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Don't Hurt Those Close to You with Bad Data
FEB 14, 2013 4:28pm ET
Has this ever happened to you? It happened to a friend of mine. You open a performance report, one that's been sent to your boss and all the top executives in your company, and it states that your group is failing to meet company mandated quotas and therefore its performance is poor. Your heart sinks and you think, “I don't need this.”
Then, knowing how hard you and your team have been working in this particular area, you take a closer look at the numbers and realize that all the data points in the report are wrong. In some instances, the real-life numbers are multiples of what's stated in the report. The creators of the report are not willing to make any changes to their data sourcing or methodology. You understand the need for quotas and the drive to "move the needle," but the inaccuracy and apparent unfairness of the reports leave you feeling helpless and betrayed.
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Computer-aided medicine
Doctor Watson
Feb 14th 2013, 16:10 by T.C. | LONDON AND NEW YORK
TWO years ago IBM attracted a lot of admiring publicity when its “Watson” program beat two human champions at "Jeopardy!", an American general-knowledge quiz. It was a remarkable performance. Computers have long excelled at games like chess: in 1997 Deep Blue, another of the computer giant's creations, famously beat the reigning world champion Garry Kasparov. But "Jeopardy!" relies on the ability to correlate a vast store of general knowledge with often-punny, indirect clues. Making things hardest still, the clues themselves are, famously, phrased as answers, to which contestants must supply an appropriate question.
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Minnesota health system sees sharp decline in early-term births
By Erin McCann, Associate Editor
Created 02/15/2013
North Memorial Health Care, a two-hospital health system situated in the Northwest metro of Minneapolis, has reduced its rate of potentially harmful and unnecessary early-term deliveries, using data warehousing and analytics.
Officials at the health system cited difficulties integrating data from the variety of different clinical IT systems employed by North Memorial as cause for implementing new solutions. Clinical data was collected by a Health Catalyst warehousing solution from sources including North Memorial's Epic electronic health record. Officials then defined when early-term deliveries were appropriate, standardized clinician workflows and improved processes for pregnant women and newborn care.
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New Query Tool Searches EHR Unstructured Data
Developed at Massachusetts General Hospital, Queriable Patient Inference Dossier (QPID) extracts data from unstructured text to answer clinician questions.
By Ken Terry, InformationWeek
February 14, 2013
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/electronic-medical-records/new-query-tool-searches-ehr-unstructured/240148634
February 14, 2013
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/electronic-medical-records/new-query-tool-searches-ehr-unstructured/240148634
A new electronic health record "intelligence platform" developed at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and its parent organization, Partners Healthcare, is being touted as a solution to the problem of searching structured and unstructured data in EHRs for clinically useful information.
QPID Inc., a new firm spun off from Partners and backed by venture capital funds, is now selling its Web-based search engine to other healthcare organizations. Known as the Queriable Patient Inference Dossier (QPID), the tool is designed to allow clinicians to make ad hoc queries about particular patients and receive the desired information within seconds. 
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Providers w/ EHRs order more mammograms
Women who receive healthcare from providers equipped with an EHR may be more likely to be referred for a mammogram and other preventive health services, and the link may be stronger with more sophisticated EHR systems, according to a study published in the February issue of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association .
Although the potential for EHRs to improve preventive care has been touted, the link between system sophistication and preventive patient care remains unclear.
Namita L. Tundia, doctoral candidate at the University of Cincinnati, and colleagues leveraged the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey database for the years 2007 and 2008 to evaluate the relationship between the level of EHR sophistication and 11 preventive healthcare services for women.
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Doctors Push Back Against Health IT's Workflow Demands
Doctors are angry that accountable care organization workflows seem more like manufacturing, less like healthcare, say panelists at eHealth Initiative conference.
By Michelle McNickle, InformationWeek
February 14, 2013
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/interoperability/doctors-push-back-against-health-its-wor/240148522
February 14, 2013
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/interoperability/doctors-push-back-against-health-its-wor/240148522
There's a powerful force working against the spread of health IT: physician anger, as doctors resist adopting workflows that can feel to them more like manufacturing than traditional treatment.
