Pa. College of Health Sciences on schedule for partial opening in January

In a cramped concrete basement on Duke Street, Ellen Hostetter learned how to become a nurse by poring over textbooks, taking blood from other nursing students and practicing her injection skills on willing volunteers.

That was 50 years ago.

Wednesday, Hostetter, now 70, was among the dozen or so people getting their first glimpse into the future of heath care in Lancaster County — the brand new $67 million Pennsylvania College of Health Sciences in the Greenfield Corporate Center. For the full article click here 

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Flu, cancer top 2015 health headlines

RALEIGH, N.C. — The year 2015 will be remembered for many events that reflect North Carolina and the nation’s health concerns.

The past year began with big news about the final week of 2014: State health officials reported an early and unexpected peak in flu cases. By April, it led to about 200 flu-related deaths in the state – the majority of those deaths were people age 65 and older.

The high numbers are partly linked to a late mutation of the H3N2 strain, which meant the flu vaccine was only about 18 percent effective.

It hit work places and schools especially hard. For the full article click here 

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Mental health now area of most public concern within NHS

Mental health has become the area of NHS and social care the public most worry about and want improved, with delays in getting treatment and too little support for people in need their main concerns.

Inadequate support for people with mental illness has replaced the difficulty of getting a GP appointment as the public’s main frustration with the NHS, research by Healthwatch England shows.

Just more than half of the patient watchdog group’s local branches identified mental health services as a top priority that needed serious improvement, 77 out of the 152 branches – more than for any other area of care.

It was highlighted as a problem by more branches than those that mentioned difficulties getting to see a GP or NHS dentists (76); poor social care, including the quality of care homes and at-home support for older and disabled people (58); the need for more joined-up health and social care services (30); and the inadequacy of hospital discharge procedures (22). For the full article click here 

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GTA health services ready to receive refugees

Hospitals and community health centres across the GTA have started to open their doors to Syrian refugees in need of medical care, but say the demand so far has been low and they expect a greater influx of patients over the next few months.

St. Michael’s Hospital held a clinic for newly arrived refugees on Tuesday, and one family attended.

“We are not really expecting the big numbers until January and February,” said Leslie Shepherd, spokeswoman for the hospital. “That’s what everybody is seeing at the moment,” she said. For the full article click here 

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Long Island Health Network Rebrands

Leaning against a wall in the office of Michael Dowling, president and chief executive of North Shore-LIJ Health System, are seven shovels with wooden handles and commemorative nameplates. The collection comes from the many North Shore-LIJ groundbreakings that Mr. Dowling has attended over the years.

“There were so many I stopped collecting,” he said.

In January, the sprawling health-care network based on Long Island will further its mission in a different way, though no less visibly, as it rolls out its new name, Northwell Health.

The health system started the rebranding process eight years ago. Behind it was an organizational desire to be less regionally identified. The process produced a list of 600 names, which eventually were whittled down to finalists including Dedication Health and Laudica Health. For the full article click here 

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Health Minister slams Panadol Osteo maker for 50 per cent price rise plans

The Federal Health Minister has slammed the maker of Panadol Osteo for its plans to raise the price of the popular painkiller by 50 per cent, and has urged the ACCC to investigate.

Earlier this month, pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline told its wholesalers it would lift its prices for Panadol Osteo by 50 per cent on January 1. If pharmacies pass on the full price rise, consumers will have to pay $7.50 a box.

It blamed the price rise on the changes to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, which will see the government stop subsidising medications that can be purchased cheaply over-the-counter in the New Year. For the full article click here

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Rob Kardashian Home After Hospitalization: Surprise Diabetes Diagnosis Was a “Wake Up Call,” Source Says

A new development concerning Rob Kardashian‘s health has been revealed.

E! News confirms that the 28-year-old, who has remained away from the spotlight for quite some time now, is back at home after being diagnosed with diabetes.

