The megalithic healthcare conference, HIMSS19, has come and has gone from the vast former swampland of central Florida. While I’m a relative newcomer to the show’s trajectory – I’ve been to four of the annual tradeshows since 2011 – this year’s version was, for me, the most rewarding and complete of them all. This could be for one of several reasons. Perhaps because I no longer represent a vendor so sitting in the exhibit hall in a 30×30 booth with a fake smile wondering when the day’s tedium would end and the night’s socials would begin may impact my rosy outlook.
Or, maybe I was simply content to engage in the totality of the experience, attend some quality sessions, meet with many high-class people and discuss so-called news of the day/week/year. Doing so felt, well, almost like coming home. Or, perhaps my experience at the conference this year was so good because of running into former colleagues and acquaintances that drove me to such a place of contentment while there. No matter the reason, I enjoyed every minute of my time at the event.
Something else felt right. An energy – a vibe – something good, even great, seems/ed about to happen. Something important taking place in Orlando, and I was blessed to be a part of it. Kicking off the week, CMS created news – like it does every year at about this time – with its announcement that it will no longer allow health systems and providers to block patients from their data. This was a shot across the bow of interoperability and the industry’s lack of effort despite its constant gibberish and lip service to the topic.
Another fascinating thing that finally occurred to me: no matter the current buzzword, every vendor has a solution that’s perfect for said buzzword. Be it “patient engagement,” “interoperability,” “artificial intelligence,” “blockchain”; whatever the main talking point, every organization on the exhibit floor has an answer.
But, no one seems to have any real answers.
For example, after nearly a decade, we still don’t have an industry standard for interoperability. Patient engagement was once about getting people to use patient portals for, well, whatever. Then it was apps and device-driven technologies. We’re now somewhere in between all of these things.
AI? Well, hell. It’s either about mankind engineering the damnedest algorithms to automate the hell out of everything in the care setting (an over exaggeration) or that AI/machine learning will lead to the rise of machines, which will help care for and cure people – before ultimately turning on us and killing or enslaving us all (again, I’m overly exaggerating).
By George Mathew, M.D., chief medical officer for the North American Healthcare organization, DXC Technology.
George Mathew, MD
In mid-February, nearly 45,000 health information and technology professionals, clinicians, executives and suppliers gathered to explore healthcare’s latest innovations at the annual Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in Orlando, Florida.
These “champions of healthcare” examined the greatest challenges facing the industry — including an aging population, chronic disease, a lack of actionable information and increasingly demanding consumers. They also explored how new solutions are being enabled by technologies such as predictive analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and telemedicine.
The following four trends drove much of the conversation at HIMSS19 and will continue to shape the next wave of healthcare transformation.
Organizing and innovating around patients
As patients gain access to more information about their health and new technologies empower them to be proactive consumers of healthcare, the industry is focusing on how patients as consumers will drive new models of care. Topics such as patient engagement, patient-centric health information exchanges, personalized care and the consumerization of health were prominent during HIMSS19 learning sessions and conversations around the expo hall.
Artificial intelligence has the potential to revolutionize all fields, and healthcare isn’t exempted.
This technology, which involves machine and deep learning, enables computers to gain the capacity to better understand and process complex forms of data. Essentially, they would have the ability to learn through examples.
When implemented correctly, it’s a development that comes with many possibilities, especially in a data-driven field like healthcare. Machine learning has the potential to improve patient care, provide faster service and diagnoses, and generally provide a better experience for both healthcare providers and patients.
Anyone involved in healthcare (which basically means everyone) can stand to gain from learning more about how AI might affect the industry.
While overall rates of teen drug use are down, heavy drug addiction is on the rise in American youth. It’s becoming an epidemic as more of our youth dabble in the use of opioids and hard liquor. What often begins as recreational use turns into substance abuse that is beyond their control.
The unfortunate truth is drugs and alcohol are readily available to teens. In fact, they can find access to many dangerous and addictive substances in their own homes. If they don’t get at home, there are other sources. Peers and individuals who make a business out of selling illegal substances make it all too easy to fuel addiction. Parents need to explore adolescent rehab options to get them the help they need. Freedom from addiction is possible for teens, but it’s going to take time and effort. Most importantly of all, it means sticking with a program until a teen is successful in overcoming substance abuse.
By Melissa Cartew, freelance writer and hospital recruitment specialist.
Usually, a curriculum vitae serves as the first contact with the potential director of the program. Hence, you will require a C.V. which will do more than just provide information regarding your professional and educational qualification, personal history, and achievements. Thus, when you think about how to write a CV, you need to keep in mind that you will have to maintain a good image when it comes to your profession in the mind of the one who is reading it. The C.V. has needed to accentuate the areas where you are strong enough and develop sufficient interest in you. This will lead you to get a personal interview.
