|
PCAST Report Outline Recommendations for Healthy Aging with Technology Use
The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology has issued a Report on Independence, Technology, and Connection in Older Age that proposes near-term Federal actions to support healthy aging for all Americans. The report investigates technological applications that can improve the quality of life for the aging population such as internet access, telehealth, monitoring technology, emergency preparedness systems, and intentional design. Recognizing that the average age of America’s population is increasing, the report recommends key strategies to improve mobility, cognitive function, and social engagement, to ultimately allow people to have active and productive lives as they age.
|
|
|
HIPAA Phase Two Audits in Full Swing
The Office for Civil Rights at HHS (OCR) has begun its second phase of audits of covered entities and their business associates. The OCR will use this audit program to assess HIPAA compliance of covered entity and business associates. Through this program, the OCR hopes to identify best practices and provide guidance for certain compliance challenges. In light of last week’s $5.5 million HIPAA violation settlement with the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in New York and North Memorial Health Care in Minnesota, now is the time for hospitals to cross-check that they are in full compliance with HIPAA regulations and to mediate all withstanding issues.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
HHS Announces Appointees for Cybersecurity Taskforce
Last week, Health and Human Services announced the creation of a cybersecurity task force to study ways of protecting health data and connected medical devices. Members will investigate differences between industries and sectors of the economy for best practices on how to keep medical devices secure. Following internal discussion, this task force will report to the public and Congress. They will develop resources "ensuring every organization that plays a part in our health care system can protect the data that is part of this system," according to the statement. The 21-member task force is made up of government and private sector representatives.
|
|
|
AHIMA Launches Patient ID Petition
The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) launched a petition on government petition site “We The People” for a national patient identifier. Their petition demands that the Department of Health and Human Services lift a ban preventing federal work on such a project. According to the site, the petition needs 100,000 signatures by April 19 to trigger a response from the White House. Unfortunately, HHS hands are bound since Congress implemented the ban, not HHS. AHIMA suggests and supports making the identifier voluntary. As of this writing, the petition is just shy of 2,000 signatures.
|
|
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Policy Working Group: March 24, 3 – 4pm ET
Data Analytics Workgroup: March 29, 3 – 4pm ET
2016 Innovation Challenge: October 4-5
To be included in any of the upcoming events email claudia.ellison@ehidc.org.
|
|
|
|
District of Columbia Proposes New Telemedicine Rules
The DC Department of Health recently released a new series of proposed rules regarding telemedicine use. If the rules are enacted, the regulations constitute the first regulations on telemedicine in the nation’s capital. Currently, DC policy is silent regarding telemedicine use and practice. Among other things, the rules redefine telemedicine, physician licensure in the district, standard of care, a valid doctor-patient relationship, remote prescribing, informed consent, medical records, and secure communications between doctor and patient. The comment period for the rules ends March 26. National Law Review provides a good overview.
|
|
|
University of Buffalo Researchers Develop Food Intake Tracking Necklace
Researchers with the University of Buffalo have developed a passive food intake tracking necklace that listens to the sound of the wearer chewing. The wearable, called AutoDietary, is being developed by computer scientist Wenyao Xu. The necklace contains a small microphone for recording the sounds of people eating. Sounds are then sent via Bluetooth and compared against a database of consumption sounds. “There is no shortage of wearable devices that tell us how many calories we burn, but creating a device that reliably measures caloric intake isn’t so easy,” Wu said in a statement.
Apple Moving Fast into mHealth
Tech giant, Apple, announced Monday in an event that they are taking their ResearchKit framework and redeveloping it geared toward hospitals. The new application, dubbed CareKit, is geared toward hospitals and health systems. CareKit will launch with four native applications: CareCard for tracking care plans; Symptom tracker; Insight Dashboard to map symptoms against action items; and, Connect to share the information. It will be released open-source next month, allowing developers to add on to the pre-installed modules. Simultaneously, Apple announced that ResearchKit will now incorporate 23andMe data. The goal is to make user’ genetic data more readily available.
Target Soon to be Launching In-Store Digital Health
Target is said to be launching a new digital health section in 500 of its stores and online within the next month. This new initiative is said to better position the chain organization to meet the evolving health and wellness needs of its customers through modern technological tools.
