Patient Portal Explosion Has Major Health Care Implications

Terry, Ken. "Patient Portal Explosion Has Major Health Care Implications." iHealth Beat, February 12, 2013. 

From the article: "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." Read more

AHRQ Report Summarizes Health IT Grant Initiative's Efforts

Gold, Ashley. "AHRQ Report Summarizes Health IT Grant Initiative's Efforts." Fierce Health IT, February 8, 2013. 

From the article: "The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality recently released its findings from enabling patient-centered care through a health IT grant initiative, outlined in a report.

The report highlights key findings from the experiences of 16 projects awarded in 2007, which aimed to investigate approaches for using health IT to enhance patient-centered care and ambulatory care. The four main areas of interest in the analysis were: patient self-management, providing access to medical information, patient-clinician communication and shared decision making." Read more

Dr. Watson Will See You Now: IBM Offers Supercomputer Watson Apps in Cancer, Health Insurance

"Dr. Watson Will See You Now: IBM Offers Supercomputer Watson Apps in Cancer, Health Insurance." The Washington Post, February 8, 2013. 

From the article: "IBM Corp., the health insurer WellPoint Inc. and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center announced two Watson-based applications — one to help assess treatments for lung cancer and one to help manage health insurance decisions and claims.

Both applications take advantage of the speed, huge database and language skill the computer demonstrated in defeating the best human “Jeopardy!” players on television two years ago.

Armonk-based IBM said Watson has improved its performance by 240 percent since the “Jeopardy!” win." Read more

Health IT, Feedback Can Raise Quality of Care

Hall, Susan D. "Health IT, Feedback Can Raise Quality of Care." Fierce Health IT, February 6, 2013. 

From the article: "Providing feedback loops, as recommended by the Institute of Medicine, was a core recommendation in the pre-rulemaking report of the Measure Applications Partnership (MAP).

The public-private partnership, convened by the National Quality Forum to make recommendations to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, called feedback the best way to determine whether measurement is being used in the way it was intended.

"Ideally, the exchange of information through feedback loops is systematic, standardized, real-time, two-way, occurs among all levels of the system, and takes best advantage of information technology," the report states." Read more

See also

"MAP Pre-Rulemaking Report: 2013 Recommendations on Measures Under Consideration by HHS." National Quality Forum, February 2013. 

Millard, Mike. "MAP Weighs in on Performance Measures." Government Health IT, February 5, 2013. 

"NQF-Convened Group Provides Recommendations on Measures for Federal Healthcare Programs." Nationla Quality Forum, February 4, 2013. 

CHIME Presses ONC on Patient Safety

Monegain, Bernie. "CHIME Presses ONC on Patient Safety." Healthcare IT News, February 6, 2013. 

From the article: "The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is urging the federal government to ensure that patients are matched correctly to their health information.

CHIME said it agreed with ONC that, “the accurate and efficient matching of patients to their health information is critical to ensuring patient safety,” and it urged a more focused effort to address patient data matching, saying that, “despite years of development, no clear strategy has emerged to accurately and consistently match patient data.” Read more

A National Action Plan To Support Consumer Engagement Via E-Health

Ricciardi, Lygeria, et al. "A National Action Plan To Support Consumer Engagement Via E-Health." Health Affairs 32 (2013): 376-384.

From the article: "Patient-centered care is considered one pillar of a high-performing, high-quality health care system. It is a key component of many efforts to transform care and achieve better population health. Expansion of health information technology and consumer e-health tools—electronic tools and services such as secure e-mail messaging between patients and providers, or mobile health apps—have created new opportunities for individuals to participate actively in monitoring and directing their health and health care. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in the Department of Health and Human Services leads the strategy to increase electronic access to health information, support the development of tools that enable people to take action with that information, and shift attitudes related to the traditional roles of patients and providers. In this article we review recent evidence in support of consumer e-health and present the federal strategy to promote advances in consumer e-health to increase patient engagement, improve individual health, and achieve broader health care system improvements." Read more

New Technology Helps Doctors Link a Patient’s Location to Illness and Treatment

MacDonald, Christine. "New Technology Helps Doctors Link a Patient’s Location to Illness and Treatment." The Washington Post, February 4, 2013. 

