The link between patient experience and health outcomes is well-established: positive interactions enhance communication, adherence, and reduce readmissions, ultimately leading to improved results and greater provider profitability, according to a 2023 report from the National Library of Medicine. However, in the fast-paced hospital environment, particularly in the Emergency Department (ED), maintaining patient comfort can be challenging. Effective patient experiences also require swift,
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Unpacking Medicare Advantage Terminations and How Plans Can Navigate Them
The U.S. healthcare system has been undergoing its own stress test. Stakeholders are currently experiencing a variety of pressures with a primary focus on finances, including administrative costs. The COVID-19 pandemic is often used as a convenient delimiter for the emergence of these problems, but in reality, tensions were brewing long before now and were caused by a variety of factors. Medicare Advantage (MA) is facing the headwinds of these issues – and as a result, MA
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5 Cybersecurity Strategies for Remote Patient Monitoring Systems
Remote patient monitoring systems have unlocked new standards of care. They can reduce lines in hospital waiting rooms, streamline checkups and enable fast, personalized treatments for improved health outcomes. However, they also present a growing cybersecurity risk.
Cyberattacks against health care are an increasingly frequent problem — 2023 saw the highest number of data breaches and the most leaked information on record. Wearables and other remote monitoring devices may add fuel to the
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Healthcare as a Right: How AI is Shaping Global Access
The World Health Organization estimates that by 2030, the world will face a shortage of approximately 10 million healthcare workers globally if health systems do not make significant changes. This looming crisis threatens to leave millions without accessible, quality care, potentially leading to devastating consequences for individuals and communities worldwide. Luckily, AI tools are providing innovative solutions to this issue in a variety of ways that can alleviate the administrative burden on
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Bed Shortages: How AI Can Help Reduce Length of Stay in Hospitals
Length of stay management in acute care facilities represents a critical frontier for providers and payers to improve their own bottom lines, and also improve patients’ experience with the healthcare system.
Let’s take a closer look at how today’s systemic inefficiencies arose, and how collaboration within provider networks, and between payers and providers, might improve length-of-stay procedures and inefficiencies in the future.
Acute care facility bed shortages, and how they
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AI in Healthcare: Balancing Automation with Human Expertise
AI holds immense promise in healthcare, from improving patient care and operational efficiency to early disease detection and personalized treatment plans. AI's potential in a patient-centered environment hinges on understanding its capabilities, limitations, and the critical role of human oversight. While AI can greatly enhance human abilities, it is not infallible and cannot replace human expertise. Recognizing and preparing for AI's predictable (and unpredictable) outputs, ensuring
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Revitalizing Medicare Advantage: How The Push to Streamline Prior Authorization Will Impact Senior Care
As a physician, the odds that you’ve had a negative experience related to the prior authorization process are (unfortunately) highly likely. According to the American Medical Association’s (AMA) 2023 Prior Authorization Physician Survey, 1 in 4 physicians report that prior auths “have led to a serious adverse event for a patient in their care.” Think about the toll that this takes on professionals whose primary job is providing lifesaving care, and the thing preventing this care is outside their
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PCI DSS 4.0: A Guide to API Security for Healthcare Organizations
In recent years, several major health information exchange platforms in the United States have fallen victim to ransomware attacks. These platforms play a crucial role in U.S. healthcare infrastructure, facilitating the flow of patient records and managing payments for extensive networks of providers, including hundreds of thousands of doctors, tens of thousands of pharmacies, thousands of hospitals, and hundreds of laboratories. Some of these systems process billions of claims annually,
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Suicide is NOT a Symptom: Healthcare Is Missing the Mark on Suicide Prevention
Too many have lost a loved one to suicide. Every 11 minutes someone dies by suicide in the US, often without warning. Suicidality has historically been regarded as a symptom of major depression and mental illness in general. During my training, when someone was at risk of suicide, we were taught to treat the underlying mental illness and the patient will get better. However, in many cases that has proven to not be correct.
In fact, a large percentage of severely depressed
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How AI is Transforming the Acute Patient Journey
Optimizing patient throughput across the acute patient journey is essential if hospitals and health systems are to improve healthcare efficiency and clinical outcomes.The fundamental purpose of optimized throughput is to ensure the patient is in the best care setting possible for them at every point in their patient journey. Spending too little or too much time in an acute care setting can be detrimental to the patient. Take the case of a patient who stays in a hospital bed longer because they
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