This was one of several big ideas explored during a panel discussion at the eHealth Initiatives annual conference in Orlando, Fla. Anger within the physician community is creating "significant backlash" in furthering the use of health IT within an accountable care environment, said Simeon Schwartz, MD, president and CEO at Westmed Medical Group, one of the panelists.
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US regulator approves first bionic eye
Millions of blind people will be able to regain limited sight after the world’s first “bionic eye” was approved by US regulators.
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a retina implant that will help address retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic eye disease, but will not cure all types of blindness.
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AHIMA to ONC: Better clinical documentation needed to ensure EHRs' efficacy
By Mike Miliard, Managing Editor
Created 02/14/2013
In testimony Wednesday before the Office of the National Coordinator HIT Policy Committee, the American Health Information Management Association made its case that suboptimal clinical documentation in electronic health records is a problem that needs addressing.
AHIMA argued that inadequate attention to the integrity of clinical documentation in EHRs could compromise the usefulness of these records for patient care and quality reporting – not to mention having an adverse impact on business, compliance and legal uses.
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Patient monitoring attracts investors
By Bernie Monegain, Editor
Created 02/14/2013
Wireless patient monitoring technology is attracting broad market interest – and potential investors, according to a new report from research firm Frost & Sullivan. Venture capitalists are showing keen interest in the disruptive WPM technology and will play a major role in bringing it to market, researchers say.
The new report, Wireless Patient Monitoring Technologies—Evaluation of Funding Prospects, finds that information and communication technologies play a major role in placing WPM technologies within consumers’ reach. VCs realize the WPM market offers long-term returns; however, the lack of standards in interoperability may delay the scaling up of WPM technologies.
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Kinect could help cut U.S. healthcare costs by $30B, researchers say
February 14, 2013 | By Ashley Gold
Telehealth could be as simple as a video game, with new innovation from Microsoft Kinect. The motion-sensing controller could cut the U.S. healthcare bill by up to $30 billion, preventing the risk of infection and reducing hospital visits by letting physicians to interact with patients remotely, according to new research.
Outlined in the International Journal of Electronic Finance, Janet Bailey of the University of Arkansas is working with Bradley Jenson of Microsoft to explore how gaming technology can be used to "teleport" healthcare workers' knowledge and skills where they're needed. This would cut costs for those who live far from hospitals, in addition to reducing the risk of infection.
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Mostashari to EHR vendors: Clean up your act
February 11, 2013 | By Marla Durben Hirsch
National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari lashed out at electronic health record vendors who engage in improper behavior last week, telling them to do what is "moral and right" or face additional government regulation, according to Government Health IT.
Mostashari, speaking at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT's HIT Policy Committee meeting on Feb. 6, was clarifying comments he made at the prior month's meeting. He pointed out that his concerns were directed at just a few "exceptions," not the bulk of the EHR vendor community. Clearly, though, he was not pleased with the vendors who engage in improper activities, saying that some of them are "beyond the pale" in their conduct.
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EHR rollout could be problematic for LGBT patients
February 14, 2013 | By Marla Durben Hirsch
Electronic health records could create additional complexities for providers when treating lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) patients, according to a recent report by nonprofit independent news organization Truthout.
For instance, according to the article, some of the fields in EHRs are not designed with LGBT patients in mind, referring to "marital status" but not "relationship status." There also are logistic concerns regarding whether and how to include such information in an EHR, and whether physicians should affirmatively raise such questions with their patients.
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AHIMA IDs clinical documentation challenges in EHRs
February 14, 2013 | By Dan Bowman
Three clinical documentation and record management challenges in electronic health record systems were identified by the American Health Information Management Association at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT's HIT Policy Committee meeting this week.
The problems--which include an inability to meet business requirements for a provider's record of care for a patient; subpar management, preservation and disclosure of health records; and a lack of focus on data quality, information integrity and solid documentation practices--were outlined by AHIMA Foundation Director of Research Michelle Dougherty, who could not understate the importance of remedying the situation quickly.
