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On this episode of Healthy Bottom Line, Chief Executive Healthcare spoke with Erica Coletti, CEO of the Alliance for Better Health. We discussed some of the current problems associated with programs addressing social determinants of health (SDOH) and how the Alliance’s social Independent Practice Association (IPA) model can help tackle these issues. We’re also talked about the financial benefits hospitals and health systems can see when implementing policy changes that seek to improve SDOH programs.

Several problems exist with current programs that address social determinants of health (SDOH); however, a new social model aims to combat these issues and improve the programs’ effectiveness.

Healthy Bottom Line: The Trouble With SDOH Programs and the Secret to Improving Them 

On this week's episode of Data Book, Chief Healthcare Executive™ spoke with Tom Knight, founder and CEO of Invistics, to discuss the dangers of drug diversion in healthcare institutions and how machine learning technology can help solve this issue and prevent it in the future. We also discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the frequency at which drug diversion happens and how that’s expected to change as the pandemic comes to an end.

Tom Knight, founder and CEO of Invistics, discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for better solutions for drug diversion, where healthcare employees commit medication theft, within their healthcare organizations and how technology can help resolve the issue.

Podcast: Addressing the Dangers of Drug Diversion in Healthcare Settings with Tom Knight

Technology is everywhere in healthcare, and the list of ways that digital solutions can improve health outcomes and cut costs is endless: technology is used to improve consumer engagement, identify patients who are at risk of events like a heart attack, and increasingly to help different parts of the healthcare system to talk to each other.

But when technology falls short of its promise, it can add costs and burdens for those who use it. The best example might be the electronic health record.

Next-generation digital providers are helping to leverage technology to find the value long promised. Today, DataBook welcomes CitiusTech, a next-generation specialist provider that works with payers, providers, medical technology and life science markets.

In an interview recorded earlier this year, Chief Healthcare Executive Associate Editorial Director Mary Caffrey spoke with 2 leaders of Citius Tech about meeting healthcare challenges with digital solutions. Her guests are Sridhar Turaga, the senior vice president for Digital Innovation & Data Science, and Shyam Manoj Karunakaran, who is senior vice president and market head for Health Plans.

In June, after this interview was recorded, Citius Tech announced an acquisition of SDLC Partners of Pittsburgh, expanding its footprint in the payer solutions space.

In an interview recorded earlier this year, Chief Healthcare Executive Associate Editorial Director Mary Caffrey spoke with 2 leaders of Citius Tech about meeting healthcare challenges with digital solutions. 

Podcast: Using Digital Solutions to Address Technology Shortfalls with Citius Tech Senior VPs

On this week's episode of Data Book, Chief Healthcare Executive™ spoke with Kate Cordell and Ken Knecht, cofounders of Opeeka. We discussed how their Person-Centered Intelligence Solution can help children and their families better manage and coordinate mental health services across multiple agencies. We also talked about how this tool can improve the workload of physicians, emergency department staff, and health care costs.

Kate Cordell and Ken Knecht, cofounders of Opeeka, discuss their company’s Person-Centered Intelligence Solution and how it can help children and their families manage and coordinate their mental health concerns as well as the benefits the tool can have on health systems.

Podcast: How Person-Centered Technology Can Help Children and Health Systems Manage Mental Health Care

 spoke with Tara Vail, chief growth officer of HST Pathways, a company that produces a technology solution for ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). We discussed how ASCs are taking an increased role in the healthcare setting, why EHRs weren’t mandated for ASCs, challenges to adopting the technology, and interoperability.

Tara Vail, chief growth officer of HST Pathways, discusses the lack of EHRs at ambulatory surgery centers and the challenges to adoption.

Podcast: ASCs and EHRs with Tara Vail

The new U.S. Department of Health and Human Services interoperability are finalized. After more than a year, health systems saw how the info blocking rule shaped out, and now have until 2021 to make necessary adjustments for the seamless transfer of electronic health information. 

