Smile CDR, a leading health data storage and integration company, today announced the successful implementation of its clinical data repository (CDR) platform across 20 U.S. payer databases.
The platform updates allowed customers to effectively meet the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) Interoperability and Patient Access Final Rule (CMS-9115-F) compliance enforcement deadline of July 1, 2021. The new CMS rule addresses barriers to the secure exchange of health information that limit the ability of patients to access essential health information.
“We are grateful for the opportunity to help customers standardize data capabilities that improve patient access to their own health information,” said Duncan Weatherston, chief executive officer at Smile CDR. “It is critical that we keep our customers at the center of what we do as we move one step closer to creating a common information exchange playing field.”
In June, Smile CDR became the first company to receive the Drummond Certification of Compliance, certifying interoperability and compliance with CMS Final Rule standards and reducing the risk payers, providers, developers, and applications may not be truly interoperable or only partially interoperable in real-world settings.
Under the CMS Final Rule, U.S. government health plans must have an interoperable Patient Access Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR) API to provide patients easy and secure access to their records.
While technology is constantly evolving, most laboratories continue to use outdated equipment and manual processes for routine tasks. If you are using obsolete equipment, it may result in problems with precision, accuracy, and output, which can ultimately prove to be costly. If your lab equipment has become obsolete, here are five benefits of upgrading them.
1. It enables you to automate some processes
Your lab processes require a high degree of accuracy and precision, and you may not achieve this with manual processes. Upgrade of lab equipment allows you to enjoy technological advantages by automating routine processes and delivering at more efficient rates than employees would. Automated lab equipment allows for the fast delivery of results through electronic means where one can access them remotely.
The fact that modern lab equipment is equipped with the latest technology makes it more expensive than older versions, and arranging for initial acquisition costs during the upgrading process can be strenuous for an organization. However, you may decide on the leasing option if financing for lab equipment becomes a challenge.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is already part of our everyday lives. According to research by PwC, 86% of businesses are already reaping the benefits of better customer experience through AI. Further, 25% of companies harnessing AI expect to see the tech pay out in increased revenue during 2021. It’s clear that AI and machine learning (ML) have grown firm roots in the digital landscape.
AI use cases are beginning to filter into healthcare, too, including the optimization of hospital staffing, patient monitoring, screening scans for abnormalities, and supporting clinician decision-making.
Given the huge supply-demand gap in mental healthcare, there is real potential for AI to play a role. However, it is important that it is deployed in the right way.
Customizable technology for a personal approach
There is no-one-size-fits-all in mental health. Every individual has distinctly different needs and goals, and as such, the mental health tools must reflect this. Good clinicians do this instinctively, channelling their training and years of experience. However, there are simply not enough clinicians to meet mental health demand. It’s estimated that more than 26 million individuals experiencing a mental illness are not receiving treatment in the US alone.
Technology can help address this yawning gap in supply, but this won’t help if the solutions provided aren’t tailored to the unique needs of the individual. This is where AI can play a role. Smartphones, and increasingly wearables, are able to capture data from which algorithms can generate insights that can be used to personalize care, leading to better mental health. We’ve invested in technology (protected by more than a dozen patents) and powerful algorithms that can track symptoms, emotions and activities to power a recommender system that gets the right tool to the right person at the right time.
If you or a family member needs oxygen therapy in your daily life, there’s no doubt you’re at least somewhat familiar with the annual favorite, the oxygen concentrator. These devices are designed to collect oxygen and nitrogen in the air and give it to a patient so they can breathe easier.
How exactly do oxygen concentrators work? Ambient air is drawn through a compressor first. Next, nitrogen and oxygen are removed from the atmosphere through various filters. Then oxygen is delivered to the patient via a mask or nose tube after running through a pressure regulator.
Oxygen concentrators have many features and benefits that make them famous. It may seem like a challenge to find the right product to meet your needs. Here is some basic information and help you choose which oxygen concentrator is the best fit for you by telling some of the essential features.
How to Choose
Oxygen concentrators have several different features and benefits which can make them more or less ideal for certain patients. With this in mind, we’ve outlined some of the essential variables to consider; therefore, you can easily choose the best concentrator for your needs.
We, as people, have become more and more aware of the importance of taking care of our own health and wellbeing. This means that we all are looking for the best ways to monitor our health, track our food intake and work out how often we are working out.
Whilst there are old-fashioned ways to do this, digital health apps have become the fundamental way to ensure that you take good care of yourself.
The rise of the digital health app
Apps have definitely become part and parcel of our everyday lives, and it seems that we now have an app available to us for most things that we need to do. Shopping, banking, social media, and so much more, there are apps for everything that you may want to do in your life.
If you work in healthcare, you need to read this book. It is well worth your time and shows quite effectively how one person can create and cause change that can ripple through an industry. All it takes is someone with a passion to serve, and to listen while doing so.
One reason I found this story so compelling is that I’ve spoken with the subject, Sister Anne Brooks of the Tutwiler Clinic, several times. She was a force while there — powerful, sincere and so engaging. What a blessing to the people she served!