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AI found better than doctors at diagnosing, treating patients
AI can think like a doctor, but faster and with more information, Indiana U. researchers find
February 12, 2013 05:32 PM ET
Computerworld - Applying the same technologies used for voice recognition and credit card fraud detection to medical treatments could cut healthcare costs and improve patient outcomes by almost 50%, according to new research.
The research by Indiana University found that using patient data with machine-learning algorithms can drastically improve both the cost and quality of healthcare through simulation modeling.
The computer models simulated numerous alternative treatment paths out into the future and continually planned and replanned treatment as new information became available. In other words, it can "think like a doctor," according to the university.
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More Focus Needed on HIE Staffing, Report Says
February 12, 2013 by Rajiv Leventhal
According to a new study from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), when it comes to health information exchanges (HIEs), significant focus is placed on governance, but little attention is placed on the staffing of Health Information Exchange Organizations or Networks (HIOs).
For this study, HIMSS and AHIMA established a joint workgroup to explore both current and planned HIE staffing models with the goal of providing a clear understanding of the professional skill sets and experience critical to HIE organizational success. Representatives from 35 HIE organizations, encompassing a wide range of sizes, locations, funding strategies and stages of implementation, responded to a detailed survey on their operational strategies, current staffing profiles and anticipated hiring needs.
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Thursday, February 14, 2013
Electronic Health Record Data Mining -- Is It a Dirty Word?
With the broader availability of data from electronic health records, the secondary use of this rich clinical data presents the opportunity for data mining. However, data mining has received negative press when used by pharmaceutical companies to monitor physician prescribing patterns.
In many industries, mining of Big Data has become a profitable source for business intelligence. Everything from financial trends to social media sentiment analysis is game. With the ability to search personal data through new tools like Facebook's Graph Search and increasingly targeted marketing based on huge databases of personal data, the concept of data mining is becoming synonymous with invading privacy.
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Does Health IT Safety Need New Regulatory Body?
Recent Department of Health and Human Services proposal says no; new think tank report agrees with HHS stance.
By Ken Terry, InformationWeek
February 13, 2013
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/policy/does-health-it-safety-need-new-regulator/240148513
February 13, 2013
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/policy/does-health-it-safety-need-new-regulator/240148513
The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), a Washington think tank, has proposed an oversight framework to improve health IT-related patient safety. The BPC report, which grew out of discussions among a wide variety of healthcare stakeholders, lends support to a recent Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposal that would avoid creating a new regulatory body to oversee health IT safety.
The BPC report focuses on ways to protect patient safety while promoting continued innovation in health IT. An oversight framework, the organization said, should recognize the role that health IT plays in improving the quality, safety and cost-effectiveness of care; assure that patient safety is a responsibility shared by the entire healthcare system; be risk-based, flexible and not stifle innovation; emphasize the use of existing safety and quality-related processes, systems and standards; and involve the reporting of patient safety events related to health IT in a non-punitive environment.
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Obama says he's open to 'additional health reform from both parties' in SOTU
By Tom Sullivan, Editor, Government Health IT
Created 02/13/2013
“Now we need to finish the job,” President Barack Obama said during his State of the Union address Tuesday night. “The question is: How?”
It should be no surprise that the President, subsequent to a brief introductory reflection, launched into the intertwined matters of sequestration and deficit reduction — with a focus on how they impact healthcare before addressing other sectors of the U.S. economy.
Among the priorities that the “sudden, harsh, arbitrary” sequestration cuts would “devastate,” the President listed medical research alongside education, energy, the military, and of course, the broader economic recovery.
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Study: Artificial intelligence helps to improve care, lower costs
February 13, 2013 | By Ashley Gold
Using artificial intelligence and simulation modeling, researchers from Indiana University have found that machine learning can improve cost and quality of healthcare in the U.S., according to an announcement from IU.
