Health

Agile software development methodologies such as Scrum and Kanban have been widely adopted by industry software development teams. Although agile practices originated in the realm of software development, other types of information technology teams can benefit from adopting similar approaches. Fundamentally, agile methods are a set of practices that help teams to collaborate, organize their work, and see it through to completion. Agile methods for software development Agile methodology has emerged as a widespread practice for software development in response to the frustrations common in traditional software development projects, with their distinct, lengthy phases of scoping, requirements definition, design, build, and testing. Each of these sequential phases can take months, leading t...

Providers want the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to change a forthcoming policy on reimbursement for hospital visits when both a physicians and non-physician providers see patients.  CMS’ recent physician fee schedule regulation proposes to delay until 2024 a requirement that time spent with a patient would determine which provider could bill for a visit. CMS originally planned to start the policy next January.  Healthcare trade groups welcomed the delay, but urged CMS to use the extra time to figure out an alternative policy that would allow billing based on what provider spent the most time with a patient, or on who led the medical decision-making. Providers worry the policy could lead to a 15% pay cut for facilities.  “We continue to have substantial concerns about this...

I’ve been on the board of the Society for Participatory Medicine for a few years and we are kicking off a series of “Creative Learning Events”. There’ll be two in the balance of 2022 and hopefully one a quarter thereafter. Should be great in-person AND online exchanges about getting participatory medicine into the hear of the health care system. Here’s details on the first one, October 20, in Boston and everywhere else!–Matthew Holt Participatory Medicine is a movement in which patients, caregivers and healthcare professionals actively collaborate and encourage one another as full partners in healthcare.  The Society for Participatory Medicine with the support of our sponsor NRC Health Presents A Creative Learning Exchange(CLE): Community Health Access and Equity Date: O...

BY JESSICA DaMASSA From de-centralized clinical trials to real world data (RWD), real world evidence (RWE), and even social media, the future for clinical research at Pfizer sounds increasingly tech-enabled and focused on meeting and engaging patients where they are. Pfizer’s Head of Clinical Trial Experience, Judy Sewards, and Head of Clinical Operations & Development, Rob Goodwin, drop in to chat about what Pfizer’s approach to clinical research looks like now, after the rapid evolution it underwent to “lightspeed” the development of the Covid-19 vaccine. The big change? Rob says they are “obsessed” with de-centralized trials, with nearly 50% of clinical trial visits still happening virtually. And, beyond the convenience factor, both point to de-centralization as a cr...

A paper published earlier this year by the Antimicrobial Resistance Collaborators in The Lancet aims to quantify the size of the problem. The authors used a variety of data sources including systematic literature reviews, hospital system data, surveillance systems, and other sources. The authors estimated that these data covered 471 million individual records or isolates. Using this approach, they found that: …there were an estimated 4·95 million (3·62–6·57) deaths associated with bacterial AMR in 2019, including 1·27 million (95% UI 0·911–1·71) deaths attributable to bacterial AMR. At the regional level, we estimated the all-age death rate attributable to resistance to be highest in western sub-Saharan Africa, at 27·3 deaths per 100000 (2...

Health Tech BY JESSICA DaMASSA It’s one of the greatest mysteries of the era of health data digitization: Why is provider directory still so hard to get right?? Ribbon Health’s co-founder & CEO Nate Maslak explains how Ribbon (which started out in the symptom-checker biz) pivoted to take on, once-and-for-all, the miserable state of provider data management to not only fix provider directories (which are still wrong 50% of the time!), but also referral management systems, health plan enrollment data, and now, thanks to those new price transparency rules, price lists. “All of the different use cases we focus on around enrollment, referral management, provider data management for directory…” explains Nate, “These are actually the same problem that use different words to de...

BY KIM BELLARD I’m a sucker for underdog stories.  I love unconventional wisdom overthrowing conventional wisdom. I’m deeply suspicious of Big Tech, Big Oil, and big health.  I know unfettered competition is not always to my benefit but get nervous when I don’t really have many options.   So when I read that Google is starting to worry about a threat to its search dominance and that TikTok and other social media giants are scared of a rival start-up, well, count me in. I just wish it was health care goliaths that were worried. ————– You probably use Google to search online.  “Google” has become a generic term for search, like Xerox was for photocopying.  Depending on the source, it’s share of search is north of 80%, probably closer to 90%, and it’s been that way for...

Providing safe, high-quality, equitable care is a top priority for many healthcare leaders working to reduce disparities. In 2023, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will ask hospitals to include data on social drivers of health as part of their reported quality measures. How exactly does equity tie into safety and quality work, and how does it relate to your position on the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s National Advisory Council? While equity has been a stated goal for a very long time, it’s clear that some of our structures, processes and biases impact healthcare, so certain groups experience differences in access, prevention and outcomes. We can, and must, do better. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement surveyed healthcare leaders in July 2021, and ove...