AM
A
new Chilmark Research report by Dr. Jody Ranck, the firm's senior analyst,
explores state-of-the-art processes for bias and risk mitigation in
artificial intelligence that can be used to develop more trustworthy
machine learning tools for healthcare.
WHY IT
MATTERS
As the usage of artificial intelligence in healthcare grows, some providers are
skeptical about how much they should trust machine learning models deployed in
clinical settings. AI products and services have the potential to determine who
gets what form of medical care and when – so the stakes are high when
algorithms are deployed, as Chilmark's 2022 "AI and Trust in Healthcare
Report," published Sept. 13, explains.
Growth
in enterprise-level augmented and artificial intelligence has
touched population health research, clinical practice, emergency room
management, health system operations, revenue cycle management, supply chains
and more.
Efficiencies
and cost-savings that AI can help organizations realize are driving that array
of use cases, along with deeper insights into clinical patterns that machine
learning can surface.
But
there are also many examples of algorithmic bias with respect to race, gender and other
variables that have raised concerns about how AI is being deployed in
healthcare settings, and what downstream effects of "black box"
models could be.
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https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2022/09/15/solving-the-cybersecurity-gap-in-healthcare-it-digital-transformation/
Solving the Cybersecurity Gap in Healthcare IT Digital Transformation
September 15, 2022
The
following is a guest article by Terry Young, Director, Service Provider
Marketing at A10 Networks.
The
COVID-19 pandemic intensified public awareness of their personal vulnerability
when broadband service becomes unavailable or gets disrupted. This has also
spurred massive government funding to close the broadband gap (the digital
divide) and provide connectivity to unconnected or underserved
communities.
But
there is another gap that needs more attention, the “cybersecurity gap”. That
is, the growing chasm between capabilities of cybercriminals against the
inexperience of unserved communities and the resources of regional internet
service providers now charged with extending essential broadband
connectivity.
The
pandemic has ignited a significant rise in cyberthreats of all types targeting
the most vulnerable residents and the most critical community services.
Moreover, the reality is that communities in rural areas are especially
vulnerable to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks due to the lack of
security infrastructure and the vulnerability of the scarce community
resources, such as healthcare, favorite targets for cyber-attackers. DDoS
attacks, in particular, can knock out Internet access through the biggest
access pipe rendering the broadband investment useless. DDoS attackers are
known for exploiting the weakest link – those neglected entry points, the
outdated network equipment, the essential health service that a small community
can’t afford to be out of service.
Rural
Communities are Especially Vulnerable
In
the US, there are about 2,300 regional internet service providers (ISPs)
registered with the FCC. These 2,300 organizations try to cover the 20% of the
US population and 97% of the landmass that is considered “rural”, including all
the small healthcare facilities that serve rural communities. These are the
companies that have stepped up in the past to provide connectivity in service
areas that larger companies thought were uneconomic and they have the primary
responsibility for “bridging the digital divide” for the remaining 23-42M US
locations that are the focus of government broadband funding.
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https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/375-healthcare-organizations-urge-senate-to-ensure-expanded-telehealth-access
375 Healthcare Organizations Urge Senate to Ensure Expanded Telehealth
Access
A letter,
co-led by the American Telehealth Association and signed by 375 healthcare
stakeholders, requests that the US Senate approve a two-year extension to allow
for expanded telehealth access.
By Mark Melchionna
September 14,
2022 - Signed by 375 stakeholders and co-led by the American Telemedicine
Association (ATA) and its advocacy arm ATA Action, a
letter to the US Senate asks that expanded telehealth access be solidified
for the next two years while working toward a permanent extension of the
flexibilities and waivers currently in place.
At the
beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government eliminated regulations that
limited the extent to which telehealth could be used. This followed the
declaration of the public health emergency (PHE), as many patients were no
longer able to receive in-person care.
However, many
now anticipate the telehealth flexibilities will be eliminated as COVID-19
cases have declined and telehealth use has leveled off.