The artificial intelligence framework, which combines Markov Decision Processes and Dynamic Decision Networks, used by IU researchers, shows how simulation modeling that "understands and predicts" the outcomes of health treatments could reduce healthcare costs and improve patient incomes by about 50 percent. Their work has been published in the journal Artificial Intelligence in Medicine.
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Fewer patients impacted by large-scale data breaches in 2012
February 13, 2013 | By Dan Bowman
Roughly 57 percent of the more than 21 million patient records involved in large-scale healthcare data breaches between 2010 and 2012 were linked to business associates, according to a new analysis by Carpinteria, Calif.-based IT security audit firm Redspin.
In 2012 alone, 146 total breaches impacting 500 or more individuals were reported, up from 121 in 2011. However, the number of patient records impacted by those 146 breaches was roughly 2.4 million, down drastically from 10.6 million patient records impacted a year earlier.
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ONC Chief Scientist Google + Hangout
Useful Overview of the US Approach to National Health IT Governance and Planning.
Redesigning the Personal Health Record
In November 2012, the digital team at HealthEd embarked on a challenge to redesign the face of personal health records. That effort has been rewarded with a first-place win in the category of Best Lab Summaries. And another HealthEd entry was cited as a finalist that “inspired the judges and challenged the status quo.”
About the Health Design Challenge
The Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology and the Department of Veterans Affairs issued a challenge to designers throughout the United States: imagine how personal health records could be improved for clarity, readability, and visual appeal. Given HealthEd’s mission to create better outcomes in personal wellness, the team embraced the Health Design Challenge with typical enthusiasm.
The Health Design Challenge was more than an exercise in graphic design, however. Entrants were required to demonstrate expert knowledge of clinical systems and to render information of relevance for both millennials and senior citizens. The judges wanted more than pretty pictures—participants had to know their stuff.
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Commentary: A better way to connect physician practices with HIEs
By Robyn Leone, Director of public policy, e-MDs
Although HIEs may not be the unmitigated disasters that a recent NHINWatch guest column published on Jan. 13, 2013, contends, what is clear is that the ad hoc, fragmented and uncoordinated processes health information exchange (HIE) organizations and HIE infrastructure vendors are using to attract and connect to physician practices are woefully ineffective.
Without the ability for physicians to easily transmit and access patient data in a usable format there will be limited participation and this, in turn, will create a negative "snowball" effect that will limit the benefits that HIEs can offer. The result: HIEs won't be able to deliver on their intended goals of offering a single source for all providers to access and retrieve clinical data to provide safer and more timely, efficient, effective and equitable patient-centered care.
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This is your public health program on IT
By John Loonsk, MD FACMI and Cheryl Campbell, Vice president, CGI Federal Health program
The array of national health programs in the United States is dizzying. They range from the Affordable Care Act with its health insurance exchanges and Accountable Care Organizations, to Medicaid and Medicare, disease surveillance, health monitoring, networks of health centers and labs, all the way to drug monitoring, regulation and more. All of these programs have been, or are now, becoming electronic, just as health records are. Indeed, many of these programs will play major roles in either incenting or conflicting with efforts to advance the electronic health care infrastructure. And as with other industries, becoming electronic changes the way these programs can and should be carried out themselves. With the advent of cloud computing and other approaches, these changes can have a large impact on the most effective and efficient use of large amounts of taxpayers’ dollars as well as the achievable outcomes.
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ONC, NIST put focus on usability
By Mary Mosquera, Senior Editor
Created 02/12/2013
Electronic health records (EHRs) have to be usable and useful by physicians and integrate with hospitals’ or practices’ other systems to benefit providers or else the money spent on them is just wasted.
Before EHRs were widely adopted, there wasn’t a demand for usability, according to David Blumenthal, MD, former national health IT coordinator and current president and CEO of The Commonwealth Fund.
“There was no reason for vendors to focus on it because there weren’t enough sales or selectivity on the part of purchasers,” he said at the AcademyHealth-sponsored National Health Policy Conference last week. But times have changed.
