Without a doubt, medical assistants play a vital role in healthcare. Not only do they assist physicians and allow them to see more patients, but they also interface with various groups on a regular basis.
More often than not, they are the first and last face a patient will see during their visit. Because of their ever increasing demand, there has been an increased number of people joining online courses for becoming a phlebotomist to enter the medical field as they are quite in demand. If you have chosen this rewarding career, you might be in need of some great MA resources. After all, medical assistant training isn’t always enough to stay current.
Check out our handy list of organizations, blogs, and more:
American Association of Medical Assistants (AAMA): This fantastic organization strives to provide medical assistants with education, certification, networking opportunities, scope-of-practice protection, and so much more.
American Registry of Medical Assistants (ARMA): This non-profit organization provides continuing education as well as certification opportunities. Their website also maintains several helpful sections, such as an online forum, job listings, a handy FAQ page, and an events tracker page.
American Society of Podiatric Medical Assistants (ASPMA): According to ASPMA’s mission statement, their purpose is to “promote, foster, improve, sustain, and advance the profession of Podiatric Medical Assistants.” They seek to raise the standard of education for Podiatric Medical Assistants and enlighten the public. Along with networking, continuing education, and certification opportunities, ASPMA also awards scholarships through the Zelda Walling Vicha Memorial Trust Fund.
American Health Care Association (AHCA): As their website states, the AHCA is a “non-profit federation of affiliate state health organizations” that represents approximately 13,500 nursing facilities, assisted living, developmentally disabled, and sub-acute care providers. For Medical Assistants in long-term care, there are numerous benefits to becoming a member of the AHCA (it maintains a career center, too.)
Legal Eye on Medical Assisting (Blog): Follow this blog for insightful posts about Medical Assisting, current events, and professional certification. Helmed by Donald A. Balasa, chief executive officer and legal counsel for the American Association of Medical Assistants, this blog keeps readers informed about the field of medical assisting. Posts include topics like medical assistant scope-of-practice issues, key legislation that affects the profession, CMA (AAMA) credential, national health care initiatives, and more.
Medline (Blog): To stay as up-to-date as possible, you might want to follow Medline: The voices of healthcare. Experts in the field write posts about improving patient care, achieving desired clinical outcomes, discovering new solutions, and so much more. There are also posts that specifically include tips and extra information for medical assistants. Check out their “Hot Topics” section to learn more about current events in healthcare.
National Healthcareer Association (Blog): According to their website, this association works with “educators adding certification to their programs, employers empowering their team, and individuals earning and maintaining certification.” Their blog posts provide readers with insight into healthcare and medical assisting. Additionally, they also maintain a job board and a professional development section on their website.
Medical Assistant Resources (Blog): The Medical Assistant Resources blog posts valuable information about medical assisting. Some of their older posts have included headlines like the following: “How to Write a Medical Assistant Resume Objective,” “Pros and Cons of Online Medical Assistant Programs,” “A Day in the Life of a New York Medical Assistant,” etc.
A relentless parade of fronts from communication to banking, shopping seems to be unfolded, all thanks to the emerging technology. But somehow healthcare used to stay behind because many of you believed it was too complicated to be fixed. Well, that’s just not true! Now, more than ever, technology has not just succeeded in improving the consumer experience but also has removed the unnecessary cost from the entire healthcare system.
In order to maintain standards of care and improved outcomes for patients, hospitals and medical centers, technology is providing ever-smarter ways like never before. Enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1996, HIPAA was introduced because of the increasing need to address growing technological changes and problems. According to the HIPAA Privacy rule, saving, accessing and sharing of medical and personal information is prohibited. Moreover, it specifically outlines national security standards to protect health data created, received, maintained or transmitted electronically (ePHI — electronic protected health information).
Apart from this, there are a few primary components one needs to be concerned with:
Privacy rules emphasize on what qualifies as PHI (protected health information) and who is mainly responsible for ensuring that nothing would get disclosed improperly. It includes covered entities ranging from health plans to health care clearinghouse, health care providers who have the right to transmit any health information electronically regarding the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Other than covered entities, privacy rules even encompass of business associates (anyone who stores, collects, maintains, or transmits protected information on behalf of a covered entity).
On the other hand, security rules relate specifically to electronic information and set guidelines for how to secure PHI. Administrative, physical and technical are the three main categories in which it is broken down. As the name implies, administrative revolves around access control and training, physical safeguards are for actual devices, and technical relates to the data itself.
