Category: MedCity Influencers

For digital health entrepreneurs to truly seize the moment, the focus has to be on developing an exceptional go-to-market engine, alongside those transformative products.

As my personal experience with my grandparents proved, engaging with your local pharmacist can reduce the burden placed on a patient’s family and the primary caregiver, while making the transition to at-home care manageable.  

Strategic decisions payers make today will determine how ready they will be for a future where patients expect their healthcare to be as seamless as online shopping.

We’re only just beginning to learn how to harness the power of AI in ways that cultivate stronger healthcare systems — and ensure that the value of connection akin to the human condition is not lost but rather nurtured in its use among healthcare providers.

Can we try to peel away the layers to see exactly what it is that makes the world’s largest vaccination rollout so daunting and complex? What is it that defines the level of complexity of a situation?

In this article, experts forecast upcoming AI developments that will help shape a new commercial model, making 2021 the year when AI shifts from early exploration to broad adoption. 

The need and demand for access to quality, interdisciplinary therapy will only continue to grow. Early intervention, with consistent, qualified care provided under one roof, can generate better outcomes that will help children and their families change what autism means in their lives.

Medicine will never progress without technology—there’s no denying that. But for the foreseeable future, human interaction remains an instrumental part of the healthcare experience.

Metagenomics applied in a rapid clinical setting was unthinkable just a few years ago but now can be deployed by any hospital with local deployment.

Host response can be identified by proteomic profiling, which involves analyzing a broad range of select proteins in a series of patient blood samples, with the first collected prior to treatment and the next collected after the first dose of treatment

The next chapter of value-based care should measure engagement like our lives depend on it. We should unleash the power and convenience of digital tools to move the needle on value-based care.

As a brand new, first-time CEO, this trial-by-fire experience in leading through a crisis taught me a lot and gave me much to reflect on. Most notably, the responsibility of a healthcare executive (and any leader, for that matter) appears to have fundamentally changed.

Back in 2019, the Proposed Interoperability rules were released from ONC and CMS, and the […]

East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine is one great example of medical schools that you may not know about but that are doing a very fine job training our next generation of patient-centered, compassionate caretakers in medicine.

Using natural-language processing and speech recognition technologies, startups are now creating chat-bots and other apps that can, to a remarkable extent, accurately replicate the experience of chatting with a receptionist or nurse.

AI models offer an early look into who might develop kidney disease, who would benefit from early intervention, and the risk of further complications without a change in course. However, it is worth taking a close look to ensure any bias or gaps are addressed.  

With a global epidemic of obesity and diabetes and their known relationship to cancer, researchers and oncologists are turning their attention to metabolic hormones as promising new targets for cancer treatment.

If there is any lesson to be drawn from 2020, it’s that making predictions for the year ahead is an act of hubris. Despite that, some clear trends have emerged.

An API-first approach supports low-code solutions, and that is of immense value to healthcare facilities right now.

Healthcare leaders can continue to wait for the government to enact and enforce IT changes that may or may not serve the needs of clinicians. Or, they can embrace proven solutions today that make their EHRs a bit more like a good butler – and serve the needs of clinicians.

Covid-19 made an already challenging healthcare system even harder to navigate. If we want the industry to come back stronger than before, then we must ask ourselves, “What is healthcare’s next act?” 

AR tools will see a massive boost in 2021 after a year in which its star grew. Here are some more trends that are poised to make 2021 a meaningful year for healthcare.

Covid-19 stands as a litmus test for pushing the boundaries of standardized research processes. Let’s use this shared focus, urgency, and the new partnerships being forged, to invigorate and accelerate cancer research.

Covid-19 provided everyone with a rare example of why it is so vital to communicate end-of-life wishes in a clear and easily accessible way.

Oncology diagnosis inclusing digital pathology, telehealth and physician access are just some of the areas where AI can have outsize impact in 2021

In addition to human empathy, we are also seeing a new “digital compassion” emerging as healthcare providers work to support patients in need during this uncertain time. Showing this kind of compassion has become easier as technology becomes more advanced and patient-centric in response to the pandemic.

