Literature Review

Change Healthcare cyberattack impacts 100 million people Becker's Health IT; by Naomi Diaz; 10/25/24 The Feb. 21 ransomware attack on UnitedHealth Group subsidiary Change Healthcare has impacted 100 million individuals. The number of impacted individuals was posted on the Office for Civil Rights Breach Portal, which is used for reporting breaches of unsecured protected health information under HIPAA. Previously, UnitedHealth said that the data stolen by hackers likely covered a "substantial proportion of people in America." The cyberattack crippled financial operations for hospitals, insurers, pharmacies and medical groups nationwide. In July, the organization began sending out breach notification letters to individuals affected by the attack.  

Florida health system rolls out virtual nursing tech to 1K rooms Becker's Health IT; by Giles Bruce; 10/17/24 Fort Myers, Fla.-based Lee Health is expanding virtual nursing technology to nearly 1,000 patient rooms, representing about half its beds. The four-hospital system is rolling out dual-camera virtual care devices from telehealth company Caregility to scale its virtual nurse offering. The remote fleet management tools come with artificial intelligence capabilities and cloud-based updates. "Our virtual nursing program introduces innovative possibilities in patient care workflows by connecting the care in the complex patient journey," Lee Health Chief Nursing Officer Jennifer Higgins, DNP, RN, said in an Oct. 16 statement. "From admissions and discharges to continuous patient monitoring, patients benefit from an additional team member dedicated to their care."

Effectiveness of a mobile app (Meds@HOME) to improve medication safety for children with medical complexity: Protocol for a randomized controlled trialJMIR Research Protocols; Nicole E Werner, Makenzie Morgen, Sophie Kooiman, Anna Jolliff, Gemma Warner, James Feinstein, Michelle Chui, Barbara Katz, Brittany Storhoff, Kristan Sodergren, Ryan Coller; 9/24The Meds@HOME mobile app provides a promising strategy for improving PCG [primary caregiver] medication safety for CMC [children with medical complexity] who take high-risk medications. In addition, this protocol highlights novel procedures for recruiting SCGs [secondary caregivers] of CMC. In the future, this app could be used more broadly across diverse caregiving networks to navigate complex medication routines and promote medication safety.

Why recent outages are a wake-up call for healthcare and regulators Forbes; by Chris Bowen; 10/11/24 When the CrowdStrike outage first started to show itself in the early hours of that hazy July morning, it was hard to believe that this wasn’t a hack or cyberattack. I was driving in my car that morning and looked up to see a digital billboard glitch into the "blue screen of death" before my eyes. Flights were grounded, travel was delayed, and nearly every Windows machine in the world was unusable. It was total mayhem. Clearly, this was an outage of major proportions, as millions of Windows systems worldwide essentially cratered. Caused by a faulty misconfiguration, we saw firsthand how the very digital advancements that have helped transform and modernize our world also expose us to more vulnerabilities than ever. ... In healthcare, this event laid bare the vulnerabilities we cannot overlook—the gaps that directly threaten patient care and safety. It’s a clear reminder of our industry’s utmost responsibility to patient privacy and well-being. ...

Asian-American communities face ‘digital divide’ in health equity, hospice care Hospice News; by Holly Vossel; 10/1/24 Recent research has dug into the barriers limiting greater telehealth utilization among Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities. The data come at a time when hospices are striving to better understand how to improve those groups’ end-of-life trajectories. Technology utilization has gained momentum in health care, including in hospice care delivery. Though increased virtual health care access can help hospice providers reach patients upstream, the trend may be worsening disparities and outcomes among Asian American populations, according to Victoria Tsze, an outpatient hospice social worker at Tucson Medical Center (TMC) Hospice. 

SNF, home health [and hospice] CEOs could be jailed over cybersecurity issues under new billMcKnight's Senior Living; by Kathleen Steele Gaivin; 9/30/24New legislation aimed at improving cybersecurity in healthcare could see leaders at skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies and hospices jailed if they lie about their cybersecurity precautions, according to one of its sponsors. Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) announced the Health Infrastructure Security and Accountability Act on Thursday. The bill also covers other types of healthcare businesses. “The healthcare industry has some of the worst cybersecurity practices in the nation despite its critical importance to Americans’ well-being and privacy,” Wyden said. “These commonsense reforms, which include jail time for CEOs that lie to the government about their cybersecurity, will set a course to beef up cybersecurity among healthcare companies across the nation and stem the tide of cyberattacks that threaten to cripple the American healthcare system.”