In this episode of Data Book, Niko Skievaski, president and co-founder of Redox, a company which accelerates the development and distribution of digital health solutions with a full-service healthcare integration platform to securely and efficiently exchange data, joins us to discuss the new HHS interoperability rules.

Skievaski breaks down the finalized HHS interoperability rules, what they mean for health systems and healthcare executives, and challenges that might present as health systems implement the rule.

Make sure you like this podcast, subscribe and follow 

™ on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to stay up-to-date on the latest health tech news.

 and let me know what you want to hear on upcoming episodes of the podcast.

How C-Suites Can Help Physicians Experiencing Burnout (Part Three)

Med School Culture and Introducing New Health Tech (Part Two)

Physician Burnout Misconceptions and Tech's Role (Part One)

The president of Redox discusses the new HHS interoperability rules, how health systems will implement them, and challenges that might present.

Podcast: Breaking Down the HHS Interoperability Rules

This is the final part of a three-part podcast. Make sure you start by listening to parts 

Physicians are experiencing burnout at such high levels. In an effort to reduce the damaging effects of this epidemic, C-suites have an opportunity to intervene and implement practices that reinforce work-life balance and overall well-being. 

Janae Sharp, founder of Sharp Index, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing physician suicide and burnout, and Dalton Ruer, a data scientist storyteller, are back on Data Book for part two of a special three-part series about physician burnout.

In the final part of this three-part podcast, we will discuss protocol if a physician reports feeling burnt out, steps C-suites can take to reduce burnout in their health system and how physician performances can be impacted due to burnout.

AI, Big Data and Existing Challenges (Part Two)

How Clinical Decision Support Tools Can Improve Outcomes (Part One)

Steps executives can take to reduce burnout in their health system.

Podcast: How C-Suites Can Help Physicians Experiencing Burnout (Part Three)

This is part two of a three-part podcast. Listen to 

The medical school process is rigorous. Students who typically excel in school are faced with even more work and hours of being out in the field. The addition of technology in healthcare presents a new challenge for young professionals, who might not have had the time to learn how to use them. Although these innovations were made to improve efficiency, outcomes and patient satisfaction, they can also lead to burnout. And sometimes, the pressure and fear of potential burnout turns people away from entering the field, which could lead to an even worse provider shortage.

In part two, we discuss the culture of med school, how med school can better prepare young physicians to use new technologies and if a fear of burnout is keeping young professionals from pursuing a career in medicine.

Janae Sharp and Dalton Ruer discuss the culture of med school, learning about new tech and how both affect burnout and the decision to enter the field. 

Podcast: Med School Culture and Introducing New Health Tech (Part Two)

Physician burnout is an epidemic that appears to keep getting worse. The addition of technology to a provider’s workflow has unintentionally created additional burden. But technology can also be used to make healthcare delivery more efficient—if implemented properly.

Janae Sharp, founder of Sharp Index, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing physician suicide and burnout, and Dalton Ruer, a data scientist storyteller, join Data Book for a special three-part series about physician burnout.

In part one, we discuss the factors contributing to burnout, common misconceptions, and tech’s role in helping the problem.

Janae Sharp and Dalton Ruer join Data Book for part one of a three-part podcast on physician burnout to discuss tech implementation issues and data collection.

Podcast: Physician Burnout Misconceptions and Tech's Role (Part One)

Clinical decision support tools have the power to help clinicians make more accurate diagnoses. These technologies have the potential to be lifesaving in areas such as cancer, vascular disease and infection, where conditions are often missed or misdiagnosed.

On part one of this special two-part episode of Data Book, Paul Cerrato, former

, which is co-authored by John Halamka, M.D., president of the Mayo Clinic Platform; the cause of diagnostic errors; and how machine learning can improve patient outcomes.

Cerrato has more than 30 years of experience working as a research analyst, medical journalist, clinician, and educator and has written extensively on clinical decision support, electronic health records, protected health information security and practice management. For listeners attending HIMSS 2020 in Orlando, Florida, Cerrato and Halamka will be leading a preconference session “

” on Monday, March 9 from 1:30—2:10 p.m. and an educational session “

Reinventing Clinical Decision Support With Machine Learning

” on Tuesday, March 10 from 12—1 p.m.