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VA CIO affirms commitment to joint EHR
By Tom Sullivan, Editor, Government Health IT
Created 02/11/2013
Is the highly-anticipated joint iEHR that the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs have been working on ready for a burial? Or not?
“iEHR is having a Mark Twain moment,” VA CIO Roger Baker answered. “Rumors of its demise have been greatly exaggerated.”
The follow-up question was point-blank: “So it's safe to say that the VA and DoD are continuing to work on a single joint iEHR, while also looking to reap some benefits of work already accomplished, that being what [Feb. 5's] news was all about?”
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eHI publishes HIT cancer resource guide
By Mike Miliard, Managing Editor
Created 02/12/2013
The eHealth Initiative on Tuesday published what it bills as the first comprehensive overview of the technologies – from mHealth apps to telemedicine to social media – available to help cancer patients, their families and their caregivers.
The Health IT Cancer Resources Guide lists more than 75 tools, from mobile apps and websites to social networks, that aim to improve cancer care.
The guide – organized in five sections: decision making, education, treatment management, social support and lifestyle management – was developed by eHI's National Council on Cancer and Technology, which includes representatives from American Cancer Society and American Society of Clinical Oncologists.
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Pathfinders losing their way
11 February 2013 Lis Evenstad
The government’s telehealth pathfinder scheme looks certain to fail to deliver a target of 100,000 users this year.
There are around 5,000 telehealth users in England. Last November, health secretary Jeremy Hunt identified seven pathfinders which he said would each enrol 10,000 people in telehealth in 2013.
This was the first step in the Department of Health’s project to have 3m people benefit from telehealth by 2017.
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Avatar-based depression interventions show promise
February 12, 2013 | By Ashley Gold
Avatar-based intervention for self-management of depression has shown initial efficacy in a study of young adults ages 18 to 25 who used such software. The findings, published this month in Applied Nursing Research, are promising for depression management.
Nine percent of young adults in the U.S. are afflicted with major depressive disorder (MDD), predisposing them to impairments in psychosocial functioning, which puts them at risk for disability, morbidity, mortality and an overall decreased quality of life. The study cites that symptoms of depression first occur in adolescence and early adulthood, and can turn into chronic and debilitating illness, MDD, and affect young adults for years before they receive treatment.
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Nine percent of young adults in the U.S. are afflicted with major depressive disorder (MDD), predisposing them to impairments in psychosocial functioning, which puts them at risk for disability, morbidity, mortality and an overall decreased quality of life. The study cites that symptoms of depression first occur in adolescence and early adulthood, and can turn into chronic and debilitating illness, MDD, and affect young adults for years before they receive treatment.
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Texas Medical Association slams ONC safety plan
February 12, 2013 | By Dan Bowman
The health IT safety action plan proposed by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT in December is not specific enough to succeed, according to recent comments made by the Texas Medical Association. In its letter to National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari, TMA said that responsibility for the plan "lacks focus," and should be overseen by a "highly visible HIT Safety Czar."
TMA also called setting mandatory deadlines and developing a "robust" reporting and learning system imperative to the success of the plan, saying that the plan's current reliance on voluntary reporting and funding represents a "fundamental weakness."
"TMA believes that significant patient safety risks exist now, and new ones will emerge in the next one to two years as many [electronic health record] and other HIT vendors merge or go out of business," the letter said.
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New Version of CONNECT Messaging Software Available
FEB 11, 2013 11:50am ET
The federal government has released version 4.0 of the CONNECT open source platform for secure exchange of health information.
Improvements include higher messaging volumes and support for files up to 1 GB in size, ability to run CONNECT on more types of application servers, advanced logging, and a smaller server footprint and use of resources.
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KLAS: ED Docs Prefer Best-of-Breed Systems
ED Docs Prefer Best-of-Breed, Says KLAS
When it comes to emergency department information systems (EDIS), physician satisfaction with best-of-breed systems is 59 percent higher than enterprise systems, according to a new KLAS report — EDIS 2013: Revealing the Physicians’ Voice.