From the article: "These initiatives seek to reveal how the place where you live affects the quality of your health, and then map out ways to address problems. For instance, soon Loma Linda doctors and case managers will be able pinpoint food pantries and soup kitchens in the medical center’s service area, making it easier to suggest ones near the homes of low-income patients who need to improve their diet.

Othergeomedicine technologies under development include Health Begins, a social networking platform that seeks to make clinicians more aware of socioeconomic factors that can affect health. The site, now in the testing phase, allows doctors, patients and family members to update entries, such as where to apply for affordable housing or how to contact a legal clinic for reporting unhealthy working conditions. The site also has a section that shows the latest research assessing links between social, economic and environmental factors and health." Read more

5 Findings in ONC HIE Research

Mosquera, Mary. "5 Findings in ONC HIE Research." Government Health IT, January 28, 2013. 

From the article: "The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has published research that aims to help providers and professionals better understand several high-impact services that can sustain health information exchange organizations.

The research is meant to help professionals who are putting in place health information exchange (HIE) with policy, technical and business-related skills related to query-based exchange, push notification and subscription services, provider directories, master data management and consumer engagement." Read more

More Using Electronics to Track Their Health

Freudenheim, Milt. "More Using Electronics to Track Their Health." The New York Times, January 27, 2013. 

From the article: "Whether they have chronic ailments like diabetes or just want to watch their weight, Americans are increasingly tracking their health using smartphone applications and other devices that collect personal data automatically, according to health industry researchers.

“The explosion of mobile devices means that more Americans have an opportunity to start tracking health data in an organized way,” said Susannah Fox, an associate director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, which was to release the national study on Monday. Many of the people surveyed said the experience had changed their overall approach to health." Read more

See also

Fox, Susannah, and Maeve Duggan. "Tracking for Health." Pew Internet and American Life Project, January 28, 2013. 

Using Twitter to Track the Flu: Researchers Find a Better Way to Screen the Tweets

"Using Twitter to Track the Flu: Researchers Find a Better Way to Screen the Tweets." Johns Hopkins University, January 24, 2013. 

From the article: "Sifting through social media messages has become a popular way to track when and where flu cases occur, but a key hurdle hampers the process: how to identify flu-infection tweets. Some tweets are posted by people who have been sick with the virus, while others come from folks who are merely talking about the illness. If you are tracking actual flu cases, such conversations about the flu in general can skew the results.

To address this problem, Johns Hopkins computer scientists and researchers in the School of Medicine have developed a new tweet-screening method that not only delivers real-time data on flu cases, but also filters out online chatter that is not linked to actual flu infections. Comparing their method, which is based on analysis of 5,000 publicly available tweets per minute, to other Twitter-based tracking tools, the Johns Hopkins researchers say their real-time results track more closely with government disease data that takes much longer to compile." Read more

Technology-Enabled Medication Tracking: A Tough Nut To Crack

Darves, Bonnie. "Technology-Enabled Medication Tracking: A Tough Nut To Crack." iHealth Beat, January 14, 2013.  

From the article: "A patient who comes into the hospital for a complex cardiovascular procedure, at one end of the spectrum, or a straightforward pneumonia case, at the other, both face a safety risk in what may appear relatively simple to do: Getting, and maintaining, an accurate medication list.

Even with health IT advances and the march toward computerized provider order entry, health care facilities still struggle with the process of medication reconciliation, which is woven throughout the care continuum." Read more

Mining Electronic Records for Revealing Health Data

Jaret, Peter. "Mining Electronic Records for Revealing Health Data." The New York Times, January 14, 2013. 

From the article: "Over the past decade, nudged by new federal regulations, hospitals and medical offices around the country have been converting scribbled doctors’ notes to electronic records. Although the chief goal has been to improve efficiency and cut costs, a disappointing report published last week by the RAND Corp. found that electronic health records actually may beraising the nation’s medical bills.

But the report neglected one powerful incentive for the switch to electronic records: the resulting databases of clinical information are gold mines for medical research. The monitoring and analysis of electronic medical records, some scientists say, have the potential to make every patient a participant in a vast, ongoing clinical trial, pinpointing treatments and side effects that would be hard to discern from anecdotal case reports or expensive clinical trials." Read more 

Health Online 2013

Fox, Susannah, and Maeve Duggan. "Health Online 2013." Pew Research Center, January 15, 2013. 

