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For starters, 2017 saw the birth of our print and digital magazine. In late summer, we built out our editorial team and exited beta, publishing hard news, features, and columns every day. We covered conferences, produced video interviews with key opinion leaders, and kept up on the research shaping healthcare. Along the way, we grew a stable of freelancers, some of whom with industry and academia credentials and others with leading journalism backgrounds.

 readers get from this effort? Some fine journalism.

We have compiled 5 of the best stories from our inaugural year. These insightful, comprehensive pieces tackle a range of issues, from cybersecurity to big data and analytics. Some appeared in the glossy magazine, while others live only online. Check out our greatest works from 2017 below, and know this: We are just getting started.

An Innovative Way of Collecting DNA Samples Should Have Researchers Salivating.

This play-by-play feature begins in a home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where 2 entrepreneurs gather their friends to watch the TV show “Shark Tank.” Why? The business partners appeared in the episode, a meeting with fate that netted their genomic data company, DNAsimple, a $200,000 investment from Mark Cuban. In the piece, writer Danny Funt details how the company beat the odds and how they are trying to forever change research.

Across the internet, each day and in surprising numbers, bots are crawling, clicking, and capturing ad dollars. One tech marketing executive set up a fake website, Oncology Tomorrow, whose numbers he boosted using illicit means, to show the scope of the problem. Writer Gautham Thomas details how ad fraud is especially harmful in healthcare, given the desirability of specialized audiences—like physicians. But solutions do exist.

The question garners many different answers. In this probing cover story, editor Ryan Black scans the field of thought, surveying a range of experts and examining the past and future alike. “PR departments and tech journalists are championing the impending AI revolution in healthcare,” he writes, “but voices inside the health industry disagree on whether technology can master the art of medicine.”

The dark web is frightening. Its name invokes thoughts of murder for hire, exploitation, and drug sales. The mythology, of course, overlooks the deep web’s many legitimate uses. No matter your opinion, healthcare organizations would be smart to better understand this mysterious universe and its threats, writes Karen Epper Hoffman. Medical records, it turns out, sell for much more than credit card information, and the demand is growing stronger.

When 2 chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies gained FDA approval this year, it was big news. Kymriah, Yescarta, and their peers to come have the potential to change how providers treat cancer—and even how we define and weigh value. Senior editor Jack Murtha took a deeper look at the breakthroughs, profiling a Chicago hospital at the forefront of this brand of medicine. The goal? Learn how big data and analytics can guide healthcare organizations as they traverse this brave, new path.

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These in-depth reads helped guide hospitals through transition, promote innovation, and spotlight threats.
 

The 5 Best Healthcare Analytics News Stories of 2017

After Hurricanes Irma and Maria battered Puerto Rico last month, any number of pressing problems have plagued the island. Among them are threats to public health and a slowdown in the manufacturing of drugs and critical medical devices.

The US Food and Drug Administration is trying to help these facilities come back online, so that they might better produce technologies that benefit not only Puerto Rico, but the rest of the country, according to 

 released today, Oct. 20, by Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD. The agency has been working with dozens of medical device companies to help get employees to work, secure necessary resources, and prevent equipment shortages, he said.

“We know it will likely be months before power is fully restored and medical product manufacturing returns to pre-hurricane levels,” Gottlieb said. “The FDA is committed to helping restore the medical product manufacturing in Puerto Rico as part of our efforts to protect the health of Americans and help the people of Puerto Rico recover their local economies and livelihoods.”

More than 50 medical device manufacturing plants employ roughly 18,000 people in the US territory, according to the FDA. They’re responsible for churning out 1,000 different types of devices, which range from the “simple but essential,” like surgical tools and dental products, to more complex and high-tech products.

The FDA is monitoring “about 50” of those devices that are “critically important to patient care,” Gottlieb said. Further, he added, his agency is “working closely” with 10 manufacturers, some of whom are the only ones to create a certain product, to prevent shortages. That effort most notably focuses on blood-related devices.

The medical device sector is battling a lack of power, connectivity, transportation, and clean water.

“Most, if not all, of these medical device manufacturers continue to run on generator power,” the FDA head said, “and as a result, have been unable to return to pre-hurricane production levels.”

On top of that, the raw materials required for these specialized products have been unable to reach the plants in many cases, Gottlieb claimed. A “dependence” on local subcontractors—who are trying to overcome similar challenges&mdash;has left medical device makers devoid of certain gases and tools, he said.

The FDA is trying to help these operations secure fuel, logistical support, and the ability to transport their products around and off Puerto Rico, according to the agency. But manufacturing “remains fragile,” risking device shortages, Gottlieb said.

Down the road, the government may consider importing certain devices from outside the US or allowing device makers to launch production at other locations, he said.

The island’s device manufacturers face major challenges, and consequences could extend across the country.

HCA Staff

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The 5 Best Healthcare Analytics News Stories of 2017

After Hurricanes in Puerto Rico, FDA Aims to Spark Medical Device Production