PCCI’s Vulnerability Index: Uncovering and capturing factors in Dallas' COVID-19 risk
Taking the fight to COVID-19
Management of pandemic spread (e.g., COVID-19) has tested the healthcare, political, and social fabric of communities around the world. For all, the term “flatten the curve” has come to represent how specific measures, such as social distancing, can slow the spread of the virus, which in turn can help to mitigate the tidal surge that would overwhelm the capacity of the
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Social Media
Black Lives Matter: Health IT Industry, Where Are You?
All lives truly matter. However, the world does not exist in a vacuum void of institutional racism, subconscious, and implicit bias. As a result, every life within America is not valued the same, as is evident by the recent George Floyd murder. When all lives are not treated with the same opportunities and respect, whether in matters of criminal justice, employment, housing, education, health, and healthcare evidence shows the result is that only some lives actually matter. One cannot change the
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What Therapists Need to Know about Telehealth Technology
Thousands of therapists who never intended to engage in telehealth are now doing exactly that – they are providing services to clients in lockdown using video-enabled platforms. While the technological landscape for psychotherapy is dramatically improved from even a few years ago, therapists rapidly transitioning to online services need to hold a few things in mind.
It’s not the same as in-person therapy
While online psychotherapy has been shown to be just as effective as in-person care,
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Picking Up the Pace: Healthcare’s Evolution to Social Media
Take a look at the social media feeds of your favorite store or restaurant. For B2C brands, social media is, undoubtedly, a “where-it’s-at” customer service platform as much for networking or advertising as for engaging consumers with a personality and story that captures new customers and builds affinity. Now, imagine this same social care experience from your healthcare payer or provider. Why is this such an unlikely scenario?
Undoubtedly, healthcare has room to grow in providing
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RCM Myth: Healthcare Billing Is Just A Back-Office Job
Historically, there was a belief in healthcare that revenue cycle management (RCM) was only a job for the back office. But today, medical practices are well-aware all staff members are critical to the revenue cycle. This responsibility extends through every aspect of a practice, from the front office to back office with the clinical staff in between.
The front office, for example, plays a role in generating revenue, because they can optimize scheduling and collect patient and insurance
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Leveraging Big Data for Real World Clinical Analytics
Recently, as the world has watched the coronavirus crisis unfold, the power of big data to track, illustrate, and inform has taken center stage. A compelling example is the near real-time map created by Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) that shows all the cases as the disease spreads across the globe.
With far-reaching implications for healthcare, big data enables deep analysis of data from a myriad of sources – electronic medical records (EMRs), claims,
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Understanding and Alleviating Social Isolation Among Older Adults
Social isolation and loneliness among older adults are common and far-reaching issues that have been linked to serious health concerns including depression, cognitive decline, and poor physical health. A recent study found 52 percent of older adults age 65 and older experience feelings of loneliness a few times a year, and 21 percent reported feeling lonely every day. With evidence of social isolation and loneliness among older adults being as unhealthy as smoking 15 cigarettes per day, this is
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COVID-19 Pandemic: Why Patients Need to Control Their Own Data
We’re in throes of a global pandemic. Healthcare providers must focus on fighting COVID-19, but we can’t afford to ignore the reason we’re going into this fight blind. Our best weapon is our own healthcare data. We are going to learn many things from this pandemic, not least of which is that the way we thought about data ownership over the previous decade needs to change.
Pandemics represent a system-wide attack on healthcare. Our best responses rely on social distancing, telemedicine, and
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How Health Plans Can Prepare Their Members for Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Any time there are fears of an outbreak, you can be sure of one thing: Purveyors of disinformation will take advantage of these fears by spreading false, often harmful messages.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) is no different, and as what may become the first widespread U.S. public health crisis of the social media era, is likely to be more susceptible to disinformation and conspiracy theories than previous events. For example, some of the more notable falsehoods about COVID-19 include that
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AMA to Fast Track New CPT Code for Novel Coronavirus Test
What You Need to Know:
- AMA announces it will fast track CPT code development for a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) test to bolster a data-driven response to the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States.
- The CPT Editorial Panel will manage the expedited process including the creation of a test description to accompany the code and the effective date of the code.
- According to the CDC, there is a total of 647 confirmed cases of COVID-19 resulting in 25 deaths in the United
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