Technology

What we're reading, September 29, 2016: as part of the bill to prevent a government shutdown, the Senate has finally approved Zika virus funding; electronic health record breaches skyrocketed from 2014 to 2015; and California passes "right to try" law for terminally ill patients.

Research has shown that care provided through teledermatology is comparable to that delivered in face-to-face appointments, and future dermatologists are being taught to deliver care this way to improve patient access to expert dermatological care, said Nellie Konnikov, MD, professor and chief of dermatology at the Boston Department of Veterans Affairs.

Mix-ups in patient identification are a fairly frequent occurrence that can cause real harm to patients. These events are highly preventable with strategies.

The FDA has announced a public competition to develop a mobile application that allows users to find the nearest location of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone. Here are 5 things to know about the 2016 Naloxone App Competition.

While adoption of personal health records and electronic patient portals increased from 2012 to 2015, researchers at Weill Cornell Medical found that the adoption rates for Hispanics and low-income individuals have lagged behind non-Hispanics and higher-income individuals.

This week, the top stories in managed care were poll results that show Hillary Clinton is more trusted than Donald Trump when it comes to healthcare, multiple studies highlighting remaining disparities in healthcare, and results of a digital diabetes self-management program.

This study examines the leading edge of health information technology used to coordinate the care of complex patients.

Each year since 2011, beginning on the Friday of Independence Day weekend, the health information technology social media community is atwitter with nominations for thought leaders to include on the annual #HIT100 list.

Digital technology has great potential to improve the communication between providers and members, said Albert Tzeel, MD, MHSA, FAAPL, regional medical director of senior products at Humana. However, there are also drawbacks that come alongside digital technology that Dr Tzeel said is worth considering.

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.