The COVID-19 pandemic is not just a medical crisis. Since the highly contagious disease hit American shores in early 2020, the virus has dramatically changed all sectors of society, negatively impacting everything from food supply chains and sporting events to the nation’s mental and behavioral health.
For some people, work-from-home plans and limited access to entertainment are manageable obstacles. For others, the shuttered schools, lost wages, and social isolation spell disaster –
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Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Why Hasn’t A More Holistic Approach to Patient Care Become The Norm?
When food production technology made it possible, wheat flour processors started to eliminate the tough exterior (bran) and nutrient-rich core (germ) of the kernel to get at the large, starchy part (the endosperm) only. The bread produced from this process is white and fluffy, and it makes great PB&Js and takes forever to grow mold, but it is almost totally lacking nutritional value.
Nutrition experts eventually pointed this out, of course, after which commercial bakers tried fortifying
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4 Areas Driving AI Adoption in Hospital Operations and Patient Safety
COVID-19 has put a tremendous burden on hospitals, and the clinicians, nurses, and medical staff who make them run.
Many hospitals have suffered financially as they did not anticipate the severity of the disease. The extended duration of patient stays in ICUs, the need for more isolated rooms and beds, and the need for better supplies to reduce infections have all added costs. Some hospitals did not have adequate staff to check-in patients, take their temperature, monitor them regularly, or
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Is Glucometrics The Missing Data in the Fight Against COVID-19?
Glucometrics – the system-wide analysis of inpatient glucose data – should be of fundamental interest for hospital administrators striving to improve the outcomes of their patients.
Why is this data so important? Proper glycemic control has been linked to improved outcomes and decreased length of stay time and time again across a myriad of conditions – whether it’s someone recuperating from a heart attack, battling pneumonia, or recovering from surgery.
The U.S. health system lacks
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The COVID-19 Data Challenges Facing Payers
Both payers and providers can benefit from the same or similar high-quality data and can work together to provide the best possible services to patients with COVID-19 while avoiding overloading the healthcare system. The key is to use combined payer, clinical, and social data plus technology such as telehealth and artificial intelligence (AI).
Payer Perspective on COVID-19
The overriding concern for payers during the COVID-19 crisis is the need to support member health. During an
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Amidst the Pandemic, IT Teams Turn to the Cloud to Protect Patient Data
The challenges facing healthcare during COVID-19 are more than biological. Healthcare providers are weathering a perfect storm as hackers take advantage of the commotion and ramp up their attack frequency and sophistication.
This isn’t surprising for those familiar with the hacker playbook, as cybercriminals typically go after victims that are the right combination of vulnerable and profitable. And right now, the valuable troves of personal health data held by providers, focused on battling
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How Parkland Leverages Machine Learning, Geospatial Analytics to Reduce COVID-19 Exposure in Dallas
What You Should Know:
- How Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation developed a machine learning-driven predictive model called the COVID-19 Proximity Index for Parkland Hospital in Dallas.
- This program helps frontline workers to quickly identify which identify patients at the highest risk of exposure to COVID-19 by using geospatial analytics.
- In addition, the program helps triage patients while
improving the health and safety of hospital workers as well as the friends
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How Do We Realize Connected and Collaborative Healthcare?
For a long time, healthcare in the United States was functioning in a well-defined manner. There were some cracks, some patchwork, but we made it work.
And then COVID-19 struck.
As the pandemic swept across the U.S., the way providers care for patients evolved in a matter of days. It evolved for the people staying at home as well as patients and providers began connecting with each other virtually.
Observation: There’s still plenty of room for innovation in healthcare,
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Why Remote Medical Solutions Are More Than Just A Pandemic Response
The health industry has increasingly emphasized convenience these past few decades, with methods developed to seamlessly integrate health management into our daily routines. Gone are the days in which people needed an entire day off just to see the doctor. This same focus has taken on extra meaning as of late, with the pandemic creating a need for treatment options that work around the constraints of social distancing. As a result, a host of digital-based solutions began appearing, providing
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Raising the Bar for COVID-19 Data Integrity and Disease Surveillance
Just a few weeks ago, the mood among technologists in the Coronavirus pandemic remained cautiously optimistic about reopening society with the help of testing data, contact tracing apps, and other IT-enabled resources. But the recent spike in illness – 1.9 million new US cases in July, more than double any other month – is a sobering reboot on a crisis we now understand needs far more IT and data coordination than previously recognized.
The emerging consensus among epidemiologists is that
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