The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announces that five cooperative agreements to health information exchange organizations (HIEs) to help support state and local public health agencies in their efforts to respond to public health emergencies, including disasters and pandemics such as COVID-19.
The HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) is administering $2.5 million in funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Acts (CARES Act) signed by President Trump on March 27, 2020.
The funding will support local health information exchanges (HIEs) under the Strengthening the Technical Advancement and Readiness of Public Health Agencies via Health Information Exchange (STAR HIE) Program.
Each of the five recipients will work to improve HIE services so that public health agencies can better access, share, and use health information during public health emergencies. These efforts will also support communities that are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.
“Health information exchanges have long served important roles in their states and regions by helping health data flow to treat patients,” said Don Rucker, MD, national coordinator for health information technology. “These STAR HIEs will help public health officials make real-time decisions during emergencies like fires, floods, and now, the COVID-19 pandemic.’
The five HIEs, each awarded two-year cooperative agreements, are:
Georgia Health Information Network, Inc. (GaHIN)
Georgia Health Information Network will support the Georgia Department of Public Health and Georgia Department of Community Health to better access, share, and use electronic health information, especially data from populations underserved and/or disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This will include increasing the reporting to a state-wide COVID-19 registry and expanding public health reporting and data enrichment for providers not connected to GaHIN.
Health Current (Arizona)
Health Current (Arizona) will support the Arizona Department of Health Services by improving the timeliness, accuracy, and completeness of hospital reporting of key COVID-19 healthcare data, including facility hospitalization metrics, personal protective equipment (PPE) inventories, and ventilator inventory and utilization. Health Current will also seek to reduce hospitals and health system burden related to state and federal reporting requirements by using the HIE as a data intermediary.
HealthShare Exchange of Southeastern Pennsylvania (HSX)
HealthShare Exchange will modernize the region’s pandemic response with the use of automated application programming interfaces (APIs), supporting the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and the Pennsylvania Department of Health. HSX will also facilitate public health agency use of the Delaware Valley COVID-19 Registry, and create new clinical data connections based on public health agency priorities.
Kansas Health Information Network, Inc. (KHIN) d/b/a KONZA
The Kansas Health Information Network’s KONZA team will expand the number of providers participating in the HIE, enhance lab data that is already being exchanged and combining it with existing HIE data for public health reporting, and add additional information to its real-time alerting platform for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
Texas Health Services Authority
The Texas Health Services Authority, in partnership with Healthcare Access San Antonio (HASA, a regional HIE covering multiple regions in Texas), a local hospital partner, and Audacious Inquiry (Ai), will conduct a proof-of-concept pilot to demonstrate real-time, automated exchange of hospital capacity and other situational awareness data through APIs using HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR). This improved reporting will support the Texas Department of State Health Services.
These five awards represent a range of activities across different geographic regions of the country. The cooperative agreements will include cross-recipient collaboration to leverage their collective expertise and ensure the sharing of implementation experience gained from the program. This will bolster the likelihood of success and enable better replicability of the projects throughout the country.
Updox commits itself to “cultivating an environment that is diverse and inclusive—with equal opportunities for everyone.” Updox is designed to organize all patient communications, secure and SMS texts, secure email, e-faxes, referrals, reminders, and even video chat in one engagement platform and one inbox.
It’s solutions are used by more than 350,000 users and 125 million patients, and are integrated with more than 100 electronic health records, according to the company.
Updox is a cloud-based, HIPAA-compliant solution offering a broad set of capabilities that increase patient engagement, improve internal productivity and increase revenue. Updox is based in Dublin, Ohio.
What is the single-most innovative technology you are currently delivering to health systems or medical groups?
Updox Video Chat. Pre-COVID, most practices never considered telehealth, as they thought it was complex, expensive and poised no reimbursement opportunities. COVID changed that. We’ve entered a new era of virtual care where more and more services will be provided remotely, and soon, telehealth will be essential, not a “nice to have.”
