Shannon Flynn is a freelance blogger who covers education technologies, cybersecurity and IoT topics. You can follow Shannon on Muck Rack or Medium to read more of her articles.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has had major impacts in the health care industry, affecting providers and patients alike. However, it also aids the pharmaceutical sector in finding and creating the drugs that support health care through the treatment and management of diseases. Here’s a closer look at some positive changes AI could bring this year.
1. More Applications of AI for Drug Discovery
Uncovering effective drugs can be a time-consuming process. However, AI could make it faster and more fruitful.
A recent partnership between Roche, its U.S. subsidiary Genentech and clinical-stage biotech company Recursion will involve using AI to find new drug targets and accelerate this phase of development. The arrangement could lead to up to 40 programs for neurology and cancer drugs over the next decade.
However, experts warn that applying AI to drug discovery could also have a dark side. One pharmaceutical company previously used AI to find beneficial therapeutics. However, it also relied on the technology to uncover new toxic nerve agents to use as bioweapons.
In less than six hours, the algorithms had found 40,000 molecules that fit the researchers’ desired parameters. They warned that their experiment should be a wake-up call. Depending on AI to find new drugs is promising, but some people could misuse the method’s potential.
Most people don’t realize that it can take up to 15 years and an average of $1 billion to $2 billion dollars just to get one drug developed, pass clinical trials and ultimately approved by the Federal Drug Association (FDA). In fact, the sobering truth is that up to90% of all clinical drug trials fail.
Considering this, it’s actually nothing short of a miracle that the COVID-19 vaccine was approved within just two years. In truth,COVID-19 changed medical research and drug development radically in that it kick-started a lot of innovations in technology. Today, technological advancements are allowing pharmaceutical scientists and laboratories to reduce the alarmingly high failure rates of clinical drug trials.
Why Do Most Drugs Fail in Clinical Trials?
Faced with the reality that only one in ten drugs pass regulatory approval and clinical trial testing, intense research continues to investigate the reason for this. According to an analysis published by Nature News, researchers determined that clinical efficacy was the culprit for almost half of all failures. In other words, the drugs simply didn’t work or did not render the intended effect in patients.
As if these barriers to approval weren’t enough, another 10% of all drugs never pass muster simply because there is no commercial interest, therefore they lack funding to bring them into the medical marketplace. Last but not least, ineffective planning and poor lab strategies are also factors that thwart drugs from graduating to fully approved status.
By Rondy Jennings, managing director of the not-for-profit healthcare group at Goldman Sachs & Co and a founding member of the Black Directors Health Equity Agenda.
Health equity has taken years to move from the drawing board to the waiting room, but the pandemic has revealed the daunting scale and fierce urgency of moving to value-based care. Consider the cost of disparate access to care as borne in COVID’s severity among Black adults.
In cases where we know the patient’s race, the rate of COVID-19 related hospitalization for Blacks has proven to be 2.5 times that of whites. If that holds true for all cases, racial disparity has accounted for 350,000 extra Black coronavirus patients through 2021. Conservatively assuming a hospital charge of $20,000 for each patient, that translates to about $7 billion. Even that substantial cost does not reflect the implications of tens of thousands of needless deaths in the Black community.
What would it take to eliminate this disparity, and many others that could change the lives of Black populations? Clearly, a more equitable healthcare system would improve outcomes across the board by reducing the impact of infectious diseases, premature birth and chronic conditions such as hypertension and diabetes. But to get Black health outcomes in line with the population as a whole, we must examine the obstacles that stand in the way and the lasting changes a shift to a value-based system will produce in health equity.
Driving to the Center of Health Equity
First, let’s turn to the scale of the healthcare ecosystem. U.S. healthcare spending grew in 2020 to $4.1 trillion or $12,530 per person. As a share of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, health spending accounted for 19.7%—one dollar in five. This ecosystem labors under entrenched business models that predate digital technology, data analytics and the internet. In 2020 overall, spending on hospital care reached $1.3 trillion; physician and clinical services, $809.5 billion; prescription drugs, $348.4 billion; and home health care, $123.7 billion.
High-tech entrepreneurs have been very nimble in finding opportunities at the margins. While they can’t tackle the whole ecosystem, they can go after various pieces of it and still create an incredibly successful company without addressing the ripple effects outside their domain. If we think of healthcare as a battleship fleet in desperate need of overhaul, think of the tech disruptors as repairing the hull one weld at a time, oblivious to the condition above deck. Where is the central thrust to overhaul the healthcare system as a whole in a way that creates health equity?
Fortunately, the imperative for change is gaining momentum. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services, for example, is developing promising, value-based innovation models that reward care for underserved populations. They revolve around taking care of people not only on an episodic basis—as with hospitalization or chemotherapy—but also over time. Costs are lowered because the focus is proactive and preventative. Value-based care is not driven by a person’s quality of insurance. It offers a financial incentive to provide preventive care, which addresses social determinants of health, as well as exposure to personal risks.
Inato, a clinical trial platform for community sites, today announced the appointment of Liz Beatty to its Board of Directors. Beatty brings decades of experience in leadership and clinical trial management, along with over three years of hands-on experience serving as Inato’s chief strategy officer.
Since joining Inato in 2019, Beatty has focused on advancing the company’s corporate strategy, driving commercial growth with sites and pharmaceutical companies, and establishing Inato’s United States organization as the US General Manager. During this time, the company has formed key commercial relationships with more than half a dozen of the top-30 global pharmaceutical companies and added more than 1,300 community-research sites to its network.
“Liz’s vision has been instrumental in shaping Inato’s growth and pursuing our mission of bringing clinical trial access to patients around the globe,” said Kourosh Davarpanah, CEO & co-founder of Inato. “We are thrilled to welcome her to the Board, and I know her deep experience and insights will continue to be invaluable.”