Make sure you like this podcast, subscribe and follow Inside Digital Health on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to stay up-to-date on the latest health tech news.

Using Analytics, Precision Medicine to Improve Preterm Infant Outcomes

How FDA Is Navigating the Digital Transformation

Clinical decision support tools can be lifesaving.

Podcast: How Clinical Decision Support Tools Can Improve Outcomes (Part One)

Greater interoperability offers the potential to transform healthcare, but federal officials have received hundreds of complaints about blocking. The government has yet to unveil penalties.

 Sharing health information will help patients. Blocking data remains a problem.

Health Gorilla’s Steven Lane talks about the growing support for sharing information, the obstacles ahead, and why interoperability can lead to greater health equity.

Exchanging data, improving care: Interoperability gains momentum

A Republican leading a key panel has introduced a bill to kill the troubled project. Oracle says the pulling the plug would hurt veterans, and the company says it’s making progress in resolving issues. 

Oracle pushes back against calls to end VA project to modernize health records

With these action items, providers can realistically take steps and make an impact on the overall picture of health equity. 

Providers can take 6 steps to improve health equity now | Viewpoint

Health systems say prior authorization hurts patient care and adds to clinician burnout. The CMS is proposing reform measures that have produced some optimism, but health leaders say other steps are needed.

Electronic prior authorization plan from feds hailed as 'positive step'

It’s one thing to receive awards. John Glaser’s place in the world of health information technology is so elevated that an award in the field 

. In 2016, the University of Texas Science Center at Houston School of Biomedical Informatics created the John P. Glaser Health Informatics Society to acknowledge innovators in the field, and named the award after Glaser visited to give an inaugural lecture.

Today, Glaser is executive in residence at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health after having served as CEO of Siemens, in executive roles at Cerner Corporation and Partners HealthCare (now Mass General Brigham) and as a former senior advisor to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. Glaser is the founding chair of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME). He is also past president of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), the former chair of the Global Agenda Council on Digital Health, World Economic Forum.

As the one-year anniversary of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic approaches, 

™ spoke with Glaser about the explosion of telemedicine and what its role will be in healthcare delivery once most patients are vaccinated. Which visits will return to the medical suite, and which ones will stay remote? Will the technology players who invested in secure telemedicine technology before the pandemic dominate, squeezing out Zoom? And how will the health system deal with the equity issues that have bubbled to the surface as never before?

Glaser sees a diverse technology landscape post-pandemic, one driven by the decisions made by a combination of payers, providers, and patients Employers will certainly have a say in telemedicine’s future, but clinical needs will drive much of the decision-making, too.

“I suspect that no one category of telehealth provider will dominate the market, but the larger ones will gain share,” Glaser said. Zoom will not disappear, but it may not dominate.

What about this new player in the process, the digital navigator? Glaser sees a need for more navigators, period. He describes the plight of his 80-year-old aunt trying to sign up online for a COVID-19 shot. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” he said. “You’ve got to be a nuclear physicist to solve this kind of stuff. So, it's not just telehealth.”

A pioneer in the Health IT world discusses how different segments of healthcare will use telemedicine after the pandemic, and why navigators are a good idea across the board--not just for telemedicine. 

John Glaser Discusses the Road Ahead for Telemedicine 

Dr. Shereef Elnahal had a tall order when he took the helm of University Hospital Newark on July 1, 2019: improve quality and regulatory compliance, shore up the hospital’s creditworthiness, and build better relationships with labor.

He’d been president and CEO less than a year when the first cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) hit. Three weeks after Governor Phil Murphy declared a public health emergency March 16, 2020, the hospital had seen more than 

 and a staff member had died. The crush of 

 put a new layer of burden on emergency staff, who in normal times are already busy running the region’s only Level 1 trauma center. 

