Despite the recent end to the COVID-19 global public health emergency, its effects linger. This includes nurse and clinician shortages, which persist across hospitals and health systems nationwide. About 100,000 nurses left the workforce during the pandemic, with over 600,000 reporting their intention to leave by 2027, citing stress and burnout as primary reasons.
Now is the time for healthcare organizations to look inward and not only seek to remedy these deficits by counteracting
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How Generative AI Can Transform Healthcare Contact Centers
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) arguably is the hottest topic today in the world of business and technology. With the ability to create content such as text, images, audio, and video, generative AI algorithms are being tested for use cases in marketing, finance, education, and healthcare.
ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms have tremendous potential to transform healthcare and other industries. But the current inherent limitations of generative AI introduce compliance and
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How the VA Uses Synthetic Data to Predict Veterans’ Suicide Risk
Suicide is a major public health crisis in America, resulting in one death every 11 minutes, on average.
In 2020, suicide was among the top 9 leading causes of death for people between 10 and 64 years of age. Each year, suicide and nonfatal self-harm cost the nation nearly $490 billion in medical costs, work-loss costs, the value of statistical life, and quality-of-life costs, according to statistics cited by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For America’s
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Human Factors in Burnout and the Adoption of Medical Devices
Human factors and assessments in medical devices are becoming more important to health systems and health services researchers. The evolving priorities within healthcare truly underscore the importance of human factors and to practitioners gaining access to key contextual information to facilitate a more holistic view of the system.
Designing for Human Needs in Healthcare
Relative to other high-risk industries, medicine, and health systems have been slow to adopt a human factors
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Is Gait The Most Overlooked Patient Vital Sign?
Routine health assessments will typically involve measuring heart rate, blood pressure, blood oxygen saturation, and body weight. Current medications are reviewed, and patients are asked if they’ve experienced any changes in their health lately. A brief assessment of balance and muscle strength follows, but what about gait? Most people know their blood pressure or weight, but few can accurately describe the way they walk.
The five commonly known vital signs – temperature, heart rate,
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Why The Healthcare Industry Needs Blockchain More Than Ever
Trust is a crucial part of any society, and it is of the utmost importance within the healthcare industry. Ensuring the trustworthiness of healthcare providers is essential for patient confidence as they must be able to trust them to offer accurate information, make informed decisions, and act in their best interest, all while prioritizing privacy and anonymity. Although these tenants remain integral, trust is often broken in more ways than one.
The widespread feeling of distrust has
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The Problem With Modern Disinfectants & What The Future of Infection Protection Should Look Like
Keeping surfaces pathogen-free is crucial in preventing the transmission of diseases and infections. Pathogens are microorganisms that can cause illness, and they can easily spread from contaminated surfaces to people who come into contact with those surfaces. This is a major concern in healthcare settings such as hospitals, where pathogens can spread easily and cause infections in vulnerable patients. In addition, pathogen spread can also occur in public places such as schools, workplaces, and
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The Future is Now: How AR is Changing the Healthcare Landscape
Not long ago, augmented reality (AR) sounded like something straight out of a sci-fi novel. Today, the rapidly-evolving technology is beginning to change the way many industries function, and healthcare is one of the very promising areas.
A doctor’s office a decade in the future could look very different from a doctor’s office of the present; as AR and virtual reality tools develop, they will fundamentally elevate the quality and convenience of healthcare options for all segments of the
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Ensuring Healthcare AI/ML Models Aren’t “Failed Science Fair Projects”
Artificial Intelligence has become a board-level priority, dominating healthcare technology conversations. However, despite widespread interest in the technology, the healthcare industry is still lagging when it comes to deploying and maintaining successful AI and machine learning (ML) models.
According to a survey by the Society of Actuaries, 93% of healthcare organizations (HCOs) believe leveraging predictive analytics is key to the future of their business, but a staggering
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Charting a Path Forward for Behavioral Health After the Public Health Emergency
The pandemic caused a significant increase in overdose and Substance Use Disorder (SUD) related deaths, exposing long-standing deficiencies in the identification and treatment of SUD. So, with the end of the public health emergency (PHE) on May 11, 2023, and the cessation of PHE-related exceptions that increased access to mental health resources, there is reason for concern. And recent statistics bolster this worry.
Ninety percent of US adults believe the country faces a mental health crisis,
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