Sophisticated Monitors Move into Homes; Inpatient and Home Care Merge
I have posted a number of notes abouthealth wearables and monitors (see, for example:Is Healthcare Ready to Embrace the Consumer"Wearable" Revolution?;AT&T Offers the LTE-M, Low-Powered Network for Uploading Wearable Health Data). These devices will have a major effect on both healthy consumers as well as the chronically ill. In the former case, wearables can be used to monitor daily activities and, using various types of descriptive, diagnostic, and predictive analytics, will guide consumers in their pursuit of wellness (see:Healthcare Will Contribute a Sizable Portion of Future Earnings for Apple).�...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 29, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Cost of Healthcare Diagnostics Electronic Health Record (EHR) Food and Drug Administration Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Innovations Point-of-Care Testing Predictive Analytics Preventive Medicine Source Type: blogs
Surgical Coaching as a New Option; Will Busy Surgeons Respond?
All practicing physicians are challenged by the fact that healthcare is constantly changing because of new scientific and therapeutic advances. Additional burdens in the U.S. are the complex bureaucracy and reimbursement requirements as well as technical challenges such as those associated with EHRs (see:Relationship Between Clerical Burden and Characteristics of the Electronic Environment With Physician Burnout and Professional Satisfaction). Surgeons, in particular, face additional burdens as they age because of the manual dexterity that is required in the operating room. I was not familiar with coaching programs for sur...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 27, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Electronic Health Record (EHR) Healthcare Innovations Medical Education Medicolegal Issues Source Type: blogs
Healthcare Will Contribute a Sizable Portion of Future Earnings for Apple
In a recent note, I discussed how Apple was sponsoring theMIPACT study at the University of Michigan involving the use of Apple Watches + iPhones and home health monitoring (see:MIPACT Study Sponsored by Apple Provides a Preview of Home Health Monitoring). A recent article predicts that healthcare will be a major source of revenue for Apple in the future (see:Health care is one of Apple's most lucrative opportunities). Below is an excerpt from the article:Apple's opportunity in health care is so large with the Apple Watch that the company should soon generate tens of billions of dollars a year in annual revenue fro...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 25, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Diagnostics Electronic Health Record (EHR) Healthcare Business Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Innovations Medical Research Predictive Analytics Preventive Medicine Source Type: blogs
UnitedHealth Expands Bundled Payments in Its Medicare Advantage Plans
The essence of value-based care is that reimbursement is based on positive outcomes for patients as opposed to fee-for-service in which in which providers select the services delivered, often with insufficient attention to outcomes. Ideally, value-based care results in higher quality care at a lower cost (see:Provider Organizations Beginning to Compete on the Basis of Value-Based Care. One of the key questions regarding value-based care is how to achieve this goal. It now appears that a major"on-ramp" will be Medicare Advantage plans and bundled payments as explained in a recent article (see:UnitedHea...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 23, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Business Healthcare Delivery Healthcare Insurance Medical Consumerism Public Health Quality of Care Source Type: blogs
A New Way to Gain Additional Diagnostic Information from Radiology Images
I had previously thought that I had a good grasp of the term biomarkerwhen I posted a note about it more than thirteen years ago (see:Use of Term Biomarker vs. Analyte). The definition that I used at that time was:any molecular species found to provide correlation to a particular phenotype or perturbation of a biological system.Unstated at that time was that the molecular species was found in a biologic fluids like blood, serum, or urine. Now comes an article that upsets this definition but that makes a persuasive argument for doing so (see:U-M startup analyzes data from patient imaging files ...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 21, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Diagnostics Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Innovations Medical Research Radiology Source Type: blogs
Questions about the Interpretation of BRCA Testing by 23andMe
Lab testing for the genes that predispose a person to develop cancer is highly complex, both to preform and interpret. For example and relating to BRCA, I have blogged about some of the pitfalls of such testing (see:BRCA Exchange Available on the Web; Understanding BRCA Variants). Here's a quote from this note discussing some of the complexities that are encountered:It's not known among some healthcare consumers that there are a host of BRCA variants other than the standard ones. Normal BRCA testing looks forthree specific genetic variants that are linked to hereditary cancers. Two of these variants —...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 19, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Industry News Clinical Lab Testing Diagnostics Direct Access Testing (DAT) Food and Drug Administration Genomic Testing Healthcare Innovations Lab Industry Trends Lab Regulation Medical Consumerism Medical Education Medi Source Type: blogs
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(see:Startup uses phone, light and AI to detect cervical cancer)Israeli startup MobileODT has created the Eva System, which uses an Automated Visual Evaluation (AVE) algorithm that it says can detect cervical cancer by simply examining an image of the cervix (Courtesy) Israeli startup MobileODT has created the Eva System, which uses an Automated Visual Evaluation (AVE) algorithm that it says can detect cervical cancer by simply examining an image of the cervix (Courtesy) Israeli start-up MobileODT says it can detect cervical cancer more accurately and inexpensively than the standard colposcopy method used today, by creatin...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 17, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Source Type: blogs
MIPACT Study Sponsored by Apple Provides a Preview of Home Health Monitoring
I will shortly enroll in theMIPACT study sponsored by Apple and being run at the University of Michigan. The acronym stands forMichigan Predictive Activity& Clinical Trajectories study. The goal of the study is to understand the relationship between biosensors, health information, and health outcomes. Participants are required to own an iPhone and are then providedgratis with anApple Watch and anOmron wireless blood pressure monitor. These devices are necessary to perform various tasks in the study such as blood pressure measurement with the Omron device. EHR access is part of the program and a blood sample...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 17, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Diagnostics Electronic Health Record (EHR) Genomic Testing Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Innovations Medical Consumerism Medical Research Predictive Analytics Preventive Medicine Test Kits and Home Testing Source Type: blogs