The CEO of Surescripts shares his predictions for the health IT segment that include policy and technology projections.

By creating new networks for 24/7 temperature monitoring, alerts and reporting, the challenges of deploying transportation at ultra-low temperatures can be overcome. This also illustrates the crucial role that precision measurement will have to play.

When we talk about artificial intelligence, the truth is most physicians aren’t using it.What we need now is for developers and tech executives to stop designing theoretical solutions, and instead place physicians, patients, and specific clinical needs at the center of their solutions.

By implementing a standardized, automated, and modernized set of processes to manage critical enrollment information across multiple lines of business, plans have greater potential to expand member footprint, enter new markets and drive competitive differentiation.

Ultimately, we should be excited about AI and its adoption in biopharma, but we should also stay sensible and focus our efforts where they’ll have the greatest impact.

To help clinicians diagnose rare disease more quickly and accurately, many healthcare organizations are embracing technology solutions like natural language processing (NLP) tools that can create augmented intelligence workflows that facilitate the rapid search of unstructured clinical data from multiple data sources.

In medicine, we’re getting real-time experience with what many believed was an inevitable but potentially […]

To reduce drug prices, we should focus on the complex drug channel arrangements that stand between manufacturers and patients and not as much on price controls.

It is time to make it our collective mission to bring data automation to patient recruiting for clinical trials and not wait for a resolution of the pandemic to manage clinical trial disruption.

Unlike inherited genetic predispositions, accumulated genetic changes are the result of environmental influences, such as smoking, chemicals or ultra-violet radiation. A growing body of research links somatic changes to an increased likelihood of blood cancers and cardiovascular disease, both heart disease and stroke.

Leveraging dedicated personal coaches and individualized content are the key ingredients of a successful health and wellness program.

In Europe, three major categories of care currently being aided by digital tools: distance diagnoses, internal communications, and external collaborations.

AI-powered surveillance systems are helping health systems and public health agencies with their response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The current health crisis offers a glimpse of how it may be possible to predict and prevent a range of chronic health concerns, including healthcare-associated infections.

The Covid mental health crisis curve stands to cataclysmically increase the number of deaths associated with the pandemic.

Especially in a tough economic climate, healthcare facilities need more efficient ways to improve cash flow and remain stable by ensuring claims are accurately processed and quickly paid. 

By helping patients find affordable healthcare, AI will promote stronger financial health for providers and patients alike, and improve the quality of care as patients gain the financial support to engage in more preventative healthcare.

I’m not proud to say that in the past, I’ve played a role in cutting behavioral health programs in an effort to navigate budget constraints and mitigate financial losses. But my perspective as a finance executive is not what it used to be.

Patients have signaled that they are ready for the digital revolution in healthcare, yet providers are still grappling with technology and disparate data.

Closing the gap between documentation and communication and ensuring software enhances rather than distracts from workflow are two ways that the burden on nurses can be eased at this time.

With proper guidelines in place, along with more education on less toxic chemicals and the proper use of new technologies, greater outcomes will be achieved as we prepare for future outbreaks.

Minimally-invasive treatment options like transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) could be a good option for some patients because patients typically stay in the hospital for shorter periods of time.

With so many new entrants hoping to cash in on the success of digital health, it is more important than ever to look for a venture capital firm that has the right relationships and expertise.

Covid-19 and other challenges of 2020 have carried a sobering mandate: quality can no longer […]

The greatest issue that must be addressed is also the elephant in the room: reducing the administrative burden on physicians.

When all key health stakeholders are connected at the hub, common insights can be leveraged, allowing all healthcare providers to respond intelligently, without delay and ultimately make the best decisions possible for their patients.

Many of the strategies that were on the bottom of the priority list in early 2020 may have moved up, with a new focus on digital enablement and other technological capabilities.

Tumor boards can help physicians in developing countries get access to U.S. expertise and represent one way to democratize state-of-the-art care for cancer patients throughout the world.

The healthcare and pharmaceutical industries are people-centered by design. So how did tech companies become the default “brands that care”?