Rob was rushed to a Los Angeles hospital after not feeling well over the holiday weekend. Once his condition seemed to worsen, he was taken to the doctor to see what was going on. After performing various tests, doctors concluded that Rob is diabetic.

“He’s home already. He went for a little and is fine now. It was a wake up call,” the source tells E! News. The insider adds that Rob’s tests revealed his blood sugar levels were very high, and doctors told him that he needs to lose weight, exercise and dramatically change his diet, or it will get worse.

Rob’s well-being has been in question ever since he decided to become reclusive, and the speculation was heightened when sisters Khloe and Kourtney Kardashianeach took to Instagram to share touching messages about their little brother. For the full article click here 

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Russian River Health Center blaze one of two Guerneville fires now considered arson

A fire that destroyed the Russian River Health Center in downtown Guerneville was intentionally set — the second arson fire of a commercial structure in town in one week, according to fire officials Tuesday.

The town has been the scene of five structure fires since Dec. 17, including three homes and the two commercial buildings. From the start, three of the fires were considered suspicious. The other blaze determined to be arson was a Dec. 20 fire at a shuttered inn.

None of the five fires were believed to involve homeless people setting a fire to get warm, Russian River Fire Chief Max Ming said Tuesday. Local, state and federal investigators are continuing to look for who set the fires and why. For the full article click here 

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Samsung has an all-in-one health chip for wearables

Samsung’s already wide product family is getting even bigger thanks to its new chip dubbed the “Samsung Bio-Processor.” As the company tells it, it’s already in mass production and is “specifically designed to allow accelerated development of innovative wearable products for consumers who are increasingly monitoring their health and fitness on a daily basis.”Phew. The announcement post goes on to say that the processor is the first all-in-one health solution chip and that since it’s packing a number of different control and sensor units (like a quintet of Analog Front Ends, a microcontroller unit, digital signal processor and eFlash memory) it can do all these tricks without the need for external processing.

The idea behind the silicon is to be the one-stop wearable fitness resource. Those five AFEs? One keeps track of bioelectrical impedance analysis, while the others focus on volumetric measurements of organs, an electrocardiogram and skin temperature, among other things. Bear in mind that Samsung’s latest smartwatch, the Gear S2, only tracks your heart rate. For the full article click here 

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Boston health inspector ate lunch at Chipotle to prove that it was clean

A Chipotle restaurant in Boston that sickened more than 100 people is back in business this week after receiving the green light from city health officials.

The restaurant, located near the campus of Boston College, closed its doors earlier this month after 136 reported cases of norovirus, a violent stomach illness, were traced to its food.

After a citywide inspection that also turned up health code violations at two other locations, Boston health officials gave the burrito chain permission to reopen the original restaurant as early as last week. However, the opening date was delayed by three days due to an unrelated water leak.

As a show of confidence in the restaurant’s safety, the city’s chief health inspector, William “Buddy” Christopher Jr., had lunch there on Monday “to show the world that we really do think it’s OK,” the Boston Herald reported.

“The Chipotle is probably the best place to eat right now, because it’s the cleanest place in Boston,” Christopher told the paper. “They have a clean bill of health.” For the full article click here 

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A year of rapid change and adaptation in health care

It would have been a busy year in health care even without the seismic effects of Obamacare. The changing national landscape for health economics only added to the pace of change.

Here are six major trends or stories that played out in 2015 on the local health care scene.

Sutter Memorial closes, new tower opens at midtown campus

Completing a plan begun more than a decade ago, Sutter Health opened a new tower on its midtown campus, now called Sutter Medical Center Sacramento.Simultaneously, it closed Sutter Memorial Hospital, known to many as Sacramento’s “baby hospital.” The consolidation creates a massive concentration of health services that will be an economic engine for the region. And replacing Sutter Memorial will be a new residential neighborhood in East Sacramento. For the full article click here 

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Allina Health Isles Clinic improperly disposes private patient information

MINNEAPOLIS (KMSP) – Over 6,000 Allina Health patients recently received a letter that their health records may not have been properly destroyed — meaning their private information could’ve fallen into the wrong hands. Documents were emptied into a private dumpster instead of secure shredding bins.

