What Has Everyone Excited about COVID-19 Vaccines for 5-11-year-olds?
With the rollout this month of the COVID-19 vaccine for those 5-11 years of age, we can now directly protect children with asthma for whom COVID-19 infection is an even bigger hazard for our children during the pandemic.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the term “comorbidities” has entered our daily vernacular, mostly in reference to adults’ chronic illnesses such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes, but with pediatric
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How IVAs are Helping Care Providers and Patients Deal with Delta Variant
Communicating clearly and effectively with patients is a hallmark of good patient care. However, as the Delta Variant defines the next phase of COVID, many healthcare organizations are experiencing a massive surge in patient communication volume. Not only do they need to communicate important updates about the virus, testing, appointments, and vaccinations; but they are also still dealing with a swell of inbound questions from patients needing answers to ongoing healthcare concerns they may have
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5 Steps for Providers When Selecting a Healthcare Technology Vendor
Healthcare providers typically rely on a multitude of vendors to help them deliver care to patients. Some partnerships flourish seamlessly, while others are burdensome and take more resources to maintain. Depending on time and interests, physicians themselves may or may not work directly with revenue cycle management vendors; however, healthcare administrators communicate with vendor representatives more frequently — weekly or even daily.
For administrators, a robust reporting dashboard can
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An Inside Look at Payer Compliance with CMS’ Patient Access API Rule
The healthcare industry is now closer than ever to its quest for true interoperable data exchange. July 1, 2021 was the enforcement date for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Interoperability and Patient Access final rule. The rule requires that all healthcare payer organizations participating in a CMS program allow members to download and share their data using API’s (Application Programming Interface). This
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Information Blocking Rule: 6 Key Takeaways Since Meaningful Use
Information exchange and data availability are now a cost of doing business but establishing a robust strategy for that exchange and compliance with the new regulation from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology takes careful planning. Healthcare organizations can achieve and maintain compliance by following these six takeaways:
1. Understand what constitutes “Electronic Health Information”
“Electronic Health Information,” ONC’s new term for the data
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Artificial Intelligence: Healthcare’s Most Powerful Weapon
The Advent of the ‘Digital CRISPR.’
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the workplace has transformed how healthcare professionals and organizations conduct daily operations. It has also brought significant improvements in patient care and outcomes while moving the needle forward in the prevention and treatment of diseases.
In short, AI makes it possible to crawl through massive amounts of data in minutes to make more informed decisions and keep healthcare organizations consistently ahead of
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4 Strategies for Urgent Care to Thrive During the Pandemic and Beyond
A year of constantly shifting gears to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic and meet patient needs further solidified the essential role urgent cares play during large-scale public health crises. Subsequently, the pandemic is continuing to change the way patients use and view urgent care. By the end of 2020, urgent care saw a 58% increase in visit volumes on average, and Covid-19 testing and vaccinations had accounted for 60% of all visits. New patient volumes increased by 23% over the same year,
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Overcoming Key Hurdles in Decentralized Trials with Better Education
As with countless global industries, clinical trials were forced to move key functions online as COVID-19 swept the world in early 2020. Clinical research operations had to rapidly deploy remote approaches that were previously in the planning or pilot stages. While the uptake was rushed, the results have been largely positive. Decentralized clinical trials, and their near cousins that apply a hybrid approach of in-person and remote visits, are increasingly seen as a viable solution for biopharma
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Time is Money in Healthcare Administration. How Much Are You Losing?
Administrative complexity is a billion-dollar problem, riddled with human-led, hand-done steps that simply don’t need to exist.
In a given year, approximately a quarter to one-third of our healthcare spending comes from waste across the system. Sometimes, the cause of money waste is obvious, such as duplicated tests, misdiagnosis, extended ER stays, overtreatment, or failures in care coordination. The less obvious contributor: time.
Time is wasted at nearly every step of the
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Key Ingredient to Improving Outcomes in Behavioral Health: Measurement-Based Care
The burden of mental disorders is well known. Mental disorders are common, resulting in significant disability as well as contributing to -- and complicating -- chronic health conditions. Most mental disorders are untreated, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only further highlighted significant disparities in access to treatment. Effective pharmacologic and psychological treatments are available, yet outcomes in routine practice are often weaker than what is found in randomized controlled
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