In healthcare, the impact of well-designed medical devices reaches far beyond their physical form. When these devices are thoughtfully crafted with the end-user in mind, they become catalysts for efficiency and accuracy in diagnoses and treatments. A symbiosis of clear interfaces, intuitive controls, and an overall positive user experience not only propel healthcare professionals toward optimal care delivery but also alleviates the challenge of navigating cumbersome
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The Road Ahead for Healthcare Finance Leaders: Navigating Challenges in AI Adoption & Data Quality
The road ahead for healthcare leaders continues to be fraught with challenges. According to a recent McKinsey survey, health system executives see digital and AI transformation as crucial to overcoming ongoing challenges such as rising costs, workforce shortages, aging populations, and increasing competition from nontraditional players. While AI, traditional machine learning, and deep learning are projected to result in net savings of $200 billion to $360 billion in healthcare spending, 75% of
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The Imperative to Stay the Course on Value-Based Transformation
Is value-based care still the right strategy to reduce U.S. healthcare costs? Or is it time to move to what comes next in the generation-long battle to constrain total medical spending?
The question is being increasingly asked and with good reason. For 2024 medical costs are projected to rise 7.0% year over year for Individual and Group markets. That is greater than the medical cost trend in 2022 and 2023, which was 5.5% and 6.0%, respectively, and adds to a decade-plus of at least 5.5% per
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Breaking the Vicious Cycle of Hospital Staffing
Matt Dane, Senior Vice President, Business Development, Hallmark Health Care Solutions
The healthcare labor market is in the middle of a fundamental shift. Healthcare workers are looking for greater flexibility and balance when it comes to their working arrangements, which poses significant challenges for nurse recruitment and retention. At the same time, traditional staffing models employed by large healthcare providers, which have heavily relied on staffing agencies to fill labor gaps, have
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Small Language Models vs. Large Language Models: Which is Better for Healthcare?
Large language models (LLMs) use AI to reply to questions in a conversational manner. Our friend ChatGPT is an LLM. It can reply to an uncapped range of queries because it taps into one billion or more parameters of data. Small language models (SLMs) are their pocket-sized cousins.
An SLM specializes in tasks associated with smaller, more focused datasets. For instance, a hospital could leverage an SLM to enhance clinical documentation. How? By training the SLM on the patient’s
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3 Ways Post-Acute Placement Solutions Improve Transitions of Care
For patients, every transition of care to a different facility brings the risk of complications.
When a patient is transitioning from a hospital to a post-acute care facility, for example, essential patient information relating to medical history and medication lists may be lost, overlooked, or not shared, resulting in delays to treatment and suboptimal care.
Like many things in life, successful transitions of care often start with strong communication. To match patients to the
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Centering The Patient in Value-Based Care Benefits
Forty years ago, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, HIV researchers and physicians discovered that simply treating the symptoms of the disease was not enough to provide lasting improvement for patients. Other factors like unstable living conditions, drug use, the public stigma over AIDS and HIV – known today as social determinants of health – all require attention in addition to a traditional treatment plan. This holistic view of the patient and caring for their symptoms, treatments, and the
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Strategic Cost Management Ensures ACO Viability
For ACOs to remain relevant as leaders of Value-Based payment models, they must step up now to generate more cost savings for Medicare patient care. Budget cuts for Medicare are once again under discussion by conservatives as political pressure mounts to lower governmental spending. Meanwhile, CMS is expanding risk in Medicare value-based payment models, moving quickly away from Fee-for-Service reimbursement. The new ACO PC Flex model is designed to create per-patient reimbursement for
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Safeguarding Your Health: 5 Ways Healthcare Organizations Can Navigate Cybersecurity Risks
The healthcare industry poses a unique set of challenges when it comes to its cybersecurity framework. Hospitals, doctors' offices, and local clinics are all home to vast amounts of sensitive patient and employee data. Hospitals alone store about 50 petabytes of sensitive data every year. In order to operate seamlessly and provide the best care possible, these healthcare havens need to ensure that their IT stack is robust. Cyber threats are rampant and have the potential to jeopardize patient
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How AI Bridges The Gap Between Mental Health Appointments
The causes and effects of America’s mental health crisis are well-documented. Easing access to necessary clinical help has not grown in tandem.
A study by the National Council for Mental Well-Being reveals that mental health services in the U.S. are insufficient despite more than half of Americans (56 percent) seeking help, with limited options and long waits becoming the norm. In some ways, meeting patients where they are is optimized, thanks to telehealth tools such as Zoom
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