HITInsight Blog Archives

Patient portals: Build them well and they will come

Submitted by D'Arcy Gue on Tue, 02/28/2017 - 16:00

Let’s face it, there will always be a segment of your patient population that just isn't interested in using a patient portal. But with so much of life now conducted online, the good news is that robust design and usefulness will engage most patients.

Over time, a portal should become the foundation for more extensive electronic communications between patient and provider—a tiny seedling that will hopefully blossom into a collaborative relationship. So, what functionalities should patient portal tools have to succeed?

Categories: 
Patient Portals

Take these six steps to alleviate patient anxiety about data security

Submitted by D'Arcy Gue on Wed, 02/22/2017 - 10:58

Not every patient admitted to your hospital will know that healthcare promises to be the most frequent target of hacking efforts in 2017.

But many will. They may be among the 21 percent of patients who withhold information from their doctor for fear of data breaches.

Categories: 
Security

Thinking of buying more EHR than you can afford?

Submitted by D'Arcy Gue on Wed, 02/15/2017 - 13:55

There wasn’t just one cause of the 2008 Great Recession, but certainly a major factor was the creative lending instruments banks used to qualify prospective home buyers. As is now well known, massive mortgage defaults among those homeowners undermined the integrity of mortgage-backed securities and came within a hair’s breadth of tanking both the American and global economies.

Categories: 
Revenue Cycle Management

The viability of rural healthcare relies on evolution

Submitted by Irv Lichtenwald on Tue, 02/07/2017 - 16:01

Choice can be a double-edged sword—we all want more of it, but with too many choices paralysis can set in. Choosing a physician or hospital, for example, in an urban or suburban area without some kind of recommendation can truly be a daunting task.

But it beats having few or no choices. Increasingly, that’s the situation rural Americans find themselves in as the number of hospitals decreases and specialists stay in the cities.

Categories: 
Population Health, Rural Healthcare

It’s 2017. Do you know where your interoperability is?

Submitted by D'Arcy Gue on Tue, 01/31/2017 - 11:31

With January barely behind us and new occupants in the White House, perhaps it’s a good time to set aside what might change for a moment and focus on what must. Interoperability is a more urgent concern in 2017 due to goals established last year by the Office of the National Coordinator (ONCHIT) and the passage of the 21st Century Cures Act, which legally requires healthcare IT interoperability by the end of the current calendar year.

Categories: 
Interoperability

IoT Devices Top a Long List of 2017 Security Threats

Submitted by D'Arcy Gue on Tue, 01/17/2017 - 10:42

It’s worth remembering that 2016 was dubbed the “year of data security” after 90 percent of healthcare providers suffered data breaches in the previous two years. In particular, the Anthem breach of late 2014/early 2015 got everyone’s attention for the sheer magnitude (around 80 million records) of the hack.

Categories: 
Security

America has a rural healthcare crisis. Technology can help.

Submitted by Irv Lichtenwald on Mon, 01/09/2017 - 15:27

As 2017 begins, around 81 percent of Americans live in urban areas, up from 79 percent in 2000. At the same time, urban and suburban areas where vacant land exists (so, not you, San Francisco) have been expanding, redefining what used to be rural. With this demographic shift comes a transition of resources and tax bases that leave rural areas and rural services, including healthcare, struggling to survive.

Categories: 
Telemedicine, Meaningful Use, Interoperability, Population Health, Rural Healthcare

When illnesses collude: How comorbidity threatens American healthcare

Submitted by Irv Lichtenwald on Tue, 12/20/2016 - 12:35

Comorbidity is not a word heard every day—not even in healthcare, where it applies. But researchers and physicians, assisted by IT-derived diagnostic data, have come to understand that comorbidity is essential to understanding and managing population health, especially among vulnerable populations challenged by mental illness and addiction.

Categories: 
Interoperability, Population Health, Behavioral Health

Cures Act: A bag of holiday gifts for healthcare

Submitted by D'Arcy Gue on Wed, 12/14/2016 - 13:51

On Tuesday, President Obama signed the 21st Century Cures Act, codifying a broad and far-reaching effort to achieve medical breakthroughs in Alzheimer’s and other debilitating afflictions through improved, streamlined, well-funded research.

Categories: 
Telemedicine, Interoperability, Behavioral Health

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