US hospital systems validate the safety, clinical utility, and robustness of newly FDA-approved devices, 510(k) cleared, before adopting them into clinical practice. This work occurs alongside evaluating how to integrate the medical device into the hospital system’s diagnostic paradigms, including in relation to quality improvement programs. Companies can have a role but there are 415 US hospital systems (comprising ~5,000 hospitals), and each has a bespoke process and ever-changing set of
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Health IT & Digital Health-Opinion | Op-Eds | Guest Columns | Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Payers Must Increasingly See The Consumer As The Customer
Last year, the average annual premium for employer-sponsored family health coverage rose 4% to $22,221—including employer and worker contributions—according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. While employers are most often the ones selecting the health plan options and insurance for employees, the worker is the one who is left to navigate the healthcare continuum (including their true cost of care). In a recent study, 96% of patients indicated that the quality of their financial experience
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Healthcare’s Evolution: Agile, Secure, Hybrid Work
Whether it’s expanding service-line offerings or embracing remote work models, there have been significant changes in the way healthcare is delivered to patients and supported by providers. The culture of healthcare has long been, “If the physicians and clinicians need to be onsite, then everyone does.” While remote work did happen within healthcare organizations, it was often limited to a very small population and/or very few use cases.
Two Years of Change
Over the last two years, with
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Moving The Focus of Healthcare to Building Healthy Habits That Last
Without addressing root causes through sustained behavior modification, all results are temporary
The most effective approach to preventing and treating chronic disease today focuses on the creation of healthy habits that fundamentally change behavior in a sustainable way. Smart solutions involve personalized programs based on genetic testing, nutrition, exercise, mental well-being and 1:1 personal health coaching. This combination has achieved remarkable success in both warding off chronic
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Quality vs. Quantity: The Case for Clinician-Centric Technology
Care providers continue to face mounting pressures – from increasing staffing shortages to balancing patient needs across in-person and virtual settings and managing pent-up patient demand. Rather than navigating through fragmented digital solutions that feed care providers disparate data, more and more clinicians now rely on connected technology to access the care context, i.e. the right patient data translated into reliable actionable insights at the right point in their workflow.
To truly
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The Case for Incorporating Patient Perspectives into Clinical Decision Support
A recent report from the Leapfrog Group found that patient experience scores at hospitals declined during the pandemic. This should be no surprise. Hospitals faced an incredible crucible during COVID-19, with many still experiencing high levels of stress in their systems. In addition to increasing demands on caregivers, the pandemic created a fundamental change in how patients are treated. The drive to telehealth was rapidly accelerated, transforming traditional in-person interactions between
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Mitigating Healthcare Cyber Risk Through Vendor Management
Look to these best practices to enhance your organization’s vendor risk management program
Vendor partnerships are critically important in today’s business world, especially as the pandemic accelerated many organizations’ digital transformation and the shift to remote operations, cloud adoption, and virtual services, such as those through telehealth, medical apps, and other healthcare technology and communication platforms continues to expand. This increased reliance on third parties also
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Beyond DocuSign: How to Upgrade Specialty Drug Patients to a First-Class Experience
Imagine booking a luxury international vacation. A dedicated concierge arranges your hotels, your travel arrangements, and your daily itinerary. You barely lift a finger. From the outset, however, you realize something unusual. You have been booked on a discount airline with seats in the back of the coach section. You must wait at the airport to be picked up by a cramped, dilapidated taxi. Your “luxury” hotel is actually a two-star property in a bad part of town. Why pay for a luxury concierge
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Medical Gaslighting Remains Rampant for Women: Whose Job Is It To Stop It?
Have you ever gone to a medical appointment, knowing and feeling with certainty that something is wrong, only to have a doctor downplay and write off your symptoms?
Medical gaslighting, a relatively new, non-clinical term, refers to the practice of minimizing or dismissing a patient’s symptoms, concerns, or experiences. Often, symptoms are written off as psychological in nature, or patients are told that what they are experiencing isn’t serious or that it is normal.
The problem
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Why It’s Time for Healthcare Organizations to Start Treating Patients Like Consumers
When the pandemic disrupted routine procedures and primary care across healthcare, many care delivery organizations believed patients would eventually return to in-person care as they always have once the pandemic was over and restrictions were lifted. Pent-up patient demand for non-emergency, preventative services–everything from cancer screenings to mental health support to birth control to smoking cessation–would eventually draw patients back into the healthcare system. Patients with common
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