By Chris Hakim, general manager and senior vice president, eHealth.
Chris Hakim
Pharmaceutical manufacturers face growing pressure from legislators, employers and consumers to control prescription drug costs, which have increased by as much as 15 percent between 2008 and 2016. In late February, a congressional committee grilled executives from seven pharmaceutical companies over relentless price hikes and common industry practices that block competition. All along the health care chain, demands for greater transparency and calls to put consumers first are getting louder.
Clearly, there is no magic bullet to tame rising pharmaceutical costs. There is, however, evidence that absent political action, technology can be an effective weapon against price inflation. We witness this dynamic first hand at eHealth, most prominently among seniors, who are putting the power of information and effective technology-based tools to work for themselves as they shop for Medicare coverage.
What’s more, we’ve seen the use of online transparency tools grow. During the recent the 2019 Medicare open enrollment period, eHealth’s provider lookup tool was used by 47 percent of people shopping for 2019 coverage compared to just 5 percent the year before. In addition, 30 percent of people buying Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug plans used the tool compared to 18 percent during the previous annual enrollment period. And nearly one-quarter (24 percent) of customers who bought Medicare Part D plans through eHealth used the online prescription drug coverage comparison tool; those who enrolled in the recommended plan found a median potential annual savings of $531 on prescription drugs.
Data show that seniors are likely to use technology at increasingly higher rates. Four-in-10 now own smartphones, more than double the number in 2013, and 66 percent of individuals 65 and over use the internet, up from 43 percent in 2010. Among so-called “senior surfers,” 53 percent go online for information about health care or medical issues.
As the country’s baby boomer population continues to age, the healthcare industry is gearing up for a whole new level of demand that it has never before gone through. With greater numbers of people requiring doctor visits and hospital care, the industry is looking for ways to be even more productive and efficient to ensure that the quality of healthcare that people are receiving doesn’t suffer.
One of the most exciting advances to hit the health sector is artificial intelligence or AI. This technology is looking to have a huge impact, not just on healthcare in the immediate future but moving forward. Here’s a closer a look at just how it’s changing the course of the industry.
Medical records and data are benefiting from the technology
When it comes to the areas that AI is having the largest impact, medical records and data keeping is a big area to focus on. When you think about the vast amount of information that needs to be collected, stored, and analyzed for each and every patient it can seem rather overwhelming. This is exactly why data management has become such a priority for AI.
Robot technology is now being used to actually collect the information, store it, find specific data when required, and allow for quick and seamless access across the board.
Wearable medical devices
Wearable medical devices are another area where AI is having an impact and bringing about some really exciting and promising products. It’s not just about devices that provide potentially life-saving alerts and information, it’s also devices that can help the wearer better their own personal health by tracking various details. Devices such as the Apple Watch and Fitbit are great examples of this kind of technology that can be useful to everyday people.
Now as for the devices that can actually offer life-saving capabilities and tools, look to options such as the Bay Alarm Medical which is a great medical alert system. While this device isn’t going to track any information or take readings, it can be worn 24/7 and with the push of the button, it connects you to a live operator that can get you the help you need.
Careers that combine specialized skills in health care and data are on the rise. It is estimated that by 2030 healthcare-related jobs could grow by 80 million to 130 million, and equipping these health workers with the latest technology and data skills is critical. To help meet this need, UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education has partnered with the online learning education platform, Coursera, to launch a new program, Health Information Literacy for Data Analytics. This three-month, online program is intended for professionals who work in data and technology with no experience in health care learn how to work with healthcare data and apply their existing skills to the healthcare industry.
Instructors for the specialization are Brian Paciotti, a healthcare data scientist, and Doug Berman, director of data acquisition and architecture, both with the Research IT Department at UC Davis Health System.
“Experience in health care is a critical qualification for people I hire,” said Berman. “This specialization allows people with experience in general IT systems to change or advance their careers in healthcare IT. They are able to demonstrate an understanding of the nuances of working in healthcare information systems and appreciate the unique challenges and opportunities healthcare data systems present.”
