Irrespective of loving friends and family, you might feel unheard, lonely, or confused about your internal issues. Even though they will try their best, they might not be able to guide you and help you ease your troubles, and here the counseling experts come to your rescue.
The therapy experts can understand the plethora of imbalanced emotions an individual suffers from and ways to deal with it. The common questions one asks themselves before enrolling for therapy are:
Do I need counseling for my emotions?
Am I weak because I need external help for my emotional understanding?
How to find a competent therapist and psychiatrist near me who can help ease the troubles?
A person, irrespective of their troubles in their daily life, can seek a therapist to deal with a situation they are facing. To break down the confusion associated with therapy, keep reading further to know more about counseling.
How to choose your mental health professional?
Your mental health expert will affect your treatment plan immensely and thus requires alertness on your part while you select one for yourself. It is important to follow some guidelines before you make the final decision. Here is what you should keep in mind before you settle for the one.
In 2011, hc1 was born from the belief that every patient is unique and should be treated that way. When the high-value care movement began, healthcare organizations focused on increasing value through cutting costs, but hc1 knew that sustainable high-value care could only come through improving patient outcomes.
hc1 set about to determine how it could help achieve this goal: Tap into the heartbeat of healthcare—laboratory data. If labs could organize every individual’s information intelligently, they could unlock an unprecedented level of clinical decision support to personalize and improve care for all patients.
Today the hc1 High-Value Care Platform eliminates waste and personalizes care for health systems and diagnostic laboratories nationwide by turning previously static lab data into actionable healthcare insights. Its flagship products, hc1 CRM and hc1 Test Utilization, helped forge a broad set of laboratory and health system partnerships.
Building upon this foundation, in 2018 it introduced a new era of high-value care—precision prescribing—when we invented hc1 Opioid Advisor and hc1 PGx Advisor, which leverage the hc1 platform to optimize medications using targeted pharmacogenetics and medication usage analysis. hc1 PGx Advisor empowers physicians to make personalized prescribing decisions supported by clinical pharmacists with access to holistic patient information, including genetics.
Using the hc1 platform, health systems can improve clinical outcomes and reduce medical spend in these ways:
Helping labs better serve their physicians and patients
Ordering all of the tests (and only the tests) a patient needs to achieve timely, accurate diagnosis and treatment
Identifying the right drugs based on each patient’s unique genetic markers
Prescribing drugs with the lowest risk of therapy failure and adverse side effects based on a patient’s complete pharmacological history and lifestyle
A new initiative launched by Health Level Seven International (HL7) seeks to use its widely recognized data exchange standards to help health care researchers more effectively acquire, exchange and use data in translational and clinical research.
The effort, called Vulcan, intends to use a model for collaboration among diverse stakeholders in the translational and clinical research community to define a common set of standards that can be implemented internationally, built on current agreements to use the HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability (FHIR) standard to facilitate data exchange.
“Improving data sharing can bring significant benefits to medical research, which is often a time-intensive and costly process that unnecessarily delays progress in discovering treatments for medical conditions because researchers are unable to share critical information,” said HL7 International CEO Charles Jaffe, M.D., Ph.D. “Project Vulcan aims to develop common solutions to help partners overcome these challenges.”
The initiative is the latest to use HL7’s FHIR Accelerator Program, which seeks to expand the FHIR standard and enhance market adoption through a programmatic approach that diverse stakeholders can use. The Accelerator Program aims to motivate and support market collaborations, seeking to speed the availability of FHIR to tackle important interoperability needs. Project Vulcan represents an ambitious new use of the FHIR Accelerator Program, pulling together a diverse multi-stakeholder group that includes government and regulatory agencies, standards development organizations, academic sites, technology vendors and patients.
With the advent of FHIR there is a clear path to utilize FHIR and other existing standards to execute the interoperable exchange of data for clinical research.
“Using FHIR to assist translational and clinical research is a natural extension for the standard,” said Rob Goodwin, co-chair of Vulcan and Vice President of Pfizer’s Global Product Development Operations Center of Excellence.
“Delivering a new therapy to market now takes 10 to 15 years at an average cost of $2.6 billion,” said Goodwin, who’s also on the TransCelerate Clinical Oversight Committee of TransCelerate BioPharma, a non-profit organization that works across the biopharmaceutical research and development community to improve the delivery of new medicines.
“The most powerful way to make research faster and less expensive is to bridge clinical care and clinical research, while keeping patient safety and compliance in mind,” said Amy (Nordo) Cramer, Vulcan co-chair and Pfizer Global Product Development Strategic Partnerships. Cramer continued, “Vulcan’s contributions in using FHIR to streamline data collection and submission, protocol representation, clinical trial setup and management, and for other data-intensive purposes will be a game changer for clinical research.”
Organizers of Vulcan are encouraging other entities to participate in the effort. More information about Vulcan and the project’s goals can be found on its website, www.hl7.org/vulcan.