The ATA and
ATA Action composed a letter that urges the US Senate to extend the
flexibilities and waivers put into place during the pandemic for two years. The
flexibilities include removing in-person requirements for telemental health and
restrictions on location of providers and patients engaging in telehealth.
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2022/09/14/how-ai-and-machine-learning-will-impact-the-future-of-healthcare/?sh=3b8317cf47e5
How AI And Machine Learning Will Impact The Future Of Healthcare
Bernard Marr
Contributor
Sep 14, 2022,01:24am EDT
Our modern healthcare system is currently
facing huge challenges exacerbated by the pandemic, a rise in lifestyle-related
diseases, and an exploding world population.
The
good news is that using AI to create intelligent processes and workflows could
make healthcare cheaper, more effective, more personalized, and more equitable.
Some
experts are predicting that the healthcare industry is the sector that could be
the most affected by the enormous changes of the fourth industrial revolution.
I
recently spoke with Tom Lawry, National Director of AI for Health & Life
Sciences at Microsoft, about the future of healthcare. Here are some of his
biggest insights and predictions:
Current Challenges in Healthcare
The
U.S. currently spends more money on healthcare than any other country in the
world, but its individual health outcomes are lower than most other developed
nations.
Additionally,
clinician burnout is a huge problem, particularly since the pandemic.
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https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/providers/post-dobbs-fallout-tracker-kan-voters-resoundingly-reject-abortion-ban
Post Dobbs fallout tracker—Senators urge HHS to strengthen HIPAA
protections surrounding reproductive health info sharing
By Healthcare Staff
Sep 14, 2022 10:30am
UPDATED:
Wednesday, Sept. 14 at 10:30 a.m.
Senators
urge HHS to strengthen HIPAA protections surrounding reproductive health
info sharing
Thirty
senators penned a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra
calling on the department to more heavily lean on the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to protect patients and providers
"from having their health information weaponized against them."
The
group, headed by Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
(HELP) Chair Patty Murray (D-Wa.), pointed to comments from Becerra and the
administration promising to take every action in their power to push back on
state-level abortion restrictions.
To
this end, HHS should take "immediate action ... to initiate the
rulemaking process to augment privacy protections under [HIPAA]
regulations," the senators wrote in the letter.
Specifically,
the department "should update the HIPAA Privacy Rule to broadly
restrict regulated entities from sharing individuals’ reproductive health
information without explicit consent, particularly for law enforcement,
civil or criminal proceedings premised on the provision of abortion
care," they wrote.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/physician-adoption-digital-health-tools-accelerating-ama-research-shows
Physician adoption of digital health tools is accelerating, AMA research
shows
A three-time
survey of 1,300 physicians from 2016-2022 revealed growing recognition of
technology's benefit, with the biggest growth seen in remote care tools and
planning for digital therapeutics.
By Andrea Fox
September 14,
2022 06:50 AM
The
American Medical Association's digital health research released today shows
increased rates of digital health adoption among physicians over the last six
years and provides insights into their expectations.
"The
AMA survey illustrates the importance physicians place on validated digital
health tools that improve health while streamlining the technological and
administrative burdens faced each day in medicine," said AMA President Dr.
Jack Resneck Jr. in a statement.
"These
technologies also must be designed and deployed in ways that advance health
equity," he added.
Doctors
across specialties adopting RPM tools
The
purpose of the survey, which measured across all ages and specialties,
according to AMA, was to investigate physicians' motivations and requirements
for onboarding digital health technologies and integrating them into their
medical practices.
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2022/09/14/a-wide-ranging-look-at-meditech-with-helen-waters/
A Wide Ranging Look at MEDITECH with Helen Waters
September 14, 2022
John Lynn
A
few years ago, I did an interview
with then MEDITECH CEO, Howard Messing, to look back at the 50 years
MEDITECH had been providing IT software and solutions to healthcare. That
interview gave me a new appreciation for the company and the success they’ve
had all these years as they focus on their customers.
