Simply put, we cannot dilute the doctor over and over again, until there is no visible trace of human physicians in our digital health brew of healthcare. For decades and decades we have been counting the number of doctors in America. For decades and decades we have been coming up short compared to other developed nations, and some less developed ones as well. A poorly educated person may be tempted to suggest that we should “make” more doctors. After all, there is hardly a shortage of young
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Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Beware the EMR “Ripple Effect” on Revenue Cycle
Editor's Note: David Dyke is the Vice President of Product Management at RelayHealth Financial. EHR-EMR conversions can be complicated and disruptive. So don’t make them more problematic by making unnecessary changes to revenue cycle management systems.Like any major IT system implementation, an EMR conversion can be seriously disruptive to hospital operations–and finances. In addition to the many technical and clinical considerations of these projects, hospitals and health systems typically
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Newsflash: Healthcare Does Not Spend Enough on IT Data Security
Mathematically, the gap between $3.6 million and $17,000 is a chasm.This is something you know well if you’re Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital, which paid the latter number to unlock patient data held hostage by malicious hackers using ransomware when the former number is what the hackers initially asked for.While the dramatic reduction in ransom may have caused Hollywood Presbyterian to breathe a sigh of relief, there is no reason they or you should feel comforted. Consider this an initial shot
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How Close Are We To AI-Automated Healthcare?
Editor's Note: Alex Meshkin is the CEO of Flow Health. Flow Health provides longitudinal care plan coordination and chronic care management services built on top of its platform, which is The Operating System for Value-Based CareSM. Follow him on Twitter at @AlexMeshkinWe have seen incredible progress in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) over the past few years, especially through the application of deep learning algorithms. AI systems will get even better as more data is
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Ensuring EHR Data Quality: What Comes Out Must Go In
Editor's Note: Karen Conway is the Executive Director of Industry Relations at GHX, a provider of healthcare-focused supply chain solutions. Much of the conversation at this year’s HIMSS conference was removing the barriers to the data that exists in electronic health records (EHRs). At least one session- the HIMSS Supply Chain Special Interest Group – focused on the overlooked need to first populate EHRs with quality data about the products used in healthcare. Otherwise, you know the old
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Why Do We Need A New Operating System for Effective Shared Care Plans?
The way we pay for healthcare is changing. The transition from fee-for-service (“fee for volume”) to value-based care is beginning to take shape, and will do so increasingly in the next few years. Federal pressures as well as private industry pressures are driving this change, as reviewed nicely in a white paper by Houlihan Lokey, “Value-Based Care.”
But do we have the right tools? Value-based care implies that health care delivery be coordinated across all the different settings of care that
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Early Detection: The New Cancer Paradigm
Editor's Note: Amit Kumar, Ph.D, is an expert in cancer diagnostics with over 20 years of experience in cancer research. He is the Vice Chairman of ITUS Corporation and Executive Chairman of Anixa Diagnostics Corporation, which is developing a blood test (Cchek ™), for the early detection of tumor-based cancers. This article first appeared in The Journal of Antibody Drug Conjugates and has been republished with permission.
A seemingly healthy patient walks into the doctor’s office for a
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Beyond the Smart Home: The Health Hub of the Future
Editor's Note: This article is based a panel discussion taking place onMarch 11, 2016 at SXSW Interactive, titled, “Home, Sweet Home: The Health Hub of the Future.” For more information, click here. Almost every day, we see announcements about yet another “connected” product that is hailed as creating a “smarter” home environment. These types of products promise an easier, more convenient way of living, but they aren’t always connected to our lives—or all that smart. But there is an important
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How to Leverage Psychology to Build Persuasive Solutions for Healthcare
Editor's Note: Mike Wiseman is the CTO of Next IT Healthcare, a company that helps healthcare organizations drive lasting behavior change and improved patient outcomes.
“Patient engagement” and “technology” have become so intertwined over the past few years that the distinction between them is now problematically blurred. Patient engagement, while a popular buzzword in health technology circles, has always been an area of great focus for the health sector. From physicians to big pharma, we’ve
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Is Telemedicine The Key To Making Addiction Treatment Work?
Editor’s Note: D’Arcy Guerin Gue is a co-founder of Phoenix, with over 25 years of experience in executive leadership, strategic planning, IT services, knowledge leadership, and industry relations — with a special focus on patient engagement and federal compliance issues. She currently serves as the Director of Industry Relations at Phoenix Health Systems, a division of Medsphere Systems
In a world where only the wealthy suffered from addiction, we wouldn’t have to worry so much about the
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