To prepare for this next wave, healthcare systems and community mental health organizations must find ways to scale resources to efficiently screen patients for behavioral health conditions, match them with the right resources and then monitor their progress over time

In the coming years, clinicians will be presented with a larger and more capable toolbox to aid in the diagnosis of sepsis, directly overcoming the drawbacks of culture-based diagnostics.

the pandemic has brought much-needed attention to how technology can help take down barriers to care and bridge care gaps—by shifting healthcare to people’s homes.

Investing in new innovative RNA technologies can lead to rapid value creation, and Europe is a fertile ground to hunt for them.

The best path forward for healthcare organizations is first to understand the characteristics, causes, and indicators of ransomware attacks and then be proactive in taking preventative measures.

Without the ability to aggregate representative, structured data in real-time for analysis, novel situations like the COVID-19 pandemic leave organizations and professional associations struggling to develop evidence-based guidance rapidly

Data consolidation and a modern approach to data management across health care organizations are critical for driving operational efficiency, protecting critical patient data and, most importantly, delivering optimal health outcomes.

Deferred care because of Covid-19 will lead to additional stress on the healthcare system in the very near future and here’s how insurers can manage it.

If pharmacists and technicians are properly trained at navigating the idiosyncrasies of managing medication with limited shelf-life, you’ll be in a better position to save on your pharmacy spend.

Even though Covid-19 is distinct from any health crisis the country has previously faced, assessing U.S. public health strategies during past crises can provide insight into what has contributed to a more or less equitable response.

Recently, the Translational Research Institute for Space Health selected three innovative biotech companies using VR, conversation-bots, and probiotic therapeutics to combat mental health risks.

Improving patient safety and increasing the bottom line aren’t competing priorities. Here’s how hospitals can accomplish both objectives.  

To keep critical revenue flowing, hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers need to resume elective surgeries and procedures as quickly as possible and mobile apps can help by giving patients and staff vital information, provide advance symptom screening and help providers reduce elective procedure no-shows through better patient compliance.

By making responsible and strategic technology investments, practitioners will have access to robust data, be in a position to analyze and interpret trends and outcomes and provide health care informatics that ultimately will be the insights they need to be successful in a value-based health care environment.

While there are encouraging signs of reimbursement falling in step with the move towards a more value-based healthcare system, what is needed now to further encourage healthcare innovators is to properly rationalize approval processes imposed by the FDA and CMS.

When discussing the role of AI in Covid-19, we have to reframe this conversation and look at AI as an important approach that can provide better analysis and ultimately better outcomes for patients, not as replacing the entirety of the drug discovery process or as a magic bullet for a vaccine.

Radically improving health outcomes for vulnerable populations requires a multifaceted proactive, community-wide approach focused on better understanding social determinants of health and simultaneously addressing social and health inequalities.

With so many incredible advancements in technology in the healthcare space, it’s important to understand where exactly these developments have a measurable impact.

Imagine a world where every patient has access to a care manager armed with comprehensive, real-time data and the tools to take action.

By enabling a more hybrid approach to clinical trials with the added flexibility of telehealth, studies can improve patient-centricity, which will ultimately improve recruitment, engagement, and retention.

The question isn’t if telemedicine has a future, but rather how ubiquitous it will be in our healthcare system moving forward.

It’s important to leverage patient engagement tools to get in front of patients early in the season, reminding them to get their flu shot and educating them on the potential symptoms of both the seasonal flu and Covid-19

Health systems should embrace an omni-channel strategy that includes asynchronous virtual visit capabilities to better meet consumer needs, improve provider capacity, and enable more robust virtual care models.

While payers and policymakers took a more narrow-minded perspective on innovation value in 2020, the year 2021 will bring an increased focus on a treatment’s societal value, how innovation interacts with digital technologies, and whether new innovations are able to reduce existing health outcome inequalities.

Members of the House and Senate have seen the need to boost the national stockpile with PPE that is made in America. Failure to do so would only exacerbate the problems when our healthcare system is stretched thin.

Trained clinical judgment and human compassion will always be irreplaceable, but robotics and automation can also provide predictable and repeatable movements, facilitating better standardization of treatment, which allows physicians to focus on clinical decision making.

