Regardless of whether the organization is a hospital, university, another huge organization or a private business, they are all under pressure to cut costs. Every year, prices increase and this, together with cuts in funding for government organizations and increases in taxes for businesses, means that other expenses need to be cut if they are to continue to provide a good and adequate service or maintain the quality of their products. Here are a few suggestions that might help if you are in this situation.
Technology and Automation
Although this might need some initial investment, in the long run, it could save a lot of money and make your business or organization more efficient. There are so many areas that technology and automation can help in. It can take over some of the mundane tasks leaving your workers free to handle more important jobs. It can reduce the number of errors and stop the duplication of work.
One of the largest costs any business or organization has to face, is energy. Just for a moment, think how many lights are on 24 hours a day in a hospital, for instance. How much equipment they have to run, some of which is vital and used to save lives. You can’t suddenly just turn them all off. With a business, they could lose sales if they shut down some of their equipment each day, and this is not an option for anyone. There are two things that can be done that will help.
Firstly, educate your workers to be careful with their energy use. Things such as turning computers and printers off at night when they are not in use will save about 45 per piece of equipment per week. Over a year, that can amount to a lot of money saved. Secondly, compare business electricity prices on a comparison site like Utility Bidder, and you may be surprised by the deals that are available.
Only a few industries require resilient cybersecurity measures like healthcare. Yet, healthcare has a colossal cybersecurity problem. Data breaches continue to plague patients’ private medical records, in spite of their life-threatening conditions, spending large amounts of money, and entrusting financial information.
Healthcare remains a big target for cybercriminals, sitting firmly in their cross-hairs. Just for 2015, IBM reported more than 100 million breaches of medical records. Some organizations commit to privacy no matter what, but healthcare organizations are not keeping pace in adopting and promoting cybersecurity. But why do most healthcare organizations not have the latest cybersecurity tooling? Some of these reasons, we review in this article.
Why Hospitals and Care Facilities Lack of Robust Cybersecurity
The key reason why cybersecurity is not a conspicuous feature in may healthcare set-ups include:
#1 Limited cybersecurity awareness
Most hospitals concentrate on upgrading their medical technology and employing the best medical personnel and peripheral staff. They ensure they save lives more quickly and offer better overall care. While this is a reasonable practice, they soon relegate cybersecurity to the back-burner. The truth is, cybersecurity is a vital complement to these core values and priorities. Most of the time, hospitals can justify their need for an entire IT team, or at worst, a cybersecurity lead. However, directors may not have the necessary information to decide so.
#2 Lucrative healthcare targets
Hospitals are not always to blame, though. There’s an avalanche of attacks on hospitals. It is worth all of an attacker’s time to target a healthcare organization. As highly lucrative targets, these organizations can reveal data on a cast number of people at once. That is why standards are high to keep these organizations from the reach of attackers. But, what do you do when the attacker never quits chasing?
#3 Size of the specific organization
Many healthcare organizations are massive operations. It makes them increasingly vulnerable. Because more people are involved in the system, there are inevitable, more possible points an attacker can exploit. Imagine just one healthcare staff among several thousand falling for a phishing scam. It can compromise the whole system.
#4 Inconsistency with process
It often appears almost impossible to create and enforce consistent security standards and procedures. The reason is that the size of health organizations and hospitals means they may need to operate out of several buildings. Employees may then adhere to varying best practices, and in some cases, use different systems. Thus, it is hard to have a decent cybersecurity posture.
#5 Shared networks in healthcare organizations
Infosec revealed that one primary reason hospitals continue to appeal to cybercriminals is that most hospitals depend on shared wireless networks. Multiple devices on one network mean that one single point of vulnerability is all a hacker needs to access the whole system. It is a ticking time bomb.
Possible Solutions to Healthcare’s Cybersecurity Issues
What then can healthcare institutions and hospitals do to be on par with the latest cybersecurity practices? It turns out there’s so much they have control over:
Better technology
Most hospitals can begin by adopting more advanced current technologies to protect patient information and keep their systems secure. Advanced software, monitoring systems, and futuristic tech such as biometrics are examples.
Greater focus
A cybersecurity budget is small fry for most healthcare organizations. It is merely a question of how much premium is on it like the infographic at the end shows across several industries. Prioritizing technological security features will add a decent layer of security around hospital operations. While hospitals may commit their entire budgets to cybersecurity, a hire, who knows their onions can promote substantial improvement.
Vital, the AI-powered software increasing productivity and improving patient health in hospital emergency rooms, recently announced its inaugural development partnership with Emory Healthcare. As part of the strategic collaboration, Emory Healthcare becomes a lead research partner in developing and implementing Vital’s software to improve overall efficiency and satisfaction for patients and clinicians across multiple Emory emergency rooms. Vital was conceptualized and co-founded by Justin Schrager, assistant professor of emergency medicine and ER doctor; with award-winning technical CEO Aaron Patzer.
