Digitalization is inevitable: Technology and healthcare are becoming more inextricably linked as new innovations and discoveries are made. Many health-related devices and services have been created in recent years with the express purpose of improving everyone’s quality of life. As a result, many international healthcare companies, like Now Health International, are now implementing innovative digital solutions to deliver better healthcare services.
Recently, broad steps are being made in the field of preventive medicine – below are some of the top digital solutions for preventive healthcare.
Wearables
By now, just about everybody wears a fitness tracker or a smartwatch, or owns a smartphone. The ability to count steps to measure one’s activity level is a great start, and is only the beginning. Vital signs data can now be collected by devices we have on us, which can then be automatically analyzed and sent to your healthcare provider in order to provide crucial information as to your state of wellness.
You can also be alerted to the amount of calories you’ve consumed, reminded to go for a walk or do some stretching exercises, or even take a short break. Sleep monitoring apps collect data while you doze and provide you with helpful information on how much rest you were able to get on any specific night.
With remote monitoring, the need to go to a clinic appointment can be greatly reduced as well. Even big companies like Apple are working on a way to determine blood sugar levels in a non-invasive way, which can change the lives of millions of people suffering from diabetes.
Pathogen Surveillance
Traditionally, health agencies rely on doctors, patient surveys, labs and research studies to collect information on pathogens and outbreaks of diseases. In the event of a serious outbreak, early reporting and progression tracking is critical to getting treatments out quickly and effectively, as well as preventing its spread. Digitalization is changing the way we respond to infectious disease outbreaks with portable genome sequencing as well as epidemiological surveillance and remote monitoring.
Disease Outbreak Prediction
Computers are helping health care professionals in the field calculate how fast a disease can spread, how many people will be affected, and determine which patients should receive priority care. The epidemiological web platform BioCaster mines text from social media platforms, blogs, and news sites to gather information on a specified area that may be a hot spot for an outbreak. There is also the option of receiving warning alerts via text or email to help users keep themselves safe.
Obtaining healthcare today is daunting. For those unhappy with our current system and seeking greater choice, HR 6199 is a step in the right direction.
Recently passed in the U.S. House of Representatives and awaiting action in the Senate, HR 6199 leverages the proliferation of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) to expand Americans’ freedom to spend their health savings on the type of healthcare that best suits their needs.
What’s wrong with healthcare? Pricing is murky and expensive. Networks are confusing and restrict choices, while locking out the uninsured. Even with insurance, patients who need care must wait weeks or even months for an appointment, during which they waste hours in the waiting room. Millions are simply avoiding the doctor altogether — 44 percent of Americans who were sick or injured last year chose (yes, chose!) not to see a doctor.
If they finally see a doctor, visits are often so rushed that burning questions barely get answers and physicians can never really dig into issues. Today’s typical 12-minute visit is not only unfulfilling, but research indicates that seeing a physician who is rushed, distracted and only half-listening is more likely to lead to serious health problems (beyond an inconvenience, the British Medical Journal recently reported that building a foundational, personal relationship with one physician can actually save lives).
Given these headaches, many surely wonder: Why, even with insurance, is it so difficult to obtain care when needed from a skilled doctor whom the patient trusts and who has the time to listen and provide that care?
HR 6199 modernizes the list of medical goods and services eligible for purchase with HSAs. The bill specifically authorizes direct care, where the patient can choose to purchase their care directly from a physician, without third party interference. In the popularized direct primary care model, a flat monthly fee buys an accessible, personal physician, similar to “concierge medicine” but affordable for the average American ($50 to $150 per month). As a result, the patient’s health insurance is then reserved for unforeseen, catastrophic expenses. This model further eliminates barriers like co-pays, deductibles and narrow networks, which all impede access to routine medical care and ultimately degrade the quality of care received.
Clarifying the tax code to explicitly enable greater healthcare choice is critical to fostering much-needed innovation like direct care. While an overall improvement, there are a few glaring issues with the legislation as-written. The DPC Alliance cited three specific improvements to correct flaws that emerged during revision of the original draft legislation:
State that DPC fees are a “qualified medical expense” under IRC 213(d), and not under a more vague categorization of “service arrangement” under IRC 223(d).
Make it clear that a patient may use an HSA to purchase prescription medications on a fee basis (outside of DPC bundled fees) from a DPC practice.
The bill places a $150 cap of DPC fees under IRC 223(d). We do not believe that price should be a defining feature or legal definition of a DPC practice and suggest removing a price cap altogether. But, if such a cap is required for budgetary reasons, this limit should be an expense cap (maximum deduction) under 213(d).
