House bill would put a stop to VA EHR modernization

House bill would put a stop to VA EHR modernization

Citing billions more to be spent over the next several years by the Department of Veterans Affairs on a new electronic health record system that has been fraught with implementation struggles, Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., say he wants to stop the rollout of the Oracle Cerner EHR system as soon as possible.WHY IT MATTERS
As he enters his second term serving the House Veterans Affairs Committee, Rosendale will now chair the Subcommittee on Technology Modernization legislative, which oversees and has investigative jurisdiction over the VA’s enterprise technology modernization programs and projects.
According to an announcement, the VA EHR termination bill introduced last week…

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Beamtree secures contract to build Health Roundtable's data platform

Beamtree secures contract to build Health Roundtable’s data platform

ASX-listed healthcare data insights company Beamtree has been commissioned to build a data analytics platform for a group of hospitals across Australia and New Zealand. It has recently signed a A$1 million contract with Health Roundtable, a not-for-profit organisation that provides data analytics and collaborative knowledge-sharing activities to hospitals in the region.
Health Roundtable started in 1995 as a knowledge-sharing collective of clinicians and hospital administrators. With a network of 90 health services and 177 hospitals, the organisation facilitates the sharing of insights from benchmarked data, best practices and new ideas, service improvement and innovation activities, and community collaborations. 
Based on their revised contract…

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Microsoft signs first AI healthcare partnership in Vietnam

Microsoft signs first AI healthcare partnership in Vietnam

AI healthcare software company VinBrain, a company backed by Vietnam’s largest conglomerate Vingroup, has entered into a formal collaboration with Microsoft.WHAT IT’S ABOUT
According to a press release, the partnership, which is a first for the global tech company in Vietnam, will work on three areas of AI healthcare: data sharing, cross-product validation, and R&D.
VinBrain will leverage DrAid, its suite of AI-powered pathology solutions which can detect 21 disease indicators of the heart, lungs and bone. The US FDA-approved platform is being used by around 2,000 doctors and more than 100 hospitals in Vietnam. 
The AI platform runs on a dataset of over…

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Cosmos, Epic's massive EHR analytics platform, helps reduce new mother readmissions

Cosmos, Epic’s massive EHR analytics platform, helps reduce new mother readmissions

Nearly 20% of postpartum patients in America develop high blood pressure; Epic Research just found in a new study that postpartum hypertension nearly triples the chances of rehospitalization.After looking at more than 1.2 million birth encounters and then grouping and comparing the highest blood pressure readings taken in the 24 hours after discharge, the study found:

Patients with blood pressure levels at or above 160/110 shortly before discharge are nearly three times more likely to be readmitted than patients with normal blood pressure readings.

More than 5% of postpartum patients with the highest blood pressure readings, equal to or greater than 160/110 mmHg,…

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Intermountain and Story Health partner on specialty care for heart failure

Intermountain and Story Health partner on specialty care for heart failure

Intermountain Health is looking to artificial intelligence and high-touch coaching to increase care personalization and medication adherence for patients with heart failure.WHY IT MATTERS 
Coaches from Story Health, which helps develop personalized care plans using clinical data, will be available to answer Intermountain patients’ questions via text or call. They’ll also remind them about essential medication changes and ensure that vascular patients have access to the medications they need between visits.
“Patients have long journeys with their health, and a significant part of that journey takes place after they leave the clinician’s office,” said Tom Stanis, CEO and cofounder of Story Health, in…

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E-prescribing now live at Northern Health's mental health services

E-prescribing now live at Northern Health’s mental health services

Melbourne-based Northern Health has started rolling out electronic prescribing at its Mental Health Division and outpatient clinics. The cloud-based e-prescribing platform by MediRecords has just been integrated with its PAS and clinical patient folder (CPF) software, according to a media release.
WHY IT MATTERS
This latest implementation of the MediRecords cloud platform allows e-prescriptions to be sent instantly to patients or their carers. It also comes with a QR code to be scanned at pharmacies for dispensing, providing mental health patients with quicker access to new and repeat medications.
The adoption of this FHIR-based technology also means doctors no longer have to search a second…

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Australian Health Dep't failed to manage risks in expanding telehealth: state auditor

Australian Health Dep’t failed to manage risks in expanding telehealth: state auditor

The Australian National Audit Office has conducted a review of the expansion of telehealth services across the country by the Department of Health and Aged Care in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.FINDINGS
Based on the state audit, the department fell short in governance, risk management, and evaluation of the telehealth expansion. 
While it made “significant” changes to the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS), the expanded telehealth services were “only partly supported by sound implementation arrangements.” 
The audit found that it did not require key implementation decisions and plans to be documented. 
It was also noted that the department did not manage implementation risks associated with temporary…

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Johns Hopkins AI models predict ICU delirium risk

Johns Hopkins AI models predict ICU delirium risk

Two dynamic analytics models developed at Johns Hopkins University predicted delirium-prone patients when tested on two datasets drawn from 100,000 stays at a Boston hospital’s intensive care unit, according to new research.WHY IT MATTERS
Delirium – sudden bouts of confusion, inattention, paranoia, agitation and hallucinations – can put patients at higher risk of prolonged hospitalization, future dementia and death. By forecasting delirium, alerted clinicians could apply countermeasures that can mitigate adverse outcomes, according to the premise of artificial intelligence research published in Anesthesiology. 
“For a lot of these physiological transitions, we think that there are early warning signs that may not be obvious…

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Remote therapeutic monitoring is reimbursable – here's what you need to know

Remote therapeutic monitoring is reimbursable – here’s what you need to know

Ever since CMS released the new CPT codes for remote therapeutic monitoring last year, health systems have been eager to use them, but unsure of the criteria. Providers are acknowledged for the time they spend connecting with patients outside of the office.With the new CPT codes, providers can get reimbursed for:

Educating patients on how to use a remote care-management platform.

Monitoring a platform’s alerts and patients’ use of remote education.

Direct patient/provider messaging within the platform.

Data collection via the platform, i.e., collecting patient feedback on pain levels, activity and motion.

To qualify for reimbursable RTM, providers need to use software deemed a medical device…

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Third-party data breach round-up: mscripts, Diligent, Mailchimp

Third-party data breach round-up: mscripts, Diligent, Mailchimp

This month, more than 114,000 individuals may have experienced personally identifiable information and protected health information exposures from these incidents, while an email marketing hack is a new source for phishing attacks.Medication adherence platform mscripts breached
On January 17, mscripts, a cloud-based mobile pharmacy platform that focuses on patient engagement and medication adherence solutions, reported to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services unauthorized access/disclosure that involved protected health information of 66,372 individuals, according to the Office for Civil Rights cases under investigation list.
The San Francisco-based platform, owned by Dublin, Ohio-based Cardinal Health, uses interactive SMS messaging and branded mobile apps to…

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