It’s time to use machine learning to combat the opioid epidemic (Becker’s Hospital Review)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Heather Schoonover] Deaths from opioid drug overdoses continued to spike in 2017, reaching a new high of 70,000 deaths and contributing to a drop in life expectancy for the third year in a row, according to new datareleased this week by the Centers for Disease Control. Some preliminary evidence points to the trend flattening in the first few months of this year, thanks to clinician awareness of the crisis, and their use of a limited number of opioid risk assessment tools. But these tools aren’t sufficiently accurate, reliable, or available. Fortunately, risk prediction tools that leverage machine learning...View Full Article Here

Machine learning system saves case managers 1,327 hours per year (HealthcareIT News)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Bill Siwicki] Since the new discharge platform was introduced at Bon Secours Charity Hospital, it has cut the amount of time case managers need to prepare from a daily average of 35 minutes to eight. Bon Secours Charity Hospital, a three-hospital health system that is part of Westchester Center Health Network, also known as WMCHealth, was using a risk scoring algorithm in its electronic health record that was not very accurate. THE PROBLEM As a result, WMCHealth missed some high-risk patients and classified other patients as high-risk who were not. In addition, the automated daily report sent to case managers included only patients who had primary care doctors. The case…

Why Telemedicine Success Measurements Fall Short (Healthcare Analytics News)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Janae Sharp] Telemedicine is one key way to bring care closer to patient needs. Healthy life changes in the home have massive effects on patient outcomes, alleviating some of the circumstances that physicians and payers cannot control but for which they are still held financially liable. Social circumstances and access to care have a huge impact on someone’s potential to heal. A lack of specialists and limited access to care in rural areas mean some patients drive hours to treatment. But developing a telemedicine program... View Full Article Here VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE

Providers turn to analytics to keep patients healthier (Health Data Managment)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Gienna Shawe] Anyone who’s shopped on the e-commerce juggernaut Amazon.com knows that the company analyzes customers’ shopping habits and serves up suggestions for what they might like to buy next. If you’re looking at one product, it can tell you how many customers bought a different item or what they bought in addition to that item. “Why can’t we do that in healthcare?” wonders Charles “Chuck” Christian, vice president of technology and engagement at the Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE). Organizations are “learning now how to standardize [data] and normalize... ... View Full Article Here VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE

Hidden Treasure: The Value of Unstructured Documentation (ForTheRecord)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Selena Chavis] Natural language processing helps health care organizations locate unseen discrete data. The wealth of information that resides in unstructured EHR documentation and its potential to positively impact care delivery is not lost on the health care industry. For years, the opportunities available through natural language processing (NLP) to uncover the treasure within free text—currently comprising 80% of clinical documentation—have been the discussion of much industry fodder. NLP turns unstructured documentation into shareable data that can be analyzed and acted upon. A recent Chilmark Research report, "Natural Language Processing: Unlocking the Potential of a Digital Healthcare Era," examined the current state of the industry as it pertains... 

CFO’s guide to creating a successful innovation dashboard for healthcare (Healthcare Finance News)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Jeff Lagasse]

The core of a dashboard is information, as systems track the development and efficacy of innovation projects.

At first blush, the concept of a hospital or health system having an innovation dashboard seems simple enough. And it is, in some respects. It's a dashboard. It tracks innovative projects. There's nothing opaque about the terminology. Setting up a successful dashboard can be a multi-layered process, however, so it helps to have experience and expertise on your side. A good dashboard needs enthusiastic leadership, a technically sound framework, well-trained staff and good communication. Put those things together and you're talking about a tool with the potential... View…

Netflix co-founder urges Utah health executives to develop tolerance for risk (Deseret News)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Ben Lockhard] SALT LAKE CITY — Netflix co-founder and California resident Marc Randolph says Dallas is his favorite place in the world. Randolph's emotional connection to the city stems from a meeting he had with Blockbuster executives in its downtown Renaissance Tower when they were Goliaths of the video industry, and Netflix a lowly David. With Netflix struggling to stay financially viable, Randolph and co-founder Reed Hastings tried to set up a meeting with Blockbuster executives to see whether there was any interest in buying their company. But Netflix, at a little more than 2 years old, had less than 100 employees while Blockbuster ... View Full Article…

Top 10 Tech Trends of 2018 (Healthcare Informatics)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By David Raths] Analytics teams are working with increasingly sophisticated data warehouses, data lakes Editor’s Note: Throughout the next week, in our annual Top Ten Tech Trends package, we will share with you, our readers, stories on how we gauge the U.S. healthcare system’s forward evolution into the future. Once health systems got most of their data into electronic and structured format, the next logical step was the development of data warehouses and analytics platforms, and capabilities to learn from all that data. Today those efforts are still in their adolescence in many organizations, but investments in warehousing and analytics continues, with a goal of identifying and solving institutional inefficiencies and…

