Healthcare technology continues to advance with ever greater sophistication and functionality. Yet one key component in the health IT toolkit has not kept pace with innovation. Patient matching technologies, including conventional master patient indexes (MPIs), hit a wall 10 years ago, and it’s time to admit it: conventional MPIs are a dying breed.The reason is that patient matching needs have grown exponentially at exactly the same time the underlying technology for patient matching solutions
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Mid-Year Checkpoint: 3 Ways to Improve Health Plan Member Engagement
Summer is almost over, but for health plans it’s time to check in on plan performance and course correct to meet 2017 goals. For those who fall shy of meeting projected performance targets, it’s not too late to boost vital metrics like Star rating or HEDIS score. With less than five months left in 2017 it may seem an impossible goal to move the needle on quality ratings, but that’s not the case. It is not too late to make a difference, provided you are smart and targeted in your approach.One of
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Why The Mental Health Industry Is Ripe For Innovation
Technology has been tested and proven effective in many advanced and innovative industries, and is now extending and applying its benefits to more regulated industries such as healthcare. According to Mary Meeker's Internet Trends 2017 report, healthcare is “at a digital inflection point.” She recognized and attributed this change in part to the increase of data collection from fitness trackers and health apps as well as the increase of hospitals sharing healthcare data with patients.As part of
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Transforming the mHealth Experience With Digital Health Assistants
Editor's Note: Jeffrey Schwartz, MD, is president of Health Navigator, a diagnostic symptom checker used to help triage and prioritize patients. The platform streamlines telehealth and diagnosis. His extensive clinical, management and patient-care insights help guide the development of the Health Navigator platform. mHealth continues to be a health care buzzword, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon. Evidence for the potential of mHealth technologies to improve consumer engagement,
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Mobile Messaging vs. Online Patient Portals: Streamlining the Patient Intake Process
The waiting room is full, there is a line forming in front of the scheduling desk, new patient information has to be collected, patients’ records must be updated, and appointments need to be rescheduled. The patient intake process, particularly for new patients, can be time-consuming and arduous for administrative staff.One of the most effective ways to reduce staff’s workload, while speeding up the patient intake process, is with automated mobile-first messaging strategies. This approach
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4 Ways Augmented Reality Will Transform the Medical World
Looking to the near and distant future of medical technology, augmented reality (AR) will be central to innovation. The medical field will be enhanced dramatically via the rise of augmented reality products emerging in the market. In just a few years, the entire healthcare experience will look entirely different from the medical environment today. How so?By overlapping valuable medical information with the real world – whether it be making visible patient information, mapping an individual’s
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Why Data Governance Is The Backbone to Artificial Intelligence’s Potential
A recent contributor to HIT Consultant made a bold, yet not too far fetched statement about the data analytics space. He noted that applied artificial intelligence (AI) is here to stay, and that the more common form of healthcare analytics will slowly but surely be replaced. For a quick IT lesson, applied AI refers to the intersection of artificial intelligence and machine learning, where the best of human intelligence is brought together with the best of computing capabilities.Related: Why
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Healthcare in the Gigabit Society: Improving Care by Improving Connectivity
Today’s technologies are expected to offer tremendous potential for innovation in the healthcare industry. In fact, the digital health market is expected to surpass $379 billion by 2024.The reasons behind this expected growth is two-fold; the current infrastructure in healthcare is already outdated, and the world around us continues to innovate.As communities become more connected and technology continues to be ingrained in almost every part of our life, healthcare needs to keep pace. Current
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Healthcare Cybersecurity: 10 Tips for Keeping Private Health Data Secure
Healthcare data is some of the most sensitive personal information that exists today. It is also one of the most sought after – and most frequently breached – data types. For organizations across the healthcare industry, protecting health data is proving to be increasingly challenging.Healthcare providers and their business partners must balance protecting patient privacy while delivering quality patient care and meeting the strict regulatory requirements set forth by HIPAA and other
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Can Telemedicine Transform the Mental Health Care Delivery Model?
People who suffer from mental illness not only struggle with their condition, but oftentimes struggle to get care. This is especially concerning when you consider that mental illness affects 1 in 5 people or 43 million in the US and that number is growing.1 These individuals stand to benefit from behavioral health counseling and support, but unfortunately their need is met with a shortage of mental health professionals. In fact, according to the U.S. Health Resources and Services
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