“As a thoughtful leader, Liz has spearheaded conversations on improving inclusivity in clinical trials and worked tirelessly to ensure Inato’s platform is making a positive impact for underserved patients,” said Nan Li, Inato Board member and Venture Partner at Obvious Ventures. “Her passion and unique perspective bring diverse experience and understanding to Inato’s Board.”
“I am honored to join Inato’s Board of Directors,” said Liz Beatty. “I truly appreciate the board’s confidence and look forward to working with the team to continue driving Inato’s mission forward at such a critical time for our industry.”
Beatty has vast experience in trial planning, protocol management, and digital technology. Prior to joining Inato, she headed digital clinical trials at Bristol-Myers Squibb, where she led digital innovation efforts across Global Clinical Operations.
The healthcare industry currently accounts for 14% of all US workers, employing about 22 million professionals across different sectors. However, despite this and the unquestionable importance of the industry, it is underfunded, understaffed, and underappreciated.
As a result, it is crucial that healthcare staff can find as many ways as possible to make their daily lives easier. This will improve workplace productivity and efficiency while also enabling them to care for their mental health.
With that in mind, here are some simple ways in which you can achieve that goal!
By Dirk Schrader, resident CISO (EMEA) and vice president of security research, Netwrix.
Ransomware is steadily increasing each and every year, with the healthcare and hospital industries suffering among the most. In 2021, we saw that “The healthcare sector is seeing the highest volumes of ransomware attempts, averaging 109 attempts per entity, every week.”
Why is this sector being targeted specifically? They hold extremely sensitive patient data and information. Hackers are working more diligently than ever to find data, threaten hospitals and providers, and even extort individuals themselves. With such a high amount of cybercrime, how can this sector protect itself and its patients? To start, by learning about security trends and working to implement them where they can.
Here are five security trends we’ll see more of in 2022:
Cybercriminals will be increasingly greedy.
In 2022 attackers will search for new ways to monetize the access to large data troves. This may lead to changes in the tactics, techniques and procedures of threat actors. They will begin to extort individuals rather than the infiltrated companies themselves. The healthcare industry is especially prone to this trend. The data generated and held by a healthcare sector is life-changing for many people and can easily be misused.
Consider this possible scenario: by extracting and aggregating personal data about hundreds of thousands of diabetic patients (34.2 million people alone are diabetic in the US), threat actors might try to ‘offer’ cheaper drugs to the individual patients, extracting money from a highly vulnerable group. If such a scheme can trick, let’s say, ten thousand victims to pay $500 for Insulin (instead of about $1,000 on average), the amount of money on the table is substantial.
Medical device IoT will create more security gaps.
More and more medical devices are being connected using vulnerable IP stacks or old webserver packages which cannot be easily patched as it would jeopardize the devices certification for medical use. In 2017, around 10 billion medical devices were connected to the internet, with an expected jump to 50 billion by 2027. While this connectivity has created so much opportunity for advances in the medical field, it has also created a new set of vulnerabilities.
Frequently, the task of configuring a medical device is considered done when it operates within the parameters of the medical process it is supposed to support or enable. Any additional security aspects are overlooked and often neglected. As long as these medical and IoT devices remain unmanaged, unmonitored and improperly updated, this exposure risk will continue to be exploited by threat actors throughout 2022 and beyond.
The public health industry has many options for lucrative careers. However, employers prefer candidates who have relevant experience and a higher education degree in public health.
Career options and salaries vary depending on several factors. Some factors include the location, cost of living and the company you’ll choose to work for eventually. To make it easier for you, we’ve listed the most lucrative careers for those interested in pursuing a career in public health.
Before Choosing a Career
Nowadays, to get any job, you are required to have, at the very least, a bachelor’s degree. Public health is no exception. The minimum requirement for having a successful career in public health is a bachelor’s in public health or BPH.
You can choose to major in health administration, nursing, or informatics. Although it is not required to work in the field, most employees have a master’s in public health or MPH to qualify for higher positions in public health.
Most industry professionals in the public and private sectors recommend getting an MPH, which offers specializations in a variety of fields like epidemiology, global health, community health, and environmental health, among others.
One of the best universities that offer an MPH program is Lamar University. They provide an online MPH program, which is convenient for people who are too busy to attend universities. The program is 24 months long, with a total cost of $13,629. The last and final degree in public health is Doctor of Public Health or DPH, ideal for those who want to become college professors or assume a research position.
If you’ve earned a Master’s degree in public health, deciding your role can be confusing. Following are high-paying jobs in public health you should apply for.
Nursing can be an exciting profession if you opt to become a travel nurse since you’ll always be on the go. Still, the job comes with some unique challenges associated with the niche that may turn your life upside down. You probably opted for this profession for the perks it offers. But, if you are here, it means you are growing weary of your routine and finding it difficult to cope. But don’t fret; we are here to help!
While it may seem appealing at first, a travel nurse’s job is demanding and physiologically taxing. Leaving your family for new assignments, settling in unfamiliar places, pinning down grocery stores and gyms, and finding healthy meals along the way is not easy. Whether you are a rookie travel nurse or a seasoned one with a few years of experience under your belt, you find this relatable, right?
However, you can make your new journey easier by sticking to a few survival tips. Keep reading to find a few of these and adopt the ones you find helpful.
Choose the right study program
If you plan to further your education alongside continuing your nursing practice- which you should, consider online education. It will level up your nursing practice and help you achieve the ideal work-life balance. As healthcare keeps evolving, nurses must be skilled in various areas to compete in the increasing competition.
