Future Healthcare Today cultivates the latest news and trends in the health IT industry, with a particular focus on health it. This week we look at employees’ ratings of digital health offerings, predictive benefits of Health Information Exchanges, the status of the ICD-10 transition and more.
All of this and more in this latest health it roundup:
Telehealth: 18 employee insights about the use of telemedicine services
Results of a large employee survey were unveiled at the National Conference on Health, Productivity and Human Capital held recently in Boston. The survey of 5,000 nongovernmental employees at organizations with 1,000 or more employees, conducted by the Health and Benefits Group of Towers Watson, revealed that just eight percent of employees are participating in telemedicine. The respondents were also asked to rate how important they felt various digital offerings were to personal health management. Among the 18 findings, employees weighed in on websites with physician/hospital ratings, wearable devices for monitoring fitness, apps to monitor a health condition, apps to track diet and online consultations with healthcare providers, and more.
Read more here.
Telemedicine: Health Information Exchange offers data for predicting healthcare utilization
Researchers from Stanford University partnered with Maine’s HealthInfoNet, its health information exchange (HIE), to predict the healthcare utilization and needs of patients in Maine over a six-month period. The researchers created an electronic medical record (EMR)-based online risk model that analysed all diseases and all demographic groups among a cohort of 1.2 million patients. The study, published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, concluded that the model, “appeared to be highly effective as prospectively predicted risks were consistent with healthcare utilization for those patients over the six month period.” Researchers believe the model could, “enable more effective care management strategies driving improved patient outcomes.”
Read more here.
Telemedicine: Universal Patient Records – a no-brainer for medical students
A polling of 1,000 medical students included questions about their views on the future of technology. In its 10th annual Epocrates Future Physicians of America survey, athenahealth shared their survey findings which included the students’ take on patient record sharing. Not surprisingly, a whopping 87 percent of respondents surveyed support the creation of a universal patient record. The students were clear about how they feel about interoperability—96 percent voted that the ability of EHRs to access patient data from others systems is important to patient care.
Read more here.
Telemedicine: ICD-10 Code Implementation – slow and steady
October 1, 2015 marked the deadline for healthcare providers to fully transition from the ICD-9 codes to the ICD-10 codes and their level of readiness is anything but certain. Over the past two years, Navicure has commissioned Porter Research to conduct a national survey of healthcare organizations to gauge their preparedness for the transition. Their latest Healthcare Organization ICD-10 Readiness Survey conducted in August discovered that 43 percent of respondents were on track for the ICD-10 implementation. Even when the transition is complete, healthcare providers’ expressed concern about the expected impact on clinical documentation, coding requirements and cash flow.
Read more here.
