In the seventh annual Health IT Industry Outlook Survey conducted by Stoltenberg Consulting Inc., 42 percent of health IT leaders rate updating technology to improve the patient experience as the top objective for 2019, followed by measuring improvement in patient care (33 percent).
Coinciding with this pivotal focus on empowering the patient care journey, 45 percent of respondents identify value-based care as the most significant, pressing topic in healthcare this year, followed by artificial intelligence (26 percent) and cybersecurity (20 percent). Meanwhile, leveraging meaningful patient data (32 percent) serves as the largest overall hurdle for health IT teams in 2019, followed closely by ineffective IT or EHR operations (29 percent).
In the push to gain true value in value-based care initiatives, lack of system interoperability stands as the biggest operational burden for healthcare organizations (54 percent), followed by rising overhead and staff costs (17 percent), financial reimbursements (15 percent) and EHR burnout or reporting burden (14 percent).
Dan O’Connor
“Thanks to the continuing industry push for healthcare interoperability, significant progress is starting to come to fruition,” said Dan O’Connor, vice president of client relations at Stoltenberg Consulting. “We’re now seeing a clearer picture of how different players across the care spectrum will be held accountable to drive more transparent, engaged patient care journeys, which in turn will help healthcare providers meet their organizational goals.”
Other key survey findings indicate that despite nearly universal initial adoption across the country, EHR and application implementation support (34 percent) remains the top 2019 IT outsourcing request, followed by optimization work (27 percent), legacy system support (22 percent) and help desk support (17 percent). Yet, with current IT training offered, 63 percent of respondents say they feel “unprepared” or “very unprepared” to manage and execute effective IT operations within their healthcare facilities.
Stoltenberg conducted the survey at the 2019 Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual conference in Orlando. More than 300 survey participants represented a comprehensive spectrum of provider facilities, including health systems, standalone hospitals, physician practices and other ambulatory care facilities. Clinical IT professionals led survey participation (38 percent), while executive/C-suite leaders followed closely behind (36 percent).
For a complete look at the 2019 survey results and analysis, visit www.stoltenberg.com.
New data on the state of value-based care in oncology has found that while community oncologists are optimistic about the beneficial potential of value-based care, they see a conflict between the need to decrease episode costs and the rising prices of the most innovative novel therapies.
In an effort to dig deeper into current attitudes toward new value-based reimbursement models and novel therapies in cancer care, Integra Connect surveyed leaders and decision-makers in oncology practices. Respondents represented practices with approximately 530 community oncologists, all of whom are participating in value-based care programs.
The survey results yield useful insights into how oncologists are dealing with rising drug costs in the era of value-based care, which makes practices financially accountable for improving the quality of patient care while also lowering the overall costs of cancer episodes. As drug prices continue to increase to new levels, driven in part by groundbreaking therapies, respondents indicated that it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep costs below value-based care program targets.
Other key themes surfaced by the survey include: expectations for the future of value-based cancer care; how drug costs are affecting treatment behaviors; what oncologists need from pharmaceutical manufacturers; the influence and effect of care pathways; and the value of and vision for precision medicine.
The number one challenge for making value-based care work: Rising drug costs
When asked about the number one challenge for making value-based care succeed in oncology, the majority of respondents (57 percent) cited managing the rising cost of drugs, including promising but expensive novel therapies. Beyond the context of value-based care, 93 percent of oncologists describe increasing drug costs as a priority issue impacting the overall well-being of their practices.
Value-based care is driving changes in cancer treatment choices
With oncologists increasingly accountable for the cost of entire episodes of care, a full 87 percent of survey respondents said that value-based care is causing them to think differently about drug choices, compared to their approaches during the fee-for-service era. When it comes to the choice of drug for an individual patient’s treatment regimen, oncologists assert that they remain as committed as ever to delivering the best clinical outcomes, regardless of impact on episode cost.
Nonetheless, more than three-quarters of oncologists indicated that they are making changes to how they and their practices choose treatment regimens under value-based care programs. A sizeable group (38 percent) says that it may change drug choices and opt for lower-cost therapies, but only when efficacy and toxicity remain the same. An equal percentage of oncologists voiced a desire to develop a deeper understanding of drug value, not just cost, that helps them understand the patient impact of therapies on an individualized level.
Jane Smith, a 53-year-old diabetic patient, goes to her kitchen to grab a glass of water when she suddenly feels dizzy. She grabs her portable, battery-operated blood glucose monitor to check her blood sugar level and finds it is higher than usual. The HbA1c level from the device is immediately sent to her care team, who are connected with her via a common digital platform.
