Health IT Issues that Deserve a Second Read – March 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 March. You can also read previous month’s Top Ten Lists. Thank you for contributing and reading.

Most Played Radio Episode in March

Healthcare’s rapid changes demand continual training for everyone – not just CME. From Paradigm Shift of Healthcare, hosts Michael Roberts, Scott Zeitzer, and Jared Johnson take a deeper dive into different ways to train leadership and staff in the face of evolving business needs – not just to get better at our current jobs, but to gain new skills to keep up with what’s coming next. From today’s students and workers to tomorrow’s leaders, these principles apply to everyone.

Most Read Thought Leader Posts in March

Making Health Data Impossible to Misunderstand
By John D’Amore, President and Chief Strategy Officer, Diameter Health
Twitter: @DiameterHealth
Twitter: @jddamore

Back in the first century AD, the Roman orator Quintilian aptly characterized communication of health information as it should be in the 21st century: “One should not aim at being possible to understand but at being impossible to misunderstand.” Most EHRs today, however, send data with a potential of being understood but with no guarantee. That guarantee is known as semantic interoperability—the expectation that data will be understood and usable by downstream recipients regardless of the source. Continue reading…

Balancing the Data Equation
By Matt Fisher, Attorney and chair of the Health Law Group at Mirick, O’Connell, DeMallie & Lougee, LLP.
Twitter: @matt_r_fisher

Who owns healthcare data? Who can access healthcare data? Who can control how healthcare data are used? Those three questions can form the basis for going into any number of directions in the discussion around healthcare data. The questions will also spark substantial debate as to the best means of answering. Continue reading…

Adding a New Competency in Clinical Informatics for Medical Education
By William Hersh, MD, Professor and Chair, OHSU
Twitter: @williamhersh

One of the most widely cited papers I have written in the last decade has been one on competencies in clinical informatics for medical education. For the most part, these 13 competencies have stood the test of time, from knowing how to use the electronic health record and information retrieval systems as well as applying clinical decision support, patient privacy, personal health records, telemedicine, and more. Continue reading…

How to Mitigate Identity Risks By Managing Access for Contractors & Other Non-Employees in Healthcare
By John Racine, Managing Director, Core Security, a HelpSystems Company
Twitter: @CoreSecurity

Many healthcare organizations have started relying on contingent workers for a variety of reasons, including responding to talent shortages and addressing the rising costs of hiring full-time healthcare employees. Contracted employees, known as non-employees, are frequently hired for a short-term or on-demand basis. And their numbers are continuing to increase across the healthcare sector. Continue reading…

Research Reveals Corruption in Medication Prescription Motivations
By Kayla Matthews, HealthIT writer and technology enthusiast, Tech Blog
Twitter: @ProductiBytes

A longstanding practice in the health care sector involves pharmaceutical representatives going to hospitals to give presentations to doctors about the latest drugs. Those physicians, and sometimes any other workers who happen to be in the area, get free lunches. The medical industry refers to such exchanges, whereby medical providers have direct contact with pharmaceutical representatives and get free things, as “detailing” or “detailing visits.” Continue reading…

Too Much Data – Not Enough Information
By Dr. Nick van Terheyden aka Dr. Nick, Host of Dr. Nick: The Incrementalist
Twitter: @drnic1

On this episode I talked to Dave Lareau, CEO of MediComp who has been solving the problem of too much data but not enough information. Dave was involved in the early solutions that became the Lotus Notes platform moving from an early billing solution to a clinically focused solution designed to offer doctors a solution that matched their way of thinking. As he describes it…Continue reading…

COVID-19: Health IT’s Role in Controlling Its Spread
By Austin Dobson, Product Manager, Lyniate
Twitter: @austinsdobson
Twitter: @lyniate

With the scope and scale of the novel corona virus outbreak growing, many health IT leaders are doing their part to mitigate the disease’s impact. Though at the time of this posting, the virus is contained in the United States, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it’s a matter of time before it spreads in this country. Continue reading…

Power to the Patient: Our Record, Our Right, Our Choice
By Steven Posnack, M.S., M.H.S. Deputy National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
Twitter: @ONC_HealthIT
Steven’s Twitter: @HealthIT_Policy

On Monday, March 9th 2020, the ONC released the long awaited final rule to address information blocking and update the ONC Health IT Certification Program as directed by Congress through the 21st Century Cures Act of 2016 (the Cures Act). As a patient, a caregiver for two kids, and an only child preparing to care for aging parents, I look forward to being able to access our medical records and manage our health with the ease and convenience I already experience in most of the economy outside of health care. Continue reading…

Three Steps to Better Cloud Migration Decisions
By Peyman Zand, Vice President, CereCore
Twitter: @CereCore

Healthcare’s digital transformation and the need to meet patients’ consumer-driven expectations is forcing organizations to re-evaluate their core IT infrastructure, applications and data architectures. Expanded technology requirements require new health IT options and digital platform strategies. Continue reading…

Optimizing Patient Flow Requires Actionable, System-Wide Data
By Robert Kowalik, Practice Director, IoT Solutions, HID Global
Twitter: @HIDGlobal

U.S. hospitals are straining under the weight of an influenza season that hit hard and fast, with the Centers for Disease and Prevention estimating at least 280,000 flu hospitalizations out of a minimum of 29 million flu illnesses between Oct. 11, 2019 and Feb. 15, 2020. Now, they’re bracing for a potential pandemic in the form of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), which has made landfall in the U.S. with the number of confirmed cases climbing. Continue reading…