During the pandemic, electronic clinical outcomes assessments (eCOAs) gained prominence as sponsors looked for more agile tools to help them capture patient data remotely through decentralized clinical trials (DCTs). From the adoption of virtual models like eCOAs and DCTs, a new opportunity emerged to enhance the patient experience. Decreasing the amount of time spent on on-site appointments helped reduce patient burden. Additionally, sponsors gained real-time insights on how patients interact
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Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Patient Flow Challenges Contributing to Provider Burnout
There has been frequent reporting about the problem of provider workforce shortages within hospitals and health systems and the related burnout experienced when working in high-stress situations during the Covid-19 pandemic. There are pre-existing and contributing patient flow challenges that have been exacerbated by the pandemic, which can lead to burnout, and therefore are worth discussing. Exposing the Problem The extent of provider burnout over the course of the pandemic is well
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Delivering Patient-Centered Care Means Decluttering the Digital Health Landscape
Digital health companies (DHCs) and their solutions continue to grow at a rapid pace. This is in part being fueled by the record funding for DHCs, with over $29 billion for US-based companies in 2021 alone. As a result, patients are inundated with solutions from every direction – from employers, health plans, and directly through consumer-oriented apps and wearables. Physicians are also getting into the mix by directly prescribing digital therapeutics. On the surface, the blossoming of the
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How Healthcare Providers Are Adapting in the Era of Telehealth, and Why Radiology was Uniquely Suited to Go Hybrid
As hospitals and private health offices nationwide slowly begin to emerge from the COVID-induced challenges posed over the last two years, there is a new understanding of, and necessity for, adaptable medical technology and practices. Changes in the medical environment are becoming more important to the general public than ever before, with telehealth as a growing–and most likely permanent–practice. For healthcare providers under immense pressure to provide top care to COVID and non-COVID
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Analysis: Seeking Balance in the Hyperactive Mental Health Tech Market
The prevalence of mental and behavioral health conditions has been on the rise in recent decades, further aggravated by the pandemic in the last two years. Social isolation, grief from the loss of loved ones, fear of contracting the virus, and financial worries were all major stress factors that increasingly affected the mental wellbeing of the population, and the resulting statistics are startling: the average share of adults with symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorders jumped from 1
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How Can We Reduce Clinician Burnout? Improving Patient and Caregiver Engagement
Even as we (hopefully) approach the tail-end of the latest COVID-19 wave, one growing healthcare challenge continues to worsen: clinician burnout. Nurses, physicians, schedulers, and other members of care-provider teams continue to post rising rates of burnout. They’re feeling overwhelmed and underappreciated due to factors such as hectic workplaces and schedules, extended workloads, and excessive administrative tasks. This is an alarming trend that the entire healthcare industry needs to be
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Patient Engagement: 3 Lessons Learned from Consumer & Service Industries
If there’s been a constant in healthcare the past two years, it’s been in the rapidity of change, largely in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Suddenly, healthcare needed to adopt new work models and technologies to provide proper patient care. No wonder healthcare ranked atop all other industries in “new ways of working and processes,” “new tech tools and infrastructure,” and “new staff wellbeing practices,” in a recent survey of 1,200 business leaders. Inevitably, healthcare organizations
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Digital Documentation: How PDFs Can Help Providers Expedite Care
We live in an increasingly digital world. Across industries, companies and consumers have come to rely on the rapid exchange of digital information. Healthcare, however, has been an outlier in this regard. While the healthcare digital transformation has been in play for years, it’s still taken longer for the paradigm shift to gain momentum. Healthcare stakeholders have long relied on paper-based processes. From documenting clinical care to filing medical claims and registering patients, paper
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Coping with Crises: Using Telemedicine to Deliver Effective Virtual Critical Care
The COVID-19 pandemic has proven that telemedicine is essential for keeping the healthcare system running during a crisis. How can virtual critical care keep improving to help providers manage future emergency events? In early 2020, as the nation’s healthcare system almost buckled under the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic, providers searching for a way to stay connected to their patients turned to telemedicine. Primary care providers and specialists embraced virtual care, thanks to a
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Mental Health Awareness is Everywhere. Why Shouldn’t Virtual Care Be Standard?
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, which for years has been a platform to increase understanding about mental illness and advocate for better mental health care. Now more than ever, you don’t have to look too hard to see that mental health is a daily fixture in the national conversation. Unfortunately, mental health issues have become far too common for people of all ages and in all walks of life. An Influx of Demand from Pediatrics to Geriatrics We know that children are in dire
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