What are the Covid-related changes in consumer behavior that will stick in the healthcare revenue cycle following the pandemic? Here are three trends that could reshape customer service in the revenue cycle.

Remote IT teams are now a viable solution for startups and established firms to tap into the global pool of software engineers to meet their need to expand development teams rapidly. But how do you successfully vet, onboard, and manage remote software developers?

It’s crucial that today’s providers, innovators, and regulators alike continue to push for such tech adoption, driving virtual, continuous care in populations disproportionately affected by disease.

Although the deadline for compliance with the FHIR patient access rules is fast approaching, most payers are not prepared,

It is unclear why the American Cancer Society would potentially impact the lives of countless women with recommendations that contradict decades of real progress.

While providers diagnose and treat in the hospital, care coordinators go beyond the four walls of that facility, into the community, and meet patients where they are, both literally and figuratively.

To enable greater health access, the healthcare industry must modernize. We need systems rooted in intelligence for a healthier tomorrow.

In rearchitecting the system by training every care provider in every specialty, and enable lower-cost providers and communities, we will provide a new model of care where a physician isn’t the person who helps us when we’re sick — they help us be healthy.

We’re beating Covid-19 by sharing resources. Why stop there? By pooling select healthcare resources, we could also collectively buy supplies in bulk, lowering costs for everyone and minimizing our exposure to supply chain disruptions after the pandemic.

To achieve the technological agility required to function in the modern world, healthcare organizations are wise to pursue managed services and utilize the power of cloud service providers.

There will always be a place for face-to-face care, but the shift to virtual care will drive a more intentional and cost-effective use of such in-person interaction.

Dynamic personnel shifts, technology embrace, and significant behavior change will allow for rapid evolution of the healthcare industry and create the opportunity for alliances across the care continuum.

Price transparency is no longer a nice to have, it’s a must-have as consumers’ wallets increasingly run dry.

Though the rest of 2020 is still unknown, one fact is very clear: Clinicians will need to continue to lean heavily on technology like RPM, AI and telehealth to ensure successful patient outcomes across the board.

Fully-credentialled e-doctors still don’t exist, at least not in their entirety but major elements of the concept have already been deployed in the field, and progress toward a more comprehensive e-doc is well underway.

As RPA’s value for revenue cycle continues to be explored, leaders need to go beyond the hype and determine a practical path to innovation that takes into account the organization’s capacity for innovation and the road map that will best take the organization to its desired digital destination.

Even relatively healthy older adults see the benefit of receiving home-based primary care, not just because of its convenience, but because patients feel safer at home now, and more unsafe than ever in ambulatory settings surrounded by other sick patients. 

Once people recognized that the situation would be more than just a transient window, a growing number of healthcare and life sciences organizations took steps to deploy consistent and secure solutions to digitize a wide range of traditionally paper processes.

Attaining reimbursement often has the greatest impact on patient access and can progress a new treatment toward widespread adoption.

The rise of digital in the health care ecosystem is also making the consumer experience increasingly fragmented and overly complex.

Every lawyer knows that, in a courtroom, one should never ask a question one does not know the answer to. The same holds true for a CEO holding a board meeting. Preparation, such as holding one-on-one meetings with board members ahead of the event, is essential.

As virtual care is only going to grow in the coming months as a solution to pent-up demand for care that has resulted from the pandemic, focused attention is needed to address these operational and reimbursement issues.

If you just need blood drawn, do you really need to go to a hospital or your local lab? Wouldn’t it be easier on you (and less costly to everyone) if you could just prick your finger at your kitchen table and send in your blood sample?

We need to keep in mind three key elements to successfully implement the final interoperability rules from CMS that require private payers to provide longitudinal claims data to members as well as the use of open APIs so a range of third-party applications can be built.

Flare Capital Partner Dan Gebremedhin explains what led the venture capital firm to invest in New York-based Eden Health and lead its recent Series B round.

Whether it’s solving a gap in care problem, or a payer/doctor connectivity problem there will always be individual use cases where multisided platforms (or health information exchanges) can and should connect to solve for information exchange at scale.