CMS Offers $1M Reward for AI to Predict Unplanned Hospitalizations
Regarding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to provide efficiency gains in various healthcare processes, there have been a number of articles suggesting how to launch this new technology. I have discussed AI analytics in multiple blog notes (see, for example:Healthcare AI Market to Surge; Already Commonplace in Radiology;Cerner Offers AI Tool to Combat Physician EHR Burnout;Which Healthcare Jobs Are Safe from Replacement by Automation or Robots?). Hospitals will certainly be pursuing this goal on their own in order to reduce risk and costs. A recent article indicated that CMS was accelerating this process by launchin...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 16, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Cost of Healthcare Electronic Health Record (EHR) Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Innovations Hospital Financial Predictive Analytics Preventive Medicine Source Type: blogs
Interactive Audio as an Emerging, Disruptive Technology in Healthcare
The voice-user interface device from Amazon calledAlexa is now HIPAA compliant (see:Amazon Alexa Now HIPAA Compliant; Watch for the Next Steps). This means that we are on the verge of a wide variety of new voice-user interface (VUI) apps relating to healthcare, some of which were detailed in a recent article (see:Voice Technology: A Disruptive Force in Healthcare). Below is an excerpt from the article:Last month, an Amazon spokesperson told a reporter that the company frequently receives positive feedback from “aging-in-place” customers who use Alexa’s smart-home features as an alternative to going up and down ...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 10, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Delivery Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Innovations Medical Consumerism Point-of-Care Testing Preventive Medicine Test Kits and Home Testing Source Type: blogs
The Continuing Problem of Duplicate EHR Records for the Same Patient
I have previously blogged about the chronic and continuing problem of duplicate EHR records (see:Duplicate Patient Records as a Major and Costly EHR and EMPI Problem). Think of the problem in this way: it's relatively easy for a hospital registrar to create a new patient record but very risky to merge two nominally identical patient records because they may not represent the same person. This reluctance to merge records results in hidden data that may be critical in the care of a particular patient. A recent article dealt with this problem (see:Why Is It So Hard to Match Patients With Their Medical Records?) and ...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 8, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Computer Security Electronic Health Record (EHR) Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Innovations Medical Consumerism Medical Research Medicolegal Issues Public Health Quality of Care Source Type: blogs
Smartphone Camera Utilized to Analyze Urine Dipstick Color Changes
When I look to the future of home-based, consumer-oriented lab testing, I tend to think mostly about lab-on-a-chip using mocrofluidics (see:INTRODUCTION TO LAB-ON-A-CHIP 2015 : REVIEW, HISTORY AND FUTURE). Often forgotten has been dipstick technology that has been used for many decades for urinalysis and pregnancy testing. Now comes news that an Israel-based company is using smartphone cameras to more precisely interpret the color changes in dipsticks (See:Healthy.io uses your smartphone's camera for medical lab testing at home). Below is an excerpt from the article:Dip.io uses a smartphone and a dipstick to perf...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 6, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Clinical Lab Industry News Clinical Lab Testing Diagnostics Food and Drug Administration Healthcare Innovations Lab Industry Trends Lab Processes and Procedures Medical Consumerism Medical Research Point-of-Care Testing Test Kits and H Source Type: blogs
Amazon Alexa Now HIPAA Compliant; Watch for the Next Steps
Having Alexa HIPAA-compliant is a necessary first step in deploying the device and its supporting software into all manner of health settings. This goal has now been achieved (see:Amazon Alexa is now HIPAA-compliant). Below is an excerpt from the article announcing this step and whats's next:Alexa is moving into healthcare.Following a trial of Amazon ’s smart speakers in patients’ rooms at Cedars-Sinai, the company this morning announced an invite-only program allowing select developers to create and launch HIPAA-compliant healthcare skills for Alexa. The skills allow consumers to ask the virtual assistant fo...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 6, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Cost of Healthcare Electronic Health Record (EHR) Healthcare Information Technology Healthcare Innovations Medical Research Quality of Care Source Type: blogs
Predatory " Publisher and Conference Organizer " Hit with a $50M Court Judgement
I first became aware of theOmics Group six years ago when I blogged about the fraud that the company was perpretating (see:Welcome to the World of Pseudo-Academia: Pathology-2013). Here's a quote from that note about how the company was offering a set of fake scientific conferences and journals to fleece the unwary:Here's a link to thetwenty different conferences that the Omics Group has planned for....[originally 2013 but the web site has now been updated to the present time].The only way that I can describe this conference enterprise, putting aside the journals, is comprehensively audacious. Do registrants ...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 4, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Healthcare Business Medical Consumerism Medical Education Medical Ethics Source Type: blogs
Need for Immediate Action to Eliminate Gag Clauses in EHR Contracts
I have blogged frequently about the gag clauses that have been a standard part of EHR contracts for decades (see, for example:Physician& Nurse Involvement in EHR Design; Patient Safety and EHR Gag Clauses;Gag Clauses in EHR Contracts Documented; Concerns Raised about Patient Safety;Legislation Introduced in Senate to Address Gag Orders in EHR Contracts). Hospital personnel encountering EHR issues that can compromise patient safety are restricted by such clauses from discussing them with anyone other than their EHR vendor. Compare this with drug adverse effects which by law must be reported to the FDA as well as t...
Source: Lab Soft News - April 3, 2019 Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Bruce Friedman Tags: Blood banking Electronic Health Record (EHR) Food and Drug Administration Healthcare Information Technology Medicolegal Issues Pathology Informatics Public Health Quality of Care Source Type: blogs
