Netsmart Advances Substance Use Disorder Solution Offerings Through Acquisition of Netalytics
Netsmart today announced the acquisition of Netalytics, a South Carolina-based addiction treatment software and practice management company, dedicated to developing technology for substance use disorder (SUD) providers focused on opioid addiction treatment. This acquisition will further extend the Netsmart CareFabric platform by enabling interoperable data sharing between opioid treatment program (OTP) facilities and the providers that treat and coordinate other types of care for individuals with SUD.
“Now more than ever it is critical to integrate Netalytics clients’ SUD treatment and recovery facilities and their i...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - October 20, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Healthcare IT News Tags: Health IT Company Healthcare IT Health IT Acquisitions Healthcare M&A Houlihan Lokey Mark Essex Mike Valentine Netalytics Netsmart Netsmart CareFabric Source Type: blogs
Navigating The New A2P 10DLC Regulations in Healthcare: A Guide for Healthcare Text Messaging
The following is a guest article by Dr. Lea McMahon LPC, EdD, Chief Clinic Officer at Symetria Recovery
Even in the sensitive healthcare industry, most patients prefer to communicate with their providers via text message instead of email, calls, or app messages.
New A2P 10DLC regulations require all businesses to register both their company and their specific text messages.
Quick note: A2P stands for Application-to-Person and essentially applies to all text messages that aren’t sent directly from a phone.
Starting September 1, 2023, A2P text messages that were not approved through this new process were blocked. For ...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - September 14, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Guest Author Tags: Ambulatory Clinical Communication and Patient Experience Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System IT Infrastructure and Dev Ops LTPAC Regulations A2P 10DLC Brand Registration Campaign Registration Dr. Lea McMahon Source Type: blogs
American Lung Association Wants to Keep Smokers Misinformed About the Relative Risks of Different Tobacco Products
Incomments submitted to the FDA in response to the Center for Tobacco Products ' (CTP) draft strategic plan, the American Lung Association expressed its opposition to one of the strategic goals, which was to " inform adults who smoke about the relative risks of tobacco products. " This goal primarily expressed the desire of the CTP to inform smokers that electronic cigarettes are much safer than real cigarettes and therefore may be considered as a safer alternative for smokers who are unable to quit using other cessation methods.The American Lung Association does not approve of this goal, writing: "Remove language from the...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - August 31, 2023 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs
A man in his 70s with weakness and syncope
DiscussionBrugada Type 1 ECG changes are associated with sudden cardiac death (SCD) and the occurrence of ventricular dysrhythmias. Patients that develop a Type 1 pattern without any precipitating or provoking factors have a risk of SCD of 0.5-0.8% per year. In patients that only have this pattern induced by a sodium channel blocking agent have a lower rate of SCD (0 - 0.35% per year)[1]. Drugs that have been associated with Brugada ECG patterns include tricyclic antidepressants, anesthetics, cocaine, methadone, antihistamines, electrolyte derangements, and even tramadol. [2]. Our patient had a Brugada Type ...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - July 22, 2023 Category: Cardiology Authors: Pendell Source Type: blogs
If SAMHSA Seriously Wants to Destigmatize People with Substance Use Disorder, It Can Start by Destigmatizing How They Receive Treatment
Jeffrey A. SingerIn 2001, the Food and Drug Administration transferred regulation of methadone treatment programs for opioid use disorder (nowadays called Opioid Treatment Programs or OTPs) to the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. DEA and SAMHSA work together to establish and enforce criteria for treating people with substance use disorder and the regulations that govern how health care practitioners prescribe and administer opioids as medication assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorder. The rules govern the dose and number of drugs clinicians prescri...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 3, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs
Congress Made it Easier to Treat Addiction but Harder to Treat Pain
Jeffrey A. SingerLate on the afternoon of December 23, the U.S. House of Representativespassed the approximately 1.7 trillion ‐dollar omnibus spending package, which now awaits President Biden’s signature. As is usually the case with such legislative monstrosities, the bill contains a few positive features and many negative ones. One positive part is that it repeals the so ‐called “X‑waiver” (an X is added to the DEA narcotics prescribing license), which the Drug Enforcement Administration has long required health care practitioners to apply for to prescribe the Schedule III opioid buprenorphine...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 23, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs
Rapid Diagnosis: Pinpoint Pupils
Abnormally constricted or “pinpoint” pupils are a great finding for our rapid diagnosis series. There are many things that can cause the pupil to abnormally dilate. Very few things will make the pupil abnormally constrict. Constricted pupils are a doorway to a very short list of ailments and with a bit of background you should be able to hang your hat on one fairly quick.
How So We Assess For “Pinpoint” Pupils?
Recall that the pupil should be mid-range and reactive under normal lighting conditions. When subjected to bright light, the pupil will constricted to reduce the volume of light entering the iris. In d...