These suggestions are not simply preferences, but in fact stem from real-world experiences of those of us in the industry who are familiar with the preferences of customers in direct care practices.
For instance, many direct primary care practices sell low-cost generic medications during visits at cost, rather than forcing their patients to make a second stop at a pharmacy. Such a small convenience has been found to dramatically boost patients’ likelihood to actually comply with taking their recommended medications, which then prevents hospitalizations and even premature death. The current version of HR 6199 would interfere with this common practice.
Verato enables organizations to rapidly improve patient matching or customer matching through two cloud-based products that are powered by referential matching.
Verato has invested four years, millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of hours of data science, data engineering, algorithmic, and cloud-services expertise to build the most precise matching technology on the market. The company has built their solutions in the cloud, so organizations can quickly, easily, and cost-effectively gain the power of referential matching to make their patient or customer matching much better, to dramatically reduce their duplicate records, and to significantly reduce the costs associated with manual data stewardship processes.
Verato leaders represent industry experts in big data, analytics, master data management (MDM), and privacy. With a proven track record of building businesses, delivering results for global clients and brands, and developing award-winning products, they are committed to revolutionizing the way our clients manage and match their patient or customer data.
Marketing/promotion strategy
Since Verato is the first patient matching or customer matching technology to use the power of referential matching in the cloud, they use a variety of channels to educate the market on the groundbreaking nature of this new technology. Typically, Verato works with other thought leaders in the industry to produce webinars, bylined articles and other speaking sessions and promote these pieces through social media and traditional media approaches.
Market opportunity
Despite years of investment in master patient index (MPI) matching technology, according to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), healthcare organizations still suffer from poor patient matching, with matching errors occurring in one out of five patients within a hospital system. What’s worse is that matching errors increase to about 50 percent when exchanging medical records between hospitals.
In fact, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) sponsored a $1 million patient matching challenge and the ONC also launched a $75,000 “Patient Matching Algorithm Challenge” in 2017. Both contests looked at traditional matching technologies and both failed to show any real change in matching success rates.
Verato has developed a powerful new matching technology called referential matching. It uses a massive reference database of identities curated from commercially available sources that embody a 30-year history of demographics for everyone in the U.S. This database serves as an “answer key” for patient matching, allowing it to see through errors and changes over time.
Who are your competitors?
Verato is the only company to offer a referential matching technology purpose-built in the cloud. Other companies that sell patient matching technology use older probabilistic matching approaches and do not offer technology built reliably in the cloud.
In rural America, patients often find themselves more than 30 minutes away from hospitals or care facilities, making it extremely difficult to receive consistent quality care. In fact, there are only 39 physicians per 100,000 people in most rural areas, and specialists are often few and far between. With the average rural area income being more than $9,000 less than the average household income in the U.S., there simply aren’t enough doctors or financial means to see a specialist in a rural setting. This leaves patients waiting three to six months to see a doctor with the appropriate expertise and can lead them to receive care from non-physician providers, who may not have the same clinical training that a physician has. As a practicing family physician in Springfield, Missouri, I experience these challenges almost daily and as technology advances I have found new ways to help my patients to significantly decrease their need for a specialist visit.
Some of the most common health issues I face as a primary care physician that fall outside of my normal scope are dermatological, cardiological or gastrointestinal. In urban areas, patients can easily make appointments at respective specialists, but in a rural area like my own, diagnosis and treatment is often left to the primary care physician. While seeing patients for regular scheduled appointments, I typically encounter 20 dermatological cases a week including conditions like eczema, psoriasis, warts and actinic keratosis.
Although these are common skin conditions, when I encounter these types of conditions I take my years of experience and try to assess to make a diagnosis and develop a treatment plan, even if I am not 100 percent certain of the specific condition. Thanks to technology, more and more tools are being developed that can help diagnose the conditions – whether common or more intricate – that primary care physicians may not be expertly trained on. These tools, known as clinical decision support tools, enable us to make more accurate diagnoses at the point of care.
Technology as an aide, not a replacement
When I talk to my colleagues about utilizing technology in our everyday practice, I commonly get pushback because there is fear that technology may put us out of a job. The truth is that clinical decision support tools are becoming essential tools for rural health care providers as the volume of available data increases alongside our responsibility to deliver value-based care. These tools are simply aiding us, not replacing us.
