Category: Info Health

The Leapfrog Group on Thursday released a set of 29 recommendations to help hospitals decrease diagnostic errors and “prevent harm to the patient.”

New cheat sheet library: Disruptive therapeutics and diagnostics

How common are diagnostic errors?

According to Leapfrog, a diagnostic error is a delayed, inaccurate, or missed diagnosis, or a correct diagnosis that is not properly communicated to a patient and their family members.

“When we talk about diagnostic error, we do not mean cognitive mistakes made by one prescriber or one clinician, because everybody makes mistakes,” said Leah Binder, Leapfrog president and CEO.

Each year, roughly 250,000 hospital patients experience diagnostic errors in the United States, which contribute to over 40,000 deaths in adult ICUs, Modern Healthcare reports. In addition, diagnostic errors make up one-third of severe harm malpractice claims nationwide.

According to the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine, almost 75% of diagnostic errors in the United States are attributed to cancer, cardiovascular events, and infection.

To help hospitals improve patient safety and prevent diagnostic errors, Leapfrog released a report with 29 evidence-based recommendations from the nation’s top experts on diagnostic excellence, including physicians, nurses, patients, health plans, and employers.

“We are addressing what can be

Overview

As the HIV response moves to focusing on closing the remaining gaps in prevention, testing and treatment services, an evolution in the underlying routine data systems is needed to identify epidemiologic patterns and service gaps, and accelerate focused
interventions.

These guidelines focus on the collection and use of person-centred data across the HIV cascade – from prevention, testing and treatment to longer-term health care – building upon 2017 and 2020 strategic information guidelines. The updated
guidelines present a standard minimum dataset, priority indicators and recommendations to strengthen data use across HIV prevention, testing and treatment, and linkages to services for sexually transmitted infections, viral hepatitis, tuberculosis
and cervical cancer. The guidelines also cover the use of routinely collected data for HIV surveillance (including measurement of HIV prevalence and incidence) and emphasize the use of data from different sources to gain a better picture of epidemiologic
trends.

Digital data plays an important role in the transformation of health information systems and the guidelines discuss the governance of digital health data in the transition from paper-based to digital systems and the importance of interoperability, unique
identifiers, data security, privacy and confidentiality, and data access. Expanding national health information systems to include

Technology has an incredible ability to impact our lives.

It allows us to easily manage our personal finances, order groceries from down the street and stay in touch with family and friends from around the world. Advances in technology are transforming the way we work and deliver health care.

Niagara Health is embarking on a $150-million digital transformation as we build a modern hospital information system (HIS) that will help us better serve patients. The HIS will make it easier for both patients and health-care providers to access health records, enhance the quality and safety of patient care and create a more connected and collaborative health system in Niagara.

Over the next two years, we are teaming up with Hotel Dieu Shaver Health and Rehabilitation Centre to build and implement the new HIS. The system will eliminate the need for paper patient charts and will provide secure access to a patient’s up-to-date medical history for providers at Hotel Dieu Shaver and all Niagara Health hospital sites.

Access to one electronic medical record will provide our health-care professionals with faster access to the information they require to make important health-care decisions. This more efficient system will save time for our clinicians,

With the recent merger announcement of Intermountain Healthcare with SCL Health, Craig Richardville has been named the new chief digital and information officer and senior vice president for the combined health systems, which will be called Intermountain Healthcare.

As a member of the enterprise leadership team, Richardville’s responsibilities will include the health system’s information technology, data and digital services involving all aspects of technology including, but not limited to, strategy, operations, applications, cybersecurity, and emerging technology.

Richardville previously served as senior vice president, chief information and digital officer, at SCL Health, where his responsibilities included leading, innovating, and transforming all aspects of the health system’s information technology and digital services.

Richardville noted that his priorities including an orientation toward being mobile first, cloud first and, ultimately, patient first. “Mobile first places access to health services into the pockets of the patients, members and consumers via their smartphones,” he explained. “This is a trusted source of truth, easy to access and one of the preferred engagement platforms in an omni channel world. Cloud first provides ubiquitous access to data in a safe and secure environment ubiquitous access

OLYMPIA — The Washington State Department of Health has taken disciplinary actions or withdrawn charges against the following health care providers in our state.

