Appriss Health announced that Georgia is integrating its prescription drug monitoring programs into EHR systems of all prescribers across the state with Appriss Health’s PMP Gateway solution. This is being made possible by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant – so all prescribers can instantly access prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) information directly in the clinical workflow.Substance use disorder (SUD) is estimated to affect 21 million people, according to a report
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Public Health
Livongo Appoints Boston Children’s Hospital CEO, Sandra L. Fenwick to Board of Directors
Livongo, a Mountain View, CA-based Applied Health Signals company empowering people with chronic conditions to live better and healthier lives, today announced that it has appointed Sandra L. Fenwick, Chief Executive Officer of Boston Children'sHospital, to its Board of Directors.
Sandra L. Fenwick Bio & Background
Since being named Chief Executive Officer of Boston Children's Hospital in 2013, Ms. Fenwick has led the nation's foremost independent pediatric hospital and the world's leading
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FDA Grants Breakthrough Designation to RenalytixAI for AI-Enabled Diagnostic for Kidney Disease
RenalytixAI, a developer of artificial intelligence-enabled clinical diagnostics for kidney disease, today announced that it has been granted Breakthrough Device designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for its lead diagnostic, KidneyIntelX™. This is the first such designation for an AI-enabled diagnostic for kidney disease publicly announced by any company.FDA Breakthrough Devices Program OverviewThe FDA’s Breakthrough Devices Program is a voluntary program for certain
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HHS Issues Public Comment for Interoperability Exchange Framework
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today issued for public comment draft 2 of the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) that will support the full, network-to-network exchange of health information nationally. HHS also released a notice of funding opportunity to engage a non-profit, industry-based organization that will advance nationwide interoperability.Public Comment DetailsSpecifically, the documents being released for comment are: (1) a second draft of
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We Need Less Focus on Perfecting Physicians Using Carrots and Sticks
I’m not sure what the relevant analogy might be, but I’ll take a shot, nonetheless.
Let’s say we poured billions of dollars into improving highways and city streets, but the local commute for residents continued to get longer, more frustrating, less effective.
Or, maybe we also dumped billions into school systems, but student test scores only got worse.
I ask if these comparisons are relevant after reading about a recent study published in the Lancet, which suggests that poor
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Atrium Health, Wake Forest Baptist Health and Wake Forest University Announce Mega-Merger: 5 Things to Know
Atrium Health, Wake Forest Baptist Health and Wake Forest University today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding to merge that will establish a next-generation academic healthcare system. If approved, the mega-merger will enable three leading healthcare organizations to invest in the health and well-being of people throughout the region, as well as contribute ground-breaking research and innovation to the world. The organizations have agreed to start a period of exclusive
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IBM Watson Health Invests $50M in AI to Tackle Public Health Issues
IBM Watson Health announced plans to make a 10-year, $50 million investment in joint research collaborations to advance the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to tackle public health issues. Brigham and Women’s Hospital – the teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School – and Vanderbilt University Medical Center have been selected as joint research partners. AI Research Focus AreasThe initial areas of study are expected to include the use of AI to improve the utility of electronic health records
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Utilizing Blockchain in Healthcare: 3 Lessons Learned from Abroad
According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, America is suffering from a serious trust issue, and one of the areas which Americans seem to have the least faith in is their healthcare system. According to a recent New York Times article, in 1966, more than three-fourths of Americans had great confidence in medical practitioners, compared to as little as 34 percent today.Many argue that the US healthcare system is deeply flawed and is designed to benefit medical providers and insurance carriers
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Want to Improve Public Health Outcomes? Start with Housing
A well-worn axiom says that “hope is not a plan.” Indeed, hope alone is such a hands-up abdication of planning that editor Thomas Mowle was inspired to use the phrase as the title of his 2007 book of essays on the war in Iraq, which says something.Still, if we play with syntax and add a few words, we can say that every successful plan should offer a measure of hope—hope for success, an improved reality, greater opportunity.With the twin American scourges of homelessness and addiction, hope
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Why The Opioid Epidemic Makes EHRs Essential To Public Health
When public health is threatened by an outbreak of SARS or Zika or avian influenza, widely disseminated information becomes a crucial tool used to curtail the spread of disease.But transmittable diseases are not the lone threats to public health. Other metaphorically pathogenic events—the current opioid epidemic, for example—are more effectively managed by making sure doctors have complete information when evaluating patients and, especially, writing prescriptions.Even if you know what the
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