The potential that wearables have for helping detect early signs of Covid-19 and other infectious diseases, as well as monitoring patients, will make this technology a popular choice for healthcare organizations and consumers for the foreseeable future.

Data can allow us to improve our public health response to the pandemic, but only if we enable data scientists with the right tools to harness those datasets.

The disproportionate impact of the pandemic on the underserved, Black Americans, Latinos, and those with chronic conditions requires an industry-wide foundational response.

The annual healthcare budgeting process begins with forecasting future patient volumes, case mix, and revenue. […]

A recent Pennsylvania appellate court opinion related to the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act (“PSQIA”) continues a trend of judicial erosion of patient safety privilege protections afforded to health care providers by statute. 

As we look forward to the back half of the year, it’s clear that the desire for companies to commence their IPO process with organizational meetings and bake-offs continues

When reviewing a return to normal operations, there is much to consider. Here are four approaches aimed at establishing a healthy pathway back to something close to the norm.

Health information exchanges know about the hard work of building trust by delivering value in healthcare. They have been in these trenches. They need a seat at the table with our state public health leaders as America works to safely reopen.

Rural hospitals are grappling with high rates of chronic disease, lack of broadband access, and workforce shortages that are exacerbated by the low pay and professional isolation that are characteristic of rural settings. It is from within this digital divide that rural hospitals have learned so much they can pass along to their urban peers.

The Covid-19 pandemic is providing the impetus to look at the senior home health care model differently and more holistically.

The first visit can seem daunting for patients, but by offering this advice and treating the virtual visit as an extension of in-person care, it can be an easy and efficient way to conduct an appointment.

While many of us have avoided exposure to Covid-19 by sheltering in place, patients with […]

With the line between provider and patient now blurred, behavioral health professionals need to be in tune with their own psychological and physical state and seek support from colleagues, a supervisor, or their own therapist.

Population health management advocates need to demonstrate how redefining care management by adopting a holistic viewpoint to include what’s happening outside the hospital will help systems influence health at scale and improve care at a lower cost.

Providing access to multiple sources of sensitive data to enable key functions like contract tracing and monitoring hospitalizations also means increased vulnerabilities and the emergence of entirely new attack surfaces.

A successful cocktail would also serve us in the long-run to treat the impacts of Covid-19 and keep those who are most vulnerable, the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions, more resilient against serious illness or death.

We believe the areas that will require the most adaptation are in value-based care payment models, digitally integrated and tailored care delivery and automation.

Health tech companies in the wellness industry might face a more difficult market than those in the clinical-grade domain. Benefits offered by wellness companies are those most likely to be viewed as nice-to-have perks that may not bring enough value. 

Now more than ever, it’s incumbent on us to use our vast presence in communities across the country to support organizations and the economy.

This outbreak has shown us that we need to be much faster, more nimble and better prepared to confidently share health data across organizations.

Naysayers have been proven wrong multiple times over as companies across the biotech industry have advanced to deliver diagnostics and detection assays across a number of different cancer types enabling predictive testing, early diagnosis and objective results.

In comparison to other developed countries, we spend the least amount of money on social care and the most on medical, with the worst overall health outcomes. We must intentionally and strategically reallocate some healthcare dollars to invest in communities.

Opioid abuse is a widely recognized public health crisis in the United States and the […]

Understanding the medication supply chain, coupled with predictive analytics, will allow hospital pharmacies to be better equipped for any resurgence of the pandemic in their areas.

The value of digital health data is as vast as its volume – but only if it can be unlocked, managed, and ultimately shared for the greater good.

Now that meaningful API-based integration is finally a reality in healthcare, systems of clinical intelligence are emerging to meet physicians’ needs where EHRs have fallen short.

Housecalls may not arrive in the form of a horse and buggy, but after experiencing the convenience and value of receiving care on the channel that they prefer and exactly when they need it, consumers will expect this level of care from here on out.

The current pandemic, which has caused treatment delays, is simply another reason that home-based treatment options should become more readily available to cancer patients.

Whether healthcare organizations are ready or not, the era of virtual care has arrived, with telehealth spearheading the change.