This affects people who had appointments at the Allina Health Isles Clinic in Minneapolis between April 6 and Oct. 28 of 2015. Allina doesn’t know of any patients who had their information stolen, but a potential breach isn’t news patients wanted to hear. For the full article click here 

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Northern Ireland Association for Mental Health to profit from NHS Choir song that beat Justin Bieber

The Northern Ireland Association for Mental Health is one of the charities that will get cash from the profits from the record.

The Lewisham and Greenwich choir’s charity single, A Bridge Over You, claimed the top spot in the closest chart battle since 2009 when Rage Against The Machine beat X Factor star Joe McElderry.

The choir said: “We are absolutely overwhelmed and couldn’t be any happier! It’s a brilliant celebration for the NHS across the country so well done and thank you everyone for downloading and streaming. A massive cheer for the NHS, thank you!” For the full article click here 

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Big health care merger

The push in health care to get bigger and more efficient could be pushing Detroit-based Henry Ford Health System into the arms of a player that’s reinventing health care and has national ambitions.

Crain’s reported in October that the health system has held talks with Oakland, Calif.-basedKaiser Permanente, the nation’s largest nonprofit group health plan, which also owns hospitals and employs its own doctors.

Henry Ford officials have acknowledged they have been seeking a partner since a proposed merger with Beaumont Health System collapsed in 2013.

It’s not known what kind of talks Henry Ford Health has had with Kaiser. Possibilities range from the relatively small, such as a sharing of expertise or technology, to a full acquisition.

Kaiser showed earlier this month that it is in acquisition mode, buying the Seattle-based Group Health Cooperative in a $1.8 billion deal. Health care consolidation is a national trend driven in part by the Affordable Care Act. For the full article click here 

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10 Dutch health insurance terms you should know

You still have a few days left to switch health insurer before the end of the change over period on January 1. Here’s a break down of some of the most important terminology to help you make your choice. And to make it even easier, find out how much you can save by using website ZorgWijzer.nl which offers a useful English comparison tool. 1 Basisverzekering If you live or work in the Netherlands you are required by law to take out standard (basic) health insurance. This ‘basisverzekering’ covers the most essential medical expenses such as visits to and treatment by a general practitioner (GP), most medicine, hospital treatment, paramedical care and midwifery services. Children under 18 are covered for the basic policy and dentistry free of charge 2 Aanvullende verzekering The ‘aanvullende verzekering’ is a supplementary insurance that you can opt for if you need extra coverage. You may want a supplementary policy because the standard health insurance package does not cover all medical expenses. Supplementary policies cover other types of healthcare, such as physiotherapy, dental care and alternative medicine and vary greatly in cover and cost. For the full article click here 

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Doctors question timing of Medicare cuts by Health Minister Sussan Ley

Doctors have criticised the Turnbull government for using the Christmas-New Year holiday period to reveal the first tranche of items to be dropped from the government-subsidised Medicare Benefits Schedule.

But Health Minister Sussan Ley insisted the established taskforces were always due to report back in “late 2015″, accusing the Australian Medical Association of “misleading Australians” on the matter.

Ms Ley announced on Monday that 23 services had been earmarked to be cut from the MBS, including seven diagnostic imaging services and nine related to ear, nose and throat surgery. For the full article click here 

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Unique retail store helps people shop for health insurance

When most people think retail, they’re likely to think of walking into a store and pulling milk off a shelf or clothes off a rack.

Aaron and Melissa Becker hope to turn health care plans into a retail commodity that you can find at their store and, with a little help from experienced staff, buy on the spot. It’s a departure from the traditional insurance agent model.

“The difference with us is that we’ve opened a retail store where people can just walk in off the street, and we can help them get signed up for health insurance,” said Melissa Becker.

