Most of us have been tested for COVID-19 over the past few years. If that’s true of you, you know the routine: you go to a testing site, give your sample, a medical professional sends it to a laboratory, and you receive your results in a day or two. If this sounds familiar, you’ve benefited from PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) testing.
PCR is well known for its accuracy. It has limitations, however: it’s costly, time-consuming, and requires samples to be sent to central laboratories.
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How EHRs Should Help not Hurt Health System Finances
Hospitals and health systems continue to face persistent challenges from rising costs and labor shortages across clinical, administrative and revenue cycle teams. Recent news from Humana highlights that rising costs, “may persist for an extended period or, in some cases, permanently reset the baseline.” In addition, half of hospitals and health systems surveyed reported $100 million in Accounts Receivable (AR) for claims older than 6 months, amounting to $6.4 billion in delayed or unpaid claims,
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Olympics 2024 Anti-Doping: Why Innovation in Testing Is Key
As we approach the 2024 Summer Olympics, ensuring a clean game is a major priority for the International Olympic Committee. More than 1,000 people will be involved in various anti-doping testing stages, including chaperones, sample collection personnel, and dedicated anti-doping control spaces at each competition venue. The goal is to maintain fair competition so we can all trust that those Olympians who earn their podium moment did so without any artificial enhancement. Unfortunately, the
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Crossing the Digital Divide to Serve Medicaid Populations
A discussion of technology and the Medicaid population inevitably raises the topic of the digital divide — that is, the gap between people who have access to modern information and communications technology (ICTs) and those who don't.
“We can’t deliver internet-dependent solutions to Medicaid enrollees because they don’t have access to the internet.” Or so the argument goes.
But this is an outdated and manifestly untrue statement that relies on a very limited definition of
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WannaCry Wasn’t Enough: Why Healthcare Still Struggles with Cybersecurity Communication
According to the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR), cyber incidents in health care are on the rise. From 2018-2022, there has been a 93% increase in large breaches reported to OCR (369 to 712), with a 278% increase in large breaches involving ransomware.
Ascension, a healthcare provider with 140 hospitals across 19 states, recently suffered a cyberattack that disrupted multiple critical systems. Another significant breach occurred earlier in February, impacting Change Healthcare and affecting
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Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities in Implantable Medical Devices
While digitalization saves lives, it may also threaten them. The uptick in data breaches and cyberattacks targeting the healthcare industry correlates to the number of internet-connected and insecure technology facilities are adopting. Implantable medical devices are one of the latest victims of this trend — and their vulnerabilities could be deadly.
Why are Hackers Targeting Implantable Medical Devices?
According to a report from the U.S. Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center
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3 Strategies to Develop A More Flexible Healthcare Workforce
A recent survey by the American College of Healthcare Executives revealed that workforce issues topped hospital CEOs' concerns for the second year. The ongoing challenge of staff shortages, nurse turnover, and high vacancy rates continues to increase reliance on costly contract labor, eroding hospital margins and contributing to clinician burnout.
Work preferences are also changing in healthcare. Nurses and other clinicians are prioritizing work-life balance, turning to flexible staffing
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Uncapping Capacity: Solving for Technology Overload in Clinical Trials
The clinical trial landscape has greatly benefited from technological innovations over the past few decades. Innovation has expanded remote monitoring capabilities, patient recruitment tactics and the decentralization of clinical trials. However, one of the greatest hurdles that clinical researchers are currently facing is a deluge of disparate solutions across the clinical trial workflow. For example, surveys reveal that 60% of clinical research sites are using up to, and over, 20 systems on a
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Healthcare Identity Crisis: How CIAM Saves Lives in the Digital Age
In today’s rapidly evolving healthcare landscape, the shift towards digital services isn't just about convenience; it's crucial for effectively maneuvering patient care and saving lives. But it’s easier said than done given the unique challenges healthcare organizations have to deal with in managing patient identification and data access. Moreover, the introduction of new regulations and the demand for sophisticated digital solutions, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, have put further
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Why Precision Medicine Demands a Completely New Type of Database
Precision medicine is revolutionizing healthcare - by optimizing the efficiency and therapeutic benefit for particular groups of patients, especially by using genetic or molecular profiling. This approach enables a range of health disciplines, including disease prediction, prevention and the resulting treatments, diagnostic screening for prenatal and newborns, and screening for rare diseases and cancer types. For life sciences, the ability to peer into high-resolution molecular profiles has
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