Health IT Issues that Deserve a Second Read – July 2020

One of the ways that HealthIT Answers is different from other media sites is the sense of community. The thought leaders in our community are good about sharing their thoughts on the issues of today. We publish at least eight guest posts a week now, so in case you missed some, here are the top ten read and shared guest posts  in the month of July. You can also read previous month’s Top Ten Lists. Thank you for contributing and reading.

Most Played Radio Episode in July

From Harlow on Healthcare, host David Harlow sits down with Mark Masselli, CEO, Community Health Centers. Mark recounts the impressive history of the large multi-site Connecticut-based Community Health Center, which he cofounded, from its humble origins as a free clinic in the 1970s (“Kid … Have you got a license?”) to its current status as an integrated primary care powerhouse with research and training arms. With nearly 800,000 patient visits per year, the organization maintained visit volume as the COVID-19 pandemic hit and the CHC transitioned to telemedicine.

Most Read Thought Leader Posts in July

Making the Business Case for CMM: It’s All About the Mission
By Paul Grundy, MD, Chief Transformation Officer, Innovaccer & President, GTMRx Institute
Twitter: @GTMRxInstitute

If you know me, you know that I firmly believe “no mission, no margin.” When it comes to optimizing medication, fulfilling the mission creates the margin. You cannot divorce the two. Comprehensive medication management is how we do it. Avoidable illness and death resulting from non-optimized medication use led to an estimated 275,000 avoidable deaths in 2016. The cost: $528.4 billion. Continue reading…

Healthcare Identity Governance in the Era of COVID-19
By John Racine, Managing Director of the Identity and Access Management Business, Core Security
Twitter: @CoreSecurity

The impact of COVID-19 has been far-reaching across nearly every sector. But none has been so greatly disrupted as the healthcare industry. Managing through this crisis has required healthcare systems to expand some aspects of their workforce and redeploy others virtually overnight in order to transform the way they offer services to patients. Continue reading…

Democratizing Access to Surgery
By Dr. Nick van Terheyden aka Dr. Nick
Twitter: @drnic1

On this episode I talked to Richard Vincent, CEO and Co-Founder of FundamentalVR, a company focused on democratizing access to surgery through virtual training. Richard came from a technology background building applications and solutions for the emerging mobile marketplace. To their eye, the next wave included the application of Virtual Reality and the potential to immerse in a realistic experience for training in the healthcare and surgical field. Continue reading…

Health Plans Must Modernize Enrollment to Survive a Flood of New Members
By Aaron Fulner, Senior Director, Edifecs
Twitter: @edifecs

The COVID-19 pandemic has driven an incredible shift in the number of American lives covered by employer-sponsored health plans as unemployment creeps up to rates not seen since the Great Depression. With lost jobs comes lost health benefits, and many impacted Americans are evaluating the offerings available through state Medicaid programs and from the Federally-Facilitated Marketplace or a state-based Exchange. Continue reading…

Why Non-Emergency Surgery Volumes Could Depend on Early Financial Engagement
By Mark Spinner, President and CEO, AccessOne

More than half of all consumers plan to delay non-emergency but medically needed care (58 percent) or diagnostic tests (56 percent) following the COVID-19 outbreak, and the length of care delays increases among vulnerable populations, such as families with children and minorities, an AccessOne survey shows. Continue reading…

Employee Privacy in a Pandemic
By Art Gross, President and CEO, HIPAA Secure Now!
Twitter: @HIPAASecureNow

COVID-19 has presented businesses with a new challenge in keeping their company safe and it starts with employee health. As they re-open in the wake of the pandemic, they must keep track of individual health with regard to who is sick and how it might affect the company as a whole. This means that a lot of personal and private health information is being accumulated and stored within a business’s records. Continue reading…

Lessons Learned for Locating Displaced Individuals Following Hurricanes
By Michelle McCoy, Marketing Manager, Audacious Inquiry
Twitter: @A_INQ
Twitter: @NxtLvlBranding

The past three years have demonstrated a collective effort to continuously improve disaster response strategies in Florida. The Emergency Census lays the foundation for other states considering how to locate missing persons once disasters strike. An “above-normal 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is expected,” according to forecasters with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Weather Service. Continue reading…

Picking Up Where We Left Off in Improving Provider Data Management
By Jim Dougherty, Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer, Madaket Health
Twitter: @MadaketHealth

Suffice it to say: the healthcare industry has been laser-focused on the coronavirus pandemic for the past few months. With the urgent care needs that COVID-19 continues to bring and telehealth taking center stage in primary care, many other facets of healthcare — like provider data management — have become afterthoughts. Continue reading…

Accurate Patient Identification: A Critical Differentiator for Optimal COVID-19 Response
By Mark LaRow, CEO, Verato, Jeffrey Allen, MD, FACP, Chief Medical Officer, GRIPA, Jennifer Briggs, CPA, COO/CFO, GRIPA and Geremy Gersh, Vice President of Information Technology, GRIPA
Twitter: @Verato_Software

The COVID-19 pandemic will undoubtedly leave a lasting imprint on the healthcare landscape, with a heightened emphasis on technologies and data that support efficient, effective, highly coordinated care. One foundational element quickly surfaced as a key differentiator for optimal responses: the ability to match the right patient to the right record. Continue reading…

FDA Meeting Goals on Applications for Medical Products During the Pandemic
By Stephen M. Hahn MD, Commissioner of Food and Drugs, FDA
Twitter: @US_FDA

One of the challenges facing the FDA during the COVID-19 pandemic is how to ensure the timely reviews of medical product applications despite a surge in volume of work and practical constraints that may impact our ability to conduct on-site inspections. The public counts on the FDA to review and, when appropriate, to approve or clear medical products that are so important to patients and health care providers. Continue reading…