HIPAA Breach Notification Rule is basically a set of standards that covered entities and business associates must follow in the event of a data breach containing PHI and ePHI. This rule, in particular, emphasizes on two kinds of breaches; minor breaches and meaningful breaches. As a result, organizations are required to report all type of breaches, regardless of size to HHS OCR, but the specific protocols for reporting change depending on the type of breach.
Omnibus Rule: This rule was enacted in order to apply HIPAA to business associates, in addition to covered entities. According to the rule, business associates must be HIPAA compliant.
We can all agree the healthcare system in the United States is in dire need of an overhaul. Technological advances propel us into the twenty-first century, but the way data is created, maintained, and shared is archaic and confusing (and deliberately-so.) Instead of collaboration and transparency, healthcare is (in the eyes of many) a confusing minefield littered with smoke and mirrors.
Many people (even those with insurance) forgo treatment through choice or necessity–hoping things will get better–and instead end up in the emergency room. This adds bloat to an already-overtaxed, inefficient ecosystem, and patients end up footing the bill.
What does this have to do with blockchain? Well, blockchain thrives in an environment where lots of parties (who don’t trust each other) need to have consensus on the “correct” version of the truth. Broadly-speaking, blockchain helps integrate layers of trust and efficiency that have otherwise been missing in healthcare. It is essentially a distributed database that can’t be “gamed”, as any attempts by bad actors to change records to “bend the truth” are impractical and improbable.
Put another way: blockchain rewards desirable behavior (truth, accuracy, information flow), while helping to mitigate undesirable behavior (ex: lying, cheating, stealing.) Truth and accuracy breed possibility.
Imagine a world where every single ingredient inside every single pharmaceutical you take is traced from start to finish, so you know you’re not being poisoned, misled or ripped-off. Imagine having verifiable reviews from actual doctors based on verifiable outcomes to help you compare healthcare procedures and practitioners just like you would compare insurance or blenders.
Imagine being compensated for taking better care of your own health, or for securely-sharing your medical data to help advance research. All of this is possible with blockchain technology (and more.) Long-term, blockchain technology has tremendous potential when paired with technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), where meaningful healthcare research can be advanced, shedding new light on trends and unlocking a holistic, real-time picture of the global healthcare landscape.
With all its positives, blockchain isn’t itself a magic, one-size-fits-all solution to the many problems plaguing healthcare. However, what blockchain technology can do is provide a framework that opens up the secure flow of information between healthcare consumers, practitioners, and everyone else in between. Access to more and better information helps streamline inefficiencies, thus reducing costs and elevating the level of care that can be provided.
Your enterprise is surrounded by a large amount of data and you are worried about the marketplace then you need a different approach towards work. The traditional approach has made the businesses slow, expensive and inflexible. Therefore, business intelligence needs to be governed so that the users can ask and answer the questions on their own with the data.
Tableau is the software used in the development of business intelligence. In 2011, Tableau 6.1 version was launched which supports the automatic touch and gesture in Apple iPad. Plus, the older version was enhanced to memory analytics engine with more questionnaires and performance. When seen with the iPad, the software directly detect and optimize the user’s experience. Features such as sliders, parameters, scrolling, zoom and pan respond on the basis of touch.
How you can change the look of your presentation
Almost every organization works on the presentation of the storytelling, design, analysis and other relevant things. The main motive of the presentation is to show the data in more appealing, concise and visually aesthetic. The final output of the presentation is to persuade the viewers.
Tableau has the capability to make the presentations powerful and magnificent. For example, most of us directly pull the stats from the source article and is a common tactic. But, do you know the data can be more impactful if presented in Tableau. The story points to show the impacts of the statistics and the source of the data.
Typically, the presentation is made short because there’s a shortage of time to cover all the points written in the presentation. So, another tactic used to make the presentation longer is by creating the additional “appendix” content. This part of the information is always kept in the first slide, instead of the end so that the audience can take an overview of the content which is going to cover in the slides. Then, drag down to the required topic.
Filters and the highlighter features can add into the viz, so you directly add them to cover more. Rather skipping the points you can directly go to the main information and directly slip down to the highlighting and filtering features. Interactivity is one of the beneficial features which covers Tableau’s story point. The simple bar graph or line graph can be made interactive with the help of this feature. By the help of this feature, you can directly slide down to the particular date and even on the exact time. Also, to customize the data you can add the call outs at specific data points. These were some ways which can enhance your presentation in offices, schools etc.
