Healthcare data breach news dominated headlines again in 2018. A November 2018 Data Breach report posted by the HIPAA Journal cites a massive increase in exposed protected health information (PHI). During the month of November, more than 3 million records were exposed, stolen or accessed without permission. The report states the number of records exposed in November alone is greater than those exposed in all 180 data breaches reported to the HHS’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) during the first
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How Improving Primary Care Can Drive Innovation in Care Delivery
Despite having some of the most advanced healthcare tools and highly-trained practitioners, the United States has one of the least efficient healthcare systems of all developed countries.Over the years, I have come to realize that it’s not the development of devices or the medical prowess that makes the difference: it is the delivery of these services and the impact it creates on the population. Moreover, it is our delivery of care to patients which is often inefficient and ineffective, leaving
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Practices: Focus More on Patient Relationships and Less on Management
Patient relationship management (PRM) software is taking center stage in the battle to improve the patient experience. Essentially, PRM is customer relationship management (CRM) for healthcare. It helps practices more effectively communicate with and engage patients and tracks those interactions. For example, if a practice needs to improve reminders and recall, PRM can automate sending messages via text, email, and/or phone by pulling data from the practice management or EHR system.Even though
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7 Steps to Data Lake Success: What Payers Need to Know Before Diving In
There is a promising new trend in healthcare data science. Innovative health payers are beginning to complement their use of structured data with raw data – from healthcare transactions, physician notes, digital health applications, and more – to make decisions that affect population and individual member health.As payers have massive amounts of both types of data at their disposal, the concept of a “data lake” is gaining traction. A data lake stores both structured and unstructured data without
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5 Forces Driving The Acceleration of Precision Medicine in 2019
The past several years has brought healthcare organizations closer and closer to integrating precision medicine and genomics into the daily business of care delivery. As an industry, we are nearly at the tipping point and I anticipate we will see significant acceleration towards this objective in 2019. Organizations will determine their precision medicine strategy, as well begin to develop operational processes defining how genomic data is managed and appropriately used.Progress in five
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Telepsychiatry: Why It’s An Important Strategy for Improving Mental Health
Recent high-profile events have elevated the national discussion about mental illness and how best to circumvent potentially disastrous outcomes.Supply and demand of mental and behavioral health care services sit at the heart of the problem, and while various schools of thought exist as to the solution, most in the industry agree on one point: the behavioral health access crisis has reached a tipping point. From extreme shortages in psychiatric beds—numbering roughly 14 per every 100,000 people
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3 Ways Artificial Intelligence Will Improve Healthcare in 2019
In 2019, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning tools will continue to help physicians make more informed decisions, hospitals achieve better outcomes, and patients receive more timely and personalized care. According to Becker’s Healthcare, artificial intelligence (AI) tools will save the healthcare industry $52 billion by 2021. Here are three of the biggest ways that AI is poised to shape healthcare in 2019.1. AI Will Unlock the Power of Virtual Medicine Telemedicine is helping to
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Why Artificial Intelligence Should Augment Patient Care, Not Replace IT
Skeptics about the future of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare are running out of reasons to be doubtful.AI, in fact, is already revolutionizing several areas of medicine. Researchers rely on AI to help them select candidates for clinical trials, algorithms are proving to be about as accurate as radiologists in diagnosing lung cancer, and experts from Oxford and Yale believe that all surgical work could be conducted by AI by the year 2053.Clearly, when it comes to clinical work, AI’s
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What’s Next for Healthcare Communications in 2019?
Healthcare workers are the embodiment of mobile. Tending to patients across hospitals, clinics, and shifts, they are always on the move. Coupled with the sheer size and diversity of the healthcare system, keeping employees informed is a constant challenge.When communications break down or employees are not engaged, the consequences can be disastrous — from administrative and operational missteps to poor decisions treating patients and lack of quality care. In fact, according to a study from HR
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Pay Attention to the FDA’s New Medical Device Cybersecurity Guidelines
The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) recently released Medical Device Cybersecurity Regional Incident Preparedness and Response Playbook is the agency’s latest step in an ongoing effort to enhance medical device cybersecurity. Though these are merely guidelines and not regulations, it’s imperative hospitals and other vendors dealing with medical devices take them to heart. The FDA’s primary focus is on patient safety related to medical device incidents, but these guidelines could very
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