For Elnahal, a New Jersey native who leads the state’s largest safety net hospital after serving as the state’s health commissioner, COVID-19 created an unexpected crisis but also brought attention to 

 in care and outcomes, a topic he’d addressed for years before the pandemic. He will be part of a panel addressing lessons from COVID-19 during 

 2021 Datapalooza and National Health Policy Conference, which runs February 16-18.

™ about the role of data in battling COVID-19, how being health commissioner first helps him in his role at University Hospital, and how he has been inspired by the sense of mission from many of the long-serving employees at University Hospital. “The folks who have been at University Hospital—especially the people have been here for 10, 15 years or longer—tend to be the people you learn from the most as a new leader,” he said. “You learn tremendously from them about what other leaders tried to do ambitiously, and initiatives that failed in the past, or perhaps [were] successful, but then petered out.

“Those folks are really the heart and soul of the organization.”

Dr. Shereef Elnahal had a full agenda when he took the helm at University Hospital Newark. Months later, he faced a new crisis: COVID-19. This week, Elnahal shares lessons from the pandemic at Academy Health's policy conference.

Conference

University Hospital's Dr. Shereef Elnahal to Share Lessons From the Pandemic

Personal health information is extremely sensitive. And healthcare organizations could have access to millions of medical records.

Now, health systems are migrating to the cloud to keep the health data secure.

At HLTH2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada, Luke Bonney, co-founder and CEO at Redox, discussed the emerging trend.

Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for style and clarity.

We've been at this for about five years at Redox. And over those five years, we've seen a massive acceleration in the overall adoption of technology in healthcare organizations, which is really exciting.

One of the big initial shifts we saw, really in the 2017 time period, was a growing acceptance of cloud-based technology. Before that, healthcare was really primarily about on-premises software solutions. That shift, number one, is huge, because obviously the world of mobile and consumer-driven technology is dependent on the cloud.

Now what we're starting to see is the beginnings of a shift from what is predominantly a B2B technology ecosystem, to start to see more of this B2C driven approach. We've seen this in finance as a great example or retail, where major leaps occur when we see the consumer really start to take control through their own data.

Key Considerations for Securing Your Digital Healthcare Cloud

How Edge Computing Can Advance Healthcare

The healthcare industry has seen a massive acceleration in the overall acceptance of cloud-based tech.

Emerging Trends: Migrating to the Cloud

Although the new interoperability rules could benefit both patients and health systems, new regulations could lead to new barriers that healthcare executives will need to overcome.

Drew Ivan, executive vice president of product and strategy at Rhapsody, spoke with 

™ about the importance of a rule promoting interoperability and challenges that health systems might face when the rule goes into effect.

Editor’s note: The following transcript has been lightly edited for style, length and clarity.

 I definitely think that one of the biggest benefits of keeping data electronically is the ability to easily transfer them from one location to another. And as a result of migrating to electronic health records, it's really important to be able to do that. So, I think that anything that promotes interoperability is really going to be a big benefit to the industry.

One of the biggest challenges is that the rules aren't quite finalized yet. So, we're not exactly sure what shape they're going to take or what the exact requirements will be. That means that providers will have to be flexible because until the rules are completely specified, it's impossible to know exactly what's going to be required. So, the best you can do is be prepared and get ready for when the real rules take effect.

Understanding and Preparing for the Info Blocking Rule

HITAC Suggests Removing Price Transparency Requirements from Information Blocking Rule

CMS and ONC Propose New Rules to Improve Interoperability of EHI

New regulations could mean new challenges for health systems.

Challenges to Implementing the Info Blocking Rule

It’s only a matter of time until the new interoperability rules go into effect, and health systems need to understand what is required of them when it comes to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ information blocking rule.

Drew Ivan, executive vice president of product and strategy at Rhapsody Health, told 

at HLTH2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada that the information blocking rule will explain exactly which data need to be exchanged and when and what it means when someone deliberately blocks information. So to prepare, health systems will need to make sure their technology is in order. 

Editor’s note: The following transcription has been lightly edited for style and clarity.  