Vital’s software is the first partnership out of the Emory University Innovation Hub, designed to identify unmet patient needs and find innovative solutions to put the patient at the center of care delivery. Vital’s live track board and real-time predictions of patients are being developed in the Emergency Departments of Emory University Hospital, Emory Johns Creek Hospital, Emory University Hospital Midtown, and Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital. The goal of this pilot program is to measurably reduce wait times and overall length of stay for patients, while increasing patient satisfaction.
Aaron Patzer
“We are overjoyed to have Emory Healthcare as our primary development partner and pilot sites,” said Patzer. “We are impressed with the commitment Emory leadership has made towards technological innovation and tackling truly challenging problems in emergency medicine. Working closely with top emergency physicians and nurses is essential to producing software that meets the needs of clinicians.”
Vital uses artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) to triage patients,, making it easier and faster for providers to coordinate care and prioritize patients with a fast, reliable, and incredibly user-friendly system.
“The combination of a top-tier academic healthcare system and a top-notch software team is something that happens too rarely in healthcare. With the launch of our Innovation Hub last year, we hope this is one of many opportunities to not only be the first to take advantage of a new technology, but to aid in its development,” said Scott Boden, MD, vice president of business innovation for Emory Healthcare. “This is exactly the kind of collaboration that should exist between promising startups and cutting-edge health systems.”
Validic, a market leader in solutions for personal health data, and Trapollo, a Cox Business company and a leading provider of managed services for telehealth and remote health monitoring, announced today a strategic collaboration to offer comprehensive hardware and software services supporting remote patient monitoring (RPM). The organizations are working together to meet the market need for a configurable, end-to-end RPM solution – one that supports scaled deployments with access to a broad range of home health devices. The collaboration combines Validic’s strengths in data connectivity and analytics with Trapollo’s strengths in hardware provisioning and logistics.
As leading providers and payers strategize to deploy extensive, scalable RPM programs, more organizations are demonstrating the need for strong device procurement and support alongside broad data connectivity and analytics capabilities. In recognizing this market need, the partnership between Validic and Trapollo offers a uniquely modular and customizable approach to RPM – enabling organizations to implement pieces of an end-to-end solution which best meet their immediate needs.
While some traditional, end-to-end RPM solutions restrict organizations to managing single-condition patients with a specific set of devices, the Validic and Trapollo collaboration offers the flexibility to use a variety of devices to manage several conditions. Together, Validic and Trapollo aim to support more patients, from rising-risk to high risk populations, and especially those individuals who require more hands-on support in the setup and use of their health devices.
“We are proud to work with Validic to offer healthcare companies an award-winning software solution for remote monitoring. This collaboration enables support of patients as soon as they receive and set-up their device, and during monitoring with real-time interventions bolstered by personal health data,” said Trapollo Vice President and General Manager Mike Braham.
Through Trapollo, clients and their patients have access to enterprise support for device provisioning, logistics and technical assistance. This alleviates some traditional device limitations and constraints in RPM – enabling healthcare organizations and providers to best choose the devices suited for their populations’ unique needs. These devices or device kits are provisioned, shipped and managed by Trapollo, who also provides patients with technical support for the setup and use of devices.
The Keystone Health Information Exchange (KeyHIE), a network of more than 350 healthcare facilities, announced that it recently launched an innovative new tool that allows physicians to share medical images and associated reports to enable better care coordination, provide important clinical context for diagnostic interpretations, and improve outcomes.
The leading-edge tool was developed by Life Image using SMART on FHIR — fast interoperability healthcare resources, an innovative common standard that addresses the complexity of healthcare data for the seamless on-demand exchange of information. The Life Image Instant Access apps contain a suite of functionality based on popular workflow improvements that are most often requested by doctors, patients and administrators to solve persistent problems. With the Viewer app functionality, clinicians can now instantaneously view diagnostic content in the KeyHIE web-based portal. The power of FHIR is its ability to integrate into web browsers and its simplicity in searching for specific data, which eliminates the need for cumbersome searches and numerous manual steps inside of an EHR.
Founded in 2005, KeyHIE is one of the oldest and largest health information exchanges in the United States. It serves more than 5.8 million patients over a large geographical area including Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
“Current medical data is critical in delivering care. However, data access and exchange are extremely challenging given the data silos that prevent the frictionless flow of necessary information. This tool allows the integration of actionable data and clinically important information for diagnosis or treatment at the point of care,” said Joe Fisne, associate chief information officer of Geisinger.
From the KeyHIE provider portal, powered by Orion Health, doctors can call up a patient’s medical imaging directly through the Life Image Viewer app and examine it while reading the diagnostic report within their portal. There is no separate login or application to obtain in order to use this rich functionality. It is seamless within the physician workflow and interface.
“As a longtime partner of Geisinger, Life Image is thrilled to be able to continue innovating with the Geisinger-led KeyHIE to develop cutting-edge tools that use industry-leading interoperability standards,” said Matthew A. Michela, president and CEO of Life Image. “The integration of our Viewer app into the HIE brings a whole new level of seamless collaboration that harnesses the power of Life Image workflows and makes them available instantaneously in the portals and tools that our customers already use.”
