WATSON HERE:

Jason Anderson: How to add IBM Watson to your projects

Mankind has great difficulty dealing with Exponential Change. The rate of change challenges our ability to cope and adapt to it..  Something health providers, hospitals and caregivers are struggling with more and more in their challenge in  health reform, affordable care act, accountable care act, ICD 10, Meaningful Use, MACRA, MIPS and more. These changes distract from patient care as well as add to the  output from healthcare 

As this occurs it is necessary to use that which we have developed....computer artificial intelligence. An elementary form of this allows complex calculations for genomics, space travel, neurolinguistics which allows speech recognition and translation.

If you have some computer fluency, this is probably straight forward. It seems to be a bit like developing an app.

Most physicians are familiar with Watson, often called artificial intelligence.  You may have thought WATSON access was expensive and limited to enterprise health systems. Not so. The video explains the basics.

Jason Anderson is a Cognitive Architect and Partner at Comp Three Inc. in Silicon Valley. He helps clients improve their business and products by leveraging cutting edge Cognitive and Analytic technologies. Additionally he has been assisting IBM in building new Watson offerings.

Jason previously spent five years as a Cloud Architect for IBM

Register for WATSON

Once you have registered you will be able to explore free for 30 days.
Dashboard is a good place to begin
The Top Banner also can be used as the Main Menu
There is full documentation and pricing for using Watson based upon runtime resources used.

Ref: The Design and Implementation of Probabilistic Programming Languages
Slideshare by Noah D. Goodman and Andreas Stuhlmüller

Additional Background Information and References:

Ginni Rometty, CEO IBM | Code Conference 2016

Ray Kurzweil Interviewed By Steven Chu

Watson Is not the Only Player in Artificial Intelligence

Google's Deep Mind Explained! - Self Learning A.I.

Emergency Regulations proposed for Covered California Is It ? Jones Releases Emergency Rule Over Narrow Provider Networks

Are you one of the hundreds of thousands who accepted the incompetent design of 'The Affordable Care Act ?  You are not alone.

It has taken more than one year of operation for state health officials to recognize this current disaster. 

The affordable care act has delivered an empty promise, deception, and a boiler plate plan that gives  you a health insurance card...Good luck after that.

Sick patients require help and assistance. Those who are well and especially those who have an acute or chronic illness have many challenges in life, should not and cannot negotiate the web sites, and even when they do, much of it is incomprehensible.  

Haste in signing up due to arbitrary guidelines and enrollment dates add additional challenges for those still uninsured, and those who have discovered just how terrible their new plans are presents challenges for most.

Help may be on the way now that State Commissioner for Health Insurance, Dave Jones is responding to complaints from California Consumers.  Jones is the head of the California Managed Care programs.





California State Health Commissioner, Dave Jones

On Monday, the California Department of Insurance issued an emergency regulation that aims to address narrow provider networks in the state and improve residents' access to care, Capital Public Radio's "KXJZ News" reports. 

According to the state Department of Managed Health Care, several insurers, including Anthem, have violated state law by misleading consumers about the size of their provider networks  State Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones (D) said DOI has "received complaints from consumers across the state about long waiting times, about inaccurate directories of providers, about being charged out-of-network costs when there isn't an in-network provider. The list goes on and on and on" 

Details of Emergency Regulation

The emergency regulation requires insurers to:

• Adhere to new standards for appointment wait times (DOI release, 1/5);
• Offer an adequate number of physicians, clinics and hospitals to patients who live in certain areas;
• Provide an accurate list of in-network providers ("KXJZ News," Capital Public Radio, 1/5);
• Provide out-of-network care options for the same price as in-network care when the number of in-network providers is insufficient; and
• Report to DOI information about their networks and any changes.

The emergency regulation will go into effect after it has been reviewed by the Office of Administrative Law. According to a release, emergency regulations often go into effect more quickly than standard regulations (DOI release, 1/5).