The Health Information Literacy for Data Analytics Specialization on Coursera complements the existing Healthcare Analytics Certificate Program offered by UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education. While the certificate program is designed for those with health care and clinical experience to learn the skills of data analytics, the Coursera program is designed for tech and data professionals to learn the terminology and types of data found in health care.
What you’ll learn
The Coursera specialization covers the various types and sources of healthcare data, how to understand and interpret the values of these data, how to assess the quality of data, and how to compare and contrast the common data models used in healthcare systems. Courses in the specialization include:
Healthcare Data Literacy
Healthcare Data Models
Healthcare Data Quality and Governance
Analytical Solutions to Common Healthcare Problems
“The courses in the specialization fill an essential need for data and technology professionals interested in a career in health care,” said Misty Avila, Health Sciences program manager at UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education. “With the knowledge and experience of the UC Davis healthcare data scientists, we are able to help bridge this gap and prepare professionals for a career in healthcare data.”
It is not uncommon, in today’s age, to do large amounts of personal business online. This includes discussing or sharing medical records. You may think that any place that shares your medical records online would invest in intense digital security, but you would be surprised.
It takes just a small mistake on the part of the health organization working with your records and your data can be breached. In fact, there have been multiple examples of large medical organizations allowing thousands of patient’s information to be leaked.
In 2010, Columbia University Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian Hospital were victims of cyber security attacks involving the theft of close to 6,800 patient records. A Temple University doctor had his laptop stolen which contained the private medical files of nearly 4,000 patients. These are just two of way too many examples.
Part of the problem is that these records are being protected by individual not properly trained in digital security. Medical professionals all know about HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) — a US law designed to provide privacy standards to protect patients’ medical records and other health information provided to health plans, doctors, hospitals and other health care providers.
They know that you don’t share medical information to anyone that isn’t approved of in writing by the patient. But even that standard is often broken by some medical professionals. So, if some people in the medical industry are willingly leaking information, just imagine how often information is leaked accidentally.
So, what can you do? As with most instances of digital security, it is best to take matters into your own hands. The only person who will always, 100 percent of the time, advocate for you – is you. It is vital that you do everything you can to protect yourself and your data when going online. This can prevent others from ascertaining your location, medical data, personal data, and much more.
Let’s take a look at a few ways that you can protect yourself in the digital realm:
Be aware with whom you are communicating
It might be obvious that you shouldn’t send personal information to strange email contacts or social media profiles, but not everyone considers the authenticity of medical websites. Often times people will look up medical advice and find themselves sharing personal details with any random website that offer to let you chat with a “real” medical professional.
These websites can not only put your medical information at risk but also your credit card information since we guarantee you won’t get to chat with anybody without coughing up your card number.
Beyond that, it is also important to consider the applications your medical facility is using to share your information. Before agreeing to access your data digitally, look into the software they are using to ensure it is considered respectable and safe.
With National Doctors’ Day coming up on March 30 and “physician” being the highest-paid job of 2018, the personal-finance website WalletHub released its report on 2019’s Best & Worst States for Doctors, as well as accompanying videos.
To identify the best states for those in the business of saving lives, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 18 key metrics. The data set ranges from average annual wage of physicians to hospitals per capita to quality of public hospital system.
Best States for Doctors
Worst States for Doctors
1
Montana
42
Vermont
2
Wisconsin
43
Massachusetts
3
Idaho
44
Maryland
4
Minnesota
45
Delaware
5
Iowa
46
Hawaii
6
South Dakota
47
Connecticut
7
Kansas
48
New Jersey
8
Nebraska
49
Rhode Island
9
Mississippi
50
District of Columbia
10
North Dakota
51
New York
Best vs. Worst:
Mississippi has the highest average annual wage for surgeons (adjusted for cost of living), $316,828, which is 2.7 times higher than in the District of Columbia, the lowest at $117,763.
Oklahoma has the lowest number of physicians per 1,000 residents, 0.99, which is 6.3 times lower than in the District of Columbia, the highest at 6.20.
