Top
Friday – June 22, 2018
Why Walmart filed a patent for blockchain, wearables and EHR data
The retail giant is looking to protect a method for obtaining EHR data via the distributed ledger technology. Walmarts ongoing investigation of blockchain technologies seems to have intersected with its growing interest in joining the healthcare space, according to a patent application released earlier this week by the US Patent and Trademark Office.According to the document, which was filed in December, the retail giant is seeking to protect a method that allows a patients EHR to be obtained from a blockchain database even if they are unable to communicate. Doing so would require verification from two different keys: a public key stored in a wearable that would be scanned by emergency responders via RFID, and a private key that is obtained by scanning a biometric signature from the patient.The appeal of storing a patients EHR on blockchain is the relative difficulty of an unintended party accessing or modifying their data, the company wrote in its application. Both a public and private key are required to before the system will allow access to the patients record, with the private key being specific to each individual user. More >>
www.healthcareitnews.com
Categories Healthcare IT Wellness & Fitness trackers
0
Psychiatric disorders may have important molecular similarities
Researchers explored the genetic connections between brain disorders at a scale far eclipsing previous work on the subject. The team determined that psychiatric disorders share many genetic variants, while neurological disorders (such as Parkinson's or Alzheimer's) appear more distinct. The results indicate that psychiatric disorders likely have important similarities at a molecular level, which current diagnostic categories do not reflect. More >>
www.sciencedaily.com
Categories Mental health
0
Overcoming big compliance challenges on a small practice budget – DocbookMD
HIPAA compliance presents a constant challenge for all healthcare providers, but can prove particularly difficult for small practices that may not possess the resources or budgets to match their larger counterparts. More >>
www.docbookmd.com
Categories Healthcare Healthcare IT HIPAA mHealth & apps
0
What It Takes to Introduce Tech-Driven Patient-Centered Care in Radiology
The pivot to patient-centric programs will require tools that are available already and others that are on the horizon. People typically imagine a radiologist as a professional sitting in a dark room in semi-isolation, so it may seem odd that radiology is even contemplating joining the patient-centric movement. But patient-centered care has infiltrated the healthcare discussion in many specialties, including radiology.Radiologists are owning their role in patient care and as the leaders in diagnosis across the entire healthcare enterprise. As medical imaging continues to play a central role in the diagnosis, screening and surveillance of disease, its proliferation often puts radiologists at the center of the multidisciplinary team taking care of each patient. The American College of Radiology has even introduced the Commission on Patient- and Family-Centered Care and placed at least one patient on every committee to further emphasize the importance of the patient-centered care movement in radiology.To effectively implement meaningful, patient-centered programs and ultimately integrate a patient-centric mentality into the fabric of everything radiology requires a number of technological tools some that are already available and others that are still on the horizon. More >>
healthtechmagazine.net
Categories Medical imaging
0
CEO and CIO Priorities for Tech-Enabled Healthcare
Jason Fortin, Impact Advisors
During the recent 2018 Scottsdale Institute Annual Conference, a group of 22 CIOs from leading health-delivery organizations across the country gathered to discuss their CEOs' top IT-related priorities. From that discussion, five key themes emerged.
www.healthcare-informatics.com
Categories Healthcare IT
0
Why making data actionable is crucial in value-based care
There are seven stages to managing healthcare information, and all are important if executives are to act in ways that manage mounting financial pressures. More >>
www.healthdatamanagement.com
Categories Data Science Healthcare Hospital & Physicians Hospital management & administration Productivity & Revenue management
0
Richard A. Royer-HIT Think Why making data actionable is crucial in value-based care
In the 1960s, when social norms and the face of America was rapidly changing, a familiar public service announcement began preceding the nightly news cast. “It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?” Today, as the healthcare landscape changes rapidly with a seismic shift from the fee-for-service payment model to value-based care models, there’s a similar but new clarion call for quality healthcare: “It’s 2018. Do you know where your data is?”
