Senior isolation is a health risk that affects at least a quarter of seniors over 65. It has become recognized over the past decade as a risk factor for poor aging outcomes including cognitive decline, depression, anxiety, Alzheimer’s disease, obesity, hypertension, heart disease, impaired immune function, and even death.
Physical limitations, lack of transportation, and inadequate health literacy, among other social determinants of health (SDOH), further impair access to medical and mental
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Hospital Sustainability Demands that Revenue Integrity Move Front and Center
Razor-thin operational margins coupled with substantial and ongoing losses related to COVID-19 are culminating in a perfect storm of bottom-line issues for U.S. hospitals and health systems. A study commissioned by the American Hospital Association (AHA) found that the median hospital margin overall was just 3.5% pre-pandemic, and projected margins will stay in the red for at least half of the nation’s hospitals for the remainder of 2020.
The reality is that an increase in
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COVID-19 and Racial Disparities: Transforming the Health of Businesses
American businesses and their leadership are at a crossroads. COVID-19 has forced us all to re-evaluate how we work and live, while the current protest movements have placed a spotlight on the systemic injustices non-white workers face both in and out of the office. Given that communities of color have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, companies serious about doing right by their employees need to act decisively and clearly or risk becoming complicit in the racial and social
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7 Best Practices for Third-Party Risk Management in the Pharmaceutical Industry
The globalization of the pharmaceutical industry has forced pharma companies to outsource, increasing their reliance on third-party vendors and suppliers. As this supply chain grows in complexity, companies find themselves grappling with a growing amount of cyber risk.
A data breach in the pharmaceutical industry can cost companies upwards of $5 million and costs can rise significantly if a third-party vendor or supplier is the cause of a data breach. For this reason, organizations must
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While We Wait for 5G, Is Wi-Fi or Cellular Better for RPM Solutions?
Many in the healthcare industry are keeping an eye on the rollout of 5G wireless, which promises to connect people and things at higher speed and lower latency. In the healthcare realm, this means high-resolution images such as CT scans and X-rays can be taken and transmitted instantaneously to doctors. But it also means good things for lower-bandwidth applications, such as the volumes of rich data found in home healthcare applications.
One of the beneficiaries of 5G will be remote
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How COVID-19 Has Revealed Healthcare’s Blockchain Use Cases
Blockchain technology has somewhat infamously been described as “a solution in search of a problem,” but as the healthcare industry responds to the demands of the pandemic, several valuable use cases have surfaced that could benefit from employing the emerging technology.
Due in large part due to its ability to promote trust, transparency, and privacy, blockchain has emerged as today’s best technology-based option for accomplishing the important objective of delivering real-time
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8 Ways Advanced Analytics Can Help You Decide If Telehealth Should Be Temporary or Permanent
Over the past few months, primarily as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth has gone from a “nice-to-have” to a “must-have” for healthcare providers. The surge of COVID-19 patients in the spring, coupled with “stay-at-home” orders in many states, meant that many patients in need of care for chronic conditions and other non-emergent health issues were unable to visit their providers face-to-face.
Telehealth became the emergency solution, aided by relaxation of government regulations
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Is Remote-Learning A Public Health Dilemma?
In 2014, pediatric occupational therapist Angela Hanscom set out to better understand the student experience by sitting in on middle school classes. She sat. She sat some more. She then noticed that a day’s worth of sitting was affecting her ability to focus. She asked “how on Earth do these children tolerate sitting this long?” before spotting all the fidgety, distracted bodies – “well, the short answer is they don’t.”
This phenomenon is rooted in the commonly ignored factor that students
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Lean on Your Connected Community of Care in Times of Crisis
We’ve all experienced crises in our lives. They may be personal in nature (e.g., involving our interpersonal relationships), organizational (e.g., relating to our employment or retirement income), or nature-made (e.g., floods, tornados, or the COVID-19 pandemic). When crises hit our communities, the impacts can be widespread and far-reaching. Healthcare providers and community-based organizations (CBOs) are called upon to provide more rapid and extensive care and support to the community than is
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Mobile Point-of-Care Ultrasound Is Now A Frontline Warrior in Pandemic
Health authorities need to prioritize delivery and the repurposing of mobile point-of-care ultrasound machines which have proven to be reliable, affordable, and effective in saving the lives of coronavirus patients.
Most Americans are familiar with ultrasound technology from the scans done to check on the status of the fetus during pregnancy.
But far fewer are aware of how valuable mobile versions of these units have also become in America’s emergency rooms where they almost
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