Imagine being rushed to the emergency room after a car accident or a heart attack. You’re in terrible pain, perhaps confused and disoriented. The last thing you want to have to worry about at that critical moment is the ability to communicate with a doctor. Yet, for many patients in America, this is the unfortunate reality.
According to 2017 Census Bureau data, a record of 66.6 million U.S. residents spoke a language other than English at home. By 2010, the Limited English Proficiency (LEP) population, those individuals who are not fluent in English, rose to 8.7%, up from 6.1% from 1999. In those 10 years, the U.S. saw an influx of over 11 million LEP individuals, driving the need for qualified language services.
In an increasingly globalized world, the healthcare industry is lacking in world language skills, and the need for multilingual healthcare professionals is rapidly growing.
Healthcare providers should be capable of communicating with patients in a way that allows them to make informed decisions about their health. Effective communication with patients is critical to the safety and quality of treatment, but in modern society that’s not always the case.
ACTFL’s Making Languages Our Business report shows the results of a national survey among 1,200 upper-level managers and human resources professionals with knowledge of their organization’s foreign language needs. The report was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs, with support from Pearson LLC and Language Testing International. The report points to a critical and growing language skills gap across multiple business sectors—and the U.S. healthcare system is not immune to the challenges that this gap presents.
Language Barriers in Healthcare
According to the report, the healthcare and social assistance sectors are more likely than any other industry to have foreign language needs exclusively for the domestic market. Additionally, employers in healthcare are also the most likely of the sectors represented in the report to expect an increase in demand for foreign language skills in the next five years.
While there are several laws in place designed to ensure healthcare organizations can communicate to patients in multiple languages, not all organizations adhere to them.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Affordable Care Act (ACA) all require federal healthcare programs such as Medicare or Medicaid to provide patients with interpretation/translation services if they have a language barrier or sensory impairment.
If a medical organization neglects to seek assistance from a qualified interpreter or does not provide translated written materials, and it results in harm to the patient, this constitutes medical malpractice.
Precision medicine involves formulating treatments for individualized patients, typically with genetic sequencing that could shed light on the underlying causes of disease. It’s an amazing idea that could substantially reduce the likelihood of the same treatment curing one person and failing to help another.
However, some things still hold precision medicine back. Here are six ways it could advance.
1. Lower Research and Development Costs
Statistics indicate precision medicine is gaining momentum. For example, 70% of cancer drugs in development are precision-based, and 20% of research and development in the pharmaceutical sector relates to precision medicine.
Those are promising signs, but cost remains a significant factor that slows down the advancement of precision medicine. The research and development associated with it is more expensive than standard approaches because it involves genetic testing. Companion testing is often required to find biomarkers, as well as marker-negative patients.
Securing financial backing can be tricky, especially if investors or the financial decision-makers at pharmaceutical companies are still dubious about precision medicine’s potential.
2. More Patient Education
Many patients have heard about precision medicine in passing, but they don’t know what it entails or how to avail of it. Intermountain Healthcare, a Utah-based health system with nearly two dozen locations, found that a lack of patient education restricted its adoption of precision medicine. The organization began automatically referring metastatic cancer patients to a research clinic that used precision medicine.
There, patients had access to a proprietary system that checked for more than 160 genetic mutations associated with cancer by examining portions of a person’s genetic code. Then, people from a molecular tumor board interpreted the results, guiding doctors in setting up treatment plans for their patients.
The health system is one of essential socio-economic activities; therefore, it requires rational and effective management. For this, it is necessary to have a tool that allows adequate control of the information generated in health institutions.
Hospitals, as the main actors of the health system, generate an essential volume of information, but in most cases, it is dispersed or not available in the necessary time and manner.
In recent years, health information systems have helped improve the quality of life of people in all sectors of our society, so it is inevitable to adhere to this dizzying technological career. Currently, clinical and administrative management of hospitals and health centers is possible through a single platform, with the support of cutting-edge technology, developed to optimize the processes that allow the operation of organizations dedicated to treating patients in any branch of the medicine.
Hospital management systems allows us the ability to optimize and digitize all the processes within the institution, which will help to improve customer service, reduce process costs, streamline the search of medical records, bills, patients, doctors, etc.; thus, having a database of each module implemented.
Regardless of whether the organization is a hospital, university, another huge organization or a private business, they are all under pressure to cut costs. Every year, prices increase and this, together with cuts in funding for government organizations and increases in taxes for businesses, means that other expenses need to be cut if they are to continue to provide a good and adequate service or maintain the quality of their products. Here are a few suggestions that might help if you are in this situation.
Precision medicine involves formulating treatments for individualized patients, typically with genetic sequencing that could shed light on the underlying causes of disease. It’s an amazing idea that could substantially reduce the likelihood of the same treatment curing one person and failing to help another.
The health system is one of essential socio-economic activities; therefore, it requires rational and effective management. For this, it is necessary to have a tool that allows adequate control of the information generated in health institutions.