ICD-10 to Get 5,000 New Codes
Little more than six months after the October 1 rollout, ICD-10 is getting 5,000 new codes according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. CMS plans to add 1,900 diagnostic codes and 3,651 hospital inpatient procedure codes to the system. 97 percent of the inpatient additions will update cardiovascular and lower joint body systems. Additionally, they will add codes for face transplant, hand transplant, and donor organ perfusion. The new codes are due to a partial freeze on updates prior to the rollout. Comment period is open until April 8 and rollout will occur October 1.
“OpenNotes” Highly Utilized by both Providers and Patients to View Medical Records
“OpenNotes,” an initiative launched in 2010 and led by Tom Delbanco, MD, a Harvard Medical School professor, has made significant strides in not just improving patient access to their medical records, but the overall care delivery experience. After the first large-scale pilot, 100 percent of the doctors opted to continue with the program. Improvements in patient-physician relationships, patients’ feelings of control over their care, greater knowledge and recall, and adherence to medications have all been noted with the use of OpenNotes, which can be operationalized on many EMR platforms. This program has not been found to negatively impede physician workflow and 80 percent of patients indicated that they readily access their records via OpenNotes. The populations that have been found to most utilize this application are the elderly, non-Caucasian individuals, patients with less than a high school education and people who have serious comorbid or chronic conditions.
|
|
|
Workgroup Update
Greater Houston Health Connect Addresses Business and Clinical Motivators
Last week, Nick Bonvino, CEO of the Greater Houston HealthConnect addressed the Business and Clinical Motivators Workgroup on their efforts in Texas. GHH came online in 2012 and achieved sustainability in 2015, working to encourage the furthering of the Triple Aim. Aside from connecting health systems and hospitals, GHH also supports the county jail system, a unique set of challenges. Mr. Bonvino also elaborated on their highly successful ETHAN ambulance connectivity platform, integrating EMS run sheets into EMRs. To listen to the audio of the meeting, To listen to the audio of the meeting click here.
|
|
|
|
WHO Criticizes Weak European eHealth Strategies
In a new study, the World Health Organization (WHO) found that white eHealth is being successfully implemented in some European countries; insufficient funding, weak political commitment, governance, legislation, and legal protections are causing missed opportunities. Demand for eHealth is on the rise on the Continent. Problems exist in implementation of national EHR systems due to lack of funding, lack of oversight, among others. None of the 35 countries reporting utilize social media to promote health messages as a component of campaigns.
|
|
African American Females Likely to Participate in eHealth Research Initiatives
Research published by Telemedicine and e-Health found that African American females are well positioned to benefit from and participate in health interventions that involve smartphone use pertaining to risk reduction and chronic disease self-management. The study involving 589 African American women measured sociodemographic, technology use, technology access, and willingness to participate in e-health/m-health research. The conclusions indicated that African American females are likely to participate in e-health/m-health research that is culturally tailored. This study sheds light into possible survey strategies for researchers to consider in their survey designs in order to attract a more diverse group of participants, especially African American women since they are often underrepresented in voluntary health studies.
Study Shows Link Between Socioeconomic Factors and Readmission Rates
A recent study published in the Journal of Healthcare Quality investigated the relationship between hospital readmission rates and predictive factors. The findings showed that clinical conditions that cause admissions are the strongest predictive factor of readmissions, but socioeconomic factors such as race, income, and payer status are not independent of readmission rates. The study concluded with recommendations for payment models to be developed based on stratified comparisons of predictive factors to provide transparency regarding disparities and to allow for a more equitable payment system.
Using Genomic Research to Advance Population Health
As the healthcare industry shifts its focus and resources toward improving population health, there are many emergent strategies of ways that providers can do this effectively. One such effort has been the application of genomics to develop personalized care regimens for individuals. Providence Health & Services has recently invested in this approach by partnering with the Institute for Systems Biology, a Seattle-based biomedical research organization, to explore how genomic-based personalized medicine can help manage the health and wellness of the populations they serve. Among other things, the two organizations plan to collaborate on the use of genomics to further cancer research and identify people who are pre-diabetic to intervene before the onset of disease.
|
|
|
|
|