The Beckers opened The Health Insurance Store at 6661 University Ave. in May and feel they’ve tapped into a thriving market, helping “hundreds” of customers just since Nov. 1, when open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, began. For the full article click here 

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Health official: Holiday hospital shift ‘reminds you of your humanity’

Officially, Friday was a holiday for state employees. But for Loren Robinson, Pennsylvania’s deputy secretary for health promotion and disease prevention, that just meant working a double shift.

Robinson, 34, moonlights as an overnight physician at Abington-Lansdale Hospital. And, as has been her tradition for a decade, it was a hospital Christmas: She worked from 7 a.m. to 7 a.m., with a six-hour break for a nap and a plate of cafeteria turkey and mashed potatoes.

The way the South Philadelphia resident sees it, it’s the best and highest use of her holiday.

“It’s so easy to see people burned out in the medical field. But on Christmas, it’s different,” she said. “It brings out the best in the staff, but also patients.” For the full article click here 

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How to Save American Healthcare

The American healthcare system is the most expensive in the world, with some$2.8 trillion—or one sixth of the economy’s outgoings—racked up in spending each year. It’s a structure that draws endless criticisms for its inflated drug prices, regular additional charges on top of insurance premiums, and appointment wait times that rank among the longest of the leading industrial nations.

A new wave of tests and technologies, however, is slowly bringing about the kind of developments the country’s health industry has long been calling out for. Labs on microchips, home-administered HIV kits, hypertension tracking smartphone apps; these new innovations are proof that the medical landscape is capable of change, and that the 30 million uninsured Americans, and tens of millions of citizens with inadequate coverage, could face a different, better, future.

Welcome to the age of bite-sized, megabucks-saving medicine. For the full article click here 

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A look at healthcare changes in 2015 and beyond

Healthcare — a sector that accounts for one-sixth of the U.S. economy, contributes an almost permanent point of tensions between economics and politics, and remains a concern for millions of families — is an enduring topic of discussion in America. That was true in 2015 and will continue to be so in 2016.

Here are some key story lines:

Obamacare continued to mature, but its role is still evolving.

The Affordable Care Act has brought down the percentage of uninsured Americans to about 11.5% this year from 18% in early 2013 — that’s more than 16 million adults, according to the Gallup organization. The figure corresponds to an estimate from the Department of Health and Human Services that some 17.6 million Americans have gained coverage since 2010 via the law’s provisions, which include the expansion of Medicaideligibility for low-income residents, the creation of individual insurance exchanges and the provision for youths to remain on their parents’ health plans until age 26. For the full article click here 

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If what’s past is prologue, here’s what health IT investor Canvas Ventures will target with new fund

Canvas Ventures, the venture capital firm formally known as Morgenthaler Ventures, has launched a second fund seeking to raise $250 million, according to PE Hub citing aForm D filing on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s website. To get a sense of what their investment priorities are, here’s a look at some of its previous investments spanning patient communication, physician social networks

Viewics Canvas led an $8m investment round for the company which specializes in healthcare and diagnostic analytics and business intelligence. It provides insights on operational and clinical and billing. Among its customers are Mayo Clinic and University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland. For the full article click here 

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To prevent suicide in college, make mental health screening mandatory

 

Last January, an undergraduate student at Yale posted a suicide note to Facebook and jumped to her death. In her note, she stated that she knew she was depressed, but she was afraid of being forced to leave school as a result.

“Dear Yale: I loved being here. I only wish I could’ve had some time. For the full article click here 

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U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy pushes for mental health reform

DANBURY — U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy came to Danbury on Monday to tout legislation he sponsored to overhaul the nation’s mental health system.

More than 200 people gathered at The Family and Children’s Aid Child Guidance Center on West Street to hear the senator give a summary of his bill, which has bipartisan support.

