For decades, interoperability has been a dirty word for hospitals and health systems. No matter how much they have worked at it, paid for it, and thrown IT resources at it, return on investment has been difficult to prove. This has been especially true when executing a community physician alignment strategy to expand care collaboration with unaffiliated physician groups to drive new referrals and revenue into the hospital. The first step in many physician alignment programs is to formalize
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Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Streamlining Biospecimen Procurement: Avoid These 8 Common R&D Mistakes
Long before a clinician administers a drug or runs a new test, there is the arduous R&D cycle. Unfortunately, it’s rarely as streamlined as the one that just delivered COVID-19 vaccines in record-shattering time. For most Americans, vaccines and drugs seem to spring wholly formed from clinical trials, which are becoming part of America’s everyday conversation. But before any vaccine or therapy hits the market, the less-visible pre-clinical research and development must be performed – from
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3 Reasons Why Mobility Matters for Surgery
As the computer form factor shrank from the size of a room to a laptop, computing “mobility” finally became a reality as devices could be transported anywhere. For over a decade, the laptop continued to shrink while increasing in performance and lowering in price. Mobility became synonymous with portability. However, with the advent of the smartphone, mobility now transcends a single product category and has morphed into an experience. Over a short five years, mobility has become synonymous for
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3 Strategies to Up-Level Medicare Advantage Enrollment Before it is Too Late
With a new administration looking to reshape healthcare policy and additional special enrollment periods already underway, now is the time to ensure Medicare enrollment systems are ready for the unpredictability, and potential opportunities, ahead. While Medicare is the fastest growing segment of the healthcare industry, it is also highly competitive, expensive to operate in, and riddled with complexities and regulations to navigate. Health plans don’t have room to make a misstep when it comes
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Decentralized Clinical Trials: Surviving & Thriving in the Clinical Research World of COVID-19
As with so many aspects of our daily lives, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on clinical trials was both widespread and monumental. Thousands of trials—an estimated 80% of non-COVID-19 trials—came to a halt or were interrupted by the pandemic, which challenged the ability to conduct trials safely and effectively and was complicated by the reality that trials often deal with the populations most at risk from COVID-19 exposure1. In response, clinical researchers turned to a range of
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What Will It Take for Hospitals to Survive the Pandemic?
On New Years Eve, just as the Covid-19 outbreak in Los Angeles was at its worst, all 451 of Olympia Medical Center’s exhausted employees learned they would soon lose their jobs. After 74 years, the hospital closed for good on March 31st, leaving residents of the surrounding community — poor and mostly people of color — without a place to see a doctor. And it isn’t the only hospital closing. At least 47 hospitals have closed or filed for bankruptcy in the last year, and there will
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PHINs: Addressing the Fundamental Flaws that Have Broken Healthcare
The fundamental problem with healthcare can be summed up in one sentence: We expect healthcare services that cater to our individual needs, yet the health care system operates under a one-size-fits-all, trial-and-error model. It is a model that results in missed diagnoses, protracted illnesses, and even premature death and wastes $935 billion annually. The financial toll of this outmoded approach pales in comparison to the human toll. More than 128,000 people in the U.S. die each year
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Why the Digital-First, Patient-Centered Care is Critical to Healthcare
In the turmoil of one of the hardest years the healthcare industry has experienced, many healthcare organizations innovated nearly overnight, transforming bedside tablets into virtual care providers and parking garages into field hospitals. Through the help of agile, flexible technology, healthcare has empowered providers to support patient care anywhere. The pandemic created a tipping point: The healthcare industry must accelerate its drive toward a digital-first mentality.
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Time and Goals Should Drive Your Post-COVID-19 Care Management Strategy
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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