health care providers

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Commodity Data Analytics For Health Care

Analytics are expensive and labor intensive; we need them to be routine and ubiquitous. I complained earlier this year that analytics are hard for health care providers to muster because there’s a shortage of analysts and because every data-driven decision takes huge expertise.

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Health Information Exchange Resist Cures (Part 2)

Andy Oram | EMR & EHR | March 23, 2016

The previous section of this paper introduced problems found in HIE by two reports: one from the Office of the National Coordinator and another from experts at the Oregon Health & Science University. Tracing the causes of these problems is necessarily somewhat speculative, but the research helps to confirm impressions I have built up over the years. The ONC noted that developing HIE is very resource intensive, and not yet sustainable. (p. 6) I attribute these problems to the persistence of the old-fashioned, heavyweight model of bureaucratic, geographically limited organizations hooking together clinicians. (If you go to another state, better carry your medical records with you.) Evidence of their continued drag on the field appeared in the report...

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How Medical Device Manufacturers Inject Copyright Into Treatments

Arguments for proprietary data hoarding have been aired in the computer movement for decades, and have been decisively overturned by open source advocates and security experts. The real question is why any patient should be denied access to data that can improve his quality of life and chances of survival. In an age where "patient activation" and "Quantified Self" are buzzwords uttered throughout the medical industry, it is inconceivable that it could tolerate the present situation.

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National Association Created to Represent Regional Extension Centers for Health Information Technology

Press Release | ARCH-IT | June 21, 2012

New national group formed to provide a strong voice for the 62 Regional Extension Centers that provide assistance and guidance for the adoption and use of health information technology. Read More »

New Study Shows Patients Prefer Immediate Access to Test Results and have Unmet Information Needs

A recent study of 8,000 patients that accessed their test results via an online patient portal found that more than 95% wanted to continue to immediately receive test results through their portal. That percentage stayed at 95% when focused on patients with non-normal results. These findings come amid concerns that the immediate release of test results could lead to patient distress when patients access test results before their physicians could contact them and help to interpret those results...since the ONC information blocking regulations became applicable to health care providers on April 5, 2021, a patient may be able to access test results in parallel to those results’ availability to the ordering clinician.

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Open Source Machine Learning Tools are as Good as Humans' in Cancer Surveillance According to Regenstrief, Indiana Univ. Study

Press Release | Indiana University | April 21, 2016

Machine learning has come of age in public health reporting according to researchers from the Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. They have found that existing algorithms and open source machine learning tools were as good as, or better than, human reviewers in detecting cancer cases using data from free-text pathology reports. The computerized approach was also faster and less resource intensive in comparison to human counterparts.

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Uncontrolled Health Care Costs Traced to Data and Communication Failures

Andy Oram | EMR & EHR | April 13, 2016

The previous section of this article provided whatever detail I could find on the costs of poor communications and data exchange among health care providers. But in truth, it’s hard to imagine the toll taken by communications failures beyond certain obvious consequences, such as repeated tests and avoidable medical errors. One has to think about how the field operates and what we would be capable of with proper use of data. As patients move from PCP to specialist, from hospital to rehab facility, and from district to district, their providers need not only discharge summaries but intensive coordination to prevent relapses. Our doctors are great at fixing a diabetic episode or heart-related event...

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