Why healthcare leaders should embrace home-based technologies

Why healthcare leaders should embrace home-based technologies

Home health technologies will have an increasingly larger role to play in healthcare delivery as the silver tsunami of the aging population strain the system. And if more consumers embrace preventative care that can easily be done in the home.It’s important to understand that home health technologies are leveraged in home health settings by clinicians for home health patients, and at-home or home-based health technologies are diagnostic and/or screening tools that can be used in non-clinical settings for the purpose of understanding overall health conditions.
Home-based health technologies are any preventive care technology tool that elevates health. This includes tools like blood…

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How Healthcare Organizations Can Enhance Patient Experience & Trust During the Winter Surge

How Healthcare Organizations Can Enhance Patient Experience & Trust During the Winter Surge

Toni Land, Head of Clinical Healthcare Experience at MedalliaIt’s well known that the winter season typically creates spikes in illness and, consequently, a surge in healthcare visits. What might not be so obvious is that this time of increased demand is also the ideal opportunity for healthcare organizations to prioritize building trust and improving experiences for patients, clinicians and team members. Just as science grows more sophisticated each year, allowing practitioners to better treat a greater number of medical ailments, so should patient and team member experience efforts within the healthcare sector. That’s all the more true as the country now navigates…

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Rising Costs Are Keeping Healthcare CFOs Up a Night — Can Data Help?

Rising Costs Are Keeping Healthcare CFOs Up a Night — Can Data Help?

The increasing costs of labor and supplies are the top issues keeping healthcare CFOs up at night, according to a new report released by Syntellis, a provider of performance management software. To effectively address these concerns, healthcare providers must ensure they have access to data-driven analytics software that can help them make important decisions — such as how to effectively manage their existing workforce and where to shift care delivery models — the report said.
Syntellis surveyed more than 200 U.S. healthcare finance professionals who work at hospitals, health systems and integrated delivery networks. These professionals agreed that last year was a…

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Caraway, Ash Wellness Launch Partnership to Combat Rise in STIs on College Campuses

Caraway, Ash Wellness Launch Partnership to Combat Rise in STIs on College Campuses

In order to catch the attention of reporters, companies often look for creative news hooks to tie their announcements to. Two companies have decided to use Valentine’s Day to forward their message of sexually transmitted infection prevention. How romantic!
Digital health startup Caraway Health is teaming up with at-home testing company Ash Wellness to provide STI kits for those aged 18 to 27, the companies announced Tuesday. New York City-based Caraway provides mental, physical and reproductive health services for Gen-Z populations, with a particular focus on women and people assigned female at birth. It offers an app that enables users to access its…

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Automated Feeding Platform to Study Mosquito Disease Transmission

Automated Feeding Platform to Study Mosquito Disease Transmission

A team at Rice University has developed an automated feeding platform for mosquitoes that allows researchers to test different types of repellent and investigate mosquito-borne disease transmission. Traditionally, such mosquito research would require human volunteers or animal subjects for the mosquitos to feed on, but this is obviously inconvenient and a little distasteful. This new system dispenses with the need for human volunteers and associated laborious data collection and analysis. The technology consists of 3D printed synthetic skin with real blood that flows through small vessels. Mosquitos can feed through the skin and are kept in place in a surrounding […]…

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Federal agencies offer updates on TEFCA, interoperability milestones

Federal agencies offer updates on TEFCA, interoperability milestones

On February 13, the government leaders thanked the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT and six Qualified Health Information Networks (QHIN) for working to create a nationwide interoperability network under the 21st Century Cures Act. The ‘Network of Networks’ 
At the U.S. Department of Health and Human services, Secretary Xavier Becerra presented certificates of recognition to the CommonWell Health Alliance, eHealth Exchange, Epic TEFCA Interoperability Services, Health Gorilla, Kno2 and KONZA for moving into the pre-production testing process of the Trusted Exchange Framework and the Common Agreement.
With the framework, ONC and the Sequoia Project, TEFCA’s recognized coordinating entity, seek to establish…

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Electrochemical Sensor for Detailed SARS-CoV-2 Immunity Data

Electrochemical Sensor for Detailed SARS-CoV-2 Immunity Data

Researchers at the Harvard Wyss Institute have developed an electrochemical device, called the eRapid sensor, that can assist clinicians in quickly characterizing someone’s COVID-19 infection, including identifying the infecting viral variant and the nature of someone’s immunity to the virus in terms of whether it is vaccine-mediated or natural immunity. Monitoring these characteristics could help to personalize treatment for individuals and also provide data for drug development and inform government decisions on the best way to manage COVID-19 in the community. When antibodies from a blood sample bind within the device, it precipitates a biochemical cascade that affects the electrical […]…

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Nanowire Assay Detects Brain Tumors from Urine

Nanowire Assay Detects Brain Tumors from Urine

Researchers at Nagoya University in Japan have developed a nanowire assay that can be used to capture and detect specific extracellular vesicles in a urine sample that indicate the presence of a brain tumor. These extracellular vesicles are naturally excreted in the urine but techniques to capture and analyze them have been complex, requiring different pieces of equipment, until now. This all-in-one assay uses a simple well plate that has been coated with zinc oxide nanowires that extracellular vesicles are attracted to because of their surface electrical charge. Then, the researchers can detect tumor-specific extracellular vesicles in each well using […]…

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95% of Certified Health IT Developers Met ONC Cures Act Deadline

95% of Certified Health IT Developers Met ONC Cures Act Deadline

– More than 95 percent of certified health IT developers met the Cures Act Final Rule compliance deadline to provide customers with new technology, according to an ONC HealthITBuzz blog post. The Cures Act Final Rule mandated many changes to the Certification Program, including four updates set to have long-lasting interoperability impacts on patients, clinicians, and developers. ONC Certified Health IT developers must: Advance interoperability for patients and providers through the use of FHIR-based application programming interfaces (APIs);Enable patients, providers, and other stakeholders to have access to consistent data elements represented in at least version one of the United States Core…

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