Flexible collaboration infrastructures and healthcare information exchange in hospitals: an empirical resource-based perspective

Exchanging health information and data will enhance the efficiency, quality, cost-effectiveness, and even safety of healthcare practices. However, views and strategies differ on how hospitals can facilitate or enable this exchange process. This study explores a relationship between two constructs, i.e., a flexible collaboration infrastructure—an integrated set of IT assets and networking functionalities that support applications and enable business collaboration—and health information exchange. Second, we argue that the strength of this relationship is influenced by the degree to which hospitals deploy security measures. Findings—based on an SEM-PLS analysis on a sample of 983 European hospitals—show a positive relationship between the two constructs. We additionally find that hospitals’ security measures to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the data condition this particular relationship. Our findings contribute to the literature and provide valuable insights for hospitals.

The full article can be downloaded below. 

Opinion: How self-tracking biometrics influence patients, medicine and society

As a consequence of digitalisation, data acquisition related to different aspects of our daily life has become widely available. Monitoring of heart condition, mood or air quality is no longer the domain of specialised laboratories or hospitals, it can be done anytime, anywhere and by anybody. Self-knowledge and self-perception through numbers replace subjective narration based on frame of mind or intuition. Quantified-self phenomena not only revolutionise healthcare, but also promise to boost wellbeing. How will life change in a world where everything becomes measurable?

The full article from Mobie Health News can be viewed at this link.  

The law of genetic privacy: applications, implications, and limitations

Recent advances in technology have significantly improved the accuracy of genetic testing and analysis, and substantially reduced its cost, resulting in a dramatic increase inthe amount of genetic information generated, analysed, shared, and stored by diverse individuals and entities. Given the diversity of actors and their interests, coupled with the wide variety of ways genetic data are held, it has been difficult to develop broadly applicable legal principles for genetic privacy. This article examines the current landscape of genetic privacy to identify the roles that the law does or should play, with a focus on federal statutes and regulations, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). After considering the many contexts in which issues of genetic privacy arise, the article concludes that few, if any, applicable legal doctrines or enactments provide adequate protection or meaningful control to individuals over disclosures that may affect them. The article describes why it may be time to shift attention from attempting to control access to genetic information to considering the more challenging question of how these data can be used and under what conditions, explicitly addressing trade-offs between individual and social goods in numerous applications.

The full article can be downloaded below.  

How Conversational AI Could Remake Health Care

One of the most pressing problems the United States faces is a shortage of access to health care. Some California politicians are trying to fix this with legislation that would improve access. While many are looking to policy to fix the problem, they should not overlook the role that emerging technologies can play in both managing health care and treating common conditions and diseases.

One of the places this is happening is the personal health care market, which includes family physicians and urgent care clinics, among other facilities. The adoption of "conversational artificial intelligence (AI)" by health care providers is part of a larger overall trend that will see the AI health care market rapidly expand in the coming years. Accenture predicts these changes could save the health care industry $150 billion a year by 2026.

Conversational AI offers a natural and intuitive method of communicating with customers. Traditional voice recognition systems are static. Customers need to navigate multiple menus and options and usually end up pressing zero for an agent. A conversational AI system starts with a question and then routes the customer to the right answer or solution, eliminating the wait and frustration. It's almost no different than talking to an empathetic person.

From faster claims to better management of chronic conditions, conversational AI could reinvent the global standard of health care. It could also help the industry save money and resources by ensuring that visits to emergency departments are only for severe or life-threatening conditions. 

The full Forbes article can be viewed at this link.  

What Genetic Testing Teaches About Long-Term Predictive Health Analytics Regulation

The ever-growing phenomenon of predictive health analytics is generating significant excitement, hope for improved health outcomes, and potential for new revenues. Researchers are developing algorithms to predict suicide, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cognitive decline, future opioid abuse, and other ailments. The researchers include not only medical experts, but also commercial enterprises such as Facebook and LexisNexis, who may profit from the work considerably. This Article focuses on long-term disease predictions (predictions regarding future illnesses), which have received surprisingly little attention in the legal and ethical literature. It compares the robust academic and policy debates and legal interventions that followed the emergence of genetic testing to the relatively anemic reaction to predictions produced by artificial intelligence and other predictive methods. The paper argues that like genetic testing, predictive health analytics raise significant concerns about psychological harm, privacy breaches, discrimination, and the meaning and accuracy of predictions. Consequently, as alluring as the new predictive technologies are, they require careful consideration and thoughtful safeguards. These include changes to the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules and the Americans with Disabilities Act, careful oversight mechanisms, and self-regulation by health care providers. Ignoring the hazards of long-term predictive health analytics and failing to provide data subjects with appropriate rights and protections would be a grave mistake.

The full article can be downloaded below.  

Is health-care data the new blood? 

We propose that health-care data records are digital specimens and should be treated with the same rigour, care, and caution afforded to physical medical specimens. We advocate that the use of these digital samples be limited to validated and beneficial uses for the donor and that patient privacy be fully protected.

The full article can be downloaded below.  

US Healthcare Trends and Contradictions in 2019

Over the past several years, many healthcare trends have been identified as micro rather than macro as incremental year-to-year changes dominated the US healthcare market. Looking at 2019 and toward 2020, the shift to macro-level trends returns, reflecting market transformation during the Trump administration. For example, many 2017 and 2018 trends were a continuation of micro themes, such as benefit design offerings, care delivery initiatives, contracting, or early technologies for monitoring personal health status.

Now, structural and broader market changes are part of a bigger economic transformation that includes healthcare as a major beneficiary. As a result, in 2019 many trends are macro-focused, in addition to some continuing micro aspects, all of which are being transformed in parallel. Much of the innovation efforts to date have led to trends that move us from micro to macro perspectives on change.

The forecasted trends identified in this article focus on the macro and micro levels that may emerge or are just emerging, depending on your perspective. Furthermore, some trends may be opposing to other trends, which reflects the uncertainty along with the diversity of change in healthcare, globally and nationally.

The full article can be downloaded below.  

2019 HEALTHCARE PROGNOSIS

For the third year running, our smart friends from across the healthcare industry helped us take the pulse of the health IT sector. Our respondents have correctly called both the survival of the Affordable Care Act (even without bugging Justice Roberts’ chambers) and the lack of tangible progress in drug pricing. This year, we re-checked on startup health, technology adoption and regulatory issues while also taking a look at new topics including blockchain and diversity.

The full Venrock findings can be found at this link.  

Recommendations on Digital Interventions for Health System Strengthening

A key challenge is to ensure that all people enjoy the benefits of digital technologies for everyone. We must make sure that innovation and technology helps to reduce the inequities in our world, instead of becoming another reason people are left behind. Countries must be guided by evidence to establish sustainable harmonized digital systems, not seduced by every new gadget.

That’s what this guideline is all about.

At the Seventy-First World Health Assembly, WHO’s Member States asked us to develop a global strategy on digital health. This first WHO guideline establishes recommendations on digital interventions for health system strengthening and synthesizes the evidence for the most important and effective digital technologies.

The nature of digital technologies is that they are evolving rapidly; so will this guideline. As new technologies emerge, new evidence will be used to refine and expand on these recommendations. WHO is significantly enhancing its work in digital health to ensure we provide our Member States with the most up-to-date evidence and advice to enable countries to make the smartest investments and achieve the biggest gains in health. Ultimately, digital technologies are not ends in themselves; they are vital tools to promote health, keep the world safe, and serve the vulnerable.

The full guideline from the World Health Organization can be downloaded below.