Touted as the product of 10 years of work, the most recent proposed rule issued July 10 by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT will usher in an age of automation for healthcare interoperability through application programming interface-based exchange capabilities, officials said on Wednesday. The second version of ONC’s Health Data, Technology, … Read more
Amid a national reckoning with racism spurred by the COVID-19 death rate among Black Americans, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s standards for pulse oximeters – those all-too-common devices that use light to measure oxygen saturation in the blood – “essentially ignored how skin tone can affect a pulse ox reading,” according to the Johns … Read more
In a trend that shows no sign of slowing, hospitals and health systems are affiliating, acquiring and merging more than ever before. With those sprawling new entities come lots of challenges combining and streamlining their constituent parts. Especially data – and lots of it. The integration of data assets after a merger or acquisition is … Read more
Three-dimensional reconstruction and modeling technology is not new in hospitals. In fact, many organizations have dedicated radiology technologists that perform 3D reconstructions from cross-sectional images. THE PROBLEM The results of their work are typically saved back to PACS, essentially as a video of predetermined angles – often referred to as a rotational cine or turntable … Read more
As has been the case for, well, years, the past few weeks have seen a steady stream of news about data breaches, ransomware attacks and cybersecurity incidents involving healthcare stakeholders, from hospitals to patient transportation services to public health agencies. Meanwhile, many months after one of the biggest cyberattacks in recent memory, Change Healthcare – … Read more
Staff at Arkansas’ Harmony Park Family Medicine have been excited about streamlining the prior authorization process with the goal of improving patient access to high-quality care. THE PROBLEM Prior authorization approval and management historically has been a burdensome process in the industry and can cause unnecessary delays in patient care, in large part due to … Read more
Hypertension, the most prevalent risk factor for cardiovascular disease, affects 1.39 billion adults worldwide and has a 46% uncontrolled rate. That poses a substantial burden for hospitals and health systems – and necessitates a paradigm shift in management strategies, clinicians say. THE PROBLEM Uncontrolled hypertension can lead to recurrent heart attacks, strokes, heart failure, chronic … Read more
Humberto Farias has been watching the explosion of generative AI very closely. Farias is cofounder and chairman of Concepta Technologies, a technology company specializing in software development and programming in the areas of mobile, web, digital transformation and artificial intelligence. For example, he noticed that Apple is putting generative AI at the very center of … Read more
Carle Health, an eight-hospital health system based in Illinois, is dedicated to giving patients the care they need at every point in their healthcare journey. Through collaboration and engagement, the health system aims to ensure the highest level of care by applying accurate data and innovative, evidence-based best practices. THE PROBLEM Medication reconciliation is a … Read more
This week, artificial intelligence applications continue to be involved in healthcare, with new use cases and deployments of all shapes and sizes. AI is streamlining documentation at Federally Qualified Health Centers, helping expand access to effective mental health services and assuring secure-by-design digital transformation, to name just three. FHQCs, CHCs using voice AI The Utah … Read more