Health Catalyst Powering Data-Driven Care Delivery

A huge data deluge surrounds the healthcare sector–from patient records, conditions, co-morbidities to changes in scientific flow. Amidst the transition to value-based care, it is of utmost importance for physicians to unlock the value from the data to provide the best and financially sustainable care. However, they do not have the necessary tools or resources to reach their goals. While deploying an EHR system is one of the necessary steps towards data-driven care delivery, it is not the answer to all the physician problems. Alongside an EHR system, care providers require a platform that provides an enterprise-wide and consistent view of data from multiple sources. Health Catalyst ticks the right boxes when it comes to bridging the path to value-based…

8 Ways Doctors Can Address the Opioid Epidemic (Managed Healthcare Executive)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Karen Appold]

With addiction to opioids and other pain-relieving medications reaching record levels in the United States, at 2 million in 2015—according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, it’s important for providers to employ strategies to avert dependence. From 1999 to 2015, more than 183,000 people died in the United States from overdoses related to prescription opioids, the CDC reported. Here’s a look at what healthcare providers are doing to decrease dependence.

1. Pick a pain management quarterback

With the burden of coordination for pain care management following inpatient procedures such as orthopedic surgery typically falling on the surgeon, it’s…

IDNs prefer Health Catalyst, Arcadia and Philips (Healthcare IT News)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Mike Milliard] While platforms from major EHR vendors are widely deployed, they only see average satisfaction ratings. Following its October report examining some of the core functionalities most widely in use by population health vendors, a new report from research firm KLAS offers more advanced insights on the specific performance of vendors. Among its findings, KLAS showed that integrated delivery networks and clinically integrated networks favor analytics capabilities of vendors such as Health Catalyst, Arcadia and Philips Wellcentive. Those three "are the most consistent in delivering satisfaction across multiple PHM verticals, specifically the data-focused verticals," according to KLAS. "Health Catalyst does well at developing new tools and working closely…

KLAS: Users are lukewarm about population health tools from Epic, Cerner and other EHR vendors (MedCityNews)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Erin Deitsche]

A new report from KLAS highlights what healthcare professionals think of various population health management solutions. Let's just say Allscripts, athenahealth, Cerner, eClinicalWorks and Epic didn't have the greatest user satisfaction scores. A new KLAS report dives deeper into what healthcare professionals think of various population health management solutions.

To gather user feedback, KLAS held a 2016 meeting attended by leaders from provider organizations, payers, services firms and health IT vendors. In late 2017, the company took the gleaned information and published a report focused on the functionality of certain solutions. A second and more recently released report focuses on vendor performance. As it turns…

Providers Go Deeper With Population Health, Weighing Social Factors (Healthcare Dive)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Les Masterson] The industry transition to value-based payments is leading to more population health management programs, but providers are finding it’s difficult when patients lack secure housing, access to food or a way to get to appointments. So many are now going beyond one buzz word, population health, and taking into account the role that another, social determinants of health, play in a person’s health. “Population health management efforts are most successful when they are tied to efforts to address social determinants of health issues, since the challenges that patients face around housing, food and transportation, for example, are completely tied to their ability to engage in the…

Hospitals’ Investment In Data Analytics Company Reaps Benefits (Modern Healthcare)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Rachel Arndt] When UPMC wanted to commercialize its cost-management system, it turned to Health Catalyst, a company known for data warehousing.Not only would Health Catalyst create a commercial-grade version, but it would also be able to sell and market it, something UPMC couldn't easily do on its own.“They had the technology and data warehousing to create something for our own use that was much better than what we created ourselves,” said Rob DeMichiei, chief financial officer at the... View Full Article Here VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE

Diversity in the Workplace (byline) (Becker’s Hospital Review)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Dan Burton, Leslie Hough Falk, Linda Llewllyn] The business case for diversity, equity, and inclusivity in any organization, in any industry, is compelling; it’s backed by the personal stories we hear in our everyday lives and on the news—and it’s backed by data. Credible organizations (e.g., Gallup, Scientific American, and MIT) consistently publish studies that show how diversity improves financial outcomes, strengthens team member commitment, and increases creativity. Yet, despite the strong business case for inclusive workplaces, a lack of diversity continues to be a problem in almost every industry, and healthcare is no exception. Consider, for example, the lack of gender diversity in technology—one of the fastest growing sectors…

Hospitals Invest in, Do Business with Health Catalyst (Modern Healthcare)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Rachel Arndt] When UPMC wanted to commercialize its cost-management system, it turned to Health Catalyst, a company known for data warehousing.Not only would Health Catalyst create a commercial-grade version, but it would also be able to sell and market it, something UPMC couldn't easily do on its own.“They had the technology and data warehousing to create something for our own use that was much better than what we created ourselves,” said Rob DeMichiei, chief financial officer at the UPMC health system, which also is an investor in the company.Not only would Health Catalyst create a commercial-grade version, but it would also be able to sell and market it, something…

Defining a Path for Population Health Management Success (Health Management Technology)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Amy Flaster, Jonas Varnum] Population health management (PHM) has joined healthcare’s buzzword soup. Multiple definitions dominate the industry, confusing leaders on where to begin and what is important. However, organizations do agree that PHM is vital to their success—a 2017 Health Catalyst survey of 199 healthcare leaders found that nearly 94% said it is at least somewhat important to their healthcare delivery strategy during the next two years. Additionally, most are invested in using their PHM models to drive payment transformation in their organization—80% of organizations believe they will have at least 30% of their contracts incorporate at-risk payments over the next five years. With prevalent industry focus, organizations find…

How Two Health Systems Use Predictive Analytics to Reduce Readmissions (Managed Healthcare Executive/Aine Cryts)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Aine Cryts]

Reducing hospital readmissions requires just the right mix of clinical expertise and predictive analytics, according to industry experts. Here are two health systems that are hitting their stride.

