Technology

While healthcare for retirees once meant repeated trips to the doctor’s office, many are now able to receive high-quality medical services without leaving the comfort of home. And it’s all because of telemedicine.

Cost, biosimilars, and technology dominated the conversations when managed care pharmacists, health plan administrators, physicians, and more gathered for the AMCP Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy Annual Meeting in San Francisco, April 19-22, 2016.

Flatiron Health has announced the development of a cloud-based electronic health record and an analytics tool to support reporting requirements for those clinics that will be selected to participate in the Oncology Care Model.

The current reactive healthcare system is driving digital health innovations, Yoona Kim, PharmD, PhD, head of clinical modeling and analytics with Proteus Digital Health, said at the AMCP Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy Annual Meeting 2016.

With patients increasingly demanding more of anyone involved in their healthcare, technology is playing an important role, explained panelists at a session of Specialty Pharmacy Connect, a pre-meeting program held ahead of the AMCP Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy Annual Meeting 2016.

Cancer pathways can potentially improve patient outcomes and reduce costs. Recent concerns about pathway adoption deserve attention, including excessive administrative burden to clinics.

Diabetes care is incredibly complex and people are still trying to use data to predict issues with glycemic control, determine what the best combinations of drugs are, and to improve adherence with patients, explained Lonny Reisman, MD, CEO of HealthReveal and keynote speaker at Patient-Centered Diabetes Care.

There may be some reluctance to reimburse telemedicine because there is a feeling that telemedicine costs might be added to overall cost, rather than be substituted, David Brumley, MD, MBA, senior medical director at Tufts Health Plan, explained at the 4th Annual Patient-Centered Diabetes Care Meeting, held April 7-8 in Teaneck, NJ.

Scottsdale Health Partners has improved coordinated care on both a physical and a virtual level through the creation of a secure texting connection for real-time collaboration, James Whitfill, MD, chief medical officer of Scottsdale Health Partners, explained at the National Association of Accountable Care Organizations’ Spring 2016 Conference.

This week is the 4th annual Patient-Centered Diabetes Care (PCDC), co-hosted by The American Journal of Managed Care and Joslin Diabetes Center. Here we highlight the top 5 things to look forward to at this year’s meeting.

How new technologies like mHealth and wearables may affect insurance providers and patient costs, according to Joseph C. Kvedar, MD, vice president of Connected Health at Partners HealthCare.

Getting patients access to their own data is a good thing that will increase engagement, but it is important that improving access to data will create cohesive care for the patient and not lead to fragmentation, said Julia Adler-Milstein, PhD, assistant professor at the School of Information and the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan.

New data-based tools need to be developed with the end user in mind in order to be made more effective, Eric Schneider, MD, MSc, senior vice president for policy and research at The Commonwealth Fund, said at the AcademyHealth National Health Policy Conference.

Sync for Science-a collaboration between the National Institutes of Health, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, and Harvard Medical School-will allow patients to access their own health data, which they can then share with researchers involved in the initiative.

What we're reading, March 25, 2016: Congress went on its spring recess without voting on Zika emergency funding; HealthCare.gov has more than 300 cybersecurity incidents; and Indiana's Medicaid expansion model has caught the attention of other conservative states.

What we're reading, March 23, 2016: moderate alcohol consumption may not have any health benefits; Johnson & Johnson researching the development of 2 diseases; and 2 more California hospitals received ransom demands from hackers.

Smartphone personal voice assistants, such as Siri and Cortana, often fail to provide appropriate information when asked questions about mental health, rape, and domestic violence.

What we're reading, March 22, 2016: the reduction of the uninsured rate was driven mostly by the Affordable Care Act, not economic recovery; heart disease rates dropped; and participation in meaningful use program declines.

Employers are willing to invest the money on emerging technologies aimed at improving employee wellbeing, but they face challenges with budgets and issues of confidentiality and privacy.

A new report published by the American Society of Clinical Oncology has drawn a mixed picture of oncology care in the United States-reduced mortality, increased survivors, and progress in treatment coupled with unsustainable costs and an unstable clinical setting.

In spite of a surge in telehealth-related policies, telehealth claims numbers remain low, according to an analysis of private payer reimbursements to primary care providers for telehealth services from 2009 to 2013.

Improved health technologies will help physicians better monitor patients with chronic conditions so that those patients can receive more effective care and will help build a bridge between what has been reported as effective in literature and applying it to the patient, explained Lonny Reisman, MD, founder and CEO of HealthReveal.

Integrated approaches using electronic health records, clinical decision support, and patient-controlled technologies may help improve the appropriate use of medication as well as the management of type 2 diabetes.

21st Century Oncology has informed patients that their patient database was compromised late last year.

Just how safe is the cloud and can we trust online software to keep sensitive medical billing data secure from a breach?