Compliance with the increasingly complex alphabet soup of quality reporting and reimbursement rules—the fuel for the engine driving value-based care—is strongly dependent on data. The promising benefits of the age of digital health, from electronic health records (EHRs) to wearable technology and other bells and whistles, will occur only as the result of accurate, reliable, actionable data. Providers and healthcare systems that master the data and then use it to improve quality of care for better population health and at less cost will benefit from financial incentives. Those who do not connect their data to quality improvement will suffer the consequences.
New initiatives are underway, known by their acronyms: MACRA (the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015), which created the QPP (Quality Payment Program), which birthed MIPS (Merit-based Incentive Payment System).
The colorful acronyms are now deeply rooted in data. As a result, understanding the data lifecycle of quality reporting for MACRA and MIPS, along with myriad registries, core measures, and others, is crucial for both compliance and optimal reimbursement.
There is a lot at stake. For example, the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) is an example of a program that has changed how hospitals manage their patients. For the 2017 fiscal year, around half of the hospitals in the United States were hit with readmission penalties. Those penalties resulted in hospitals losing an estimated $528 million for fiscal year 2017.
The key to achieving new financial incentives (with red-ink consequences increasingly in play) is data that is reliable, accurate and actionable. Now, more than ever, it is crucial to understand the data lifecycle and how it affects healthcare organizations. The list below varies slightly in order and emphasis compared with other data lifecycle charts.
Find the data. Where is it located? Paper charts? Electronic health records (EHRs)? Claims systems? Revenue cycle systems? And how many different EHRs are used by providers, from radiology to labs to primary care or specialists’ offices to others providing care? This step is even more crucial now as providers locate the sources of data required for quality and other reporting.
Capture the data. Some data will be available electronically, some can be acquired electronically, but some will require manual abstraction. If a provider, health system or Accountable Care Organization (ACO) outsources that important work, it is imperative that the abstraction partner understand how to get into each EHR or paper-recording system.
And there is structured and unstructured data. A structured item in the EHR like a check box or treatment/diagnosis code can be captured electronically, but a qualitative clinician note must be abstracted manually. A patient presenting with frequent headaches will have details noted on a chart that might be digitally extracted, but the clinician’s note, “Patient was tense due to job situation,” requires manual retrieval.
Normalize the data. Normalization ensures the data can be more than a number or a note but meaningful data that can form the basis for action. One simple example of normalizing data is reconciling formats of the data. For example, a reconciling a form that lists patients’ last names first with a chart that lists the patients’ first name first. Are we abstracting data for “Doe, John O.” or “John O. Doe?” Different EHR and other systems will have different ways of recording that information.
Normalization ensures that information is used in the same way. The accuracy and reliability that results from normalization is of paramount importance. Normalization makes the information unambiguous.
Aggregate the data. This step is crucial for value-based care because it consolidates the data from individual patients to groups or pools of patients. For example, if there is a pool of 100,000 lives, we can list ages, diagnosis, tests, clinical protocols and outcomes for each patient. Aggregating the data is necessary before healthcare providers can analyze the overall impact and performance of the whole pool.
If a healthcare organization has quality and cost responsibilities for a pool of patients, they must be able to closely identify the patients that will affWhite ect the patient pool’s risks. Aggregation and analyzing provides that opportunity.
Report the data. Reporting of healthcare data to registries and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is not new, but it is a growing need. Required reporting will become even more integral to healthcare quality improvement as private payers follow the CMS lead towards value-base care.
Understand the data. What was effective? What is the clinical point of view vs. a dollars/cost point of view? How are these two points of view reconciled to get the “right” results?
When Drug B is half the price but equally as effective as Drug A, that is an example of evidence-based medicine, which was the result of the data lifecycle. When healthcare organizations and providers have data they can understand, a root-cause analysis is an ideal way to achieve sometimes conflicting goals of quality and cost, and then move forward on solving deficiencies or other problems flagged by the data.
Use the data. There are other crucial facets of the data lifecycle that must be dealt with, including data maintenance and management, and purging or destroying data in a way that is compliant with HIPAA. But the most important function of data is using it to improve clinical processes and outcomes, the patient experience, and the financial bottom line. This stage is a combination of several, ensuring that the data is secure, actively managed and maintained.
