Technology

A one-minute look at managed care news during the week of May 4, 2015, including global cancer drug spend, movements in telehealth, and changing behavior to reverse poor health.

A year and a half ago, Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla made headlines when he stated at a conference that in the next decade "data science and software will do more for medicine than all of the biological sciences together."

Behavior, including adherence behavior, are the keys to improving outcome in a variety of diseases. We must rethink our adherence strategy by using Intelligent Engagement to control the plecosystem of adherence technologies.

Dr David Blumenthal, president of The Commonwealth Fund, provides a glimpse into his prediction of healthcare in 2030.

MNsure's chief executive announced his resignation Monday, paving the way for a third leadership shakeup at the beleaguered agency in less than 2 years.

A study published in in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that maintaining electronic health records for ischemic stroke patients did not improve health outcomes or care quality in the 1236 hospitals evaluated between 2007 and 2010.

Senate health committee leaders are launching an effort to help realize the promise of electronic health records to increase quality of care.

Between November 2014 and January 2015, The Commonwealth Fund conducted an online survey of innovation centers affiliated with healthcare organizations to learn about their potential role in promoting health system transformation.

Accessing patient information in a health information exchange system during the 30 days after hospital discharge reduced the odds of readmission, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

Despite a general sense that engaging in big data analytics is important for success in the current health information technology landscape, 51% of organizations do not truly know what kind of data-or how much of it-they need to collect

WHile CMS is trying to lighten doctors' loads to help them cope with mandatory patient engagment requirements, patient advocates are unhappy with the proposed changes.

A study of the use of patient portals among older Americans found clear disparities in the registration and use of this technology. The results were published in the Journal of the Americans Medical Informatics Association.

Enlisting electronic health record (EHR) super users to provide support to employees is not enough to foster EHR implementation success-super users' behaviors can be an important influence, researchers from Yale University found.

Remote monitoring for heart failure patients resulted in fewer hospitalizations and deaths than a similar group of patients receiving usual care during a 4-month study, but the benefits didn't last beyond the study period.

A new report from the Government Accountability Office found that CMS could use electronically readable cards in Medicare for a number of different purposes.

Telephone nursing advice for home care offers an effective and clinically appropriate way to manage upper respiratory infection symptoms for adult members of a large integrated health plan.

The FDA is offering a grant of up to $1 million to turn large amounts of electronic health record data into usable figures highlighting postmarket risks of various drugs.

Smartphone data is now being used for crowdsourcing studies of diabetes, asthma, cardiovascular disease.

Hospitals like Boston Children's and Penn Medicine think they are better off building in-house apps that are custom-made for their workflow, rather than risk buying those available in the market, which may not necessarily be a perfect fit.

The study, conducted by Elissa Ozanne, PhD, at Dartmouth found that 11 of the 15 women, aged 45-79 years, interviewed before and after using the mHealth tool preferred it to a paper tool and found it easy to use.

Healthcare organizations and providers are still largely confused, or at least slow, when it comes to effective patient portals and other technologies that may help spur better patient engagement.

Data breaches in the healthcare industry happen more often than you might think. Financial institutions, retailers, and other organizations have all suffered major breaches, but the healthcare sector is an increasingly attractive target for hackers.

Anthem has a history of big security breaches. In 2010 an attack that disclosed information of more than 600,000 people cost the company $1.7 million in fines from HHS.

Health information technology (IT) can create greater healthcare disparities if all patient groups and their concerns aren't considered properly, panelists said on the first day of the annual meeting of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.

Determining the impact of health information technology adoption and hospital-physician integration on hospital efficiency.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has released the first draft of its interoperability roadmap to deliver better care through the exchange and use of health information technology.

Karen B. DeSalvo, MD, MPH, MSc, announced the appointment of a new chief medical officer at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in a note to staff.

After calls for changes and more flexibility from physician groups, CMS announced it intends to modify requirements to meet meaningful use in the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record Incentive Programs.

Lessons learned about data governance and distribution from a voluntary healthcare claims repository, the Health Care Cost Institute, a nonprofit research organization

While the Health IT Policy Committee's Consumer Work Group praised efforts to update the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan, the group's members say the framework does not go far enough when it comes to consumers.