The department’s Health Systems Quality Assurance Division works with boards, commissions, and advisory committees to set licensing standards for more than 80 health care professions (e.g., dentists, nurses, counselors). Information about disciplinary action taken against medical doctors and physician assistants can be found on the Washington Medical Commission (WMC) website. Questions about WMC disciplinary actions can be sent to [email protected]

Information about health care providers is on the agency website. Click on “Look up a health care provider license” in the “How Do I?” section of the Department of Health website (doh.wa.gov). The site includes information about a health care provider’s license status, the expiration and renewal date of their credential, disciplinary actions and copies of legal documents issued after July 1998. This information is also available by calling 360-236-4700. Consumers who think a health care provider acted unprofessionally are encouraged to call and report their complaint.

King County

In May 2022 the Unlicensed Practice Program notified Christine Helkey of its intent to issue

Thank you to co-author Danny Costandy, a summer associate in Foley’s San Diego office, for his contributions to this post.

Many California health care providers, including hospitals and physician groups, will soon be required to sign on to California’s first-ever statewide data sharing agreement governing the exchange of health and social services information. 

The new requirement neatly illustrates the exacting compliance standards faced by today’s health care providers: confidentiality laws that have long limited permissible disclosures of health information must now be considered alongside a new regime of rules designed to prevent obstruction of legitimate access to health information.  Achieving compliance requires the perfect balance of disclosing what is required and holding back what is protected. 

The new California law directs the California Health and Human Services Agency (CalHHS) to establish a Data Exchange Framework designed “to enable and require real-time access to, or exchange of, health information among health care providers and payers through any health information exchange network, health information organization, or technology that adheres to specified standards and policies.”  The Data Exchange Framework is not a health information exchange or repository of data.  It is a technologically agnostic set of standards for sharing information.

On July 5,

The core of Socially Determined’s mission is figuring out what influences the decisions people make about their health care.

Trenor Williams, the company’s CEO, has a family medicine background whose mother ran Meals on Wheels in the Agency on Aging department in southwestern Virginia.

“This is all near and dear to my heart,” Williams said, the CEO of Socially Determined, to Home Health Care News.

Socially Determined is a health care analytics company and was founded in January 2017. Its goal is creating visibility and actionable intelligence around all factors that are at play when health care choices are made.

“We lacked so much information around what influences the decisions that people make about their health and their health care,” Williams said. “What we’ve historically done is use the information that we gather when people come to our office or to the hospital for the disease they might have and we do labs, X-Rays, things like that. But frankly, it is a really small subset of information.”

In order to make information more well-rounded, Socially Determined created an analytics platform where it uses data from a host of public sources that it then curates — and sometimes purchases — in

July 20, 2022

UPDATE

How Apple is empowering people with their health information

A new report shares the ways Apple products are helping users, developers, and health organizations advance personal health, research, and care

Today Apple shared a new report that offers a snapshot of the ways Apple products are empowering people to be at the center of their health, and acting as an intelligent guardian for their health and safety. Users, developers, medical institutions, and health organizations around the world are using Apple devices, features, and APIs to break down barriers between people and their health information, all while keeping privacy in mind.

Apple’s efforts to advance health primarily fall into two categories, which are detailed in two corresponding sections of the report. The first section describes Apple’s focus on personal health and fitness features on Apple Watch and iPhone that offer actionable, science-based insights and help protect users’ health and safety. The second section shares Apple’s work with the medical community to support research and care. Both sections — along with an Extensions and Spotlights section at the report’s end — include a variety of examples of third-party developers, health institutions, and organizations innovating with Apple technology.

“We

For immediate release: July 22, 2022   (22-107)

Contact:  Sharon Moysiuk, Communications   360-549-6471
Public inquiries: Health Systems Customer Service   360-236-4700