Given
the relatively recent transition
of leadership, I thought it would be a good time to check in with
MEDITECH’s Executive Vice President & COO, Helen Waters. In our
discussion, we cover a broad range of topics including how the leadership
change has gone, the impact of COVID, and where they’re headed in the future.
Waters
offered some great insights into the culture of MEDITECH and their efforts to
continue that culture and legacy including a discussion of the majority female
leadership team including their female CEO which is quite unique in the
industry. She also highlighted how COVID had a tremendous impact on their
organization and some of the functionality they’d built prior to COVID but
hadn’t been adopted and utilized widely by customers became important for
customers to start using quickly. Plus, I ask her how things like
physician burnout have impacted MEDITECH’s approach to design and product
development.
-----
https://ehrintelligence.com/news/calhhs-data-exchange-framework-set-to-boost-interoperability
CalHHS Data Exchange Framework Set to Boost Interoperability
By January
31, 2023, hospitals, physician practices, and certain other entities are
required to sign an agreement governing participation in the CalHHS Data
Exchange Framework.
By Hannah Nelson
September 13,
2022 - The recently unveiled California Health and Human Services Agency (CalHHS)
Data Exchange Framework is set to promote health data interoperability across
the state, according to The
National Law Review.
By January
31, 2023, hospitals, physician practices, and certain other entities must sign
a data sharing agreement (DSA) governing participation in the CalHHS Data
Exchange Framework. Once the Framework takes full effect on January 31, 2024, parties
must exchange health data with other Framework participants.
The Framework
includes two main components: (1) a single data sharing agreement to be
executed by Framework participants and (2) a standard set of policies and
procedures that Framework participants will follow.
CalHHS
released a final version of the DSA and an initial set of policies and
procedures to govern the Framework on July 5, 2022.
-----
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/third-party-tracking-on-abortion-clinic-websites-sparks-data-privacy-concerns
Third-Party Tracking on Abortion Clinic Websites Sparks Data Privacy
Concerns
Researchers
analyzed abortion clinic websites and found third-party tracking tools on 99%
of them, raising data privacy concerns.
By Jill McKeon
September 13,
2022 - Researchers discovered third-party tracking tools on the majority
of analyzed abortion clinic websites, raising data privacy concerns, according
to a research
letter published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Although
tracking tools are commonplace on the internet, the Supreme Court’s decision in
Dobbs raised
significant concerns over the confidentiality of abortion-related data,
which some fear could be used to incriminate people who obtain abortions.
Sharing data with third-party entities that may not hold themselves to the same
strict privacy standards potentially puts that data at risk.
The
researchers analyzed 414 abortion clinics and 244 unique web pages (since some
clinics shared common web pages) based on the National Abortion Federation
clinic list. After accounting for broken links, researchers narrowed in on 223
accessible web pages, 221 of which included a third-party data transfer.
Additionally, 69 percent of pages included a third-party cookie.
Researchers
detected data transfers to 290 unique third-party domains owned by just 66
parent entities. Google and Meta topped the list of the most prevalent tracking
entities on abortion clinic web pages. The data transfers typically included a
user’s IP address and the web page that was visited.
-----
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3673249/as-telehealth-use-plummets-the-healthcare-industry-faces-a-crossroads.html
As telehealth use plummets, the healthcare industry faces a crossroads
COVID-19 forced many medical providers to roll out telehealth technology
to handle remote. But as the pandemic has waned, so has the use of virtual
care, leaving the healthcare industry to decide whether to fall back on old
methods or move forward.
By Lucas
Mearian
Senior Reporter, Computerworld | 12 September 2022 20:00 AEST
After
reaching historically high adoption rates during the height of the COVID-19
pandemic, the use of telehealth services has plummeted since the beginning of
the year.
Experts
say that places the healthcare industry at a fork in the road, where providers,
payors, and tech companies must choose whether to embrace an effective and
convenient healthcare medium or be left behind as telehealth marches forward.