 The information blocking rule is some repair work that Congress is doing through the 21st Century Cures Act which was passed a couple of years ago. But really what happened was when Congress funded the Meaningful Use program, they really put in place the funding for providers to move from paper records to electronic health records (EHRs). They expected that to come along with easier flowing information and that interoperability would be a side effect of that funding. But they found that it wasn't. There were minimal requirements for interoperability as part of the funding and it meant that most of the providers didn't fully implement it. And so they came out with the 21st Century Cures Act to go back and put some requirements around the interoperability part of it and it has taken a little bit of time to come to fruition, but it's going to result in these rules from CMS that explain exactly which data have to be exchanged and when and what it means to deliberately block information.

Health systems can prepare for the information blocking rules by getting their technology in order. A lot of health systems will be counting on their EHR vendor to automatically provide the interoperability, but that might not go far enough. So really, what they need to do is put the technology in place and train up their IT department to be familiar with the standards and the practices and everything it’s going to take to put together a strategy around making it very easy to get information out of the silos that they're keeping it in.

HHS Extends Comment Period for Proposed Interoperability Rules

Change is imminent in healthcare. Here is how health systems can stay on top of the new interoperability rule.

A National Patient Identifier would allow a healthcare provider to find and identify an individual without having to resort to name, date of birth and address and other things that should not be associated with identity.

Such an identifier is merely conceptual in the U.S. at this point. But Daniel Cidon, chief technology officer and co-founder of NextGate, a company aiming to improve delivery of quality care, told 

at Expo. Health in Boston that a National Patient Identifier would benefit health systems and providers in a number of ways.

“Well, I think that patient identity is clearly something that’s at the very core of all the data that are collected about a patient,” he said.

Providers have to know who the patient is they’re interacting with, Cidon added.

National Patient Identifiers can also help with patient safety and interoperability. Though Cidon does not know exactly what they would look like when and if they are rolled out, such systems would give providers the ability to get a broader view of the patient.

“So ultimately you can provide better care,” he said.

This system could also have financial benefits for providers, he added.

A National Patient Identifier could improve billing accuracy and can help give more transparency into who had received what service, said Cidon.

Price Transparency Executive Order Might Not Hit the Right Notes

Medicare App Enables Patients to Check Coverage of Medical Services, Items

Expert: They can improve outcomes by giving the provider a broader view of the patient.

How Health Systems Can Benefit from a National Patient Identifier

 it signed a two-year research collaboration agreement with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Information Exchange and Data Transformation Program to establish a study protocol with an initial focus on breast cancer.

The scientific relationship will allow the organizations to apply digital tools developed by Cota to a rich depository of real-world data on breast cancer. Even more, the collaboration will provide the FDA with information on the evolving treatment landscape and insight on treatment variation within the subpopulation of patients with the disease.

The agreement could also support the agency’s goal to understand the broader treatment of cancer through the application of 

“I think that the FDA has clearly signaled in the last year or more that it is interested in the potential to utilize real-world data and the evidence generated from that data for regulatory decision-making,” Andrew Norden, M.D., chief medical officer of Cota, told 

Electronic health records were not designed to efficiently enable analysis of data across a population of patients, Norden said. But people in the healthcare industry and academia are developing techniques to allow the extraction and analysis of data.

“In my view, it would be foolish not to take advantage of that data when we look to understand how cancer care is delivered in the U.S.,” Norden said.

The FDA appears to agree with that level of thinking, he added.

Clinical trial patients are highly selected and tend to be healthier, wealthier, white and male.

“The value of real-world data and evidence is that you can look to extend the findings of clinical trials to a more broadly represented patient group,” Norden said.

Today, the methods and capacity of real-world evidence to answer questions is in an immature stage. And the FDA, along with many others in the healthcare industry, is looking to learn how real-world evidence and data can work and be applied.

There is great potential for real-world data to accelerate clinical trial findings and get drugs to market more quickly when there’s strong evidence in favor of their use.

“So, that’s what we are looking to do,” he said.

Bias Is a Main Risk When Interpreting Real-World Data

38M Patients’ EHR Data Replicated Clinical Trial Results

Smart Shirt, Real-World Data Shine Light on Surgeon Stress

A closer look at the research collaboration between Cota and the FDA.