The following information on the University Press of Mississippi website is taken from the description of “The Power of One: Sister Anne Brooks and the Tutwiler Clinic,” a book written about the longtime Delta physician.
For 34 years Sister Anne Brooks, a Catholic nun and doctor of osteopathy, served one of the nation’s most impoverished towns and regions, Tutwiler, in Tallahatchie County in the Mississippi Delta.
In 1983, she reopened the Tutwiler Clinic, which had remained closed for five years, as no other physician was willing to serve in Tallahatchie County.
Starting with only two other nuns and regularly working 12-hour days, Brooks’s patient load — in a region where seven out of 10 patients that walked in her door had no way to pay for care — grew from 30 to 40 individuals per month her first year to more than 8,500 annually.
Sally Palmer Thomason tells the powerful story of Sister Anne Brooks, beginning with her tumultuous childhood, the contracting and overcoming of crippling arthritis in early adulthood, and her near-unprecedented decision to attend medical school at the age of 40.
The healthcare system simply wasn’t ready for COVID-19, and the pandemic has exposed the system’s weak links. The situation has become exacerbated by an ongoing workforce shortage. Not only are a growing number of clinicians nearing retirement, but also burnout — already a problem prior to the pandemic — has become what many are calling a parallel pandemic.
And this isn’t surprising. Nurses have been working overtime week after week, seeing tremendous loss of life firsthand, and now are being asked to support the vaccine rollout – to the tune of 11 million doses per week.
The most pressing question for healthcare tech right now is how can we curb nursing burnout in 2021?
This is a question we’ve been asking since the early days of Health IT, but new responsibilities over the last few months and growing rates of nurses leaving the profession have raised the alarm for technology companies to do more.
Healthcare leaders, clinicians, and educators have responded by developing innovative workforce solutions and education strategies to keep pace with changing care-delivery models. Specifically, around the vaccine rollout, we can ensure nurses have access to rapid, virtual education around administration best practices and patient education.
We also need to streamline the alerts going to these providers so they only receive the most actionable and important information at the point of care. These providers do not have the time to review every new study that comes out around COVID treatment options. Instead, we can leverage digital tools to provide evidence-based information that is actionable and available at the point of care.
This helps eliminate confusion around what action should be taken, and ensures all members of the care team feel empowered to care for their patients. For on-the-job training, as artificial intelligence becomes more refined and its use expands, algorithms could surface insights much earlier that generate mini-lessons, clinical updates, remediation, and reminders within existing workflows.
DocSpace, a digital health commerce platform that helps clinicians start, manage, and grow tech-enabled private practices, announced $1.2 million in seed funding led by Slauson & Co. The round includes other notable investors Precursor Ventures, Acrew Capital’s Scout Fund, SputnikATX Ventures, and Angel investors Nathan and Sonia Baschez, Nikhil Krishnan, and Eliana Murillo. The seed funding will support the build out of DocSpace Pay, an integrated one-click checkout healthcare payments experience for patients and clinicians.
DocSpace offers a turn-key solution to help more than 4.5 million therapists, dentists, physicians, and optometrists automate their entire private practice formation process from end-to-end. DocSpace’s HIPAA-compliant infrastructure provides everything a clinician needs to form a new business, from digital health storefronts with custom themes to back office management tools like scheduling, video conferencing, banking, payroll, and bookkeeping.
DocSpace was co-founded by CEO Dr. Mario Amaro, a physician and U.S. Navy Veteran who served in both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, and CPO Miles Montes, a seasoned operator and expert in platform product management, previously at ADP and ShopLatinx. Since launching in March 2020, DocSpace has helped hundreds of clinicians build and launch their practices from the ground up.
“Existing practice management software requires clinicians to manually self-navigate the expensive and complicated business formation process before they’re able to utilize any of their product services,” said Dr. Mario Amaro. “When you require clinicians to do all the hard work of starting a new business then force them to purchase expensive software, it’s no surprise that fewer clinicians have the opportunity to build new businesses in their communities.”
Dr. Amaro continued, “This is why we were inspired by Shopify’s business model and the infrastructure they created to empower retail merchants to be small business owners. We are building the first clinical practice operating system that provides clinician entrepreneurs the opportunity to seek practice independence, helping them get to market faster, while leveling the playing field so they can compete against large hospital systems and other VC-backed healthcare startups.”
“Making it easier for clinicians to start new businesses is critical to decreasing clinician burnout, giving more choices to patients, and reducing the amount of administrative and overhead bloat in delivering health services. We should treat clinicians like entrepreneurs and reduce the barriers to them striking out on their own,” said Nikhil Krishnan, the founder of Out-Of-Pocket and advisor/investor to DocSpace.
If you work in healthcare, you need to read this book. It is well worth your time and shows quite effectively how one person can create and cause change that can ripple through an industry. All it takes is someone with a passion to serve, and to listen while doing so.