Data that is accurate and reliable is not all that useful until it is actionable. How is the data being used to manage quality of care and cost of care? The final stage in the data lifecycle is arguably the most important.
The technology and human capital needed to accomplish the other aspects of the life cycle are extensive, and expensive. But data gathering is a lost cause and, really, an exercise in futility unless the flurry of data and reporting activity leads to action. In the age of value-based healthcare, data is the key that will enable providers to be financially successful in the future as payments become more heavily based on value, and patients seek providers that meet their growing expectations.
Richard A. Royer has served as the chief executive officer of Primaris, a vendor of healthcare quality business solutions, since 2001. He has extensive administrative healthcare experience and is actively involved in several statewide healthcare initiatives. More >>
www.healthdatamanagement.com
Categories Data Science Healthcare Hospital & Physicians Hospital management & administration Productivity & Revenue management
0
Wednesday – June 20, 2018
Disappointing and time-consuming, can EHRs be made useful?
Electronic health record (EHR) systems were supposed to improve the documentation process and retrieval of patient information to help with diagnostic and treatment decisions. Instead, EHRs became a source of physician discontent and burnout. Most doctors hate EHRs, and it isnt clear that they make patients any better off either. Now, experts say the same record systems can be reconfigured to achieve their original promise. EHRs can be restructured from mere digital remakes of their old pen and paper ancestors into platforms that allow doctors to "subscribe' to their patients" clinical information to receive real-time updates when an action is required, similar to social media feeds and notifications, according to researchers from Penn Medicine's Center for Health Care Innovation.The researchers note how automation has brought important benefits to other industries. "When financial services went digital largely replacing human tellers, paper statements, and checkbook balancing both bankers and customers embraced the change. Digital transformations in the travel, entertainment, and retail settings were similarly welcomed. But not in healthcare," the researchers write.The Center for Health Care Innovation is made up of a team of hybrid doctor-developers. These researchersdevelopers say the problem is that current EHRs merely digitised what was already in paper form. More >>
healthmanagement.org
Categories Healthcare IT
0
Improving hospital patient care by cutting long stays
In a joint announcement, NHS England and NHS Improvement said they will spearhead a campaign to cut long stays in hospitals. Shorter stays will benefit patients who would otherwise be stuck in hospital when they are well enough to leave. Many older people, particularly those who are frail and may have dementia, actually deteriorate while in hospital a stay of more than 10 days leads to 10 years muscle ageing for people most at risk.No one wants patients to stay in hospital longer than they have to, or for the health of patients to deteriorate in the very place that is supposed to be making them better," said Ian Dalton, Chief Executive of NHS Improvement. "But this is happening all too often and we have to work together to change it. Every day in hospital is a precious day away from normal life."In addition to improving patient care by reducing unnecessary hospital days, the campaign aims to free up thousands of hospital beds and ease pressures next winter.The NHS, working with local authorities, seeks to reduce the number of long staying patients by around a quarter, freeing up more than 4,000 beds in time for the winter surge.NHS England's Chief Executive, Simon Stevens, said: Over this past year hospitals and local councils have successfully worked together and have turned the corner on delays in patients being discharged. Now they need to go further in order to ensure patients are treated with dignity and looked after in the right setting for them. More >>
healthmanagement.org
Categories Hospital & Physicians
0
U.S. study: social isolation increases mortality in heart failure patients
Among heart failure patients, feelings of social isolation are associated with increased risk of hospitalisation or death, according to new research published online in Journal of the American Heart Association. Researchers say screening heart failure patients for social isolation could help identify those at risk of poor outcomes.In the U.S., more than six million adults are estimated to have heart failure and that number continues to rise. A previous study by these researchers indicated that social isolation may increase the risk of depression and anxiety. However, little is known about the possible connection between patients' feelings of social isolation, risk of death and use of medical care.In the current study, researchers surveyed 1,681 patients (average age 73, mostly white, 53 percent men) about their sense of loneliness or isolation. All the patients residents of 11 counties in southeastern Minnesota had been diagnosed with heart failure between January 2013 and March 2015.About six percent of the heart failure patients reported a high level of perceived social isolation. Compared to heart failure patients who felt less socially isolated, those reporting high perceived social isolation had: 3.7 times or more increased risk of death; 1.7 times increased risk of hospitalisation; and 1.6 times higher risk of emergency department visits. More >>
