From Telemedicine to Complete Virtual Care and Beyond

From Telemedicine to Complete Virtual Care and Beyond

Michael Gorton, CEO of Recuro HealthTelemedicine has helped improve the quality of life of patients in every corner of the world and has been successfully utilized to provide convenient care to people with limited or no access to health services. Today, worldwide digital interconnectivity is growing, enabling telehealth to advance health equity, bring access to care for underserved regions and meet the urgent, primary and behavioral healthcare needs of an exploding global population.It has been a remarkable journey for the innovators who pioneered telemedicine. Since its inception, digital health services began the transformation from traditional healthcare — a reactive, disease-focused model…

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Primary care tech company Elation Health acquires billing platform Lightning MD

Primary care tech company Elation Health acquires billing platform Lightning MD

Elation Health, which offers tools for telehealth, patient engagement and an EHR geared toward primary care providers, announced on Thursday that it had acquired billing and practice-management company Lightning MD.Elation said it would combine the billing and revenue cycle software with its tools to offer an all-in-one product in beta starting this summer. Practices who use other management and billing software through Elation’s API will still have that option. 
Founded in 2017, Lightning MD partnered to integrate with Elation’s services last year. 
“Healthcare technology is rapidly evolving, particularly in the primary care sector where we have the greatest opportunity to improve patient outcomes and…

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BCBS Tennessee Unveils Health Disparities in First Health Equity Report

BCBS Tennessee Unveils Health Disparities in First Health Equity Report

BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee unveiled its first Health Equity Report Tuesday, which analyzed six topics of health disparities: behavioral health, cancer, child and adolescent care, chronic condition management, Covid-19 and maternal health.
The report serves as a way to understand the inequities that exist among its members to determine ways the payer can address the disparities, said Dr. Andrea Willis, chief medical officer of BCBS Tennessee. “We wanted to get a better picture of the health issues and barriers to care faced by our members and Tennesseans as a whole, so that we could more effectively partner with health care providers to…

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The Federal Trade Commission Accuses GoodRx Of Multiple Data Sharing Fails, Demands It Pay $1.5 Million Fine and Make Reforms

The Federal Trade Commission Accuses GoodRx Of Multiple Data Sharing Fails, Demands It Pay $1.5 Million Fine and Make Reforms

The Federal Trade Commission has cited telehealth and prescription drug discount provider GoodRx for sharing sensitive consumer health data with several advertising platforms, in violation of its own privacy promises to consumers.
The agency has filed a proposed order demanding that GoodRx pay $1.5 million in civil penalties for failing to let consumers know about unauthorized disclosures of its data to a list of advertiser platforms. including Facebook and Google.
The company, which is based in California, operates a digital health platform offering prescription drug discounts, telehealth visits and other health services. It captures a wide range of data from consumers who use…

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Several Louisiana hospitals face online tracking lawsuits

Several Louisiana hospitals face online tracking lawsuits

The class action lawsuits filed by Herman Herman & Katz allege Meta Pixel code potentially analyzed, gathered and shared the sensitive medical data of hundreds of thousands of patients across the LCMC Health Systems and Willis-Knighton Health System networks.WHY IT MATTERS
Pixel technology uses a Java tracking script to send an organization’s data to the technology owner, which in this case, is Meta, owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Tracked data could be shared with network marketing partners who target individuals with offers and advertisements.
The new class action lawsuit alleges that visitors to the health system websites may have had their protected…

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CIO Podcast - Episode 49: Frictionless Billing with Joanne Mizell

CIO Podcast – Episode 49: Frictionless Billing with Joanne Mizell

For the 49th episode of the CIO podcast hosted by Healthcare IT Today, we sat down with Joanne Mizell, Chief Operating Officer at Banner|Aetna to talk about Frictionless Billing, an initiative to improve the patient billing process.  Mizell shares with us some of the financial and revenue pressures that healthcare organizations are facing today and her answer may surprise you.  Plus, she shares how being a "payvider" (provider and payer) provides a great opportunity to address problems like the Frictionless Billing effort they rolled out to improve the billing experience for patients.  We also ask Mizell how technology has helped and…

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Indian healthcare chiefs doubt their cybersecurity capability: report

Indian healthcare chiefs doubt their cybersecurity capability: report

A new survey report in India has gauged the stances of healthcare leaders on their use of technology in an effort to yield operational efficiencies, enhance service delivery, and improve health outcomes. More than 50 respondents, who are mostly chief executives of multi-site hospitals based in metropolitan cities, were polled by Grant Thornton Bharat and the Association of Healthcare Providers (India) in the said report titled “Technology transformation for future-ready healthcare.”
FINDINGS
The survey revealed that around eight in 10 respondents are increasing their digital and technology budget in the next 12 months. One major area of investment is 5G technology, which is noted for…

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Rising Costs Are Keeping Healthcare CFOs Up a Night — Can Data Help?

Rising Costs Are Keeping Healthcare CFOs Up a Night — Can Data Help?

The increasing costs of labor and supplies are the top issues keeping healthcare CFOs up at night, according to a new report released by Syntellis, a provider of performance management software. To effectively address these concerns, healthcare providers must ensure they have access to data-driven analytics software that can help them make important decisions — such as how to effectively manage their existing workforce and where to shift care delivery models — the report said.
Syntellis surveyed more than 200 U.S. healthcare finance professionals who work at hospitals, health systems and integrated delivery networks. These professionals agreed that last year was a…

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How Spiritual Care Impacts the Mental Health of Family Caregivers

How Spiritual Care Impacts the Mental Health of Family Caregivers

– Acting as a family caregiver, who often takes on the role of surrogate decision-maker, can lead to elevated stress and anxiety caused by the patient prognosis and complex medical decisions needed to be made. According to a recent Regenstrief Institute study, spiritual care interventions can effectively support the mental health and well-being of family caregivers. Family caregivers in the intensive care unit (ICU) will make critical healthcare decisions on behalf of patients who may be incapacitated or critically ill and unable to make their own decisions. The study, published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, examined the well-being…

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Community Clinics Look to EHR Implementation to up Patient Experience

Community Clinics Look to EHR Implementation to up Patient Experience

– Texas-based Legacy Community Health Clinic has announced it will transition from its outdated legacy system and move forward with an EHR implementation that will drive the patient experience while improving patient data access. The project, funded by a $1 million federal grant, will connect the health clinic’s 55 locations through one system and provide over 200,000 patients with continual data access. Providing patients access to their medical records was challenging for the community health providers, who previously had to fax health information. Faxed patient health data often sits on the fax machine for hours or even days before it gets…

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