“It’s time that the federal government start helping you, rather than getting in the way, and we’re going to push as hard as we can early next year to move this through the Congress,” Murphy said. “I am more optimistic than ever before that we’re going to get this done.”

Murphy was joined Monday by U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty; D-Conn.; state Rep. Bob Godfrey, D-Danbury; John Clark, president of Western Connecticut State University; and Dr. John Murphy, president and CEO of the Western Connecticut Health Network.

Murphy, a Democrat, and Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, initially co-sponsored the legislation when it was introduced in July. The bill has 12 additional ponsors, six Republicans and six Democrats. For the full article click here 

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From heart trouble to your risk of dementia 60 second DIY health tests that can save your life!

No fancy equipment, no cost, no waiting to see the GP – welcome to the quickest and easiest health check-ups yet. These simple tests, which you can do in the comfort of your own home, are surprisingly revealing about the state of your health. Best of all, they each take only a minute or so to do…

WINDOW TEST TO CHECK YOUR SIGHT

Do this:  Look at a door frame or large window frame from across a room, first with your right eye only (put your palm over your left eye for 30 seconds), then your left eye only.

What it means: You should be able to see the edges of the frame as vertical and horizontal parallel lines. If the door frame edges appear to have any kinks or are distorted in any way, or they bow in or out, this may indicate that you have macular degeneration.

It comes in two forms, wet and dry. With the wet form, which is more aggressive, tiny blood vessels grow under the retina – the light-sensitive patch at the back of the eye. These blood vessels leak, damaging the macula (a tiny spot at the back of the eye that is responsible for central vision). For the full article click here 

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Electronic health records: Why they matter to all of us

Can you imagine using your computer at home to log in to your health care service provider’s website to discover the result of tests done yesterday?

No more waiting for days until someone calls from the office to inform you of the results, or perhaps to make an appointment for you so that the health care provider can explain the results. If an appointment is needed you can make it online.

This is what EHRs can do for you.

The health, illness, and treatment histories of patients both in primary care and hospitals has long been documented and stored on paper.

Technology now allows health records to be entered and stored on computer and saved in a central database (or maybe two databases). For the full article click here 

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Psilos VC: Digital Health Will Emerge as Top Performer in 2016

As 2015 winds down, it’s a good time to look into the crystal ball for one of the toughest industries to predict: healthcare.

We recently picked the brain of David Eichler, a managing partner with New York-based venture capital firm Psilos Group. Eichler (pictured) focuses on investments in digital health and medical device companies, and he currently is the board chair of Gamma Medica and Caregiver Services.

Among the themes that emerged in our e-mail exchange: more health IT companies are starting to have positive, measurable impact on healthcare quality; investors are returning to medtech after a post-recession drop-off; and it’s often harder and takes longer to build a “unicorn” startup in digital health than some other sectors, Eichler says.

The following is a transcript of our conversation, edited for style and length. For the full article click here 

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AMA, insurers dig in for private health battle

The doctors’ lobby has warned the government not to allow health funds to price insurance based on factors such as age and lifestyle, while attacking “junk” policies that don’t cover common procedures.

Government budgets are under severe strain and surging healthcare costs have put pressure on public finances and insurance premiums, prompting a federal review into private health insurance, alongside several other reviews into the health system.

In its submission to the review the Australian Medical Association took aim at insurance policies with exclusions, saying patients with such policies are often shocked to discover they are not covered for a common procedure.

“Doctors are seeing this happen on a daily basis,” AMA president Brian Owler said. For the full article click here

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Bay County Health Department scrutinizing gaps in HIV care

PANAMA CITY — With the number of new HIV infections in the county on the upswing, the Bay County Health Department is finding a growing number of patients are getting lost in the system, moving in and out of treatment, or dropping off the radar entirely.

“We have a linkage to care system in place and although that linkage to care gets people into care, it’s the idea of retention into care,” said Rick Vitale, who coordinates the Health Department’s HIV and AIDS programs. “That’s where people are getting lost.”