Phrases to create an efficacious C.V.
Compile important information and then organize it under proper categories. These should exhibit professionalism, enthusiasm, and confidence;
Opt for an information that is most pertinent to the job profile. Make sure that you make it concise and comprehensive. Don’t forget, C.V. is an advertisement for the interview; and
Review it and ensure that there is no spelling mistake or grammatical error.
The healthcare industry has traditionally relied on the pen-and-paper archiving system, creating huge but impractical data libraries. However, the situation is changing in the last couple of decades with the introduction of electronic health records (EHR).
According to the report, more than 80 percent of the US hospitals adopted at least a basic EHR system. It’s a major improvement that drastically changes the way medical practitioners complete their everyday tasks. But what makes EHR systems so powerful? How can they contribute to the overall productivity in the field of medicine?
We will give you the answers to these questions in this article. Keep reading to see how EHR are impacting the healthcare industry.
5 ways EHR changes healthcare
There are many ways EHR is helping healthcare to advance, but some solutions already proved to be very important for the functioning of the medical staff. We made a list of the five most important improvements here:
Speed and productivity
The first way digital health records are influencing the healthcare industry is obvious: they help the system become better and more productive. Medical staff no longer has to write things down. Instead, all entries are just a few clicks away, so the whole process becomes faster than ever before. This gives doctors and nurses more time to do what they are trained to do – help patients to get better.
Improved treatment
The second way EHR is changing medicine is probably the most important. Namely, patients get an enhanced treatment due to the precision and transparency of medical records. For instance, a doctor can instantly see previous health problems of a patient and determine whether this person is allergic to certain drugs or substances.
In one way or another, almost every person is depending on technology for something. Technology has improved almost every aspect of our lives, including our health. It has made a huge difference in the health sector today. The use of technology has improved diagnosis and how treatment is administered into our bodies. The following are ways you can use technology for the improvement of your health:
Monitoring your health
Instead of making doctor visits every other time, the doctor can remotely monitor your health. You can use software, such as flexispy, to exchange information regarding you with your doctor. There are wearable health tracking devices that take information about your health and sends it to your doctor. The doctor can send it back and advise you on how to go about it.
Helps track your food and nutrition
Food and nutrition are very important for your health. Tracking what you are eating is sometimes very challenging. You can use software and devices to track what you are eating on a daily basis. You can use these devices to track if you are exercising enough, to inform you what to eat or remind you when to take your medicine. Additionally, you can use these devices, to track the amount of rest you take each time and suggest how to sleep better.
Cancer research appears to be at an inflection point as we swing toward immunotherapy. It’s a time of great promise for patients, physicians and researchers, but also of great frustration. Too often patients are unable to access treatment options that could save their lives.
In the United States, more than 600,000 people are expected to die of cancer this year, according to the National Cancer Institute. At the current rate, a third of people diagnosed with cancer today will die within five years driving a deep sense of urgency for those in the clinical trials field.
Breakthroughs in biotech and personalized medicine could change these dire statistics, but it can’t happen soon enough for the 1.7 million Americans who will be diagnosed with cancer this year, and the millions more already living with it.
Data has the potential to make cancer research and treatment far more effective and efficient. That’s why institutions across the spectrum – from public hospitals to private practices and research facilities – have become far more sophisticated in collecting data.
The next great healthcare challenge
But making the structural changes needed to put this data to work is another matter. Our next great challenge as a healthcare community is how to deploy all of this information to improve clinical care, and how to get organizations big and small to communicate in a way that opens the full spectrum of treatment options to all patients.
This means connecting pharmaceutical companies and research organizations to the physicians and facilities that are treating patients. Right now, these two worlds exist in separate spheres – they each maintain massive data silos that have no way of continuously communicating with each other.
Researchers are left to rely on a few trusted providers – mainly major research hospitals – for their trials, and it leaves physicians elsewhere struggling to find treatment options when the list of more traditional options has been exhausted. It leaves millions of patients missing out on opportunities to access potentially life-saving care.
We have the technology to bridge this divide – it’s now a question of committing to creating a shared and always HIPAA-compliant database that allows researchers to expand and enhance their search for the right patients on one side, and allows physicians to see a global picture of current trials on the other.
The megalithic healthcare conference, HIMSS19, has come and has gone from the vast former swampland of central Florida. While I’m a relative newcomer to the show’s trajectory – I’ve been to four of the annual tradeshows since 2011 – this year’s version was, for me, the most rewarding and complete of them all. This could be for one of several reasons. Perhaps because I no longer represent a vendor so sitting in the exhibit hall in a 30×30 booth with a fake smile wondering when the day’s tedium would end and the night’s socials would begin may impact my rosy outlook.
Artificial intelligence has the potential to revolutionize all fields, and healthcare isn’t exempted.