Florida has the highest projected share of the population aged 65 and older by 2030, 27.08 percent, which is two times higher than in Utah, the lowest at 13.21 percent.
Nebraska has the lowest annual malpractice liability insurance rate, $4,977, which is 8.2 times lower than in New York, the highest at $40,826.
By Rick Halton, vice president of marketing and product, Lumeon.
Rick Halton
For the past decade, EHR investments have been touted as the key to unlocking a transformative, cost-effective, and efficient healthcare industry. A recent study found that spending on EHR systems will continue to dominate healthcare’s technology spend in 2019. But if budgets continue to be prioritized towards optimizing EHR systems, why are there still so many issues related to delivering coordinated care? EHR vendors often do not clearly explain that new issues can arise after implementation, and even make certain processes more complex.
Despite significant investment of EHR systems over the years, care processes continue to be inconsistent and labor intensive. Not only does this result in overwhelming operational costs for hospitals, but it also leads to massive variance in outcomes.
EHR investments are important, but they aren’t a silver bullet. EHRs can only go so far towards improving care outcomes and operations, as they do not address the true problem: disjointed care process issues. Hospitals must consider the broader context that EHRs play into, including investing in greater orchestration and automation of patient care.
By directing investments toward automated digital care plans that are supported by EHRs, hospitals can more effectively connect patients along their entire care journey, and only engage the care team when necessary. Just as the airline industry found success with their equivalent, the “flight plan,” the healthcare industry must provide its own “care traffic control” to deliver coordinated care. This approach is increasingly recognized as care pathway management (CPM).
Opting for “care traffic control?”
The airline industry has successfully crafted and fine-tuned the entire digital trip experience for passengers, which the healthcare industry can utilize in its own way. For example, airline passengers can find out real-time flight status, receive automated updates about seat availability, find information on airports, and be sent data on flight delays.
Both boarding and takeoff are efficient and seamless procedures, with airlines connecting preflight checklists to central airline and airport IT systems. This gives flight crews current policies, procedures, and alerts, while traffic control systems coordinate which planes can take off at which times.
This same approach can effectively be used in healthcare. Automated protocols throughout the care plan can help providers pull relevant information from all necessary care teams and orchestrate operational processes in the background. Tasks can be completed in an efficient and timely manner, with managed expectations creating a seamless care pathway.
With a “care traffic control” approach, care teams manage by exception. Care plans are digitized, automated, and orchestrated across teams and settings, letting care teams be efficiently tasked at the right time and at the right place. Additionally, care teams can capitalize on virtual patient engagement techniques and will intervene only when manual engagement is needed.
The HealthCare Executive Group (HCEG), in partnership with Change Healthcare, published the 9th Annual Industry Pulse Research Report. Up to 255 survey respondents, with more than 48 percent being vice presidents or higher in executive leadership, shared their insight on the critical issues, challenges and opportunities ranked by HCEG members on the 2019 HCEG Top 10 list last fall.
The confirmation of the HCEG Top 10 and more detailed insights from the Industry Pulse survey are an invaluable resource for healthcare executives within their own organizations. Healthcare leaders can use this report to engage their management in deeper and more constructive efforts to competitively position themselves in their marketplace and to develop more robust and effective strategic programs.
Ferris Taylor
“We hope the 2019 Annual Industry Pulse Report spurs conversation and action for current stakeholders in adapting much faster to demands of a 21st century healthcare system,” said Ferris Taylor, executive director of HCEG. “If traditional stakeholders aren’t able to transform healthcare, outside parties will.”
Healthcare Amid Continued Uncertainty Reflected in HCEG Top 10 & Industry Pulse
External Market Disruption (#7) entered the HCEG Top 10 list for the first time and is confirmed by the Industry Pulse Report with 32.2 percent of respondents anticipating the greatest impact to be “disrupting current business models.” Whether or not external entrants find healthcare to be more complicated than they thought is yet to be seen.
Payment Reform/Value-Based Payments (#4) has been on the HCEG Top 10 list every year for the last decade. 63.6 percent of the Industry Pulse Report respondents expect it will be three years or more before payments contain both upside and downside risk.