Greenway Health announces it is working to develop innovative virtual care solutions that are now essential for today’s ambulatory care practices.
“At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw a dramatic shift in the way care was being delivered. Providers relied on virtual care to continue seeing patients during periods of shutdown and quarantine,” said Richard Atkin, CEO, Greenway Health. “Just as our healthcare providers have remained committed to patient care, Greenway too, will continue on our mission of enabling ambulatory care practices with the tools they need to improve outcomes, streamline workflows and maintain business continuity.”
As the first tool in its virtual care portfolio, Greenway will be developing and launching Greenway Telehealth™, a secure, HIPAA-compliant solution designed with an easy-to-use interface for both providers and patients. Greenway Telehealth is being designed according to the specific needs of Greenway’s ambulatory care customers, and in particular, practices looking for a sustainable, long-term solution. Greenway Telehealth will remove care delivery barriers, enabling greater provider productivity and improved patient outcomes. Product updates and enhanced electronic health record (EHR) integration will be delivered to customers on a rapid cadence to create additional workflow efficiency. The solution will be powered by Twilio, Greenway’s current Patient Messaging vendor.
“We are excited to be moving forward on our path to creating long-term virtual care solutions that can easily be implemented into our customers’ established workflows,” said David Cohen, chief product and technology officerat Greenway.“With these new tools, we are arming today’s providers with the technology they need to continue to deliver quality care to their communities, while also expanding access to care to those who need it most.”
Greenway Telehealth will be available for customers in the fall of 2020. For more news and information regarding Greenway Telehealth, please visit www.greenwayhealth.com/solutions/telehealth.
Independent Women’s Voice (IWV) launches the Patient Protection Pledge, a promise to stand with patients and their right to know the price of healthcare services before receiving care. The pledge was designed to let constituents know which lawmakers and candidates are committed in their support for any bill that would require upfront genuine healthcare price transparency and cash prices for all medical products, procedures, providers, and services.
There is no issue that more dramatically pits the business-as-usual DC swamp against the interests of ordinary Americans. President Donald Trump recently called transparency, “the biggest thing ever done having to do with costs in health care.”
The pledge endorses full price transparency in health care, an issue which nearly 90% of Americans say is important to them. A whopping 98% of women age 40 and under support it, a critical cohort for Republicans and Democrats. Yet, efforts to make price transparency a reality have been clouded by healthcare lobbyists and special interest groups—like PBMs and PhRMA—who want to keep patients in the dark.
America’s current healthcare system is opaque, keeping consumers price-blind. It is wrong and unacceptable that Americans are not able to see healthcare prices in advance. We would never agree to buy anything else without knowing how much it is going to cost. Prices in health care should work the same way.
Heather R. Higgins
“Economists estimate that making healthcare prices transparent could drop healthcare costs for individuals and businesses down to the prices that cash-paying patients pay today, which average 40% lower than negotiated rates,” said Heather R. Higgins, CEO of IWV. “Leaders in Washington should support price transparency in health care—taking a stand for patients and against the dominant healthcare lobby enticing them to vote otherwise.”
“Less than 10% of healthcare spending is on emergencies. 90% should be shoppable. Patients deserve the right to know the price of healthcare services before receiving care, including real cash prices and negotiated rates with health plans, so they can make informed choices when shopping for care and coverage.”
Healthcare price transparency would allow patients to plan ahead for how to pay and shop among providers. It would open the door for Americans to make informed, value-driven decisions about their care.
Early signers of the Pledge include:
Senator Mike Braun (R-IN)
Rep. Mike Burgess (R-TX)
Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA)
Newt Gingrich, Former. Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives
Dr. Art Laffer, American economist and former member of President Ronald Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board
Larry Van Horn, Executive Director of Health Affairs at Vanderbilt University
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC)
Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX)
The Patient Protection Pledge is a project of IWV. Co-sponsors of the Pledge include Free2Care and Patients for Real Prices.
Good Shepherd Health Care System (GSHCS) is honoring its commitment to improving community health and responsiveness by enhancing how it connects with patients. GSHCS is now conducting multi-channel outreach programs about flu vaccinations, physician visits and healthy living with Welltok, the consumer activation solutions company.
“More than ever, our patients are looking to us for consistent and clear communication,” said Caitlin Cozad, GSHCS’ marketing and communications director. “This is a responsibility that we take very seriously and recognize that leveraging technology allows us to scale outreach and engage with our community in new ways.”
GSHCS has a successful track record working with Welltok’s Patientology solution, which uses proprietary data and predictive analytics to engage the right patients with the right message for targeted activities. Given changes to patient interactions and behaviors due to COVID-19, GSHCS is adding more channels including direct mail, social ads, text messaging and dedicated landing pages to increase connectivity.
