Virtual care is everywhere and ubiquitous. But at a time when the world is amid a global pandemic, virtual care is also being underutilized. The technology exists today to help our healthcare system not only more effectively and efficiently manage care during COVID-19, but also exponentially scale capacity in the face of future outbreaks.
Virtual care defined
Virtual care is a broad term. It encompasses all the ways healthcare practitioners provide for care remotely. This can mean
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Healthcare Delivery | Patient Care | Health IT & Digital Health Impact | News, Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
A Patient Engagement Strategy Needs to Deliver a Holistic Experience
Researchers from Johns Hopkins published a study in October on the impact of the pandemic on health care delivery. Among its findings, the data show a 21.4% decrease in primary care visits in Q2 of 2020, compared against the average volume of Q2 visits for the previous two years. By contrast, there was a sharp increase in telehealth engagements, accounting for 35.3% of all provider visits in Q2 this year, compared with 4.1% in Q1 and 1.1% in 2018-2019.
Despite the shifts in healthcare
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QGenda Acquires Automated Provider Scheduling Platform Shift Admin – M&A
What You Should Know:
- QGenda has acquired Shift Admin, an industry-recognized
leader for shift-based specialties including emergency medicine, urgent care,
and hospital medicine.
With the industry-leading scheduling technology for all
specialties across the healthcare delivery system, QGenda’s technology will
ensure care is available for patients when and where it is needed.
QGenda, the leading
innovator in enterprise healthcare workforce management solutions, announced
the
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12 Telehealth & Virtual Care Predictions and Trends for 2021 Roundup
Dr. Paul Hain, Chief Medical Officer of GoHealth
Telehealth is Here to Stay in 2021
Prior to the pandemic, telehealth was a limited ad-hoc service with geographic and provider restrictions. However, with both the pandemic restrictions on face to face interactions and a relaxation of governmental regulations, telehealth utilization has significantly increased from thousands of visits in a week to well over a million in the Medicare population. What we’ve learned is that telehealth allows
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How to Capitalize on Digital Health Momentum in 2021
As we re-examine the healthcare system in the wake of the pandemic, we are continually identifying opportunities to rebuild parts of the system to new and improved specifications. One critical facet is digital health, where we continue to struggle with what should really be table stakes: the ability to integrate data from disparate organizations and systems into a unified view of the whole person and take action.
During the height of the pandemic, telehealth made it possible to deliver care
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Highmark Inks 6-Year Partnership with Google Cloud to Power Living Health Model
What You Should Know:
- Highmark Health signs six-year strategic partnership agreement
with Google Cloud to transform the health experience for patients and
caregivers through the development of Highmark Health's new Living Health
Model
- The Living Health model is designed to eliminate
the fragmentation in health care by re-engineering the healthcare delivery
model with a more coordinated, personalized, technology-enabled experience.
Highmark Health and Google Cloud today announced
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How Hackers Are Targeting COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Chains – Q/A
With the US and other major countries poised to begin national
distribution of multiple FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccines, the cybersecurity threats
to secure COVID19
vaccine distribution is imminent. Earlier this month, IBM released a report on malicious cyber actors targeting
the COVID-19 cold chain—an integral part of delivering and storing a vaccine at
safe temperatures.
Impersonating a biomedical company, cyber actors are sending phishing and spear-phishing emails to executives and global
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M&A: Ro Acquires On-Demand, In-Home Platform Workpath
What You Should Know:
- Ro announced it has acquired Workpath, a technology
platform that powers on-demand, in-home healthcare and diagnostics services
nationwide.
- Through this acquisition, Ro’s platform will now
uniquely bring together a patient's doctor, pharmacy, and
diagnostics/lab--offering a personalized, end-to-end experience with no
insurance required.
- Ro is also announcing a partnership with Quest
Diagnostics, which operates more than 2,200 locations nationwide, to
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Volaris Group Acquires Clinical Workforce & Workflow Platform medaptus
What You Should Know:
- Volaris Group acquires medaptus, a clinical workforce, and workflow solutions that empower healthcare delivery entities to achieve their desired patient, clinical and financial outcomes.
Today, Volaris Group has acquired medaptus, a healthcare technology company that removes the administrative burden from hospital and group practice operations to enable higher efficiency throughput.
Removing common and costly workflow barriers from
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COVID-19 Underscores Need for Identity Governance Administration
If you work in healthcare, chances are that the COVID-19 pandemic forced you to quickly scale up or move staff around to manage the onslaught of patients. The demand for clinicians and support staff grew alongside the spread of the virus, making organizations add clinicians or reassign employees with new or modified roles: Ambulatory nurses went down in the Emergency Department or Isolation Ward, revenue cycle folks started doing transport, and so on. In some cases, former staff or retired
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