From the report: "81% of U.S. adults use the internet and 59% say they have looked online for health information in the past year. 35% of U.S. adults say they have gone online specifically to try to figure out what medical condition they or someone else might have. 

Online resources join the stream of information flowing in from people's interactions with clinicians, family, and fellow patients. When respondents were asked about the last time they had a serious health issue and to whom they turned for help, either online or offline:
- 70% of U.S. adults got information, care, or support from a doctor or other health care professional.
- 60% got information or support from friends and family.
- 24% got information or support from others who have the same health condition." Read more

'Crowdfunding' Sites Pay Medical Bills, Raise Hopes

Alkon, Cheryl. "'Crowdfunding' Sites Pay Medical Bills, Raise Hopes." USA Today, January 11, 2013. 

From the article: "More people are turning to crowdfunding sites to ask friends, and friends of friends, for help with medical bills, accident costs and much more. But, surprise: Strangers give, too." Read more

Why Electronic Health Records Failed

Kliff, Sarah. "Why Electronic Health Records Failed." The Washington Post, January 11, 2013. 

From the article: "Back in 2005, researchers at the influential RAND Corp. made an optimistic prediction: Digitizing electronic medical records could save the health-care system at least $81 billion annually.

The savings were significant but not unreasonable: It would represent less than a 1 percent cut to health-care spending, much smaller than the 1.5 percent efficiency increase the retail sector saw when it went digital.

Seven years later, those savings have not materialized." Read more

ONC Delves into Patients' Privacy Concerns

Conn, Joseph. "ONC Delves into Patients' Privacy Concerns." Modern Healthcare, January 9, 2013.

From the article: "In considering whether to participate in a health information exchange, patients want to know whether their clinical information will be shared with their insurance company and whether their more sensitive information, in addition to routine patient information, will be included.

They also want to know whether, once they have opted into a health information exchange, they can ever opt back out.

These were the findings of a survey of patients at four healthcare organizations in western New York state who participated in the eConsent Trial Project sponsored by HHS' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology." Read more

What It Will Take To Achieve The As-Yet-Unfulfilled Promises Of Health Information Technology

Kellerman, Arthur L. and Spencer S. Jones. "What It Will Take To Achieve The As-Yet-Unfulfilled Promises Of Health Information Technology." Health Affairs 32 (2013): 62-68. 

From the article: "A team of RAND Corporation researchers projected in 2005 that rapid adoption of health information technology (IT) could save the United States more than $81 billion annually. Seven years later the empirical data on the technology’s impact on health care efficiency and safety are mixed, and annual health care expenditures in the United States have grown by $800 billion. In our view, the disappointing performance of health IT to date can be largely attributed to several factors: sluggish adoption of health IT systems, coupled with the choice of systems that are neither interoperable nor easy to use; and the failure of health care providers and institutions to reengineer care processes to reap the full benefits of health IT. We believe that the original promise of health IT can be met if the systems are redesigned to address these flaws by creating more-standardized systems that are easier to use, are truly interoperable, and afford patients more access to and control over their health data. Providers must do their part by reengineering care processes to take full advantage of efficiencies offered by health IT, in the context of redesigned payment models that favor value over volume." Read more 

Digital Health Funding Rose 45 Percent in 2012

Huessner, Ki Mae. "Digital Health Funding Rose 45 Percent in 2012." GigaOm, January 7, 2013. 

From the article: "According to health tech accelerator Rock Health, investors poured $1.4 billion into digital health companies last year, which is up 45 percent from 2011. The major areas of interest include healthcare purchasing tools for consumers, personal health tracking, Electronic Medical records and hospital administration." Read more

Is Your Doctor's iPad Good For Your Health?

Ungerleider, Neil. "Is Your Doctor's iPad Good For Your Health?" Fast Company, December 19, 2012.  

From the article: "Surgeons, doctors, nurses, residents, and other medical professionals all regularly use iPads on the job. The practice has inspired a cottage industry, health care innovation, and privacy concerns." Read more

2013 Forecast: Managing HIT and Patient Engagement on the Edge of the Fiscal Cliff

Sarasohn-Kahn, Jane. "2013 Forecast: Managing HIT and Patient Engagement on the Edge of the Fiscal Cliff." iHealth Beat, December 13, 2012.  

From the article: "Federal legislation, economic market realities and technology-supported patient-centered health care shape what 2013 will hold for health IT." Read more