The United States is still reeling from a devastating opioid epidemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that death from drug overdoses reached just under 108,000 between 2020 and 2021. That is enough to fill over four professional baseball stadiums.
This staggering number of overdose deaths is due to many factors, including the sale of counterfeit medications and illegal drugs that often contain deadly doses of illicitly manufactured fentanyl and other
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Public Health
How Low-Code Development Will Deliver The Future of Public Health Services
From reducing IT backlogs and accelerating app development, to empowering citizen developers and enabling “fusion” dev teams of programmers and business technologists, the private sector has been enjoying the benefits of low-code development for some time now.
For those unfamiliar with the concept, “low-code” generally refers to app development platforms in which users can input information and get the results they need through graphical user interfaces, or GUIs, rather than having to
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3 Elements Required for Data Ecosystems to Drive Innovation
For years, the healthcare industry has been inundated with stories about the importance of sharing data among payers, providers, and other key stakeholders – and for a good reason; widespread interoperability of healthcare data has the potential to transform much of the industry for the better.
What's often not mentioned is how expensive, time-intensive, and potentially legally hazardous data-sharing is. Combining disparate data sets is a technically challenging undertaking that requires
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Convenient Scapegoat: Why Hesitancy is Not the Cause of Low Vaccination Rates in Africa
At this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, the topic of the COVID-19 pandemic and its destructive impact was central to many of the discussions that took place. Among them, was the issue of vaccine hesitancy around the world, especially in underdeveloped nations such as those in Africa. According to Africa CDC, as of September 2022, Africa, the second most-populated continent, has only vaccinated 21% of its people; an inadequate number In comparison to other populated countries such as India
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How Community Health Investments Will Define The Future of Healthcare
Community health is more than how someone’s physical health needs are being met. It involves all the physical, social, and environmental factors — access to nutritious food, stable income and housing, education opportunities, and more. These social determinants of health, or SDoH, are interconnected and integral to the overall health of communities across the world — and healthcare systems are taking note.
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear one person’s health could
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Why Preventive Healthcare Hinges on Diagnostics Innovation
There is a real sense that we are on the cusp of a diagnostics revolution. This has been spurred on by the pandemic, which at once underscored the tremendous power of mass testing as it became the fundamental basis for decision-making, from our own personal health to national policy. It also revealed gaps in terms of needing to drastically scale up testing capacity and invest in new and innovative digital diagnostics tools.
Innovation in diagnostics, however, is
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How Will New FDA Hearing Aid Regulations Impact Health Plans?
The time has finally arrived. The Food & Drug Administration’s new over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aid regulations are now in effect and health plans are starting to explore what it means for them. Among the many questions they may need to grapple with, a few are particularly salient:
- How will the new rules impact their benefit offerings?
- What new opportunities will arise?
- What potential pitfalls should they be aware of?
Introducing OTC hearing
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What Has COVID Ever Done For Us? Here 9 Examples
The early 2020s will be studied by historians as a time of global uncertainty when an unknown pathogen caused a public health emergency that brought the world to the brink.
It may also be remembered as a time of unparalleled cooperation and advancement in technologies, prompted by the Covid pandemic, that provided enduring benefits for generations to come.
Just as the two world wars of the 20th Century were the deadliest and most attritional in history, they also triggered developments in
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Quantum Algorithms for Healthcare
The field of computational life sciences can and should invest in the development of quantum algorithms today to take advantage of the near-term improvements and long-term transformational potential of quantum technology.
Advancements in technology have always driven breakthroughs in medicine. Robert Hooke’s detailed drawings of cells relied on his compound microscope, and the development of the COVID-19 vaccine hinged on genetic research powered by computers. The arrival of quantum
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We Need to Use Data to Maximize Home and Community-Based Services for Our Most Vulnerable
Millions of children and adults living with intellectual or developmental disabilities (ID/DD) rely on long-term services and support (LTSS) offered through the state Medicaid program to meet their complex health needs. Medicaid LTSS enables many to achieve personal goals and lead fulfilling lives. These individuals are often some of the most vulnerable, highest-cost clients in the healthcare system.
But for many, these services are not attainable, nor is the process easy to
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