Imagine being told which car or computer you must buy and just forking over whatever it costs. Even if you might only be paying a portion of it, would you simply get out the checkbook? For decades American consumers have been writing blank checks for healthcare. Given that healthcare costs and consumers’ share of them continue to climb, we’ve all longed for the ability to see all options for medical procedures and prescriptions covered by our health plan and to choose the lowest-cost,
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Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Welcoming Patients Through The Digital Front Door
When patients contact their healthcare providers, they look for efficiency, convenience, and compassion. But often, the reality is far more clunky and impersonal when they find that an out-of-date phone system or a long hold queue are their only options. The secret to giving patients a more user-friendly experience and increasing engagement is to take a page from the corporate playbook. Emulating the modern conveniences patients get in other parts of their lives can help ensure
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Digital Front Doors Create Personalized Patient Experience
Heightened patient expectations are changing the way healthcare services are delivered, from the way patients receive care to the way they pay for services and manage their conditions. A need for greater patient-centricity is changing the way payers, providers, and healthcare services organizations do business. The digital front door is an ecosystem of technologies patients use to engage with healthcare, starting from when they detect symptoms, to when they pay or receive post-appointment care.
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What is the Potential for Digital Twins in Healthcare?
Digital twins are virtual representations of an object or system that spans its lifecycle, is updated from real-time data, and use simulation, machine learning and reasoning to help decision-making (IBM). In most cases, this helps data scientists understand how products are operating in production environments and anticipate how they may behave overtime. But what happens when a digital twin is that of a human being? By using digital twins to model a person, you can use technologies like
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Our Nursing Home Industry – A National Scandal
A society defines itself by how it cares for its most vulnerable, and especially its seniors. As a Board-Certified Internist and Geriatrician with over 35 years of providing care in nursing facilities, this sentiment has guided me throughout my career. It has led me to found Tapestry Health, a multispecialty medical practice that focuses on providing medical infrastructure in skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), as well as Project Patient Care, a patient advocacy organization based in Chicago,
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A Hybrid, Technology-Driven Approach to Overcome Coding and RCM Staff Shortages
Exacerbated by pandemic-induced burnout, resignations, and even terminations1, chronic coding and revenue cycle management (RCM) staffing shortages have healthcare organizations struggling to find ways to keep revenue flowing despite a lack of qualified professionals to handle critical processes. It is a situation that has been brewing for years, as too few qualified professionals are entering professions that are expanding more rapidly than ever before. According to the American Hospital
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How Medical Researchers Can Leverage Tech to Help Streamline Biospecimen Matchmaking and Procurement
Many medical advancements – from life-saving vaccines and treatments to new diagnostic tests like liquid biopsies – are built on research that involves human biospecimens. Biofluids, tissue and cells are indispensable resources for the medical researcher, yet the process of sourcing these biospecimens can be woefully frustrating and inefficient. These challenges can have a direct, negative impact on the pace of discovery, creating urgency for improved access to the biospecimens researchers need
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Inflation is Here. Why Deflationary Healthcare is Our Best Bet
Almost every sector of the economy is experiencing inflation the likes of which we haven’t seen in 40 years. One area that hasn’t experienced it (yet) is health care, but it is coming. Fortunately, the very pandemic that has fueled inflation in almost every other sector of the economy has also been the catalyst for digital health trends that could give us the tools we need to curb health care inflation. Making this a reality, however, will require smart
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The Mounting Provider Burden of Patients Disconnected from Their Cardiac Implantable Electronic Devices (CIEDs)
The first implantation of a pacemaker in a human occurred in 1958. Since then, the technology behind permanent cardiac rhythm management has steadily evolved, enabling a variety of implants known collectively as cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs). Today, CIEDs are the standard of care for a range of cardiac arrhythmias, and researchers estimate that 1.2–1.4 million of these devices are implanted annually worldwide. And experts predict that number will continue to increase in years to
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Dear Digital Healthcare: Let’s Do Better
Digital transformation has increased healthcare access, but quality and consistency are lagging behind. A human touch – and some innovative thinking – can get us where we need to be. We weren’t prepared. But can you blame us? The healthcare industry has gone digital faster than anyone could’ve expected. Digital health options like telemedicine and online pharmacies existed before the pandemic. At some point, they would’ve naturally risen to prominence. COVID-19 forced us to stuff a
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