A tool I’ve been using for the past year, VisualDx, allows me to access thousands of medical images that I can use to compare to a patient’s skin rather than referring them to a dermatologist with a long wait time. By looking through multiple examples of the same condition on different body parts and on varying skin tones, I can accurately identify a patient’s condition and recommend a suitable treatment plan. This visual element allows me to be confident in each diagnosis and share my findings with my patients directly in the room.
Earning patient trust with technology use
When a patient comes in with a specialized health issue, they are often hesitant to trust that the diagnoses I’ve made are accurate due to a lack of expertise in a certain area. I recently had a parent bring in their child requesting a referral for dermatologist due to some bumps on her arms. In this case, I already knew the diagnosis as the rash had a very characteristic appearance of molluscum contagiosum. However, the patient’s parent was concerned that I was not knowledgeable enough in this area and was insistent upon a referral. In this case, I was able to use the tool to show her the diagnosis, the time frame that it usually lasted and the recommended treatment. This extra level of reassurance allowed the patient to trust my diagnosis and recognize that a referral was unnecessary.
SnapNurse is an on-demand technology platform that connects pre-credentialed nurses directly with healthcare facilities to fill empty shifts. Similar to other popular on-call applications, SnapNurse reduces staffing shortages for the healthcare industry at a moment’s notice.
Founder’s Story
Cherie Kloss
SnapNurse was created to help solve the critical nursing shortage currently sweeping the globe. In an effort to support healthcare professionals and facilities through this challenging time, Cherie Kloss, founder and CEO with an 18-year history as an anesthetist, launched SnapNurse to offer a more efficient ecosystem for both sides to work together.
After completing a successful 10-year run as a TV producer, Kloss was eager to dive back into the medical industry as a nurse and anesthetist. She quickly realized how difficult it was to land on-request nursing gigs and like many, felt frustrated with the industry’s broken credentialing and hiring process.
Kloss soon tapped her deeply seeded network to fine tune the evolving concept of SnapNurse and to build out her team. The organization’s executive lineup delivers an impressive foundation for its technology and healthcare footprint including founder and former CTO of $22 billion trading platform Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) Edwin Marcial as CTO and former Director of Anesthesia Services at Grady Hospital Jeff Richards as COO.
SnapNurse is fueled by giving the power back to nurses and finding better ways to offer competitive pay, a simple credentialing process and the freedom to work when you want and where you want, thereby driving the rapid adoption of this revolutionary on-demand platform.
Marketing/Promotion Strategy
SnapNurse connects deeply with both the healthcare institutions and the nurses to offer a better way to work together and fill empty shifts instantly through the SnapNurse talent pool.
SnapNurse has successfully established facility-partner relationships with leading organizations across the country where the need is greatest. This has been accomplished by attending top industry events and tradeshows, speaking at local and national events, and leveraging the team’s experience in the industry to connect with noteworthy contacts that are ripe for SnapNurse’s service.
The pioneering startup has also focused heavily on fostering genuine relationships with nursing communities in various regions by hosting one-of-a-kind meetup events with one of their notable TV-star supporters from Atlanta, having a presence at job fairs, developing superior testimonial videos from SnapNurse users, increasing their social imprint, among other successful strategies.
SnapNurse is used by hundreds of nurses in select cities across the nation, with Atlanta (the company’s beta location) having the highest number of nurses.
Market Opportunity
SnapNurse is a 21st-century solution to the global nursing shortage the world has been experiencing for years. Beyond nurses, global nurse agencies, hospitals, clinics and home health care businesses, among others (combined $344 billion annual market worldwide) can benefit from SnapNurse’s platform and talent pool. Estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO) show the needs-based shortage of healthcare workers globally is expected to top 17.4 million in 2018, of which more than 9 million are nurses and midwives. SnapNurse will help fill this need by connecting more nurses with healthcare facilities in need. SnapNurse empowers nurses to make more money, create their own schedule, and even get paid after the end of the shift.
Who are your competitors?
Because of the current services and relationships of SnapNurse and the blockchain software (nursetoken.io) it will soon apply to its platform, there are no direct competitors that offer the cohesive offerings we do.
How your company differentiates itself from the competition and what differentiates SnapNurse?
The tech disrupter is a favorite among hospitals and nurse managers for its ability to save time and money, increase contract talent pool and view profiles and provide ratings for available nurses. Always on the cutting-edge, SnapNurse is the first company that will apply a blockchain software (nursetoken.io) for credentialing allowing nurses to carry portable authorization passports for instant approval at new centers.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is US legislation that was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996. This law, enacted through regulations overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), sets rules for the protection of healthcare information (called protected health information, or PHI) and the ability to maintain coverage when your employment changes. One of the core elements of HIPAA is the protection of electronic protected health information (ePHI) through physical, technical, disciplinary and administrative defenses.