According to Jones, he can bar insurers that do not comply with the regulation from selling insurance in the state next year 

Women in Healthcare IT

When it comes to attaining IT leadership positions, women have come a long way — but there’s still a ways to go. According to a recent study in the Journal of Healthcare Management, women make up 74 percent of the healthcare workforce, but are only represented by 24 percent of the senior executive team. It’s a statistic that comes of no surprise to our panelists — Mary Alice Annecharico, Bobbie Byrne, MD, Jane Loveless, and Sue Schade — four influential leaders who have defied the odds and, in doing so, serve as role models for young women and men who aspire to become leaders in the field. In this four-part series, the four CIOs share their thoughts on the barriers that still exist for women — and how they can be overcome; why mentoring is so critical; the many benefits of women’s professional networks; and how technology can be leveraged to improve work-life balance. They also speak about their own career paths, the tough choices they’ve had to make, and the power of self-confidence.

Mary Alice Annecharico, SVP/CIO, Henry Ford Health System

Bobbie Byrne, MD, System VP & CIO, Edward Elmhurst Healthcare

Jane Loveless, VP/CIO, Grand View Hospital

Sue Schade, CIO, University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers





Women, in general are making some strides in breaking the "glass ceiling" In general  women are becoming more prominent in medicine, than previously.  In 1968 when  I graduated from medical school there were only 8 females in a class of 108. Today most schools enroll close to 40-50% of the class with women.

One in 10 U.S. Residents Affected by Large Health Data Breaches

Monday, June 16, 2014

TOPIC ALERT:

• Privacy and Security

Click on topic to receive periodic emails.

More than 1,000 medical record breaches involving 500 or more people have been reported to HHS since federal reporting requirements took effect nearly five years ago, according to HHS,Modern Healthcare's "Vital Signs" reports (Conn, "Vital Signs,"Modern Healthcare, 6/13).

HHS has been tracking data breaches since September 2009, when the HIPAA breach notification rule went into effect. The agency reports health information breaches affecting more than 500 individuals on its "wall of shame" website (iHealthBeat, 4/1).

Since 2009, HHS has received:

• 1,026 reports of breaches involving 500 or more individuals; and
• More than 116,000 breach reports involving records of fewer than 500 individuals through March 1, 2013.

In total, large health data breaches reported by health care providers and their business associates have affected the medical records of about one in 10 U.S. residents, or 31.7 million people. 

Meanwhile, more than 32,600 HIPAA complaint cases have been investigated, with more than 22,500 of them closing with corrective action, according to HHS Office for Civil Rights spokesperson Rachel Seeger ("Vital Signs," Modern Healthcare, 6/13)

Privacy Penalties on the Rise

In related news, HHS Chief Regional Civil Rights Counsel Jerome Meites at an American Bar Association Conference last week said he expects penalties under HIPAA to increase drastically in the next year, The Hill reports.

Since June 2013, HHS has received more than $10 million for HIPAA violations, according toLaw360. However, Meites said, "I suspect that that number will be low compared [with] what's coming up" (Viebeck, The Hill, 6/13).

Many EMR and EHR services are cloud based, and dependent upon internet connectivity.  Despite HIPAA we can expect breaches from otherwise secure sites. It is important to notify patients when breaches occur.

The ObamaCare Paper Pile-Up

The Obamacare Paper Pileup




When HealthCare.gov and some state-run insurance marketplaces ran into trouble with their Web sites in October and November, they urged consumers to submit paper applications.


Now, ProPublica's Charles Ornstein reports , it's time to process all that paper. And with the deadline to enroll in health plans less than two weeks away, there's growing concern that some of these applications won't be processed in time.

Some key points compiled from reporting around the nation:
After a conference call earlier this week with federal health officials, Illinois health officials sent a memo Thursday to their roughly 1,600 navigators saying there is no way to complete enrollment through a paper application.



Covered California in recent days disclosed that it had a backlog of 25,000 paper applications that had to be processed before the Dec. 23 deadline to sign up for coverage that begins Jan. 1.
In Oregon, a state official disclosed this week that more than 30,000 people who submitted health insurance applications still don't have enrollmentpackets

In Maryland, another state whose exchange has been plagued by difficulties, 8,500 paper applications were pending as of last week.

In Vermont, there is a backlog of 1,210 applications, some dating back to as early as Oct. 30.
It does not look good for a smooth transition to a January 1 startup date.  Even for those who have enrolled there have been no reports as to who has received premium billings. That is the bottom line......no $$ no insurance. Perhaps our government should automatically pay the premiums for the first 90 days to make up for their negligence, and not really giving a damn if this works.

The full story is available here: http://www.propublica.org/article/the-obamacare-paper-pileup

- See more at: http://digitalhealthspace.blogspot.com/#.dpuf