Donate to fight cancer Although I like to start off on a happy note, even the sunniest of days has a few clouds. First, Helen, Davina, Lynne, Art, Mike, and Suzanne are doing well. Cancer …
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How MACRA Will Shift Providers’ IT Efforts
For the MACRA program to be effective patient data from numerous points of care must be collected, yet ineffective interoperability presents a substantial barrier to producing the necessary reports.
Continue readingWhy the Explosion of IoMT Exposes Providers’ Security Risk
IoMT devices require robust security protocols embedded in the devices to protect their connected networks from infiltration by hackers.
Continue readingEHR Vendors Raise Provider Expectations for Other IT Vendors
The rapid deployment of EMR systems into provider organizations created problems for ERP vendors.
Continue readingNew Standard Can FHIR Up Precision Medicine
Most medical treatments are designed to treat the average patient. This broad approach fails to account for the differences in genetics, physiology, environments, and lifestyles that greatly impact the effectiveness of therapies.
Continue readingIt’s Vegas Baby
As the nation monitors the back and forth between the FBI and Apple over unlocking the San Bernadino shooter’s iPhone, health IT professionals face their own major security and privacy challenges.
Continue readingRein in National Drug Spending
Drug costs now account for about 20% of all healthcare expenditures.
Continue readingPutting Interoperability on FHIR
This lack of interoperability leads to incorrect diagnoses, ineffective therapeutic plans, and unnecessary and costly duplicate testing.
Continue readingPredicting the Future: What to Look for in 2016
The role of a prognosticator is to accurately predict the future. We will see how well I have done when December rolls around.
Continue readingHow to Keep Score
Purchasing health information technology is obviously a risky and more difficult decision than choosing a bottle of red wine for dinner.
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When in Crisis Mode, Let Everyone Follow the Data
During normal times, managers often make decisions based on their knowledge and experience; analysis of data to varying degrees informs that decision-making process. Circumstances change at an easily manageable pace, errors in judgment can be corrected, and the impact of those poor choices is often insignificant. During a healthcare crisis, however, the cost of being wrong is exponential.
Continue readingFrom Snow to Achuff: Using Analytics to Drive Clinical Change
John Snow, the English physician whose work arguably helped to halt an 1854 London cholera epidemic, is considered one of the founders of modern epidemiology. Drawing on his knowledge of statistics, Snow decided to plot …
Continue readingEnterprise Analytics: Data, Insight, Process Change, Repeat
In 1966, Avedis Donabedian proposed a conceptual model for examining health services and evaluating quality of care. The Donabedian model includes three pillars: structure, process, and outcomes. As organizations strive to excel in healthcare’s world …
Continue readingDigitally Driven: Link Technology to Process Change
There are essentially two types of dashboards: point analytics dashboards and surveillance dashboards. Point analytics dashboards, sometimes described as ad-hoc analytics reports, focus on examining data to identify the potential cause of an unwanted outcome. …
Continue readingAI: Augmented Intelligence or Electric Sheep?
Visionary Elon Musk fears it. Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking worried about it. Microsoft’s Bill Gates embraces it. Science fiction writer Philip K. Dick wrote about androids having the capacity to dream because of it. At HIMSS 2019, everyone talked about it.
Continue readingBelieving is Seeing
Data collection and its use surrounds us. Our mobile phones trace where we live, work, buy our groceries, and visit friends. Today’s trip to some online shopping sites shows me ads for puppies (my children …
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