Her care coordinator calls and advises her to take an insulin shot at the earliest. Within a few minutes, she is visited by a nurse who assists in giving her the insulin received from the pharmacy. Jane is also asked to see her PCP as soon as possible. A week later when she consults her PCP, he is already aware of her medical condition and the medication dosage she received the other day. He looks at her profile on his EHR and marks the care gap that was created as closed.
Now, Jane, her care team, the PCP, the hospital, and the pharmacy can look into her medical records and manage her care with a few clicks on this online platform; and Jane herself has enough clinical insights to make an informed decision about her care.
Does all of this seem like a far-fetched dream?
Healthcare technology has birthed many dreams and turned them into a reality. And yet, it lacks the capability to share clinical data efficiently at the exact moment of care.
What do we want from 100 percent interoperability?
When we talk about technology, the first thing that pops into our heads is Google. It’s an absolute comfort when we get a notification on our calendars that we might be late for an upcoming meeting. This is not rocket science, just two different products interacting on the same layer of a platform to make our lives simpler.
By Alison Arthur, product and content marketing manager, Alacriti.
The financial well-being of healthcare organizations depends on steady, predictable revenue from their patients. However, healthcare payments are often impacted by a number of financial factors including insurance, co-payments, deductibles, and co-insurance.
Research from TransUnion shows that patients are becoming increasingly responsible for out-of-pocket healthcare expenditures. This means that the possibility of missed bill payments can increase as well. Healthcare providers know that sending unpaid bills to collections can be a significant expense and even lead to costly write-offs that negatively impact the bottom line.
How can healthcare organizations increase the likelihood of collecting patient payments on-time and in-full? Digital bill presentment and electronic payment technology can be a chief facilitator of timely bill payments. Here are some dos and don’ts for healthcare organizations to consider when adopting an electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) solution.
Do allow patients to personalize their digital bill payments experience.
Consumers are growing more accustomed to electronic payments in all aspects of their lives. However, many healthcare providers still aren’t equipped to accept online payments from their patients. This continued reliance on in-person payments, agent-assisted transactions, and mailed payments can put a strain on internal resources that costs both time and money. In addition, there are security and compliance implications when employees handle sensitive payment information directly from patients.
EBPP technology can provide patients 24/7 accessibility to their accounts, meaning that patient payments no longer need to be processed exclusively during office hours. These payments can be made using a variety of digital channels that are aligned with patients’ preferences including mobile devices, text messages, and intelligent personal assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.
DirectTrust is pleased to announce the inaugural DirectTrust Summit to be held at the Marriott Suites Midtown in Atlanta, GA, June 10-11. The event will bring health care industry leaders together to share ideas and best practices around improving health information exchange and interoperability. DirectTrust is a nonprofit healthcare industry alliance created to advance the electronic sharing of protected health information (PHI) between provider organizations, and between providers and patients, for the purpose of improved transitions of care, care efficiency and coordination, patient satisfaction and reducing healthcare cost.
Scott Stuewe
“We’re thrilled to be launching the DirectTrust Summit,” said Scott Stuewe, DirectTrust president and CEO. “The electronic sharing of health information is rapidly evolving, highly regulated, and holds great promise for all involved. Our intention with this Summit is to look to the future; to build awareness and understanding of the many elements involved in and influencing the electronic sharing of health information, and to foster collaboration between DirectTrust members and DirectTrust members with non-members. Our goal is to help advance the industry’s progress toward achieving secure exchange among provider organizations, and between providers and patients nationwide.”
The Summit is open to both DirectTrust members and non-members. The two-day event will feature a soon-to-be-announced keynote speaker focusing on policy and trust frameworks under the 21st Century Cures Act. Additionally, attendees will hear from two panels and have the choice of attending one of two breakout sessions. The panels include:
To FHIR and Beyond:The Future of Trust in Healthcare — A diverse group of experts on healthcare policy, standards, security, interoperability, and identity will discuss the role these elements play in establishing and maintaining trust in the healthcare ecosystem. Specifically, this group will debate how DirectTrust standards and policies can or should be extended for use with APIs and the app economy, FHIR, healthcare device integration, instant messaging, release of information, and the development of a comprehensive healthcare directory, among other topics.