To address the issue, the Health Department is considering a survey of available HIV/AIDS services in the area to identify barriers and gaps in care. Vitale said they are awaiting final approval.

“We want to know who you are, where you are, if you getting any type of help, if you have insurance,” Vitale said. “And if you need help, we’re here to help you. That’s our message.” For the full article click here 

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3D Printing Used To Practice Brain Surgery

Jacobs Institute debuts 3D brain models for pre-op practice.

3D modeling has become a powerful tool in the training and practice of physicians and surgeons. From 3D printed rib cages to facial reconstruction and now vascular systems, the modeling provides opportunities to practice and provide treatments that were not possible before.

Now, Computer World reports physicians and researchers in Buffalo, N.Y. have developed a method of 3D printing to create a patient’s complete vascular system in only 24 hours, thereby allowing them to practice navigating it to treat brain aneurysms. Aneurysms are complicated as they are located in the complex maze of vessels in the brain, and the creators of the vascular 3D printing say surgeons can now see precisely what a patient’s unique vascular structure looks like and plan the best treatment approach in advance. For the full article click here 

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BYOD: Costly Or Cost Saving?

Is your organization one that allows employees to bring their own devices? When managed properly, BYOD policies can save providers a boatload — but beware of the hidden costs.

Is BYOD really saving providers money? According to Gerard Nussbaum, director of technology services at management consulting firm Kurt Salmon, the answer is yes. Nussbaum told Fierce Mobile Healthcare that having a BYOD policy in place “acknowledges the fact that people are going to bring their own device and seek to use them in their work, as well as their personal life, and healthcare providers can’t really afford to give everyone who would benefit from a device, a device.” For the full article click here 

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5 Ways States Mandate Health Information Exchange

Cyberthreat analysis and intelligence: Innovators 2015

Securonix is heavy on the threat analysis piece. And not just a particular threat. This is a product that really enjoys drinking from the Big Data fire hose. Lest you think that we have succumbed to marketing hype and are tossing around buzz phrases, such as “Big Data,” let us assure you that we mean it in the strictest sense. Big Data usually is defined by the four Vs: high velocity, variability, volume and veracity. That means that this Innovator can ingest lots of data that is rapidly changing and is being delivered and ingested at wire speeds all while losing none of its integrity. So, the next question is what can the tool do with this data? The answer is just about anything you want.

The reason for this very directed approach is that Securonix started out as analytics specialists and built from that basis of expertise. They believed that there was a big hole in most security programs. These programs start by looking at everything on the enterprise in terms of identity. They realized that since they were attaching the right ID to everything on the enterprise, there might be a lot more that could be done to protect the network. So they added behavioral analytics, making them the only pure-play security analytics provider.

The system creates baselines, understands what “normal” is, and picks out anomalies. It does not rely on signatures or policy-based analysis because those things, by themselves, don’t work. The Securonix platform is very heavy on anomaly detection and assessing outlier behavior. Then it correlates discovered behavior with many threat intelligence feeds and brings in contextually rich information.

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Health Insurance Enrollment Deadline Is Extended to Thursday

Hours away from a deadline, the government announced on Tuesday that it was extending an enrollment period for full-year health insurance in 2016 under the Affordable Care Act.

To get coverage beginning on Jan. 1, consumers will have until 11:59 p.m. Pacific time on Thursday (2:59 a.m. Friday, Eastern time) to make arrangements through HealthCare.gov, the federal marketplace. Enrollment was to have ended Tuesday night.

And those missing the deadline will still have opportunities to sign up. The open enrollment period ends on Jan. 31, for coverage starting on March 1. For people who enroll by Jan. 15, coverage can start on Feb. 1.