Updox made telehealth implementation simple with streamlined training, unbundling the solution to adapt to individual practice needs and increased customer service offerings so providers could get started within hours. Driven by the need and desire to continue social distancing, convenience and growing adoption by physicians, telehealth is fast changing the world of healthcare.
How is your product or service innovating the work being done in these organizations to provide care or make systems run smoother?
Updox is the place for virtual care and complete healthcare communications. Committed to simplifying the business of healthcare, Updox offers a broad set of innovative capabilities for patient engagement, provider communications and internal productivity that work together in a secure, user-friendly, easy-to-use platform. This includes our Video Chat solution.
Unlike others in the market, with Updox, healthcare providers can access a full suite of applications including secure text messaging, video chat, patient portal, appointment scheduling, automated reminders, on-demand patient messaging, credit card payments, and health alerts – all in one place. This drives improved outcomes through more efficient communications and better care coordination. Additionally, with the Updox telehealth platform patients can connect with their own physicians instead of someone unfamiliar to them – without needing to download any special apps. Healthcare partners benefit through improved relationships with patients and other providers, increased revenues, reduced costs, and enhanced business efficiencies.
What is the primary need fulfilled by the product or service?
Hospitals, health systems and pharmacies across the nation are using Updox’s platform to provide comprehensive and continuity of care — during a pandemic — that is secure, safe and personalized. The main difference in Updox’s telehealth solution is that we connect patients with their own trusted doctors (vs. Teladoc and others that match you with an unfamiliar physician in the queue). Especially during times of uncertainty, we know patients prefer seeing their own doctor. In fact, a recent Updox patient telehealth survey found that 49% of patients prefer being able to see or speak with a healthcare professional of their choice.
What is the ROI of said product or service? Provide real examples of verifiable ROI of the product or service when used in or by a health system or medial group.
For patients, telehealth offers a plethora of benefits, including cost savings, convenience and safety from potential exposure to infection.
A study from The American Journal of Emergency Medicine found that the net cost savings per telemedicine visit was calculated to range from $19–$121 per each visit (vs. an in-person visit).
For health systems, telehealth implementation is proven to save practices time and money. For example, practices can save an average of $200 per patient by reducing costs associated with missed or canceled patient appointments. In addition, according to a 2017 study, missed patient appointments cost the U.S. healthcare industry $150 billion per year. With the help of telehealth solutions – like secure video chat services – practices can recoup these losses and easily facilitate follow-up appointments, consultations and ongoing chronic condition treatments.
During COVID, many practices would have gone out of business without telehealth. For example, one Updox customer stated telehealth allowed them to see 75% of their normal patient volume — despite the pandemic. And, a separate customer reported that Updox allowed him to conduct more than 600 visits via Updox telehealth in the two months, and approximately 98% of his caseload has been via telehealth.
Sometimes, big changes in how we work and live are driven by technology. Think smartphones, for example. At other times, social change and technological innovation dovetail perfectly to help us reimagine what we do.
In healthcare, over the last decade, the focus on outcomes-based care has coincided perfectly with advances in network-based communication to open a new world of patient experience solutions that produce results for hospitals and the public. And with the coronavirus pandemic upending various aspects of healthcare delivery, this new breed of solutions, built on a foundation of secure, integrated networks and smart digital devices, can help healthcare providers meet the challenge.
“This idea of better providing services to patients, helping them stay informed and engaged during the course of their stay — educated about why they’re there, how they can get services and, ultimately, empowering them to be active participants in their care — has become the foundation of our software development,” explains Robin Cavanaugh, chief technology officer at GetWellNetwork, a Bethesda, Maryland-based company that offers a family of solutions, including GetWell Inpatient, which creates personalized, digital workflows to engage patients in their care. “We’ve found innovative ways to deliver that experience on devices in the hospital environment.”
Chief among those devices is the in-room television. Along with the ubiquitous pillow speaker, the hospital TV tends to become the center of a patient’s world during a hospital stay. Until recently, the TV was a one-way entertainment medium. Today, it’s a smart, networked internet display capable of much more: entertainment, for sure, but also personalized education, information, interaction, and — increasingly — face-to-face communication.
