COVID-19 forced many health systems to reassess and reconfigure their care management processes and staffing models so that clinicians could better manage more of their acute, complex, and otherwise healthy patients remotely to limit in-person care. During this time, health systems likely learned quite a bit about remote care management and discovered that they could still deliver high-quality care without their patients needing to visit their providers in-person as often. With two
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Does Telemedicine Impede or Help the Patient-Centered Medical Home?
Traditional patient care patterns have been radically altered by the COVID-19 pandemic. And after more than a year of disruption, it’s doubtful that everyone will revert to those patterns after the pandemic. New habits have been formed, and consumers are more willing to pursue the path of least resistance in obtaining care, such as opting for quick and easy telemedicine appointments. Both patients and clinicians have identified benefits from virtual care approaches. However, this and other
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How a Virtual Care Mindset Leads to Greater Patient Acceptance and Sustainable Telehealth Growth
There's no question that the demand for telehealth and virtual care has grown exponentially over the last twelve months. With that growth has come a fundamental shift in the attitude toward virtual care. No longer do patients and providers take a "let's try it" approach—now, it's "we must do it." This is evidenced by the number of telehealth claims filed. In 2020, telehealth claims skyrocketed, increasing by 2,938% in November 2020 versus November 2019 as patients demanded virtual options and as
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Key Lessons from COVID-19 & How We Can Better Support our Healthcare Provider
COVID-19 has been a novel pandemic in many ways beyond the actual virus itself – from the irreparable impacts it’s having on society, to the immense strain it’s put on the healthcare industry. A recent report stated that 93% of healthcare professionals reported experiencing stress, 86% reported experiencing anxiety, and 76% reported exhaustion and burnout [1]. Considering that the virus will continue to have an impact in 2021 and the reality that COVID-19 will likely not be the last epidemic we
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Biospecimen Procurement for R&D Needs to Look More Like an Online Marketplace
As healthcare digitizes everything from insurance claims to clinical decisions, some functions remain frustratingly analog, old school, and inefficient. One such function is the distribution of human biospecimens necessary for medical research. Specimens are essential in providing much of the data that researchers examine, EHRs capture, and scientific databases aggregate. Unfortunately, the distribution of specimens and their data to researchers is woefully outdated and inefficient. Frankly,
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Boost Operational, Clinical and Financial Performance with Good Data
There’s an old adage that every challenge is merely an opportunity in disguise. COVID-19 highlighted the healthcare industry’s ongoing challenge with producing clean, standardized data. As the industry looks to rebound from the severe financial impact of the pandemic, there’s a renewed urgency among hospitals and health networks to improve operational efficiency. The push toward greater operational efficiency – in a time of constrained budgets and resources – has accelerated
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COVID Exposed The Dire Need for Real-Time Healthcare Data Sharing
In a world where technology and Big Data can provide us with instantaneous access to our banking transactions, and our financial information and credit reports can be retrieved with a few keystrokes when applying for a mortgage -- trying to get access to our own healthcare data is exasperating. Beyond exasperating, is the frightening situation when the inability to access up-to-date and accurate information, can result in an aggravated medical condition or even death. Before the
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3 Barriers Stalling AI Adoption in Revenue Cycle Management
AI technology is quickly evolving and already surpassing human decision-making in certain instances; sometimes, in ways, we can’t explain. While many are alarmed by this, AI is producing some of the most effective and dramatic results in business today. Adoption of AI in healthcare is growing, but there are still barriers to overcome AI can be defined in many ways but, broadly, it is the ability of a machine to perform cognitive functions we associate with human minds, such as
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Next-Generation Cloud Storage: Enabling Collaboration & Analytics for Pharma Research
Pharmaceutical companies today are distributed, global organizations, with research centers, manufacturing facilities, and regulatory management hubs spread all over the globe. To develop new treatments and bring them to market, all of these different functions need to collaborate more closely than ever. Using traditional, on-premises storage technologies, however, makes it difficult to share data quickly and securely, especially given that the research and manufacturing process can generate
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To Advance Health Equity, Put Real-World Cancer Data to Work
Despite decades of scientific progress against cancer, access to treatment remains highly unequal. Some of the reasons — like institutional racism and poverty — are a reflection of our broader society. Other inequities may go unrecognized but are no less damaging. People with underlying health conditions, for example, may be excluded from clinical trials, preventing them from accessing leading-edge treatments and limiting the evidence available to guide their care. With multiple drivers of
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