The Role of Identity in Healthcare Exchange and Communications –– Identity, technology and security experts from within and outside of the DirectTrust community will discuss the challenges and solutions for successfully identifying organizations, individuals and machines in a scalable fashion. The group will discuss the extent to which technology and a trust framework can conform with new NIST guidelines for identity proofing to enable the successful and reliable identification of millions of consumers in particular. The group will also help tease apart the separate but related topic of patient matching from identity.
The full slate of speakers will be announced in the next few weeks. Additional information about the Summit may be found here or at bit.ly/DTSummit2019.
This report won’t come as news to the millions of physicians spending huge chunks of their days on clerical and administrative work, instead of the patient work for which they’ve studied and practiced many long years.
But it also presents an enormous opportunity, as the report reveals reducing data entry can be a crucial (and pretty realistic, given modern technology) step in retaining key physicians, as well as increasing operational accuracy and efficiency. Let’s get physicians away from data entry and back to practicing top of license.
What’s behind increased data entry requirements?
Before we look at solutions to reduce the data entry burden on physicians, it’s critical to know where the demand is coming from. Multiple factors contribute to this problem, including:
The ubiquity of EHR systems
The professed goal of EHR systems was to give physicians access to vital patient data and streamline billing and coding processes. All too often, however, doctors find themselves bogged down by data entry instead of caring for their patients. To save time, many physicians copy and paste clinical documentation from one record to the next, providing more opportunity for dangerous inaccuracies to slip into patient files.
Lack of integration
Healthcare providers today use multiple different systems to coordinate care, and more often than not, those systems don’t talk to each other. Building integrations between these systems takes a lot of time and resources, and it is especially taxing on IT teams already working through huge backlogs. In the meantime, who’s responsible for ensuring the right data goes into all the applicable systems? Overtired physicians who’d rather be doing anything else.
Summarizing the outcomes of 2018, the experts noted an increase in the share of targeted attacks that grew throughout the year reaching 62 percent in Q4. By and large, targeted attacks became the favorite method of attackers (55 percent) in 2018, unlike the previous year.
The number of attacks aimed at data theft keeps growing. A statistical analysis of 2018 showed that attacker interest was mainly focused on personal data (30 percent), credentials (24 percent), and payment card information (14 percent).
In 2018, healthcare institutions in the U.S. and Europe were at the center of attention from hackers, receiving more attacks than even banks and finance. In addition to stealing medical information, hackers also demanded ransom for restoring the operability of computer systems. Hospitals were ready to pay hackers, patient lives being at stake. According to experts, attackers got hold of personal data and medical information of more than 6 million people.
DDoS attacks became more powerful. Thus, 2018 was marked by the two biggest DDoS attacks in history, reaching 1.35 and 1.7 terabits per second. IT companies were the second-most common target of DDoS attacks, after government institutions. Hackers disrupted the operations of internet service providers and game companies, which are particularly sensitive to downtime and equipment disruption.
In 2018, malware was used in 56 percent of attacks. Such popularity is caused by the fact that malicious software is becoming more and more available each year, which reduces the barrier to entry for cybercriminals. Attackers mostly used spyware and remote administration malware to collect sensitive information or gain a foothold on systems during targeted attacks.
On Tuesday, March 26, the Senate health committee will hold a hearing on implementation of the electronic health information provisions in the 21st Century Cures Act.
In the Cures Act, Congress took steps to help improve the exchange of electronic health information. Last month, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released two rules to define information blocking—so it is clear when one system is purposefully not sharing information with another—and to give patients more control over their records and providers more information so they can better treat their patients. This hearing will be about the proposed new rules and efforts to improve electronic health records and make health information more accessible.
Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said of the new proposed rules: “These proposed rules remove barriers and should make it easier for patients to more quickly access, use, and understand their personal medical information. It should also unleash new ways of helping doctors and other medical providers to make sense of that information in ways that lead to better health care experiences, better outcomes, and lower costs for patients. Our committee will continue careful oversight of these new rules which affect almost every American and are an important result of the bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act.”
The Senate health committee had six hearings in 2015 to explore ways to get our nation’s system of health information technology out of a ditch and make it useful for doctors and patients. The committee then authored the 21st Century Cures Act which directed HHS to make proposals to improve electronic health records.
The financial well-being of healthcare organizations depends on steady, predictable revenue from their patients. However, healthcare payments are often impacted by a number of financial factors including insurance, co-payments, deductibles, and co-insurance.
Summarizing the outcomes of 2018, the experts noted an increase in the share of targeted attacks that grew throughout the year reaching 62 percent in Q4. By and large, targeted attacks became the favorite method of attackers (55 percent) in 2018, unlike the previous year.