HIPAA applies to two types of organizations, covered entities and business associates. While covered entities are organizations involved in healthcare payment, operations, and treatment, business associates are institutions that process patient data in the course of performing services for covered entities and their business associates. Companies within both of these categories need HIPAA-compliant storage and to generally follow the parameters established by the HHS.
Look to the Security Rule for guidance
Your primary consideration when you are considering HIPAA storage is the Security Rule, which includes physical, administrative and technical protections that should be used to prevent unauthorized access. Following the Security Rule requires organizations to do the following:
Verify that the electronic health records they produce, receive, store, or send are all strongly available, with their integrity and privacy maintained.
Determine and set up defenses against threats to the data that are reasonably anticipated.
Set up protections to prevent use or disclosure that is not allowed and is reasonably foreseen.
Be certain that your employees are following compliance guidelines.
The Security Rule is written in flexible language, with parameters that need to be met but no specific steps forward. That looseness of language, per the agency, is intended to allow individual organizations to come up with their own solutions based on the scope and nature of their institution.
Essential HIPAA-compliant storage safeguards
Here are the specific ePHI safeguards you need, whether internally or through an organization you contract, across the three Security Rule categories:
Technical safeguards
Transmission security – A HIPAA-compliant organization needs to deploy technical security mechanisms that keep nefarious parties from being able to unlawfully access health records that are being sent through the network.
Access controls – Companies must enact technical policy and procedure documents that outline rules for access to electronic health records.
Integrity control – To maintain HIPAA compliance, an organization must develop policies and procedures intended to prevent the manipulation or destruction of health data. Plus, there should be tools implemented to verify that information alteration or elimination is not occurring.
Audit controls – For any systems that hold or utilize electronic health data, institutions have to set up software, equipment, and process elements to log and analyze access and the related activities by users.
Physical safeguards
Workstation and device protections – Access to and use of electronic media and workstations should be governed by policies and procedures developed by the organization. A HIPAA-compliant company should have official policies and procedures related to how electronic media is moved, reused, decommissioned, and discarded.
Facility access – Institutions should verify that physical access to their data center is limited to authorized parties.
Administrative safeguards
Assessment – A HIPAA-compliant company has to routinely evaluate the extent to which its policies and procedures are aligned with the Security Rule.
Security point-person – There should be a designated security officer who creates and launches policy and procedure documents.
Staff management and training – There should be proper authorization and oversight of any staff members who handle patient data. All members of your workforce should have security training, and there must be consequences when anyone disregards the official guidelines.
Data access management – Follow the Privacy Rule’s principle of “minimum necessary” related to the use and disclosure of health data. The Security Rule mandates that the policies and procedures used by a HIPAA-compliant organization should only allow an individual to access data when their role gives them that permission (called role-based access).
Security management – To achieve HIPAA compliance, a company must identify risks and take steps to mitigate them. Risk analysis is critical because it will impact all the above efforts, so it is discussed in its own section below.
Risk analysis and management
All HIPAA compliant storage should be assessed for any risks on a regular basis. Here is how you move forward:
Assess risks to the data, potential results of related attacks, and how likely they are to occur.
Set up security protections against the risks discovered.
Record the security steps that are taken and why they were taken (as relevant).
Set up and support ongoing, appropriate, and reasonable safeguards.
Cloud providers and importance of the BAA
Many organizations work with outside parties to protect their ePHI. The Healthcare Industry Cybersecurity Task Force (HCIC) released a 2017 report of healthcare cybersecurity recommendations that addressed cloud relationships. One key point was to embrace cloud service providers, especially if your organization is smaller, since “smaller healthcare organizations often do not have the resources to fully staff a credible cybersecurity group.”
While cloud may make sense, the business associate agreement is critical to relationships with third parties. While you still must carefully vet these organizations, the BAA establishes responsibility for all aspects of the handling of the information that might otherwise be unclear.
Cloud security may now be stronger than at the typical traditional data center, but the risk still must be addressed. The essential nature of the BAA is underscored in the HHS’s “Guidance on HIPAA & Cloud Computing.”
In the past few years, information technology has developed and now it becomes an integral part of the medical sphere. Currently, the innovation of wireless medicine is increasing rapidly and influencing the present healthcare industry.
In the year 2017, more than 3.5 billion individuals having tablets and mobile phones with access to healthcare applications, because apps are providing the various health-related solution to the patients instantly.