“For so long, you’ve had this old TV mounted in the corner, offering little information and keeping patients somewhat disconnected from everything around them,” Cavanaugh says. “We’ve spent a lot of time trying to improve that experience, first by deploying capabilities in set-top boxes and now by aggressively integrating networked patient solutions into a new breed of smart TVs.”
Smart TVs Support a Variety of Healthcare Solutions
Smart TVs combine a traditional TV display with a built-in computing device and network connection. This all-in-one design makes them more reliable and manageable. “They eliminate external TV components, so they’re easy to install in rooms,” says Dennis Mathur, senior vice president of technology at Boston-based Aceso, developer of digital solutions for delivering personalized content and services to patients. “For installation, all that smart TVs need is a network connection. At the same time, they integrate with important in-room devices, such as pillow speakers.”
Companies like Aceso, GetWellNetwork, MDM Healthcare, Sonifi Health, TeleHealth Services and TVR pCare have reinvented patient experience using the tried-and-true television system as a healthcare portal. Their comprehensive offerings vary, but when a healthcare provider has the right information technology infrastructure in place and a network of smart TVs — securely integrated with electronic medical records (EMR) and other systems — each solution can deliver a variety of patient amenities in support of outcomes-based care, including:
Treatment for addiction is not the same as rehab. If you’re looking for one or both of these services, it’s important that you understand the differences and when you need one or the other. Use the following information to make an informed decision about your recovery.
Treatment Programs Are Certified
A treatment center focuses on helping participants recover from drug or alcohol addiction through the use of proven therapy methods. The methods used by facilitators have been vetted and proven over the years with official validation through the government or reputable agencies. For example, look for state or national government agencies that oversee and certify addiction service providers.
Rehabilitation Isn’t as Monitored
Rehab centers, on the other hand, aren’t bound by the same strict requirements. For example, a rehab owner could offer spa services and swimming lessons while still labeling the business as a drug and alcohol rehab center. Further complicating the situation is the fact that some rehab agencies use names and labels similar to accredited treatment centers. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t some centers with official licensing and treatment methods. It just means that you need to carefully research any rehab agency before you put your treatment in their hands.
An established leader in telehealth technology, VA has been using real-time virtual video medical appointments since 2002 to connect veterans with VA clinicians for the care they need, when they need it. VA’s telehealth program has been an essential element in serving our nation’s veterans, making it easier for them to receive care and convey vital information to their medical providers.
Today, the expansion of VA telehealth and telemedicine technologies is a key element of VA’s COVID-19 response efforts. VA Video Connect virtual appointments and other telehealth technologies are playing an important role in flattening the pandemic growth curve by providing patients quick, easy, and effective access to healthcare professionals.
VA Video Connect allows VA to treat non-COVID-19 patients (and those experiencing mild symptoms) in the comfort of their own home while limiting unnecessary in-person exposure and keeping beds open in VA medical centers for those most in need.
Nationwide, OIT is deploying more than 50,000 telehealth kits—each containing a laptop, docking station, mouse, keyboard, webcam, headset, and two monitors—to enable VHA clinicians to connect remotely with patients. VA’s strong foundational investments ivn telehealth over the past decade positioned OIT to rapidly expand the delivery of virtual care to support eterans during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since the outbreak, OIT has supported a 1,500% surge in veteran video visits outside of a VA facility—from approximately 41k total monthly video visits in January to more than 659,000 in July. To stay ahead of the growing demand, OIT tripled telehealth visit concurrent call capacity from 3k in February to more than 9k.
By upgrading the VA Video Connect system’s on-premises hardware and expanding the video conferencing system to the cloud, the Department further increased this capacity to handle more than 15k concurrent sessions (nearly five times the pre-COVID capacity). In July alone, OIT’s expanded VA Video Connect capacity helped more than 371,000 unique veteran patients limit exposure to and spread of COVID-19.
This is 12.5 times the number of veterans who used VA Video Connect in February (29,706).