Consumerism (#2), Mobile/Digital Health (#5) and member engagement have ranked high in the HCEG Top 10 for a number of years. This year’s Industry Pulse Report shows the tools and services being used to enhance member/patient engagement and the best approaches for addressing passive patients, such as incentives, health literacy and cost transparency tools.
The Data & Analytics (#1) to support multiple healthcare priorities is highlighted this year. Progress in how primary sources of clinical data and analytics have recently been impacting the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare quality and outcomes are also suggested.
Population Health/Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) (#3) moved higher in the HCEG Top 10 as the industry transitioned from broad medical condition segments of the population to looking at what is called “barriers to better health.” Industry Pulse survey respondents shared how their organizations are integrating SDoH and which non-medical barriers to care their organizations will take action on in the next 12 months. Also noted are anticipated challenges to integrating SDoH into population and clinical care programs.
Privacy/cybersecurity (#10) wasn’t a significant HCEG issue until four or five years ago when a 100 million member records were breached. Industry Pulse indicates that efforts to address cybersecurity threats may be stalling and provides specifics as to reasons. Recently, Modern Healthcare reported that 2 million member records were compromised across 31 different breaches in February 2019 alone — a 500 percent increase over February 2018. This should alarm the industry and HCEG encourages everyone to look at the reasons shared as to why Cybersecurity initiatives are not a higher priority.
A new study reveals that more than half of hourly employees say their current role prevents them from maximizing their full potential at work. The new research from WorkJam found that 61 percent of employees cite scheduling and communication pain points as reasons for leaving. The study also finds that today’s hourly workforce has little push back when it comes to the idea of implementing a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy at work.
Titled “Embracing a Bring Your Own Device Policy in the Workplace,” the study polled more than 1,000 U.S.-based hourly employees and employers across the retail, hospitality, logistics, healthcare, and banking industries to determine sentiment around BYOD policies. Among other findings, the study revealed that, across industries, there is little little push back from employees about using their personal devices for work purposes. In fact, 57 percent of millennials would prefer to use their personal mobile devices to access information such as schedules and training materials. WorkJam also found that more than two-thirds (69 percent) of employees believe that with the right application, they’d have an easier time picking up shifts that accommodate their schedules.
Steven Kramer
“Our smartphones are an extension of who we are, and being able to integrate aspects of our work lives into our personal devices creates ease and comfort for employees,” said Steven Kramer, co-founder, president, and CEO of WorkJam. “Today, every U.S. workplace relies on smartphones, and the service industry is no exception. If used in conjunction with a BYOD policy, employers can foster a more productive, engaged, and loyal workforce.”
According to Kramer, these findings should call attention to the impact implementing a BYOD workplace policy can have when it comes to building a more engaged and productive workforce.
“It’s never been more imperative that employers put the power of communication and scheduling into employees’ hands,” Kramer said. “Having access to a central repository of training information that can be updated instantaneously will enable employers to retrieve information on their own time, from anywhere. Additionally, there is no longer confusion when policies change. Entire departments are alerted immediately when there’s a change in operations.”
As the country’s baby boomer population continues to age, the healthcare industry is gearing up for a whole new level of demand that it has never before gone through. With greater numbers of people requiring doctor visits and hospital care, the industry is looking for ways to be even more productive and efficient to ensure that the quality of healthcare that people are receiving doesn’t suffer.
Careers that combine specialized skills in health care and data are on the rise. It is estimated that by 2030 healthcare-related jobs could grow by 80 million to 130 million, and equipping these health workers with the latest technology and data skills is critical. To help meet this need, UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education has partnered with the online learning education platform, Coursera, to launch a new program, 
It is not uncommon, in today’s age, to do large amounts of personal business online. This includes discussing or sharing medical records. You may think that any place that shares your medical records online would invest in intense digital security, but you would be surprised.
With National Doctors’ Day coming up on March 30 and “physician” being the highest-paid job of 2018, the personal-finance website WalletHub released its report on 