1. Atrium Health, formerly Carolinas HealthCare System

James Hunter, MD, chief medical officer at Atrium Health, formerly Carolinas HealthCare System, says the large healthcare system with hospitals, emergency departments, urgent care centers, and medical practices in North Carolina and South Carolina began its journey to reduce readmissions in 2010. At that time, it focused on providing the best care to patients in the acute-care setting.

About three years into that journey, it became clear that focusing…

Health Catalyst Unveils AI Tool That ‘Borrows From Amazon and Netflix’ (Healthcare IT News)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Tom Sullivan] New Touchstone tool uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to pinpoint opportunities to improve from claims, CMS, EHRs, genomics and other datasets to make prioritized recommendations hospitals can use to improve. Health Catalyst introduced Touchstone at HIMSS18 and, in so doing, described it as a performance discovery, prioritization, benchmarking and recommendation tool. “Touchstone is built from the ground up on the latest AI and software from Silicon Valley,” said Dale Sanders, President of Technology, Health Catalyst. “Touchstone's recommendation engine, which borrows from Amazon and Netflix, gives you not just comparative benchmarks but recommendations to improve your performance against benchmarks." The technology includes risk models based on artificial…

Governance Helps Allina Health Cut Its Backlog Says CIO at HIMSS18 (Health Data Management)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Joe Goedert] One of the requirements of a healthcare chief information officer is to have a good understanding of the strategic directions of the organization and good governance processes for handling new needs as they arise, says Jonathan Shoemaker, CIO at Allina Health in Minneapolis. He spoke during an interview at HIMSS18 in Las Vegas. Allina had a problem within the IT department and Shoemaker started looking for solutions. The department had a backlog of about 200 products and was taking an average of 125 days from a request to... View Full Article Here VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE

HIMSS Conference Shows AI Making Headway in Health Care Industry (eWeek)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Scot Peterson] LAS VEGAS—Artificial intelligence and machine learning were everywhere here at the giant HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) 2018 Conference. It’s still early days for AI, but despite the industry's history of struggles adopting new technologies, AI is getting into real products and starting to deliver tangible results. Health care providers and insurance companies are adding machine learning to improve internal processes and doctor productivity, aid persons with disabilities and to find new treatments for disease. For instance, at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, CIO Dr. John Halamka has several projects in the works, including using machine learning to automatically input text-based forms…

Allina CIO on How Partnership with Health Catalyst & Aetna Help It Advance Analytics, Pop Health (Healthcare IT News)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Mike Milliard] Chief Information Officer Jonathan Shoemaker offers a glimpse inside the health system’s innovative arrangements. Allina Health is amid a unique and pioneering partnership with Health Catalyst and another with insurer Aetna to drive analytics and population health management initiatives. It's been three years, in fact, since the Minneapolis-based health system first announced a decade-long, $100 million-plus deal in which Allina – Health Catalyst's first customer – shared its own data warehousing and analytics tools, content and personnel with the Salt Lake City-based vendor, which in turn gives Allina full access to its technology to help drive system-wide process and outcomes improvements. Each year, the two organizations develop a…

Extracting Meaning from Providers’ EHR Notes (Modern Healthcare)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Rachel Arndt] Hidden in plain sight in electronic health records lies information that could help improve outcomes and lower costs. But sifting through a ton of clinical data, often held in free-text notes, to find the useful nuggets is a slog, and providers and payers alike are already short on time.One way to get around that is outsourcing that analysis—not to another person, but to a computer. Instead of having a person sort through all the unstructured data in an EHR, Linguamatics has its machine learning, natural language processing platform do the work.The result is insight that can help... View Full Article Here

Mapping The Social Determinants Of Health (Modern Healthcare)

VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE [By Virgil Dickson] At UAMS Medical Center in Little Rock, Ark., clinicians are prompted by their electronic health record system to ask patients personal questions about their home life and eating habits. Those inquiries over the past few years helped reduce the hospital's overall readmission rate to 10% from 13.8% before it began gathering data on social determinants of health—factors that are profoundly linked to overall health.The issue of... View Full Article Here VIEW FULL ARTICLE HERE

HIMSS18 Video Interview (WTF Health/Health 2.0 )

VIEW VIDEO HERE [By Dan Burton] VIEW VIDEO HERE