Physicians cited better clinical decision support, overall usability, and accuracy of documentation as the primary drivers of satisfaction in the study, which compares the performance differences between EDIS offerings in facilitating ED efficiency, documentation quality, patient safety, and interoperability.
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Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Patient Portal Explosion Has Major Health Care Implications
A small fraction of physicians use a Web portal to interact and share information with patients today. But meaningful use Stage 2 requires that eligible professionals ensure at least 5% of patients view, download or transmit their electronic health records. As a result, the use of patient portals is likely to skyrocket. If that happens, experts say, the impact on health care could be quite significant.
About 20% of family physicians were using patient portals for appointment scheduling and sharing information with patients in 2010, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians.
A 2011 study published in the journal Health Affairs found that 14% of physicians used personal health records daily and that 25% had done so within the previous month. Many PHRs are part of provider-based patient portals such as those offered by Kaiser Permanente and the Department of Veterans Affairs, but it's unclear how many of the physician PHR users in this study had patient portals.
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Online Consults Increasing, Despite Physicians' Concerns
New primary care model gains momentum as payers see cost-cutting potential and consumers demand better service.
By Ken Terry, InformationWeek
February 11, 2013
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/clinical-systems/online-consults-increasing-despite-physi/240148283
February 11, 2013
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/clinical-systems/online-consults-increasing-despite-physi/240148283
Online consultations are spreading fast now that payers have figured out how to use them to save money. Last week, Health Affairs published a paper by researchers at HealthPartners -- a Minnesota-based health plan and physician group -- showing that online consultations with nurse practitioners for minor ailments saved the insurer $88 per episode of care.
In most cases, these "virtual visits" to Virtuwell, a HealthPartners subsidiary, replaced office visits and visits to ERs, urgent care centers and retail clinics. The online service produced a high level of patient satisfaction while delivering care that was said to be as effective as in-person encounters with providers.
Some HMOs, like Kaiser Permanente and Group Health Cooperative and a few integrated delivery systems such as Geisinger Health System, allow patients to consult online with physicians and midlevel providers. That makes business sense in organizations that take financial risk for care, because it reduces demand for care in more expensive care settings.
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Online clinic shows cost savings
By Chris Anderson, Editor, Healthcare Payer News
Created 02/11/2013
An online clinic launched in 2010 by non-profit HMO HealthPartners for the diagnosis and treatment of 40 simple medical conditions showed an average savings of $88 per episode over care in a traditional setting, providing hope for the future of online medical care.
The service, called virtuwell, provides 24-hour online access for patients to nurse practitioners who can help diagnose and prescribe treatment – including writing prescriptions – of conditions such as sinus infections and urinary tract infection. Further, after studying the results from 40,000 cases of patients using the online care portal, 98 percent of patients said they would be willing to recommend the service to others.
The findings were released in the February issue of Health Affairs.
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Report: Health IT use on rise in U.S.
By Frank Irving, Editor, PhysBizTech
Created 02/11/2013
U.S. doctors' use of health IT has been sharply increasing, up from 46 percent who used an EMR in their practice in 2009 to 69 percent in 2012, according to a survey of nearly 9,800 primary care physicians representing 11 nations. The Commonwealth Fund released findings of the survey in November 2011 in a study “A Survey of Primary Care Doctors in Ten Countries Shows Progress in the Use of Health Information Technology, Less in Other Areas." It expanded on several drill-down topics during and online presentation Feb. 5.
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Skype successful in home care for infants
February 11, 2013 | By Ashley Gold
The use of eHealth for home healthcare of premature infants could decrease the need for home doctor visits, a small study published this week in BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making has found.
For the study, 34 families were broken up into three groups: one receiving standard home healthcare, a web group receiving home healthcare supplemented with a web app; and a video group with home healthcare supplemented by Skype. Participating families and nursing staff completed questionnaires about the information and communication technology's (ICT) usefulness.