healthmanagement.org
Categories Reports & Survey
0
Next-gen medical devices: Security, AI, rethinking design for patient experience
Experts discuss where medical devices are headed as the internet of things continues to expand. Medical devices are proliferating throughout the healthcare landscape, especially with the advent of the Internet of Things and the myriad new products that come with it.The medical device arena is undergoing a lot of change, in fact, as new technologies and calls for greater security push manufacturers to upgrade their products and the next generation of medical devices could see many new features and functions.As medical devices continue evolving, the top health IT areas manufacturers and hospitals will be ramping up include security, clinical workflow integration, data management automation and patient experience. More >>
www.healthcareitnews.com
Categories Artificial intelligence & Robotics Cybersecurity
0
Achieving the Interoperability Promise of 21st Century Cures
Over the past decade, hospitals and physician offices have made tremendous gains in shifting their record-keeping from paper to computerized systems. This transition to electronic health records (EHRs) has engendered frustration among clinicians who expected computers to make their care more efficient, and among their patients who expected timely access to their information and seamlessly coordinated care.To address these challenges, a bipartisan majority of Congress passed the 21stCentury Cures Act of 2016 (Cures Act). More >>
www.healthaffairs.org
Categories Interoperability & Integration
0
Google’s Masterplan for Healthcare
The search engines parent company, Alphabet takes its move into medicine seriously. We looked at it thoroughly what Google in healthcare looks like. Its 2030, a rainy Tuesday morning in downtown Seattle. While my self-driving car is taking me to a digital health symposium, Im working on my keynote speech. Suddenly I receive a notification from my Apple health chatbot, Miri. The sensors measured my blood pressure, my heart rate, my oxygen saturation, my stress level and my activities, and Miri recommended me to go and see my doctor for a check-up. As I couldnt be sure whether it only goes down to my excitement due to the conference or there is something to be worried about, I go to the Amazon hospital.My doctor is miles away, but he is connected to the medical team through telemedicine. They check my medical records attached to the Apple Health app, they examine me thoroughly, and finally, they prescribe me a pill for lowering my blood pressure produced and researched by Google. Do you see a future like this impossible?What if we look at all the moves, tech giants are taking in healthcare? More >>
medicalfuturist.com
Categories Healthcare
0
Will CMS’s PI rule review be a sweet change or is it just pie in the sky?
Will CMS's PI rule review be a sweet change or is it just pie in the sky?
Written by Thanh Tran, CEO, Zoeticx and Donald Voltz, MD, Aultman Hospital, Department of Anesthesiology, Medical Director of the Main Operating Room
Federal healthcare organizations such as CMS have spent billions of dollars over the years trying to bridge the gap between medical data and quality patient care with interoperability requirements and data integration, the mesh used to try and bridge the gap. Many government rules have been written to address the type of mesh needed and many EHR companies have claimed to meet these government requirements and claim the throne of the ultimate mesh maker.
However, hospitals and clinics found the mesh contained many holes such as enabling hospitals to customize EHRs, but only if the EHR customers purchased the EHR systems for the manufacturers for millions of dollars that hospitals could ill afford.
Also issues such as proprietary connectivity to their own brands that left the hospitals’ other EHR systems to serve as dead-end data silos. Rules and solutions came and went, but few had any teeth until now.
Anyone for A Slice Of PI?
To end the lack of interoperability morass and data duplication, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued 1,883 pages of proposed changes to Medicare and Medicaid. The changes rename the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) Advancing Care Information performance category to Promoting Interoperability (PI).
CMS announced the change as part of a proposed rule that will transform the EHR Incentive Programs commonly known as Meaningful Use under the Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) and the Long-Term Care Hospital (LTCH) Prospective Payment System (PPS). The proposed policies are part of the MyHealthEData initiative, which prioritizes patient health data access and interoperability improvements.