Since January 2020, the expanded VA Video Connect system has helped veterans conduct more than 2.8 million telehealth appointments from their own homes or another non-VA site. OIT continues to grow telehealth support to meet VHA’s anticipated total telehealth visits to home for fiscal year (FY) 2020—3.8 million (compared to just under 295,000 visits in FY2019).
With the shift towards value-based care reimbursement models, it has become even more important for providers to be able to digitally share patient clinical documentation with payers and other providers in a timely and reliable manner. Yet, despite administrative functions backing clinical care provision, both providers and payers have not actively explored new technologies to streamline and improve data exchange and processing workflows.
Manual, error prone document exchange methods plague healthcare. Fax is the most common secure communications protocol that providers use to electronically transmit patient documentation to health plans and other care facilities, leaving the recipient with a paper document that needs to be processed manually. Other methods of information exchange are available, but healthcare organizations often feel they don’t have a good, reliable alternative to paper-based faxing due to, in part, familiarity and comfort level with the technology.
When providers communicate the medical necessity of services to commercial health plans and government payers, they must do so within tight turnaround times. Failure to meet the submission deadlines can result in care delays for patients as well as denial or reduction in payment to providers. Additionally, comprehensive and timely communication is vital when executing proper transitions of care, where key patient information has to be part of the referral process to ensure optimal clinical outcomes.
Payers, on the other hand, spend hundreds of labor hours processing documents. CAQH CORE gives an example of a plan needing 792 labor hours, the equivalent of nearly 20 people working full-time, to process the attachments it receives by mail, fax and web portal in the course of just one week, presenting an enormous administrative burden. Only 6% of medical document attachments are processed using a fully electronic method. If all paperwork were processed electronically, the healthcare industry per-transaction costs could be reduced by over 60%, according to CAQH CORE.
Digitizing exchange and processing of medical documentation with the evolved fax and document processing tools can deliver numerous benefits to all healthcare stakeholders. Cutting down on manual document handling will ensure care is being delivered quickly and providers are adequately reimbursed. Payers can improve operational efficiency and handle claims and medical documentation faster.
Additionally, a more streamlined, electronic medical attachments exchange among payers and providers is the right step toward interoperability today because it will help break the data silos of separate clinical and administrative systems. The fluid exchange of clinical documents needed for claims adjudication, prior authorization and quality measure reporting is essential for value-based payment success. It could facilitate earlier identification of patient risk factors, reduce the time and effort associated with quality measure reporting and ease the adjudication of value-based payments.
Losing weight can be difficult for some people. One of the main challenges is keeping yourself motivated as you wait to see all your hard work finally pay off with some weight loss. Using technology and apps to keep track of your progress can be a great way to stay motivated and achieve positive results. Besides this, you can also visit this site to learn some basic tips on manifesting weight loss.
These are several examples of the countless ways technology and apps can help you with your weightless journey.
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Taking the first step is always the tricky part. Using something that works to decrease your body fat makes it easier to see results, and you will feel inspired to work harder to achieve your goal.
Even the best medical practices encounter “down” days. Fortunately, there many ways you can improve your care, as well as serve more patients in the long run.
Even the best medical practices encounter “down” days. On most days, many practices are constantly overbooked or understaffed (or both). Whether you run a small clinic or manage several, you’re no stranger to seeing full waiting rooms receiving an endless influx of patients, especially now in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. It may have reached a point where it feels impossible for your physicians and support staff to meet the demand.
Surprisingly, staff numbers aren’t the primary culprit. It’s inefficient workflows, which cause unnecessary administrative burdens, that waste the time of patients and doctors. As a result, tasks fall behind their deadlines, staff performance suffers, and the quality of patient care drops.
You can improve your practice management service in numerous ways. The following strategies can help you minimize time-wasting tasks, improve operations, and ultimately give you more time to focus on your patients.
Updox commits itself to “cultivating an environment that is diverse and inclusive—with equal opportunities for everyone.” Updox is designed to organize all patient communications, secure and SMS texts, secure email, e-faxes, referrals, reminders, and even video chat in one engagement platform and one inbox.
Even the best medical practices encounter “down” days. Fortunately, there many ways you can improve your care, as well as serve more patients in the long run.