The web application was easy to use, participants said, and Skype was useful for all surveyed, too. Nearly 90 percent said that video calls were better than regular phone calls. Meanwhile, 33 percent in the web group and 75 percent in the video group thought that home visits should be less frequent with the advent of Skype. Fifty percent in the web group and 100 percent in the video group said they felt more confident in caring for their child after using the technology.
The web application was easy to use, participants said, and Skype was useful for all surveyed, too. Nearly 90 percent said that video calls were better than regular phone calls. Meanwhile, 33 percent in the web group and 75 percent in the video group thought that home visits should be less frequent with the advent of Skype. Fifty percent in the web group and 100 percent in the video group said they felt more confident in caring for their child after using the technology.
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IBM's Watson Could Be Healthcare Game Changer
IBM's cognitive computing technology moves past Jeopardy and into serious healthcare challenges, including cancer treatment. IBM's rivals seem stuck on more prosaic problems.
By Doug Henschen, InformationWeek
February 11, 2013
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/software/business-intelligence/ibms-watson-could-be-healthcare-game-cha/240148273
February 11, 2013
URL: http://www.informationweek.com/software/business-intelligence/ibms-watson-could-be-healthcare-game-cha/240148273
It was an amazing feat when Watson, IBM's "cognitive" -- listening, "thinking" and learning -- computing platform handily beat two Jeopardy grand champions in February 2011, but it also left us wanting to know if, when and how the technology would be used in the real world. The world got its first glimpse of Watson at work in a commercial setting on Friday when IBM announced the release of three new health care decision-support applications.
The three new applications include one for recommending cancer treatment options and two for reviewing and authorizing treatments and related health insurance claims. They are the first examples of what IBM describes as a next-generation cognitive computing that has the potential to change healthcare, and IBM promises it's just the beginning, as IBM and several partners are planning many more applications. IBM is also moving to roll out Watson in other information-intensive industries including banking, insurance and telecommunications.
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IBM's Watson Heads for Clinics, Spurring Debate
Scott Mace, for HealthLeaders Media , February 12, 2013
As a young emergency room physician, Martin Kohn, MD, thought he knew most everything. But once in a while, quiet whispers in his ear were the difference between success and a life-threatening medical decision error.
"What saved me and my patients more often than not were three nurses in that emergency department who had been there forever, and were very diplomatic. I could be sitting there struggling because we were doing stupid things like 24-hour shifts," Kohn says. "I'd be struggling with something and one of the nurses would come up and say, Marty, did you think about such and such?"
"What saved me and my patients more often than not were three nurses in that emergency department who had been there forever, and were very diplomatic. I could be sitting there struggling because we were doing stupid things like 24-hour shifts," Kohn says. "I'd be struggling with something and one of the nurses would come up and say, Marty, did you think about such and such?"
Now, Kohn is leading the team at IBM that will bring a technology-powered version of that little voice to clinics starting at the end of 2013.
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IBM's Watson Supercomputer Bears Arms to Battle Cancer
By Darryl K. Taft | Posted 2013-02-08
IBM's Watson supercomputer celebrated the second anniversary of its trouncing human competitors on "Jeopardy" with the announcement of two new medical applications aimed at helping battle cancer.
In the past year, IBM has partnered separately with the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and WellPoint to develop Watson health care products starting in the areas of oncology and utilization management. Now IBM, MSK and WellPoint have announced the latest advancements based on their collaboration, including unveiling the first commercially developed Watson-based cognitive computing breakthroughs. These innovations stand to help transform the quality and speed of care delivered to patients through individualized, evidence-based medicine.
"Today, I join IBM, our partner WellPoint and many other health care leaders in New York City to mark a milestone on the path to bringing the power of Watson to oncology care," Dr. Mark Kris, chief of Thoracic Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, wrote in a blog post. "In collaboration with IBM and WellPoint, we will unveil the first commercially developed Watson-based cognitive computing system that is being taught by Memorial Sloan-Kettering experts. We believe these innovations will help transform the quality and speed of care for patients and enhance research to lead to more cures."
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Enjoy!
David.