Digital transformation is expanding the cyber attack surface in health care and other sectors. Today, threat actors are working overtime to exploit vulnerabilities in health care systems, its primary care physicians and their applications, resulting in data breaches that expose confidential and protected information. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is […]
Contrary to widespread hopes, the growth in telehealth brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic probably won’t lower health care costs. But it may make some services more widely accessible. A new Kaiser Family Foundation study compares average 2020 commercial insurance payments for evaluation and management and mental health therapy claims for services provided via […]
More than 80% of leading health systems that are using RPA/AI say their primary reason for investing in the technology was improving financial performance, but once the technology was in use, they said efficiency was the top benefit. The reasons that leading health systems initially invest in robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI) […]
A new Lumeon survey lists improving patient access, team coordination, and improving care quality as top wishes, but inadequate budgets, data silos, and inflexible EHRs remain as barriers. While the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how huge a role technology can play in making the care process more efficient and convenient, simply revving up patient engagement […]
Being a physician comes with certain baseline stressors. For most, the culprits are pretty familiar: patient care responsibilities, high debt loads that compel long working hours, system complexities, and mounting administrative chores. COVID-19 has added yet another layer to the burdens that already contribute to physician burnout. As an emergency physician, walking into work every […]
To support the sudden increase in test results and medical records being transmitted during the pandemic, hospitals, laboratories, and pharmacies implemented additional devices and remote connections into their networks. After the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) lifted penalties around telehealth to expand care options amid the crisis, new platforms were adopted that were not previously allowed […]
The clinical documentation improvement (CDI) vendor landscape has undergone significant changes over the last couple of years, including vendor acquisitions and technology developments. And these changes and other factors have had an impact on customer experience, according to a recent KLAS report. For example, vendors like Iodine, Optum, and 3M have gained momentum over the past […]
By April of last year, seemingly every news station in American was featuring the heroic efforts of physicians, nurses, and other clinicians fighting COVID-19. These providers transformed healthcare, implementing telehealth and virtual care, standing up new wards in hotels, sports arenas, and schools, and finding new ways to stretch precious supplies. But behind those transformations […]
As hospitals and health systems continue the battle against COVID-19, shipments of vaccine are arriving to protect the highest-risk employees. As more doses become available in the weeks ahead, initiatives will ramp up in an effort to deploy the vaccine to millions of Americans. HealthLeaders has been talking to health system representatives about their deployment […]
As more US patients are diagnosed with COVID-19, a number of industry associations have recognized telemedicine—the practice of using technology to deliver healthcare remotely—as a viable means to give patients access to care and minimize exposure to the disease. Adoption of virtual care has increased as the pandemic has significantly imperiled the country and the […]