Technology

Medication adherence is a complex issue, and Lonny Reisman, MD, CEO of HealthReveal, emphasized the importance of better understanding what methods or strategies will help motivate patients to do what is in their best interest.

Maximizing the utility of technology platforms and making them meaningful to ensure quality cancer care was the underlying theme of Emerging Issues and Opportunities in Health Information Technology, a National Comprehensive Cancer Network Policy Summit, held June 27, 2016, in Washington, DC.

Gregory C. Simon, executive director, White House Cancer Task Force, spoke at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Policy Summit in Washington, DC. “Just like the original moonshot, the Cancer Moonshot is about using technology and the resulting information,” he said.

At the Emerging Issues and Opportunities in Health Information Technology Policy Summit hosted by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, on June 27, 2016, an afternoon panel discussed the role of technology and its importance in promoting dissemination of data.

Karen B. DeSalvo, MD, MPH, the national coordinator for health information technology, will be relinquishing the position on August 12. HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell sent an e-mail to HHS staff to announce the change.

Advances in information technology is enabling peope to collect and store more health information than every before. How can we harness these valuable insights to help people with chronic disease live longer, healthier, happier lives?

What we're reading, August 4, 2016: a new startup is aiming to move clinical trial data to the cloud; Aetna is informing physicians about the opioid prescribing habits; and Florida deploys a mosquito control team to combat Zika virus.

Technology has come to play an important role in the way health plans are interacting with consumers. According to Jay Sheehy, senior vice president of product innovation at EmblemHealth, technology not only gives health plans customized means of communicating with consumers, but it also allows them to better analyze data to tailor messages to each individual.

A list of a few recent developments in the world of health information technology (Health IT).

To help clinics meet the objectives and reporting requirements of the Oncology Care Model (OCM), Flatiron Health has developed OncoEMR, a cloud-based electronic health record (EHR) coupled with an analytics tool.

Michael Kolodziej, MD, has joined Flatiron Health as national medical director, Managed Care Strategy.

A collaborative pilot that includes the California Department of Public Health, is studying whether near—real-time reporting of cancer diagnoses by pathologists will permit providers to make more informed and timely treatment decisions.

Patients with lung cancer who participated in a Web-based system for reporting and tracking their symptoms achieved dramatic gains in survival compared with individuals who were followed with typical protocols, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

New health technologies will not automatically address disparities-it all depends on how those tools are used, explained Julia Adler-Milstein, PhD, assistant professor at the School of Information and the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan.

As the healthcare industry moves from volume to value, new healthcare delivery models are being tested and promoted, and CMS has put a lot of faith into the accountable care organization. So has Aledade.

The way the meaningful use program was structured was more about the adoption of electronic health records and not interoperability, and in order to get there, the US health system needs to first understand what it wants interoperability to do.

Incorporating big data is essential as it can help explain failures in medical practice, accumulate patient information, and perform a variety of other useful functions, explained Lonny Reisman, MD, CEO of HealthReveal.

One of the biggest concerns Farzad Mostashari, MD, chief executive officer of Aledade, has about accountable care organizations, is that they are going to experience backlash similar to what managed care has received in the past.

Panelists at the policy summit hosted by National Comprehensive Cancer Network agreed that sharing information can help create a learning system that can improve patient outcomes.

A recent study of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Web-based patient portal, My HealtheVet, found a small, statistically significant and potentially meaningful improvement in diabetes-related physiologic measures among patients who started and sustained use of the portal's features.

Gregory C. Simon, executive director, White House Cancer Task Force, spoke at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Policy Summit, held just 2 days before the Cancer Moonshot Summit.

When comparing a private practice with a larger healthcare system, Linda Bosserman, MD, assistant clinical professor and staff physician, City of Hope, said that the challenges can run across the system.

Data interoperability remains a challenge among practicing physicians and health plans, mainly because each system operates on its own standards and vocabulary, explained Jason C. Goldwater, MA, MPA, senior director, National Quality Forum.

Maximizing the utility of technology platforms and making them meaningful to ensure quality cancer care was the underlying theme of Emerging Issues and Opportunities in Health Information Technology, a National Comprehensive Cancer Network Policy Summit.

Although physiologic vital signs tell healthcare providers a great deal about their patients’ health status, providers need, but don’t have ready access to, information about their patients’ neighborhoods.