Visible, active leadership is vital to change management, says Epic emeritus CIO advisor Healthcare IT News; by Bill Siwicki; 9/26/24 [Part 1 of 2] Lost amidst talk of all the amazing technologies used in healthcare today is a subject very important to Robert Slepin: change management. ... Clinical workforce shortages and burnout, increasing costs and decreasing reimbursement, and capacity to care for patients with behavioral health/addiction issues – these are among the top issues confronting U.S. hospitals, according to the American College of Healthcare Executives. ... While there is no magic wand to accelerate progress, in my experience you can significantly improve the outcomes in a healthcare transformation initiative with an intentional focus and disciplined approach to change management. Conversely, not being thoughtful and effective in leading change could hinder your efforts or adversely impact the outcomes, and even possibly spell disaster. ... Visible, active leadership is vital. ... A hands-off approach of issuing orders from the corner office and asking others to "let me know when it's done" won't cut it. ... Besides being visible and hands-on, the best leaders I have worked with demonstrate a positive style; for example, they are authentic, coaching, transformational, engaging and compassionate. They remove fear and build trust, and inspire, educate, coach and support people in moving together toward a common, stretch goal. ...

77% of health system IT employees eyeing new jobs Becker's Health IT; Naomi Diaz; 9/25/24 Health system IT employees are keeping their options open, with 77% actively seeking new jobs or planning to do so within the next year, according to Bloomforce's "2024 EHR Salary Insights Report." The report, based on an online survey conducted between November and December 2023, gathered responses from 284 healthcare professionals across various roles, including application analysts, team leads, project managers and people managers. It explored areas such as salary, job satisfaction, work-life balance, talent retention and attitudes toward remote work. Here are some key findings from the report: [Click on the title's link to read more.]

AI 'early warning' system shows promise in preventing hospital deaths, study says Pique NewsMagazine, Toronto, Canada; by Nicole Ireland; 9/16/24 An AI early-warning system that predicts which patients are at risk of deteriorating while in hospital was associated with a decrease in unexpected deaths, a new study says. The study, published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found a 26 per cent reduction in non-palliative deaths among patients in St. Michael's Hospital's general internal medicine unit when the AI tool was used. "We've seen that there is a lot of hype and excitement around artificial intelligence in medicine. We've also seen not as much actual deployment of these tools in real clinical environments," said lead author Dr. Amol Verma, a general internal medicine specialist and scientist at the hospital in Toronto. "This is an early example of a tool that's deployed that was rigorously tested and evaluated and where it's showing promise for actually helping improve patient care." ... The technology called CHARTwatch continuously analyzed more than 100 different pieces of information about each patient in the unit, Verma said. When the AI tool predicted that a patient was deteriorating, it sent an alert to physicians and nurses, prompting them to quickly intervene.

AI scribes show promising results in helping family doctors and nurse practitioners spend more time with patients and less time on paperwork LaGrange Daily News, Toronto, Canada; by PR Newswire / Canada Newswire; 9/11/24 Family doctors report spending 70% to 90% less time on paperwork in a study evaluating the use of artificial intelligence (AI) scribe technology. OntarioMD (OMD), a subsidiary of the Ontario Medical Association (OMA), announced this week the findings of the study that examined the use of AI scribes by more than 150 family doctors and nurse practitioners (NPs) over a three-month period. AI scribes capture conversations between family doctors or nurse practitioners (NPs) and their patients and summarizes them into detailed electronic medical notes. The family doctors and NPs assessed AI scribes' effectiveness in reducing their time spent on administrative tasks and the results are very promising. ... The results also support the Ministry of Health and Ontario Health's Patients Before Paperwork (Pb4P) initiative aimed at helping doctors spend more time caring for patients instead of doing unnecessary paperwork.

Seven pillars to put healthcare consumers at the heart of the digital transformation Forbes; by Hélène Musikas, Géraldine Maouchi, Lorenzo Mandelli, Daniel Brown; 9/6/24 The digital age has seen many industries undergo a profound transformation, evolving into agile "Hybrid Organizations" that blend traditional and digital business models. ... The healthcare sector, however, faces a unique set of challenges on its journey toward this transformation. ... One of the most significant shifts in healthcare is the rising concept of "Self-Care". Seven Ways To Harmonize The Digital Landscape In Healthcare ...

How to design equitable digital health tools: A narrative review of design tactics, case studies, and opportunitiesPublic Library of Science (PLOS) Digital Health; Amy Bucher, Beenish M Chaudhry, Jean W Davis, Katharine Lawrence, Emily Panza, Manal Baqer, Rebecca T Feinstein, Sherecce A Fields, Jennifer Huberty, Deanna M Kaplan, Isabelle S Kusters, Frank T Materia, Susanna Y Park, Maura Kepper; 8/24With a renewed focus on health equity in the United States ... there is a need for the designers of digital health tools to take deliberate steps to design for equity in their work. Specifically, the Double Diamond Model, the IDEAS framework and toolkit, and community collaboration techniques such as participatory design are explored as mechanisms for practitioners to solicit input from members of underserved groups and better design digital health tools that serve their needs. A series of case studies that use different methods to build in equity considerations are offered to provide examples of how this can be accomplished and demonstrate the range of applications available depending on resources, budget, product maturity, and other factors.