The digital health space refers to the integration of technology and health care services to improve the overall quality of health care delivery. It encompasses a wide range of innovative and emerging technologies such as wearables, telehealth, artificial intelligence, mobile health, and electronic health records (EHRs). The digital health space offers numerous benefits such as improved patient outcomes, increased access to health care, reduced costs, and improved communication and collaboration between patients and health care providers. For example, patients can now monitor their vital signs such as blood pressure and glucose levels from home using wearable devices and share the data with their doctors in real-time. Telehealth technology allows patients to consult with their health care providers remotely without having to travel to the hospital, making health care more accessible, particularly in remote or rural areas. Artificial intelligence can be used to analyze vast amounts of patient data to identify patterns, predict outcomes, and provide personalized treatment recommendations. Overall, the digital health space is rapidly evolving, and the integration of technology in health
Showing posts with label hix. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hix. Show all posts

Monday, June 16, 2014

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

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

TOPIC ALERT:

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.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Accountable Care Organizations and Health Information Exchange



No surprise here.  Accountable Care Organizations are going to require massive amounts of data sharing between the hospital, it's medical staff either as a whole or by  specialty.

Electronic health records and health information exchanges are an early beginning to having meaningful data, although the true nature and scope of HIE is limited by the fields that are interoperable and visible to users. Many health information exchanges only allow sharing of limited data....ie diagnosis, medications, and perhaps a discharge summary.  That in itself would be a helpful and very useful study.

Accountable Care Organizations will be searching for information systems to accomodate the needs of an ACO.

Hospital EMR & EHR reports

With accountable care becoming the standard for providers, more and more are seeking out best-of-breed vendors that can fill in the gaps in their health IT lineup and meet expected ACO requirements. It seems that just having it EMR in place doesn’t do the trick by itself. 

Management of an ACO is an entirely new industry, one that is very immature and the availabliity of experienced ACO  CEOs is very limited.  I am not sure what 'best of breed vendors means in such an immature market, nor how to compare or rate vendors.  This sounds much like a repeat of EHR software or Health Information Exchange offerings.

KLAS, a large consulting firm describes its mission, helping healthcare providers make informed technology decisions by reporting accurate, honest, and impartial vendor performance data.  The Best in KLAS Awards for Medical Equipment report is published June 15 and the Best in KLAS Awards for Software and Professional Services report is published December 15. 

 KLAS spoke with 73 organizations – mostly medium- to large-sized IDNs and hospitals –  to gauge where they are in their migration from volume to value and accountable care. The goal is to eliminate reimbursing for procedures to eliminate or minimize the 'do more' to gain  income mindset that has been embedded in the economics of medical reimbursement.

That's the conclusion from the newest KLAS report, "Accountable Care Timing 2013: Migration from Volume to Value Speeds Up," which shows that more than 65 percent of providers interviewed are looking to niche vendors to address the critical areas of population health, health information exchange and business intelligence.


We’ve known all along that the ACO game was going to be an expensive one. If KLAS is right, it’s going to be a whole new independent marketplace, in which providers shop for calls that fill in huge gaps in their existing ACO toolkit. If I were CIO, however, I’d be pretty annoyed that the huge investment made situation made in an EMR can’t get the job done all by itself.
Now the question is which health IT areas hospitals and medical practices will take on first; after all, there’s lots of ways to attack the question of how to prepare for the new, bold ACO world. My guess is that tools supporting population health measures will be particularly popular, as population health management is a key capability ACOs bring to the table that health systems alone may not.
The end game is complex, how to extract the data for analysis and merge it with population health measures, comparing expense with outcomes and maximizing better outcomes while holding expense flat, or decreasing it.
Some early ACO organizations are claiming some success in managing this goal, and it would be useful to survey what vendors and/or software combinations they use. Is it done in real time, or does it require separate data entry? 
The other big question is much like the analysis of ROI for EHR and HIX.  If the ACO will require new software, it will certainly be very expensive and no one can tell for certain what the ROI will be.
Several hospitals and INDs have lost considerable sums adopting well known EHR systems such as EPIC and/or Cerner. The failure of a central software infrastructure would be a fatal blow to a young ACO.  One that would rival the near catastrophic rollout of the national health benefit exchange in October 2013.
"This is a major shift from what we are seeing in most healthcare IT areas," said report author Mark Allphin. "What we are seeing in many areas is a migration toward integration. The fact that providers tell us that they will be looking to niche vendors over their EMRs tells us that the ACO market very likely is still up for grabs.”
So, this post raises more questions rather than answers. , 
Those early IDNs and early Pioneer ACOs may be ahead in discovering the answers to our questions.

Becker's Hospital Review lists 100 early ACOs, and CMS listed  32 initially, now down to 20 due to ACO dropouts.

Much of this information is open to question, a term which I call  "Truthiness'. CMS is claiming how successful their model is working.




According to CMS Nine of the 32 Pioneer ACOs are leaving the program, but the majority will continue. It is not surprising that some health care systems would re-evaluate their participation and choose to move on. The program does not guarantee that it will be the right fit for every health system. That’s the nature of innovation. And no model may be right for every population in every community.  It is important, however, to examine these departures for the lessons they offer.

Further commentary from CMS:

"We remain optimistic. ACOs represent one innovative model with the potential to improve care coordination, ideally leading to improved quality and lower costs. Testing of that model should continue, and we are pleased that the Medicare ACO program has given a boost to the development of ACOs, which are now proliferating among private health plans and provider groups"

Is this the message of idealogues, who will forge forward no matter the variability of success or failure.

We have seen the early missteps of Health Benefit Exchanges and there should be no reason to trust  CMS plans and/or statements.

Digital Health Space will be watching this niche carefully.