The
road toward adoption of telehealth — the use of electronic communications to
provide care and other services — has been long. Before the COVID-19 pandemic took
hold in 2020, the adoption rate in the US, nearly 60 years after telehealth technology was first introduced, was just 0.9%
of outpatient visits.
-----
Oracle Q1 2022 Results
Oracle
reports Q1 results: revenue up 18%, EPS $0.58 versus $0.89,
meeting Wall Street expectations for revenue but falling short on earnings.
Notes
from the earnings call:
- Unfavorable foreign currency
exchange rates cost the company $0.08 in adjusted EPS.
- Cerner contributed $1.4 billion of
Oracle’s quarterly revenue, 12% of its total.
- Cloud revenue increased
significantly, representing 30% of total revenue.
- CEO Safra Catz says that Oracle’s
quarterly margin of 39% will increase “as we drive Cerner and its
profitability to Oracle standards and continue to benefit from economies
of scale in the cloud.”
- The company says it has migrated
Cerner’s back office systems to its Oracle Fusion ERP system.
- CTO Larry Ellison says Oracle
Cerner’s first newly developed application will be released within 12
months, developed with Oracle’s new Apex low-code tool and running on
Oracle Cloud Database. He says Apex has security and fault tolerance built
in, with the stateless application immediately failing over to another
data center when problems arise.
-----
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/fbi-spotlights-cybersecurity-risks-outdated-medical-devices
FBI spotlights cybersecurity risks of outdated medical devices
The bureau
has new recommendations for healthcare organizations to address unpatched
medical devices, which it says are increasingly being targeted in cyberattacks.
By Andrea Fox
September 13,
2022 10:46 AM
On
Tuesday, the FBI issued a report offering recommendations to address a
number of cybersecurity vulnerabilities in active medical devices stemming from outdated software, as
well as the lack of security features in older hardware.
Once
exploited, the vulnerabilities could impact healthcare facility operations,
patient safety, data confidentiality and data integrity. If a cyberattacker
takes control, they can direct devices to give inaccurate readings, administer
drug overdoses or otherwise endanger patient health.
The
FBI noted in its briefing that a mid-year healthcare cybersecurity
analysis found that equipment vulnerable to cyberattacks includes insulin pumps, intracardiac defibrillators, mobile cardiac
telemetry, pacemakers, and intrathecal pain pumps.
Routine
challenges include the use of standardized configurations, specialized
configurations – including a substantial number of managed devices on a network
– and the inability to upgrade device security features, according to the FBI's
announcement.
-----
https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/clinical-care/telehealth-diagnoses-match-person-clinical-visit-diagnoses-869-cases-study-finds
Telehealth Diagnoses Match In-Person Clinical Visit Diagnoses in 86.9% of Cases,
Study Finds
Analysis
| By Christopher
Cheney | September 13, 2022
Concordance between telehealth diagnoses and in-person visit diagnoses was
lowest when in-person visit diagnoses involved physical examination,
neurological testing, or pathology.
KEY
TAKEAWAYS
·
In non-primary care specialties, diagnostic
agreement between telehealth visits and in-person visits ranged from 77.3% for
otorhinolaryngology to 96.0% for psychiatry.
·
Diagnostic agreement between telehealth visits
and in-person visits was significantly higher for specialty care compared to
primary care (88.4% versus 81.3%).
·
There is a significant level of agreement
between telemedicine diagnoses and in-person outpatient visit diagnoses, a
recent research article found.
In the early
phase of the coronavirus pandemic, telehealth utilization increased
exponentially—one published estimate pegged the increase in utilization in April 2020
at 20-fold. A concern
associated with this increase in telehealth utilization is the accuracy of
telemedicine diagnoses compared to in-person visits.
The recent
research article, which was published by JAMA Network Open, examines data
collected from more than 2,000 Mayo Clinic patients who had telehealth
diagnoses followed by an in-person visit diagnosis for the same clinical
concern in the same specialty within 90 days.
