The healthcare experience can often feel lonely. Lengthy surveys, unnecessary appointments, long waiting times and tedious, paperwork all contribute to this potentially confusing and isolating patient experience. Now, amidst a global health crisis, any barriers or obstacles to care could be detrimental beyond loneliness and could be fatal. These impeding components should not define a patient’s journey. Fair access to quality care, accurate record-keeping, and empathy should be at the core of
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Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
What Therapists Need to Know about Telehealth Technology
Thousands of therapists who never intended to engage in telehealth are now doing exactly that – they are providing services to clients in lockdown using video-enabled platforms. While the technological landscape for psychotherapy is dramatically improved from even a few years ago, therapists rapidly transitioning to online services need to hold a few things in mind.
It’s not the same as in-person therapy
While online psychotherapy has been shown to be just as effective as in-person care,
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The New Normal: Rethinking Healthcare Delivery in a Post-COVID World
It’s becoming clearer that, while we are all hoping that things are going to go back to the way things were at the beginning of the year, the COVID-19 crisis will result in a new normal. That’s especially true in healthcare, due to four issues that are being wildly amplified by the COVID-19 crisis. Namely:
1. The US government has huge deficits, and healthcare is a major driver of the unsustainable increase in these deficits.
2. Addressing the demand for healthcare as a right (not a
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How A Virtual Therapist Could Help Overcome Mental Healthcare Demands in Uncertain Times
Over the last few months, our hopes and expectations for 2020 have certainly been halted. There was an air of optimism globally as we entered the New Year and a new decade, but now we have been plunged into a world of uncertainty with the spreading COVID-19 pandemic. Future unknowns, both from a human well-being perspective and an economic standpoint are starting to take a toll on many people’s mental health.
Understandably, the situation we find ourselves in is creating concern and worry and
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Consumer Genetic Tests Accelerate Precision Medicine for Some Providers
Direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests have been on the scene for some time now. The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first DTC test on three specific BRCA1/BRCA2 breast cancer gene mutations more than two years ago. Six months after that, the agency similarly green-lighted a DTC pharmacogenomic (PGx) test to examine 33 variants for eight different genes that indicate how effectively patients metabolize specific medications.
Like many such advances, availability of DTC tests is
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How Direct Digital Fax Can Improve System Usability for EHRs
The lack of EHR usability is a huge concern for the healthcare industry. According to a study conducted by Mayo Clinic researchers, modern electronic health records (EHR) are less user-friendly than Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Excel, and Google. Using the System Usability Scale (SUS), Electronic Health Records were marked with an unsettling “F” and a SUS score of 45 while Excel received a SUS score of 57 and Microsoft Word received a SUS score of 76. Google search came in on top with an “A” and a
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Big Data Takes on the Silent Epidemic of Undiagnosed Behavioral Health Conditions
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, a study found that almost half of Americans will experience an episode of mental illness in their lives, but may never get the diagnosis and treatment they need. In a more recent finding, over 25% of American adults now meet the criteria for a diagnosis of severe mental distress.
The looming impact on our collective mental health is concerning enough, but there are also serious implications for physical health. Left unaddressed, behavioral health issues
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What’s the Secret to Building the Hospital of the Future? Simplicity.
As the healthcare industry becomes more connected, executives are increasingly looking for ways to digitally transform and provide next-level, life-saving care to patients. But it comes at a cost — and it’s not just monetary. The spiraling complexity of hospital networks is becoming a massive problem for health IT staff, and it’s inhibiting hospitals’ ability to advance. Brought on by years of network technologies and applications being layered onto the existing hospital infrastructure,
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Telehealth Could Be The Solution for a Pandemic, But Are We Too Late?
In the past several months, Novel Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) has risen from humble beginnings in a Wuhan farmer’s market to international status: dominating the news cycle, exhausting the world’s hand sanitizer resources, and generally monopolizing the mental real estate of the developed world.
As new cases continue to be identified in the U.S., politicians are giving coronavirus the attention it deserves, responding to initial accusations of inadequacy with proposals for funding and
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Giving ‘Voice’ to Healthcare: The $3.5 Billion Opportunity
Whether it's asking Siri for directions to the nearest coffee shop or commanding Alexa to turn on the lights, using voice assistants has become part of daily routines. More than one-third of the U.S. population relies on these tools to make their lives easier, and they’re being embraced by more than just millennials; use among seniors, children, and teens is also on the rise.
But the home and smartphone aren’t the only domains for voice assistants. Businesses of all types – from
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