The healthcare industry is now closer than ever to its quest for true interoperable data exchange. July 1, 2021 was the enforcement date for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Interoperability and Patient Access final rule. The rule requires that all healthcare payer organizations participating in a CMS program allow members to download and share their data using API’s (Application Programming Interface). This
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Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Information Blocking Rule: 6 Key Takeaways Since Meaningful Use
Information exchange and data availability are now a cost of doing business but establishing a robust strategy for that exchange and compliance with the new regulation from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology takes careful planning. Healthcare organizations can achieve and maintain compliance by following these six takeaways:
1. Understand what constitutes “Electronic Health Information”
“Electronic Health Information,” ONC’s new term for the data
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Artificial Intelligence: Healthcare’s Most Powerful Weapon
The Advent of the ‘Digital CRISPR.’
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the workplace has transformed how healthcare professionals and organizations conduct daily operations. It has also brought significant improvements in patient care and outcomes while moving the needle forward in the prevention and treatment of diseases.
In short, AI makes it possible to crawl through massive amounts of data in minutes to make more informed decisions and keep healthcare organizations consistently ahead of
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4 Strategies for Urgent Care to Thrive During the Pandemic and Beyond
A year of constantly shifting gears to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic and meet patient needs further solidified the essential role urgent cares play during large-scale public health crises. Subsequently, the pandemic is continuing to change the way patients use and view urgent care. By the end of 2020, urgent care saw a 58% increase in visit volumes on average, and Covid-19 testing and vaccinations had accounted for 60% of all visits. New patient volumes increased by 23% over the same year,
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Overcoming Key Hurdles in Decentralized Trials with Better Education
As with countless global industries, clinical trials were forced to move key functions online as COVID-19 swept the world in early 2020. Clinical research operations had to rapidly deploy remote approaches that were previously in the planning or pilot stages. While the uptake was rushed, the results have been largely positive. Decentralized clinical trials, and their near cousins that apply a hybrid approach of in-person and remote visits, are increasingly seen as a viable solution for biopharma
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Time is Money in Healthcare Administration. How Much Are You Losing?
Administrative complexity is a billion-dollar problem, riddled with human-led, hand-done steps that simply don’t need to exist.
In a given year, approximately a quarter to one-third of our healthcare spending comes from waste across the system. Sometimes, the cause of money waste is obvious, such as duplicated tests, misdiagnosis, extended ER stays, overtreatment, or failures in care coordination. The less obvious contributor: time.
Time is wasted at nearly every step of the
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Key Ingredient to Improving Outcomes in Behavioral Health: Measurement-Based Care
The burden of mental disorders is well known. Mental disorders are common, resulting in significant disability as well as contributing to -- and complicating -- chronic health conditions. Most mental disorders are untreated, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only further highlighted significant disparities in access to treatment. Effective pharmacologic and psychological treatments are available, yet outcomes in routine practice are often weaker than what is found in randomized controlled
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Decentralized Clinical Research Will Be A Paradigm-Shifting Trend
The field of clinical research is on the precipice of change, and for good reason. Traditional clinical trials and processes are primarily confined to sterile, isolated clinical settings that are often narrow in scope and provider-centric. Researchers of tomorrow, however, already are identifying accurate and effective new methods to conduct and draw meaning from their work, after concluding that current models for clinical research are not capturing participants’ real-world, lived experiences
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4 Hurdles On The Road to Hybrid Healthcare – Digital Transformation
COVID-19 forced healthcare organizations to make a huge leap forward in their digital transformation roadmaps. Although many companies had plans on the books to advance telemedicine, the crisis revealed that virtual care is not only possible but in many cases is also preferred by patients. Virtual care also offers an opportunity to enhance the patient experience, improve population health, reduce costs and improve the work-life of healthcare providers -- the quadruple aim of
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Reshaping Imaging: 4 Areas Enhancing Provider Workflows & Patient Care
Ever since Wilhelm Roentgen created the first X-ray image in 1895, few technologies have had more influence on medicine than those related to clinical imaging. It’s pretty remarkable if we compare the MRI, CT, and X-ray technologies of even just 20 years ago with those of today. Rapid innovation is making imaging better and easier. Still, we’re only starting to scratch the surface of some amazing advances that promise to entirely reshape how doctors diagnose and treat patients.
As with
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