At least one state that operates its own marketplace, New York, has also extended its deadline for coverage that starts on Jan. 1. New York residents now have until Saturday, a four-day extension, the New York State Department of Health announced on Tuesday. For the full article click here 

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Pebble Health Offers Native Activity Tracking Capability

It looks like the folks over at Pebble have managed to deliver updates to their software and smartphone apps today, which will definitely benefit just about all Pebble users. Other than delivering timeline to Pebble Classic and Steel, Pebble Health would also debut on the Pebble Time range, which so happens to be a totally new, fully native activity tracking experience that boasts of timeline integration to boot.

Pebble Health was developed alongside researchers at Stanford University, where it is able to keep track of your daily activity while detecting your sleep phases automatically. Having a seamless integration with timeline would ensure that your day’s stats and insights are able to be glanced at in a convenient manner, and will be accessible as well. You can then wake up to a timeline pin in order to review just how much you slept, as well as end the day with a report of your step count. For the full article click here 

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Why Those Interested in Population Health and ACO Development Need to Think About the Dual-Eligible Population

It was excellent to be able to interview Salil Deshpande, M.D. last week, during the final session of the Health IT Summit in Houston, sponsored by our sister organization, the Institute for Health Technology Transformation (iHT2). I was hoping that Dr. Desphande, chief medical officer of the Houston-based United Healthcare Community Plan of Texas, a division of United Healthcare of Texas, might be able to offer some insights on some of the populations that United Healthcare serves in Houston and across Texas, and he indeed was able to do so.

I was particularly interested in Dr. Deshpande’s insights around the Medicare/Medicaid dual-eligible population. That is a population with very intense needs and extremely difficult situations, with many elements that are not strictly clinical, but rather, involve socioeconomic and other factors. I’ve been writing about care management for dual-eligibles for nearly 20 years now, and it is in fact the combination of clinical issues and often very intensive social determinants of care and care management, that makes it so challenging to care for these health plan members/patients. For the full article click here 

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New Joint Accelerator Program Sponsors Digital Health

Lund Life Science Incubator (Lund LSI; Sweden) and Healthy Habits (Lund, Sweden) are launching Health2B (Lund, Sweden), an accelerator environment for innovative teams that will enable information and communications technology (ICT) to meet classic life science, with the goal of creating a new generation of companies.

Applications to the Health2B startup accelerator will be accepted beginning in December 2015, and in early 2016 the selected companies will be able to start the three-month program. Through Health2b partner Almi Invest (Göteborg, Sweden), which sits on the application jury, participating companies will have the opportunity to apply for a funding base of approximately USD 25,000. Health2B will provide access to mentors, contract sponsorship packages from local and international players, and provide active support in accessing international markets with high regulatory hurdles. For the full article click here 

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Achieving Universal Health Coverage: It’s About Time

Imagine if you had to pay for treatment of illness out-of-pocket, and that doing so posed a significant strain on your family’s finances. Unfortunately, this is the reality hundreds of millions of people around the world face when they go to the clinic. This is not a new challenge by any means, and 100 countries are now working to tackle this issue through universal health coverage (UHC).

This idea of protecting people against catastrophic financial ruin as a result of seeking health services has been aspirational for many years. UHC has been championed as an enabler of improving access and quality of health services around the world while protecting people from the burden of high out-of-pocket expenses. This is not an easy feat, particularly for low- and middle-income countries that are struggling with strained resources and a range of health challenges, including infectious diseases, chronic illnesses, child survival and maternal mortality. But the successes of Mexico, Chile, Thailand and other nations have demonstrated that it can be done. Furthermore, the inclusion of UHC in the recently-adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) gives countries the impetus to redouble efforts to make universal health coverage a reality and has triggered renewed interest in this issue from bilateral donors, implementing agencies and the private sector. For the full article click here 

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ICIT 2016 Predictions: Access Management Spotlight w/Fellow Greg Cranley (Centrify)

ICIT Fellow Greg Cranley (www.Centrify.com) shares his views on the top threats facing critical infrastructure sectors and how organizations can respond to these threats, with a focus on user credentials and access management.