Tableau is the quickest tool used for business intelligence and data visualization. Users who want to learn more about tableau can enroll in Tableau training for more detailed and in-depth knowledge. Even people who are non-analyst and doesn’t understand data can also take the benefit of the training. Also, they will be able to present the data in the more appealing way and will be able to visualize the data properly.
Zingbox, provider of healthcare Internet of Things (IoT) analytics platform, announced new research demonstrating that hackers are leveraging error messages from connected medical devices — including radiology, X-ray and other imaging systems — to gain valuable insights. These insights are then used to refine the attacks, increasing the chance of successful hack.
“Hackers are finding new and creative ways to target connected medical devices. We have to be in front of these trends and vulnerabilities before they can cause real harm,” said Xu Zou, Zingbox CEO and co-founder. “We make it our mission to assist and collaborate with device manufacturers to ensure the security and uninterrupted service of connected medical devices.”
Information gathering phase of a typical cyberattack is very time intensive phase where hackers learn as much as they can about the target network and devices. By simply monitoring the network traffic for common error messages, hackers can gain valuable insight into the inner workings of a device’s application; the type of web server, framework and versions used; the manufacturer that developed it; the database engine in the back end; the protocols used; and even the line of code that is causing the error. Hackers can also target specific devices to induce error messages. With this information, the information gathering phase is greatly shortened and they can quickly customize their attack to be tailored to the target device.
Zingbox’s research discovered that:
Information shared as part of common error messages can be leveraged by hackers to compromise target connected devices.
Hackers can “trick” or induce medical devices into sharing detailed information about the device’s inner workings.
Leveraging this information quickens a hacker’s access to a hospital’s network.
“Imagine how much more effective hackers can be if they find out that a device is running on IIS Web Server, using Oracle as backend and even gathering usernames,” said Daniel Regalado, principal security researcher at Zingbox and co-author of Gray Hat Hacking. “That will help them to focus their attack vectors towards the database where PHI data might be stored.”
The research also revealed that the healthcare industry has made great strides in collaborating across providers, vendors and manufacturers: there was rapid response and a willingness to generate patches for their medical devices from three out of seven manufacturers whose devices were included in the study. However, there is still work to be done to bring the urgency of these findings as well as increased collaboration between security vendors and device manufacturers.
By Inga Shugalo, healthcare industry analyst, Itransition.
Inga Shugalo
Following the wind of change, we find that healthcare is on the way to transferring most of its processes to the cloud. According to IDC, hospitals now tend to prefer keeping custom medical software from EHRs to AI and data analytics on cloud servers instead of in-house management.
With more providers investing in scalability and cost-efficiency of cloud solutions, the recent research forecasts the global healthcare cloud computing market to reach $35 billion by 2022 at 11.6 percent CAGR.
Currently, the cloudification develops in two complementary directions.
Some providers only test the waters going for a new cloud solution, for example, a mobile app to support chronic disease management. Others consider migrating their already existing architecture elements to the cloud to enable seamless synchronization between different system parts, create new team collaboration practices, or save time and money on the infrastructure maintenance.
Since cloud migration is a complex process requiring substantial planning and good timing, we’ve decided to cover the initial steps of a smooth transition to the cloud.
Assessing the infrastructure
First things first, there is a good chance you don’t need to migrate the full infrastructure and can better manage your investments by injecting them into strategic areas only. Start with considering your as-is situation and pinpointing the architecture components with the potential to impact the business evolution via new or improved services.
Additionally, take into account the possible technology and business constraints, upcoming updates, integration and compatibility requirements for the solutions, as well as the need for a substantial redesign before starting the cloud migration.
It can turn out that some big data archives that aren’t used frequently can stay on-premise, and some applications will serve providers better from the cloud due to increased robustness and security for the regular multi-user access.
In this case, an organization can choose to go for the hybrid environment, decreasing the load on in-house servers and adding up more flexibility to the picked system elements.
Self-check: What are our migration goals?
Answering this question, you will be able to determine the priority elements for migration to the cloud by determining the most pressing needs, such as everyday workflows, equipment management, or disaster recovery.
While thinking about the goals, review all parts of the infrastructure, including business and clinical applications, such as EHR, LIS, PACS, and RIS, assigning them to one of the following categories:
First to be migrated
Future migration projects
Unable/unneeded to migrate
With such a clear prioritization, it will be easier to assemble a migration roadmap that will guide the project scope creation, design, and implementation processes.
Drafting a migration strategy
After your priorities are all set, it is time to create a migration strategy based on applications and data to be transferred to the cloud. You can either pick one of the approaches or mix and match them depending on particular infrastructure elements.
