Living with a rare disease can be exhausting. Symptoms, limitations, and medications are all obvious contributors, but there is another, less obvious challenge to living with a rare disease: the experience of simply being a patient.Patients, especially those with rare and complex diseases, are required to be their own health historians to manage and track all of their health needs and keep documents and paperwork up to date. They are also asked to fill out the same forms repeatedly – the same
Read More
Treating Addiction: Bridging the Gap Between Physical & Behavioral Healthcare
The statistics are terrifying. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Alcohol poisoning kills six people every day. Of those, 76 percent are adults ages 35-64, and three of every four people killed by alcohol poisoning are men. The group with the most alcohol poisoning deaths per million people is American Indians/Alaska Natives (49.1 per 1 million). More than 15 million people struggle with an alcohol use disorder in the United States, but less than eight
Read More
5 Reasons Why Patient Data Privacy and Control is So Important
“Foolish the doctor who despises the knowledge acquired by the ancients.” – Hippocrates, Greek physician (460 BC - 377 BC) The ancient Greek father of medicine, Hippocrates, knew that trust was a fundamental tenet for the effective practice of medicine. How can a patient seek the care of a stranger without the establishment of a fiduciary trust? A patient must reveal the most personal, private information about themselves and therefore must possess the utmost confidence in their physician to
Read More
3 Provider Strategies to Better Protect Sensitive Patient Data
Given the surging volume of personal health information (PHI) and other sensitive data from electronic health records, medical imaging, payer records, and medical devices, healthcare organizations are arguably in the data business today as much as they’re in the business of caring for patients. Data not only helps healthcare organizations deliver better patient care, but it’s a core asset to meet other business imperatives, including streamlining processes and lowering costs.Healthcare
Read More
Why It’s Time to Take a More Adult Approach to Healthcare Policy
One of President Harry Truman’s most famous quotes was “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” Yet historically, the political approach to healthcare has been less like colleagues working toward an intelligent, practical solution and more like two children fighting over a favorite toy. Both sides wanted the credit for delivering a comprehensive healthcare plan and policy themselves, so they did all they could to prevent the other side from winning. Even
Read More
Do You Make House Calls? How Connected Health is Extending Personalized Care
People of a certain age speak wistfully of a time when doctors made house calls. The in-home visit had advantages for patient and physician alike.“House calls” eliminated the need for ill patients to get to the doctor’s office—along with the risks of coming into contact with other health-compromised people. For doctors, it was a break in routine, an opportunity to observe patients in their own home environment—and, sometimes, to gain insight beyond what was possible during an office exam,
Read More
Alert Fatigue: A Smarter Approach to Clinical Alarm Management
Thinking back to my time as a nurse on a busy telemetry unit, I can tell you how most days began. Clock in by 6:55 a.m. and throw my lunch in the fridge. Then, I check the assignment board, see who is in charge and how many patients I have. Next, I had to find the nurses who will report on my four to six patients, which usually includes a quick synopsis of any pertinent issues and the plan for the day.This sounds relatively easy. However, I am trying to accomplish these modest but critical goals
Read More
Clinical Secure Texting: Optimizing Care Coordination in Hospice Care
Playing phone tag and leaving voice mail is painfully inefficient. Thankfully, most of us can rely on e-mail and text messages to communicate with one another both personally and in business. In healthcare though, especially when at-risk hospice patients are involved, phone tag with a clinician is not only frustrating, but it can have life-threatening consequences.Consider this real-life scenario: Sue, a hospice nurse, went to check on Flo, a terminally ill cancer patient. Upon the initial
Read More
Patients are the New Payer: The New Dynamics of the Healthcare Economy
As consumers, we can use our smartphones to buy everything from airline tickets to groceries. In both cases, the products are delivered or confirmed almost immediately. Many of us instantly compare prices to see if we’re getting a good deal.This type of purchasing is not as seamless in healthcare. It can often be difficult to determine the exact cost of care prior to a procedure being done. There isn’t an easy way to compare the cost of medical procedures between healthcare organizations — which
Read More
How to Get Ahead of Mobile Device Security Risks in 2019
Healthcare data breach news dominated headlines again in 2018. A November 2018 Data Breach report posted by the HIPAA Journal cites a massive increase in exposed protected health information (PHI). During the month of November, more than 3 million records were exposed, stolen or accessed without permission. The report states the number of records exposed in November alone is greater than those exposed in all 180 data breaches reported to the HHS’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) during the first
Read More