-----
https://hbr.org/2022/09/how-to-use-digital-health-data-to-improve-outcomes
How to Use Digital Health Data to Improve Outcomes
by John Glaser, Margaret O’Kane, Brad Ryan, and Eric Schneider
September 12,
2022
The
amount of health information generated by digital tools is rapidly growing. It
can and should be used to improve the quality of health care. This article
makes the case and explains what will be required to make it happen.
We
hear a lot about “digital health” these days. As data about our health piles up
— thanks to sources like electronic health records, personal fitness apps and
gadgets, and home genome test kits — we should understand a lot more than we used to
about what’s wrong with our health and what to do about it. But having a lot of
data is not enough. We have to be aware of what we have, understand what it
means, and act on that understanding. While the challenges are in some ways more
acute in the United States because of its fragmented system of care, they exist
in health care across the globe.
Here’s
an all-too-common scenario:
June,
aged 67, is in the emergency department with abdominal pain and rectal
bleeding. Tests reveal inoperable colon cancer that’s probably been developing
for years. After several difficult and unsuccessful courses of chemotherapy,
she enters hospice care and passes away several weeks later.
-----
https://mhealthintelligence.com/news/telehealth-supports-access-to-medication-abortion-services
Telehealth Supports Access to Medication Abortion Services
New
research shows that telehealth can help women access secure medical abortion
services through text messaging tools and at-home medications.
By Mark Melchionna
September 12,
2022 - Research
published last week in The Lancet found that telehealth can be used to
safely provide medical abortion services, ensuring access in low-resource
settings.
Due to laws
and other restrictions, women often use abortion tools that are convenient,
even though they may not necessarily be safe. Data
from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that in a year, about 25
million unsafe abortions occur worldwide, accounting for 45 percent of all
abortions.
However,
since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the benefits associated with
telehealth-enabled care options have led providers to increasingly implement
the care modality.
Researchers
from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the University of Cape Town in
South Africa aimed to examine whether telehealth could be used to provide abortion
services to underserved communities.
-----
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/hc3-details-healthcare-cybersecurity-implications-of-ai-5g-emerging-tech
HC3 Details Healthcare Cybersecurity Implications of AI, 5G, Emerging Tech
HC3
outlined the cybersecurity implications of emerging technologies such as AI,
5G, and smart hospitals in its latest brief.
By Jill McKeon
September 12,
2022 - As emerging technologies continue to revolutionize patient care,
organizations must also consider the healthcare cybersecurity implications that
come along with them. The Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3)
issued
a brief that explored various emerging technologies, their roles in healthcare,
and how each intersects with security.
Specifically,
HC3 focused on artificial intelligence (AI), 5G cellular, and smart hospitals,
among others.
It is
important to note that each of these technologies holds significant promise for
revolutionizing healthcare. But like any other emerging technology, users and industries
have an obligation to weigh the potential security risks before, during, and
after implementation.
“Artificial
intelligence is not inherently insecure,” HC3 noted. However, security and
healthcare experts have long raised
concerns about the potential for security mishaps if AI is handled
improperly.
The sheer
amount of data that AI algorithms need in order to draw clinical conclusions
requires users to consider the security of protected health information (PHI)
every step of the way.
-----
https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/attackers-exploit-zero-day-wordpress-plugin-vulnerability-backupbuddy
Attackers Exploit Zero-Day WordPress Plug-in Vulnerability in BackupBuddy
The
critical flaw in BackupBuddy is one of thousands of security issues reported in
recent years in products that WordPress sites use to extend functionality.
Jai Vijayan
Contributing Writer, Dark
Reading
September 10,
2022
Attackers
are actively exploiting a critical vulnerability in BackupBuddy, a WordPress
plug-in that an estimated 140,000 websites are using to back up their
installations.
The
vulnerability allows attackers to read and download arbitrary files from
affected websites, including those containing configuration information and
sensitive data such as passwords that can be used for further compromise.
WordPress
security vendor Wordfence reported observing attacks targeting the flaw
beginning Aug. 26, and said it has blocked close to 5 million attacks since then. The
plug-in's developer, iThemes, issued a patch for the flaw on Sept. 2, more than
one week after the attacks began. That raises the possibility that at least
some WordPress sites using the software were compromised before a fix became
available for the vulnerability.
