The recent enforcement of new rules to encourage the freer flow of healthcare data mainly through application programming interfaces (APIs) has jolted providers and payers into action to meet interoperability standards.
However, the rush to comply with the new requirements and avoid penalties may blind them to the subtleties and complexities of healthcare contexts as well as the significant differences between building APIs in this space versus for enterprises.
As major investments in
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3 Ways to Address Gender and Racial Bias in Clinical Trials
I have dedicated my career to clinical research and making strides to advance modern medicine. In the work I do as a clinical researcher, we are addressing racial and gender biases that exist today in clinical trials. For example, in cardiovascular disease—my area of study—we know that women’s symptoms present differently than men and yet their symptoms have often gone undiagnosed or dismissed by physicians.
It is well documented that communities of color have historically been mistreated by
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Lessons Learned: The Impact of COVID-19 on Infusion Center Scheduling
Over the past year, COVID-19 brought new stresses to hospital scheduling, given limited resources, physician availability, staffing challenges and physical materials. Beyond the obvious struggles with ICU capacity, COVID-19 also put a heavy strain on every step of the chemotherapy patient journey – from navigating new scheduling protocols to pre-screening to delays in diagnosis to reconfigured, socially distanced waiting rooms and treatment chairs. As we continue to navigate the pandemic, many
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How Medical Reference Platforms Can Enhance Clinicians’ EHR Experience
In healthcare technology, there’s no such thing as a silver bullet solution, and each technology has its benefits and its limitation. Electronic health records (EHRs) are no exception.
On their own, EHRs provide insight into a patient’s visit history, medical background, and more, but when used in combination with other innovative, user-friendly technologies, clinicians’ experience with EHRs will only improve. One of the easiest—and most significant—ways
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Healthcare Executives’ Guide to Data-Driven Holistic Care for LTSS Populations
As healthcare leaders reflect on lessons learned during the pandemic, the need for more tech-driven and proactive care models is taking center stage. It has become clear that organizations that invested in robust technology infrastructure early on were better positioned to not just survive a global pandemic – but thrive--growing their reach and supporting their patients.
The Importance of Holistic Care Strategies
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Why Healthcare IT Must Embrace Full-Stack Observability for an Increasingly Digital Future
Long before the pandemic, digital applications were already incredibly important to healthcare organizations, but over the last few years, they have become essential. Applications can assist with scheduling appointments, virtual doctor visits, accessing medical records and conducting tests down to the most complex AI-powered technologies such as medical imaging. As COVID-19 fundamentally transformed the way industries operate, healthcare has been the world’s focus as physicians, nurses, EMTs,
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Healthcare at the Crossroads: Value-Based Care and Interoperability
Amid the difficulties of the last year, a bright spot has emerged that may provide a strong indication of renewed movement toward the transformation of the healthcare industry that we know today. Value-based care, a model that rewards better patient health outcomes, has experienced a surge in interest amid heightened consumer awareness and among payers seeking to lower costs and stabilize reimbursement. This interest, along with the recent mandate from the Centers for
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Why Family Caregivers Need Help from the Healthcare Establishment
I recently spoke with a woman whose husband contracted a serious, chronic illness that requires long-term use of a peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) line.
As her husband’s primary caregiver, this woman is responsible for cleaning and flushing the PICC line three times a day. And while she knows how to carry out these functions, she nonetheless remains fearful of inadvertently introducing bacteria into the line and the consequences that could result.
For this woman, the
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Taking a Platform Approach to Drug Pricing Issues Can Help Unify Adversarial Sides
Healthcare is a notoriously complex industry with a multitude of stakeholders, many of whom find themselves in adversarial positions, simply due to the way the market operates. Ultimately, there is a shared goal of providing the best care to the patient. But as stakeholder relationships grow more complex, there can also be conflicts that drive wedges between parties and hamper successful collaboration.
We see this dynamic playing out in many areas of healthcare, but particularly in drug
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6 Steps for Securing Patient Information in Healthcare
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) strive for innovations in healthcare technologies that drive down costs and improve the patient experience. One big step forward is the 21st Century Cures Act passed in 2016, putting patients in charge of their own health records.
Then in 2021, both the CMS Interoperability and Patient Access Final Rule and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) Information Blocking Rule went into effect, which aims to drive
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