Better clinical decision support, population health interventions, patient self-care, and research - these are just a few of the promising use cases of artificial intelligence (AI). In addition to its benefits, AI can introduce risks that could potentially undermine trust in AI solutions and need to be addressed. These risks include, among others, promulgating bias inherent in source data; a lack of minimal transparency in computation algorithms; AI performance in a “lab setting” not
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Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
4 Key Constraints Preventing Healthcare from Proper Cybersecurity
Healthcare was created to help people. So why is this industry the most heavily targeted by cybercriminals and ransomware attacks? In the first half of 2020 alone, the Department of Health and Human Services saw a nearly 50% increase in the number of healthcare-related cybersecurity breaches. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the healthcare industry to operate at a level that it wasn’t prepared for, which meant emergency facilities were erected without proper security measures in place in order to
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Cloud Technology and Healthcare Evolution: Microsoft in the Spotlight
In April, software giant Microsoft made a lot of headlines announcing its multibillion-dollar acquisition of Nuance, the cloud-based clinical intelligence developer best known to healthcare providers for its Dragon and PowerScribe speech-recognition products. Business analysts and reporters zeroed in on impressive financial details and utilization potential for “ambient AI” technologies in health settings. But more than anything, the deal shows how serious Microsoft is about its healthcare IT
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3 Ways IoT is Empowering Modern Healthcare Industry Today
Today’s healthcare systems are nothing like their predecessors of even a decade ago, and their growth is due, in large part, to the rapid evolution of technology. In recent years, e-health—the digital services that make it possible to improve the well-being of individuals, whether to prevent, diagnose or treat illnesses—has grown exponentially, with estimates that it will reach $234.5 billion by 2023. In order for e-health devices to demonstrate their full value, healthcare networks
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A Pandemic Paves the Way for Improved Mental Healthcare Access
The pandemic left us floundering in many ways — our healthcare infrastructure was not prepared to handle a fast-moving, contagious virus that made it unsafe for in-person visits with a mental health provider, not to mention a virus that would keep the vast majority of Americans stuck in their homes for close to a year. Financial pressure, jobs lost, lives lost, social isolation, homeschooling, the fear of contracting the virus whose effects were largely unknown, especially for those already
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Leveraging Digital Health to Assist Developing Countries’ Health Systems
Vaccine rollouts are picking up steam and many parts of the world are gradually beginning to relax restrictions and reopen their economies. While this welcome news is cause for celebration, it is crucial for decision-makers in developed countries to understand the reality: for the most part, it is only developed countries that are really moving through this. Less fortunate parts of the world—notably Brazil and India—have practically served these past few months as petri dishes for mutations that
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Positioning Your Health System for Digital Transformation
In my last article, I discussed how an incomplete picture of patient health can lower the quality and raise the cost of care. Healthcare has been fully digitized but the complete picture is stored in multiple data silos across hospitals, practices, health plans, consumer devices, and more. A data platform can unify these sources of information and provide a holistic view of the network and its patients’ health. This aggregated and normalized patient health record is activated into analytics
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How the Pandemic Revolutionized Telehealth’s Mainstream Acceptance
Most people are surprised to learn telehealth is over a decade old because it didn’t take off until a global pandemic caused a massive paradigm shift in the minds of both consumers and medical providers. In March, 2020 telehealth visits were up 154 percent over the same timeframe in 2019 and today 46% of patients say they use telehealth for some appointments, compared to just 11 percent in 2019. Additionally, 48 percent of doctors report they have incorporated telehealth into
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4 Key Ways 5G Technology is Transforming Patient Care
We hear a lot about 5G technology, but for many of us, its link to our lives goes as far as our smartphones and mobile service providers. But to think that 5G technology is only valuable for making our data speeds faster is like saying that electricity is great because it allows us to read books before bed. Sure, both are favorable side effects, but the impacts of each invention are far more widespread than that. A lot of industries have been disrupted by 5G technology — the video game
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Cybersecurity: The Hidden Health Tech Crisis No One’s Talking About
The life-saving capabilities of technology in a healthcare environment are beyond dispute. Medical professionals in hospital environments rely on networked medical devices to access and share patient information rapidly to reduce the time it takes to make life-saving decisions and deliver essential patient care. Connected devices in healthcare environments allow medical professionals to monitor patients more closely, improve medical assistance and use data for analytics and medical research.
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