The healthcare sector is charged with preserving some of the most sensitive information of any industry. Hospitals and clinics are required to securely store data, such as social security numbers, patient medical records, insurance policy details, and credit card numbers. Although healthcare administrators are confronted with copious amounts of sensitive information, it would be incorrect to assume that the industry is a beacon of cybersecurity best practices. In fact, 13.2 million patient
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Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
New Year, New Codes: Best Practices for Keeping Your Chargemaster Up-To-Date
While Q4 is busy for every industry, it is especially taxing for those in the healthcare space. In addition to the quarterly update of HCPCS codes, Q4 brings the release of next year’s Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) and HCPCS codes and also sees the release of the final rules for the prospective payment systems.
On top of the work going on behind the scenes, the end of the year is a notoriously busy time for hospitals as patients make a mad dash to complete their final visits for the year.
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Why HCAHPS Is Archaic In Healthcare Today
Helen Hrdy, SVP of Customer Success at NRC HealthThe Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey hasn’t changed since its inception in 2006. Healthcare leaders have long wanted to see it reformed. Now, hospital groups are making the case for a major HCAHPS overhaul. The cause for the upheaval of a 13-year-old process is due largely in part to the impact on the complete care journey, specifically the patient experience. In order to incite change in today’s
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5 Key Features of Successful Quality Collaboratives
Quality collaboratives are comprised of multiple teams working together from different domains within the healthcare industry. Payors and providers have shown success in working together as a collaborative team sharing the same mission, improving healthcare outcomes in patients within the network each team serves. These collaborative efforts bring focus on improving medical services throughout in-network hospitals under contract with payors whose members are receiving care.
Below are five key
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Rise of Digital Voice Assistants & The Hospital Room of the (Near) Future
Hospital rooms thrum with the steady beat of monitors. And while a patient must quickly adapt to a cacophony of beeps and drips, when a sudden alarm pierces the air, it’s a nerve-wracking experience—especially if a nurse doesn’t step in immediately. The patient must fumble for the nurse-call button, which can usually be found dangling by the side of the bed. But if you’re sick, weak or hugely pregnant, even rolling over slightly to grab the cord can be a herculean effort.
Soon that dangling
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The Future of Whole-Person Care: The Intersection of Tech and Holistic Health
There is a common misconception in the healthcare field that technological innovation is opposed to the philosophy of holistic care. Tech is viewed as artificial, manufactured, and impersonal — it values human experience only for the sake of developing better algorithms and treats the physical body of the patient without care for their personhood.
In contrast, holistic care is seen as organic and natural; elevating the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of an individual and seeing them
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Analysis: November 2019 Health IT M&A Activity, Public Company Performance
– Healthcare Growth Partners' (HGP) summary of Health IT/digital health mergers & acquisition (M&A) activity, and public company performance during the month of November 2019We did a doubletake when we noticed all of the HGP healthcare indices climbed approximately 10% during the month of November. Year-to-date, the S&P 500 is up over 25% and the HGP healthcare indices are all hovering in that range. In the two month period since September, when talk of universal healthcare reached
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5 Reasons Why A Single, Integrated EHR Will Not Solve Interoperability
A recent survey of health system IT, informatics, business, and clinical staff revealed that less than 40% of healthcare executives believe their organizations successfully share clinical data with external health systems, payers, and other partners. When asked what steps their organizations are taking to address interoperability challenges, 60% of respondents reported their organizations were moving to a single, integrated EHR. In addition to costing tens or hundreds of millions of dollars,
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Elevating The Hospital Room Waiting Experience: 6 Factors to Consider
We spend so much time in our healthcare facilities’ public waiting areas, so it should come as no surprise that one survey found that 63 percent of patients cite the most stressful thing about going to their doctor is waiting to be seen. Additionally, research has shown that 85 percent of people believe that wait time is either somewhat or very important to their overall patient experience. Doctor and hospital visits comprise some of the most anxiety-ridden events in our lives.
Who wouldn’t want
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Digital Transformation In Healthcare Is Not Happening As Fast As It Should — And There’s One Reason No One is Talking About
At first glance, the healthcare field seems to be a goldmine for digital innovation. An overextended workforce, outdated protocols, hundreds of wasted hours in administrative tasks, a patient population that is wide open to digital solutions, a multitude of inefficiencies and redundancies — the opportunities for digital overhaul in healthcare are myriad. Yet every year the graveyard of digital health tools gets more crowded as innovators fail to overcome healthcare’s uniquely complex barriers to
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