But this time the name change wasn’t just that. For the first time a new CMS rule specifically requires providers to share data to participate in the life blood of hospital reimbursement—Medicare and Medicaid. The rule also floats the idea of revising Medicare and Medicaid Co-Pays to require hospitals to share patient records electronically with other hospitals, community providers and patients—a clear-cut demand for interoperability.
PI also reduces hospital interoperability requirements from 16 to six, revamping the program to a points-based scoring system and is requiring that hospitals make patients' EHRs available to them on the day they leave the hospital beginning in 2019.
Does Your EHR Have the Right Stuff?
While this news from CMS appears to be a step in the right direction to solve a problem that has plagued the healthcare industry for many years, it must first be made a reality by those ultimately responsible for its implementation—hospital HIT organizations. The days of data obstruction and silo logic must end with a focus on new EHR markets built on interoperability.
Interoperability requires multiple layers to demonstrate an EHR system can be accessed. Meanwhile, every EHR system claims to support some form of interoperability, ranging from web interfaces to API protocols or to the lowest and highest cost HL7. However, healthcare systems will have to demonstrate their operability to CMS to abide by PI and therefore allow access of their EHR systems. Hospitals and clinics can encounter many challenges with this such as HIPAA compliance and support for their infrastructure for open secure access, requiring an HIE and the funds to support data synchronization and IT support.
CMS Needs to Offer More Than Just PI
As interoperability rules are opening to the benefits of providers, health institutes and patients, it is also a good time to consider the growing need for interoperability, integration and convergence in healthcare across clinical, financial, and operational systems. When you consider the massive amount of data held in EHRs that can be transformed into information and knowledge, there is a lot at stake across the healthcare continuum.
The road to releasing this data is not difficult and can lead to curing diseases, enabling doctors to spend more time with patients and saving health carriers billions of dollars. One of the easiest HIT methods for integrating the data is with simple, cloud-based apps that can also optimize patient data while driving healthcare facility financial incentives such as identifying cost savings and streamlining insurer payments.
Integration of Physical and Behavioral Health
The healthcare industry is now looking at revenue which can be generated through the interoperability of treatments such as AWVs, chronic care and service care transitions between physical and behavioral health services. Hospitals and healthcare clinics that can connect these services with technologies such as bi-directional information flow will benefit by creating new profit centers of revenue through reimbursements by CMS and private insurers. This benefit alone is a great incentive for consideration by the healthcare industry and CMS.
AWVs were first introduced by private insurers and then by CMS in 2011 as part of its preventative care initiative under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). AWV’s are designed specifically to address health risks and encourage evidence-based preventive care in aging adults. AWV data is a key healthcare growth catalyst for medical institutes with its treasure trove of patient data. That data, when streamlined, can enable expedited payments to government and private insurers.
Another candidate in the care continuum of data integration is treatment for chronic diseases, ranging from diabetes to dementia and behavioral and mental health issues such as the opioid epidemic, heroin addiction, alcoholism and PTSD suicide. Patients in these situations are often unable to receive the care they need to address physical or mental health issues let alone integration of services.
Meanwhile, the final set of data for integration consideration is mental health and physical care, a traditional challenge. Treating the whole person through the integration of behavioral health and general medical healthcare can save lives, reduce negative health outcomes and facilitate quality care while promoting efficiency and cost savings.
A good example of the importance of the linking of mental, behavioral and physical health is when a patient completes a full behavioral health treatment, they still must often contend with medical issues such as hypertension, diabetes, depression and possibly more. Patients can easily fall back into drug addiction and alcoholism if surrounding symptoms are not treated, placing even greater importance on collaboration.
We are at the inflection point where involvement with building useful workflows that are in sync with the needs, values and channels through which patients and providers interact with the healthcare system. When we integrate data, we understand the technology is not only to make our lives easier, but ultimately to enhance the care we can deliver, as measured by the outcomes and functionality to the patients we deliver our care. More >>
www.beckershospitalreview.com
Categories Healthcare IT Hospital & Physicians Hospital management & administration Interoperability & Integration Meaningful Use
0
Tuesday – June 19, 2018
Understanding the impact of data and technology on European healthcare
Miguel Gonzalez Sancho, who heads the ehealth, well-being and ageing unit at the European Commission, explains how digital health is empowering patients to have more input into their care. More >>
www.healthcareitnews.com
Categories Healthcare
0
Medical deaths: should doctors be allowed to learn from mistakes?