A Directory Traversal Bug
In
a statement on its website, iThemes described the directory traversal
vulnerability as impacting websites running BackupBuddy versions 8.5.8.0 through 8.7.4.1. It urged
users of the plug-in to immediately update to BackupBuddy version 8.75, even if
they are not currently using a vulnerable version of the plug-in.
-----
https://healthitsecurity.com/news/medical-device-security-vulnerabilities-discovered-in-baxter-infusion-pumps
Medical Device Security Vulnerabilities Discovered in Baxter Infusion
Pumps
If exploited, these medical device security vulnerabilities could result
in alteration of system configuration and improper access to sensitive data.
By Jill McKeon
September 09,
2022 - Four medical device security vulnerabilities are impacting certain
Sigma and Baxter Spectrum infusion pumps, a Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
Security Agency (CISA) explained in an advisory.
Rapid7’s principal IoT researcher informed Baxter of the vulnerabilities.
If exploited,
the vulnerabilities could result in alteration of system configuration and
improper access to sensitive data, CISA stated. Most of the vulnerabilities are
exploitable remotely and have a high attack complexity.
The following
devices may be impacted by the four vulnerabilities:
·
Sigma Spectrum v6.x model 35700BAX
·
Sigma Spectrum v8.x model 35700BAX2
·
Baxter Spectrum IQ (v9.x) model 35700BAX3
·
Sigma Spectrum LVP v6.x Wireless Battery Modules
v16, v16D38, v17, v17D19, v20D29 to v20D32, and v22D24 to v22D28
·
Sigma Spectrum LVP v8.x Wireless Battery Modules
v17, v17D19, v20D29 to v20D32, and v22D24 to v22D28
·
Baxter Spectrum IQ LVP (v9.x) with Wireless
Battery Modules v22D19 to v22D28
The
highest-severity vulnerability, with a CVSS score of 5.5, impacts certain
versions of the Baxter Spectrum Wireless Battery Modules (WBM). Researchers
discovered that the device does not perform mutual authentication with the
gateway server host, which could allow an attacker to perform a
machine-in-the-middle attack. Through this attack, a hacker could modify
parameters and make the network connection fail.
Another
vulnerability affecting the Baxter Spectrum WBM (v20D29) involves the use of an
externally controlled format string and received a CVSS score of 5.0.
-----
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payers/look-inside-cvs-caremarks-strategy-improving-health-equity
A look inside CVS Caremark's strategy for improving health equity
By Paige Minemyer
Sep 12, 2022 07:20am
When
the CVS Caremark team geared up to take on health disparities, it quickly
realized that any initiative would require a significant basis in data to
succeed.
That
entailed both gathering more data and building the tools necessary to track and
analyze them.
For
example, Joel Helle, vice president of physician services at CVS Specialty,
told Fierce Healthcare that Caremark has not historically gathered race and
ethnicity data, but now asks payers and plans sponsors for that information to
more accurately target where disparities are occurring.
"It's
real race and ethnicity data, and we know who those patients are," he
said. "That's the future, in my mind, of what everybody needs to do."
In
addition, the company built a proprietary tool that combs data from 17
different indexes to identify where disparities exist, he said. That tool, he
said, puts "red dots" on the map to highlight risks, and the Caremark
team can then use its internal data to further drill down to challenges in
specific communities.
-----
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/make-telemedicine-work-visually-impaired
How to make telemedicine work for visually impaired patients
By Frank Diamond
Sep 8, 2022 07:00am
Telemedicine
came into its own during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Under
the CARES Act, physicians could bill the same amount for a telemedicine visit
with Medicare patients as they could for an in-person visit. And many
commercial healthcare insurers followed suit, relaxing restrictions for
telemedicine for most patients.
