Why healthcare leaders should embrace the cloud
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the world to be more agile. We have witnessed the disruption of traditional operating models, with healthcare institutions pushed to innovate and modify the ways in which they provide patient care. Mobility and digital health have become the new normal, making care more consistent and streamlined.
You can’t always get what you want
A meme was shared on the Twitter machine last week that caught my eye. It’s the very frequently-used photo of a young man walking with his girlfriend at his side, but instead of making eye contact with her, he’s looking at a different woman walking in the other direction. His girlfriend is not amused. Yeah, […]
‘When’ not ‘if’: Resilience is an essential component of healthcare cybersecurity
Healthcare organizations (HCOs) are under attack. Any organization that handles protected health information is an irresistible target for cyberattackers, regardless of where it sits in the health ecosystem. One survey found 70% of healthcare organizations had experienced a “significant [cyber]security incident” within the past 12 months.
An enterprise roadmap to data conversions
A data strategy is an essential part to your organization’s growth, whether through mergers, acquisitions, affiliations, or joint partnerships. You’ve worked hard to create and manage your data, so focus on retention (holding on to information to meet regulatory requirements) and convenience (making your existing data available in a meaningful way). Data conversions are frequently […]
The enigma of the edge case in healthcare
Recently I tweeted about an article dealing with artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare (as one does). The author noted that an AI can often be well trained to deal with the vast majority of standard cases it might encounter. For example, a symptom checker can typically offer the “correct” follow-up given a specific set of […]
Is the EHR a provider?
A chief medical officer at a large academic healthcare institution recently suggested that we reframe our thinking about the electronic health record (EHR). They said, “The EHR is more than a tool. It independently guides and directs care. As we look to the future, EHRs will increasingly determine patient care without supervision.”
Why we do what we do
With my clinical informatics hat on, I spend my time working with physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals trying to get the best results from advanced technology for patients and those who care for them. This often entails configuring order sets, documentation templates, and clinical decision support tools, all while trying to find the sweet […]
Everything old is new again
There are many ways to describe the concept that humans seem to be reliving the same problems with the same bad solutions over and over. Jonathan Swift (or maybe it was Winston Churchill or perhaps Mark Twain) said that “everything old is new again.” Writer and philosopher George Santayana wrote that “those who cannot remember […]
Decentralized care: The changing healthcare ecosystem
The hospital facility is no longer the center of the healthcare universe. This trend was already in motion, and the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated it.
The new healthcare ecosystem: Preparing for decentralized care
“Health systems do an amazing job of returning you to health. However, healthcare is shifting focus to a more personalized, preventive, and holistic view of health. No one else is as well-positioned to deliver on the promise of better lifelong health than health systems, but doing so will require them to invest in those kinds […]