Patient safety is an important consideration in the delivery of care. While providers continually seek ways to improve patient safety and overall quality of care, medical mistakes sometimes happen. In the UK, reports say Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt is set to announce new measures aimed at protecting doctors and medical staff when mistakes are made.These new measures include:- The investigation of every hospital death by a medical examiner or coroner- Data on doctors' performance will allow them to see how they compare to others to help them improve- The regulator - the General Medical Council - will no longer be able to appeal against the findings of doctors' disciplinary hearingsAccording to Mr. Hunt, improving patient safety means doctors and other staff must be able to reflect openly and freely when they have made ordinary mistakes, instead of being punished for them."When something goes tragically wrong in healthcare, the best apology to grieving families is to guarantee that no-one will experience that same heartache again," Mr. Hunt said. The health secretary said he was deeply concerned about the unintended chilling effect on clinicians' ability to learn from mistakes following recent court rulings. More >>
healthmanagement.org
Categories Health law Hospital & Physicians Hospital management & administration
0
Male nurses still make $6,000-plus more than women, new survey shows
The trend in nursing mirrors a larger trend occurring across the healthcare industry. with double-digit percentage differences between the salaries of men and women. In a profession dominated by women, men in nursing earn more than $6,000 more a year than their female counterparts, according to a new survey of more than 4,500 nurses across the country.The Nursing Salary Research Report, which included registered nurses from all 50 states, showed men earn an average of $79,688 compared to $73,090 for women. Men make up about 12 percent of the U.S. nursing workforce."Even taking into account total hours worked, years of nursing experience, age, education level and certification status, men still are making more money than women," said Robert Hess Jr., Nurse.com by OnCourse Learning's executive vice president and chief clinical executive of healthcare, in a statement. "And from our robust research, salary is the most important job factor for nurses across all demographics." More >>
www.healthcareitnews.com
Categories Career & HIT job market Healthcare
0
Google’s Medical Brain team uses AI to predict patient’s health and even death risk
Googles 'Medical Brain' team has now integrated artificial intelligence to predict the death risk among hospital patients. The results have surprised medical experts by showing that it has quite a high degree of accuracy than a hospitals in-house warning system. It certainly looks like the advances by the Medical Brain team could help the company in the healthcare business.According to a Bloomberg report, Googles health-care potential of neural networks is a form of artificial intelligence software thats particularly good at using data to automatically learn and improve. More >>
www.firstpost.com
Categories Artificial intelligence & Robotics
0
$4.3 Million HIPAA Penalty for 3 Breaches
In a statement Monday, the HHS Office for Civil Rights said it was granted a summary judgment by an HHS administrative law judge, who ruled that The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center violated the HIPAA privacy and security rules. The judge approved OCR imposing $4.3 million in penalties in the aftermath of its investigations into three breaches involving unencrypted devices.The ruling is only second summary judgment in the agency's history of HIPAA enforcement. The financial penalty is the fourth largest amount ever awarded to OCR by an administrative law judge or secured in a settlement for HIPAA violations, OCR notes in the statement.A letter that OCR sent to MD Anderson says that the penalty includes $1.3 million for violations related to its unencrypted access controls and $3 million for impermissible disclosures. More >>
www.healthcareinfosecurity.com
Categories Entrepreneurship Privacy
0
Hackers Are Not Natural Disasters Or Acts Of God
Data breaches are unfortunately becoming more and more common as the never-ending march toward digital transformation carries on while picking up pace. No other sector is as directly impacted by breaches than health care as medical records are considered an order of magnitude more valuable than even credit cards.Existing security measures as we all know simply dont work, leading some organizations to rely more heavily on costly cyber insurance and consider breaches to be as unpredictable and indefensible as earthquakes or flash floods.Hackers and their automated tools are not acts of God so why do we treat them as such? More >>
www.healthitoutcomes.com
Categories Cybersecurity
0