Future mHealth entrepreneurs or startups should consider the concept of multi-platform application development from their initial days if they want to achieve success in this medical sphere. Presently, more than 70 percent of mHealth app publishers pick both the Android platforms and iOS to deliver their app to medical care providers and patients.
The healthcare mobile app development highlights significant possibilities to both entrepreneurs and startups. A financial specialist is willing to support the growing medical industry and they are ready to invest in this era. Also, numerous private care providers intend to adopt advanced applications on a massive scale to improve their practice workflow.
The Medical App Development Market
mHealth is continuously developing and people prefer to download and utilize mHealth applications frequently. This area is continuously developing at a rapid pace and, many people download and use mHealth apps, the IT industry utilizing these applications to understand more about the user behaviors, popular and unpopular app features, and beyond that. Today, this knowledge is being used to focus on healthcare mobile app development arena to make these apps more popular and user-friendly. Well, let’s check the present state of the healthcare industry, with the professionals and organizations support.
Future Innovations of mHealth
We all know that many companies enter this growing space, so innovations are definitely to be occur. According to the current healthcare market scenario and the ongoing researches highlight some innovative future innovations of mHealth. In this article, we will discuss the future expectations of mHealth. These include:
Utilizing an application, a specialist will have the capacity to screen imperative signs and manifestations of patients.
Through this healthcare apps, a patient can send their ECG test report to the doctor. And the doctor can give important feedback instantly that will helpful for the patients.
Doctors can analyze moles on a patient’s body to characterize whether they are dangerous.
Checking blood pressure, controlling weight and the levels of glucose, measuring pulse and reading the oxygen immersion. This kind of monitoring process will help to avoid the occurrence of diabetes and the heart failures.
Experts believe that coming days with the support of a little chip which can easily attachable in a mobile phone that help users to check their sexually transmitted infections result instantly.
A smartphone’s camera will help the patent to complete visual acuity reading.
Monitoring lung function.
It will help to conduct heart electrophysiology.
These innovations will definitely reshape the healthcare industry. It will improve the patient health and also maintain a proper way of doctor and patient communication. As well as coming healthcare application development is increasing efficiency in the sector of healthcare. Undoubtedly, healthcare apps are effective, user-friendly, and profitable it can break all the geographical boundaries. This advanced features will incite the startups and entrepreneurs to enter or invest this his rapidly expanding marketplace.
A robotic arm works more or less like the human arm, the main difference is that this one responds according to specific programming. A robotic arm can be designed to either operate on its own as an independent device or as an integral part of a complex robot. Manipulation of robotic arms movements is made possible by connective joints which allow for various actions such as rotation, horizontal or parallel movements.
Types of Robotic Arms
The classification of robotic arms depends on a robotics’ mechanical structure. Features, such as joints, mode of work and so on, are highly considered. Many distinctive robots are made of seven metallic parts joined together by six joints. A computer through programming that is specific to the particular robotic arm regulates the movement of these joints. There are six main categories of robotic arms. These are:
Cartesian Robot
This robotic arm has three joints which appear more or less like Cartesian axes. These robotic arms are the most ideal for pick and place tasks. They are widely used in assembling industries and arc welding.
Cylindrical Robotic Arm
As suggested in the name, this is a robotic arm that works by making cylindrical coordinate movements. Normally, cylindrical robotic arms have several joints fixed on one primary rod. These joints make rotational movements. These robotic arms are ideal for assembling firms and spot welding.
Spherical/Polar Robotic Arm
These are robotic arms that move in a spherical rotation that is within the designed range. Polar robotic arms are used in gas welding and spot welding.
Scara Robotic Arms
These are the most common robotic arms, probably the kind the everyone thinks of when they think robots. Scara robotic arms have two parallel rotary joints. The joints enable them to make complete movements along a plane and are ideal for pick and place types of jobs like assembling.
Articulated Robotic Arms
These types of robotic arms are used for welding and drilling. They have an ease of flexibility which allows them easy access to many parts of the work environment. They are used for assembling jobs, gas and arc welding, die-casting and spray painting.
Parallel Robotic Arms
These have two parallel faces that create a prismatic movement. Their movements are made possible by the closely fitted rotational joints.
Robotic Hands
There are robotic arms that require very close simulation of the human hand to achieve the desired task appropriately. Such robotic arms have a robotic hand which is more like the hand of a human being. Robotic hands, also known as end effectors are important for robotic arms that are aimed for more specific tasks such as gripping, picking and placing, and rotation of parts.
Verato
SnapNurse