“GSHCS is leading the way to make sure social distancing doesn’t turn into medical distancing. They are proactively engaging patients around care needs as well as introducing new safety protocols like a drive-thru flu clinic,” said Jaci Haack, vice president of client strategy for Welltok. “We are honored to partner with them on the strategy, creative development and distribution of these highly valuable campaigns.”
Current and future patients of GSHCS will be receiving more information about the drive-thru flu clinic, which will be opened October 24, and the annual community meeting set for October 28. Targeted communications will also be delivered to people who will benefit the most from orthopedic and OBGYN services with the addition of accomplished physicians new to the area.
Additionally, Prescription Trails will be promoted more broadly thanks to an educational grant GSHCS was awarded. The Prescription Trails program is designed to help community members improve their health by using exercise as medicine, while accessing Oregon’s beautiful parks and trails.
“We look forward to engaging with our community in new ways and continuing to meet their evolving needs,” added Cozad. “It’s a new world, and we are all adapting to it together!”
Revation Systems serves multiple segments across the healthcare ecosystem including payers, providers, population health organizations, government, and community social service organizations. It also has established relationships with some of the industry’s largest companies, offering a unique combination of secure, HIPAA-compliant communications with virtual call center and secure multi-point video capabilities that support a wide variety of use cases.
LinkLive is for healthcare organizations who need to securely communicate with patient members, doctors, and business partners and want it to work in the way that we all live and work across digital and physical channels. For many of its clients, LinkLive Healthcare is critical as they work to increase the quality of care while also reducing the cost of care.
LinkLive also is HITRUST certified.
Revation Systems has offices in Minneapolis and San Francisco.
What is the single-most innovative technology you are currently delivering to health systems or medical groups? How is your product or service innovating the work being done in these
organization to provide care or make systems run smoother?
Built expressly for the healthcare patient transfer process, an essential segment of hospital operations, LinkLive Healthcare, provided by Revation Systems, is a unified communications software platform that is hosted in the cloud and offers a broad range of capabilities including rich digital messaging, including voice and video communications.
LinkLive Healthcare empowers healthcare organizations to securely communicate with their patients across physical and digital channels. For the patient transfer process, the one-call, dynamic conferencing capability quickly enables multi-channel and sidebar conversations in real-time making it extremely efficient, secure and valuable for healthcare organizations during the coronavirus pandemic. And the chat feature is the first of its kind as it requires no downloads, no apps and no accounts/passwords for patients to manage.
Over the past year, we’ve seen big tech giants and retailers entering into the healthcare market and Walmart is just the latest example. As one of America’s largest retailers, Walmart recently acquired a technology platform called CareZone, which offers a worry-free way for consumers to organize health information and access vital health services, in an effort to enhance its digital health and wellness capabilities.
I recently spoke with Omri Shor, co-founder and CEO at Medisafe, a leading digital therapeutics company providing medication management solutions for patients across the healthcare continuum, to learn about the impact of Walmart’s recent acquisition on the digital health and pharmaceutical space, as well as the broader role of digital health in the future of care and what this could mean for healthcare consumers moving forward.
Q: How will Walmart’s recent acquisition of CareZone impact the healthcare industry?
Consumers are engaging and adapting with digital health more than ever and incorporating it into their daily routines. With Walmart, you’re taking a retail giant with pharmacy capabilities and licenses across all 50 states and adding a digital health component. It’s a great model for Walmart and this acquisition solidly moves them into the digital health space.
Walmart will now gain vast amounts of healthcare consumer data and, coupled with its vast network of brick and mortar stores, the addition of CareZone may even put it one step ahead of Amazon. What will be key to watch for is Walmart’s ability to support those patients managing chronic conditions who require dedicated programs to affect lasting behavior change in addition to end-to-end support which requires coordination across the healthcare ecosystem.
Q: What would it take for Walmart to successfully move into this industry with this acquisition of CareZone?
Adding CareZone’s technology platform to Walmart’s existing digital capabilities and physical reach creates a unique opportunity to redefine what the future of digital health and wellness can look like across the board. Now more than ever, patients require digital hand-holding to navigate multiple treatments. That being said, digital health tools have the ability to empower patients and improve their outcomes through seamlessly integrated technology.
For Walmart to have a successful entrance into the digital health space, a deep understanding of the needs of patients is critical. While the company has the retail and pharmacy aspect handled, true success will require connection across many other hubs within the broader healthcare ecosystem.
Whether that be connecting payers with providers or providing consumers with a mobile app for medication adherence, having the capacity to connect across the continuum is something Walmart should be thinking about building into their market strategy. Once the ecosystem piece comes full circle, Walmart will have the power to integrate their business model into the everyday lives of American consumers, which will be imperative to support patients along their journey.
Revation Systems serves multiple segments across the healthcare ecosystem including payers, providers, population health organizations, government, and community social service organizations. It also has established relationships with some of the industry’s largest companies, offering a unique combination of secure, HIPAA-compliant communications with virtual call center and secure multi-point video capabilities that support a wide variety of use cases.
I recently spoke with