This
“points to the fact that now that telehealth is mainstream, it is essential
that no group be left behind if at all possible,” Jonathan Weiner, a professor
of health policy and management and health informatics at the Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health, tells Fierce Healthcare. “This would include patients
with disabilities that impact their use of telehealth as well as those facing
technical or financial access barriers. And while telehealth rates may have
decreased since the peak of the pandemic, we aren’t going back to the pre-COVID
era. This mode of care is here to stay, and we must view these barriers as an
important potential cause of healthcare disparities.”
However,
not all demographic groups benefited from the changes. People who are visually
impaired or blind face barriers to using telemedicine, as a survey conducted by
the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) discovered.
The
AFB surveyed
488 adults in the U.S. who are blind, have low vision or are deafblind and
found that 70% of visually impaired patients tried to use telemedicine, but 57%
reported problems accessing the platforms. Visual impairment is a growing
problem, as Health Affairs reported
yesterday.
-----
https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2022/09/12/open-standard-offers-access-control-revocation-and-other-traits-to-reproductive-health-data/
Reproductive Health Data: Open Standard Offers Access Control, Revocation,
and Other Traits
September 12, 2022
Andy Oram
A
team of women coders caught attention at DEF CON on June 26 with a secure reproductive health tracking
app (Figure 1) that lets a menstruating person exchange data securely with
health staff. Their core technology was OpenTDF,
a free software library that advances a crucial goal in health care: patient
control over their own data, in tandem with the ability to share data with
their doctors and other people through access policies and encryption.
The
need for patient control and privacy protection has become more timely than
ever with the U.S. Supreme Court decision to reverse Roe v Wade. The public
staggered under news that a prosecutor
in Nebraska got access to private Facebook postings through a warrant in
order to prosecute a teenager for abortion.
This
article isn’t about the politics or morality around abortion; it’s about the
current state of health care privacy and the right of the individual to control
their data. The reproductive health app itself, SecureCycle, is not yet
ready for use. It was created in a recent hackathon held by Virtru to promote OpenTDF, which they
created and put under an open source BSD license.
Few
healthcare apps truly protect privacy. The Mozilla Foundation, which has
rigorously upheld online privacy for years, rates applications
related to reproductive health for privacy. They reveal a wide divergence
in privacy protection. A recent email from the Foundation said, “18 of the 20
reproductive health apps we reviewed earned our *Privacy Not Included warning
label.” Risks can be subtle: For instance, although Apple
Watch is fairly trustworthy on its own, breaches can open whenever you try
to transfer your data to another service.
-----
https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/innovation/childrens-hospital-los-angeles-tests-mhealth-app-take-teen-depression
Children's Hospital Los Angeles Tests an mHealth App to Take on Teen
Depression
Analysis
| By Eric Wicklund |
September 06, 2022
The
hospital is partnering with digital health company Limbix to test its SparkRx
digital therapeutic app on adolescents who have an increased risk of
depression.
Children's Hospital Los Angeles
has launched a year-long study to determine whether a digital
therapeutic mHealth app can help treat depression in adolescents.
CHLA is
partnering with digital health company Limbix on the
project, which will test the company's SparkRx app on roughly 40 people
between the ages of 13 and 22 with elevated depressive symptoms who are being
treated in the hospital's cardiology and gastroenterology programs. The app
uses cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) concepts to guide users through an
interactive program on their smartphones to identify the relationship between
mood and behavior.
"We’re
excited about this opportunity to offer our patients a new resource for
adolescent depression via a digital therapeutic that could help minimize
barriers and increase access to mental health treatment," Heather
Bemis, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist in the Division of Comfort and
Palliative Care at CHLA's Department of Anesthesiology Critical Care Medicine
at CHLA and principal investigator of the study, said in a press release.
The five-week
program is divided into five segments, which are intended to be completed each
week. Patients are guided through the program by a character called Limbot, who
provides examples of how they have undertaken behavioral activation therapy as
they pas through each stage. Patients complete a patient health questionnaire
and participant symptom check each week, and have access to online resources
and in-app crises services if needed.
-----
Enjoy!
David.