The American Medical Association (AMA) announced the release of the 2019 Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) code set. There are 335 code changes in the new CPT edition reflecting the CPT Editorial Panel and the healthcare community’s combined annual effort to capture and describe the latest scientific and technological advances in medical, surgical and diagnostic services.
“The CPT code set is the foundation upon which every element of the medical community – doctors, hospitals, allied health professionals, laboratories and payers – can efficiently share accurate information about medical services,” said AMA president Barbara L. McAneny, M.D. “The latest annual changes to the CPT code set reflect new technological and scientific advancements available to mainstream clinical practice, and ensure the code set can fulfill its trusted role as the health system’s common language for reporting contemporary medical procedures. That’s why we believe CPT serves both as the language of medicine today and the code to its future.”
Among this year’s important changes to CPT are code additions that reflect the tremendous potential of using connected health tools to better support clinicians in patient population health and care coordination services, and other novel delivery systems that are vital for improving the overall quality of health care.
These include three new remote patient monitoring codes that reflect how health care professionals can more effectively and efficiently use technology to connect with their patients at home and gather data for care management and coordination. Also, two new interprofessional internet consultation codes have been added to reflect the increasing importance of using non-verbal communication technology to coordinate patient care between a consulting physician and a treating physician.
“The AMA has urged the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service to adopt the new codes for remote patient monitoring and internet consulting and designate the related services for payment under federal health programs in 2019,” said Dr. McAneny. “Medicare’s acceptance of the new codes would signal a landmark shift to better support physicians participating in patient population health and care coordination services that can be a significant part of a digital solution for improving the overall quality of medical care.”
Additional CPT changes for 2019 include new and revised codes for skin biopsy, fine needle aspiration biopsy, adaptive behavior analysis, and central nervous system assessments including psychological and neuropsychological testing. Broad input from practicing physicians, medical specialty societies and the greater health care community was considered by the CPT Editorial Panel to produce the latest practical enhancements to CPT that reflect the coding demands of the modern healthcare system.
After more than two days of thought leadership discussions during its 30th Anniversary Annual Forum, executive participants of the HealthCare Executive Group (HCEG) voted on and ranked the 2019 HCEG Top 10 critical challenges, issues and opportunities they expect to face in their organizations in the coming year.
Executives from payer, provider and technology partner organizations were presented with a list of more than 25 topics selected by the HCEG Board of Directors and other thought leaders. The list was augmented by the 2018 Industry Pulse Survey. Roundtable discussions hosted during the Forum amongst the more than 100 attendees and invited industry experts allowed the topics to be explored and expounded upon, prior to a digital ranking that culminated in the 2019 HCEG Top 10.
2019 HCEG Top 10 Challenges, Issues and Opportunities
Data and Analytics:? Leveraging data (especially clinical) to manage health and drive individual, provider and payer decisions.
Total Consumer Health:? Improving members’ overall medical, social, financial, and environmental well-being.
Population Health Services: O?perationalizing community-based health strategy, chronic care management, driving clinical integration, and addressing barriers to health such as social determinants.
Value-based Payments: T?ransitioning to and targeting specific medical conditions to manage cost and improve quality of care.
The Digital Healthcare Organization:? HSAs, portals, patient literacy, cost transparency, digital payments, CRM, wearables and other patient-generated data, health monitoring, and omni-channel access/distribution.
Rising Pharmacy Costs:? Implementing strategies to address growth of pharma costs along with benefits to quality of care and total healthcare costs.
External Market Disruption:? New players like Amazon, Chase, Apple, Walmart, and Google.
Operational Effectiveness:? Implementing lean quality programs, process efficiency (with new core business models), robotics automation, revenue cycle management, real-time/near-time point of sales transactions, etc.
Opioid Management:? Developing strategies for identifying and supporting individuals and populations struggling with substance abuse/addiction or at risk of addiction.
Cybersecurity:? Protecting the privacy and security of consumer information to maintain consumer trust in sharing data.
“Selecting and ranking healthcare issues is always a challenge as we are in a very critical and dynamic stage in healthcare,” said Ferris W. Taylor, executive director of HCEG. “?Everything seems important. Particularly, issue #11 — healthcare policy reform — and issue #12 — precision/personalized medicine?. More than a handful of HCEG members were surprised that these topics did not make the Top 10. HCEG plans to further explore the reasoning through facilitated discussions at upcoming events and within the HCEG digital community. It’s a compliment to the HCEG members that we reached an agreement on these 10 critical and actionable issues.”