Source: The EMT Spot - November 1, 2022 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Steve Whitehead Tags: EMT Source Type: blogs
Weekly Overseas Health IT Links –1st October, 2022.
This article details information required for integration into EHRs to build personalized treatment plans and develop successful SDOH programs that provide resources and support for patients in need. In addition, successful SDOH programs implemented by Kaiser Permanente and Boston Medical Center showcase how supporting clinicians with real-time SDOH data can lead to patient-centric care. Create a 360-Degree Patient View Through TechnologyThe Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)indicatesthat the “collection, documentation, reporting, access, and use of SDOH data … can be used t...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - October 1, 2022 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David G More MB PhD Source Type: blogs
Undisclosed Conflicts of Interest by Physicians Creating the CDC Opioid Prescribing Guidelines: Bad Faith or Incompetence?
We described above how changes in opioid policy aimed at reducing Washington State’s Medicaid and Workers Compensation costs contributed to an increase in methadone deaths between 2003 and late 2014 (23-25). Focusing on similar cost reductions, the Centers for Medicar e and Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed rules for 2019 including several directives intended to reduce " Opioid Overutilization, ” including adoption of the “90 morphine milligram equivalent (MME) threshold cited by the 2016 CDC Opioid Guideline (147, 148). Simply put, reduced prescribing reduces costs for prescribed medications.Chou received research fu...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - September 12, 2022 Category: Palliative Care Tags: health policy judy kollas opioids research schechtman Source Type: blogs
Weekly Overseas Health IT Links –10th September, 2022.
This article is adapted fromVoices in the Code: A Story About People, Their Values, and the Algorithm They Made,out Sept. 8 from Russell Sage Foundation Press.In May 2021, I got a call I never expected. I was working on abook about A.I. ethics, focused on the algorithm that gives out kidneys to transplant patients in the United States. Darren Stewart —a data scientist from UNOS, the nonprofit that runs the kidney allocation process—was calling to get my take: How many decimal places should they include when calculating each patient’s allocation score? The score is an incredibly important number, given it determines w...
Source: Australian Health Information Technology - September 10, 2022 Category: Information Technology Authors: Dr David G More MB PhD Source Type: blogs
Simplifying Opioid Conversions
by Drew Rosielle (@drosielle)A Satirical Monologue in One Act:“Ok, 3rd year resident, let’s talk about rotating opioids. What do I mean by ‘rotating’ opioids? It’s just therapeutically switching one opioid with another. It’s um, like, a turnstile, I guess? Anyway--first let’s look at this equianalgesic table. Do you know what equianalgesia means? No? It is the concept that different opioids have the same analgesic power but at different milligram doses due to different potencies. That is, the idea that, say, 50 mg of oral morphine has the same analgesic power as 10 mg of hydromorphone. So 50 mg of oral morphi...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - May 2, 2022 Category: Palliative Care Tags: opioid rosielle Source Type: blogs
New National Drug Control Strategy Takes Some Positive Steps But Can Go Much Further
Jeffrey A. SingerIn the wake of a Marchreport from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that drug overdose deaths climbed to a record 106,000 for the 12 months ending November 2021 (last November the agency reported100,000 overdose deaths for the 12 months ending April 2021), the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy published a National Drug Control Strategy today.On the positive side is ONDCP ’s new appreciation for the benefits ofharm reduction for reducing the risk of death and disease from using drugs obtained in the dangerous black market. The strategy includes a&nbs...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 21, 2022 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs
Opioid Equianalgesic Tables are Broken
by Drew Rosielle (@drosielle)I am proposing we do away with equianalgesic table (EAT) as a tool to inform clinical decisions about opioid rotations/conversions. Fundamentally, EATs create too many problems, and there are simpler and safer ways to teach clinicians how to convert between different opioids.Part 1: New Data Can ' t Fix the EATA couple HPM fellows every year ask me which table do I prefer to use —the old EAT or the new one? By the old one, they refer to the table most of us used or were at least deeply familiar with for the last 10-20 years. By the new one, they mean the one created by Dr. Mary Lynn McPherson...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - March 21, 2022 Category: Palliative Care Tags: opioid pain rosielle Source Type: blogs
What are these bizarre bigeminal PVCs??
Case 1This ECG was texted to me last week with the question: " What is this?? "What do you think?My answer:" This is a pre-torsades EKG. Watch out! Every other beat, a PVC, has anextremely long QT. In my experience, patients with ECGs like this are at very high risk of TORSADES. I have seen this several times. " OutcomeIt came from a patient who had been falling much, had a K of 2.8, and is on methadone but taking too much. The patient then received K and Mg. Torsades did not ensue. The ECG findings resolved after metabolism of methadone and K replenishment. See several sim...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - November 1, 2021 Category: Cardiology Authors: Steve Smith Source Type: blogs
