One of the unintended consequences of moving healthcare onto EHRs has been an increase in time spent reviewing a much-increased volume of messages for the clinician. EHRs were supposed to simplify and streamline the in-office and in-hospital workflows, but what has happened instead has been “notification overload.” A recent article published in JAMA showed that, for primary care physicians, managing EHR notifications costs about an extra hour of work per day. In a fee-for-service environment,
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Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Provider Performance Monitoring: When Verification Leads to Trust & Insight
Editor's Note: Rick Ingraham is the Director of Vertical Markets at LexisNexis Health Care. A Russian proverb, “Doveryai no Proveryai”, was adopted by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 as he was preparing for talks with Mikhail Gorbachev. “Trust But Verify”. The degree to which an era of trust, while verifying, worked politically goes beyond this writer’s training but I would argue that the healthcare industry might be well served to work toward a similar culture. It may indeed prove to be
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New HHS CyberSecurity Initiative: Too Little, Too Late?
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 SystemsAfter years of increasingly dangerous data security and privacy breaches across the American healthcare
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How to Turn Medical Minds Into Data Driven Docs of Tomorrow
Editor's Note: Nora Lissy, RN is the director of healthcare informatics at Dimensional Insight, a provider of data analytics and integrated business intelligence for healthcare organizations. A recent report from Grand View Research found that the global healthcare analytics market is expected to reach $42.8 billion by 2024, proving the intrinsic value that health organizations are seeing from this type of capability. Analytics have the ability to benefit a number of departments across a
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How CMS’ Proposed Meaningful Use Changes Would Reduce Stage 2 & 3 Burdens on Providers
Editor's Note: Thomas Grove is a Principal of Consulting and Compliance Services at Phoenix Health Systems, a division of Medsphere Systems. As a healthcare management executive with 20+ years of experience, Thomas has extensive expertise in strategic assessments and planning, revenue cycle management, and process improvement.Early in July, CMS released a new set of proposed rules to modify Meaningful Use. If all goes well through the comment period and final updates, by fall we will see many
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Data Governance: Creating a Lifeline for Healthcare Organizations Drowning in Data
Editor's Note: Chris Cooper is the healthcare strategy leader for Collibra, a provider of data governance helping healthcare organizations maximize the value of their data across the enterprise. Healthcare organizations have invested significant resources to make information available to employees at all levels, with the goal to enable better, more efficient decision-making for both patients and the organization. But these investments -- electronic medical records, data warehouses, self-service
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MACRA, Brexit and the McDonaldization of Healthcare
MACRA seems to be the talk of the town right now. MACRA and MIPS and APM and the dozens of sub-acronyms flying around like so many arrows in this Game of Thrones, Battle of the Bastards. The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) was signed into law over a year ago. That’s right, MACRA is the “law of the land” now, and it became law of the land with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress and with much lobbying and cheerleading from medical associations. MACRA is not a
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3 Ways Private Exchanges Can Help Provider-Sponsored Plans Thrive
Editor's Note: Jonathan Rickert is the CEO and Co-founder of Array Health, a provider of private insurance exchange technology that simplifies the process of buying health insurance with e-commerce platform. Provider-sponsored plans (PSPs) are a disruptive force in today’s evolving healthcare market. By combining healthcare financing and care delivery with strong, familiar brands in the local community, PSPs are able to break the traditional constraints of the fee-for-service model and deliver
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How Can We Commit To Better Mental Healthcare Right Now?
Restoring lost beds, expanding health IT incentives and rapidly embracing ACOs are steps forward in addressing America’s mental health crisisChances are good someone close to you is suffering from a mental health disorder right now. You may not know it. While paranoid schizophrenia is pretty obvious, major depression can be hidden during periodic interaction.Chances are also good that you don't have the knowledge or resources to deal with an extended bout of mental illness suffered by a family
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Can AI Reduce The Prior Authorization Burden in Healthcare?
One of the most frustrating elements of the current healthcare environment is the administrative burden of prior authorizations for medications and procedures. It is a frustration for providers, for patients, and for payers. Is there any way to solve this dilemma?For physicians, an estimated 20 hours per week is spent in prior authorization activities, costing an average of $83,000 in excess annual overhead per physician. Is there an actual benefit for this effort? Most physicians say that
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