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ICIT 2016 Predictions: Breach Detect & Response Spotlight w/Fellow Ashok Sankar (Raytheon Websense)

ICIT Fellow Ashok Sanakr (Raytheon Websense) shares his views on the top threats facing critical infrastructure sectors and how organizations can respond to these threats, with a focus on prevent, detect and respond technologies.

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ICIT 2016 Predictions: Behavioral Analytics Spotlight w/Fellow Stewart Draper

ICIT Fellow Stewart Draper (www.Securonix.com) shares his views on the top threats facing critical infrastructure sectors and how organizations can respond to these threats, with a focus on behavioral analytics.

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ICIT 2016 Predictions: NextGen Cybersecurity & IoT w/Fellow Stan Wisseman

ICIT Fellow Stan Wisseman (www.hpe.com) shares his views on the top threats facing critical infrastructure sectors and how organizations can respond to these threats, with a focus on NextGen cybersecurity.

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ICIT 2016 Predictions: Embedded Systems & Collaboration w/Fellow Jerry Davis

ICIT Fellow Jerry Davis (NASA Ames Research Center) shares his views on the top threats facing critical infrastructure sectors and how organizations can respond to these threats, with a focus on embedded systems and government / industry collaboration.

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Tracing the roots of major health IT players: The meaning behind 5 company names

Health IT is an industry with many big names, but where do these names come from? From the Greek gods to a love affair with language, here is the history and inspiration behind five household names in health IT.

athenahealth (Watertown, Mass.)

Meaning: The name ‘athenahealth’ can be traced back to a clinic co-founded by Jonathan Bush, now CEO of the company, and Todd Park. The clinic’s name was derived from the Greek goddess Athena.

What leadership has to say: “The name athenahealth is an homage to Athena Women’s Health, the birthing clinic Todd Park and I founded in San Diego, to reinvent the childbirth experience with more midwives, more focus on mothers and best practices driven by statistics. We named the clinic after the Greek goddess Athena, who symbolizes wisdom, inspiration and courage. Our goal was to produce better clinical outcomes and a superior experience for mothers at a lower cost. We accomplished the first two, but couldn’t get a handle on our revenue cycle. That eventually led us to try to fix the billing process for other practices in our situation…and the health IT company athenahealth was born,” says Mr. Bush. For the full article click here 

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As Health Care Act Insurance Deadline Nears, ‘Unprecedented Demand’

WASHINGTON — Milwaukee, Detroit and Philadelphia have done the best among 20 cities competing to sign up people for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, while Dallas, Denver and Las Vegas are lagging, the White House said Monday ahead of Tuesday’s deadline to enroll for coverage that takes effect on Jan. 1.

A surge of callers temporarily overwhelmed the government’s capacity to enroll consumers on Monday, prompting officials to record telephone numbers so they could return calls later to arrange for coverage.

Federal officials said that people stuck waiting would be given a brief special enrollment period so they could complete their applications and select health plans after Dec. 15, but still get coverage in January.

“We are seeing unprecedented demand,” said Lori Lodes, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, which runs the federal insurance marketplace. For the full article click here 

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Indiana still has lots of room for improvement on health care

WASHINGTON — Indiana continues to rank among the lowest-performing states on measures of health status and health care systems, despite recent improvements in some areas, such as increased insurance coverage for kids, according to a new report from The Commonwealth Fund.

Indiana also kept its low rank in a second analysis released this week, the latest health tracking report from the United Health Foundation.

Only nine states ranked lower on that report, which has tracked a decline in health determinants and outcomes in Indiana since the 1990s.

In recent years, Indiana improved on the percentage of adults who aren’t physically active, on preventable hospitalizations for Medicare patients and on infant mortality rates. For the full article click here 

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From gutter to the gym to Kinsale for health guru Kelly Berry

A traumatic upbringing saw Kelly Berry homeless and living on the streets of London at the age of 15, with no qualifications and no obvious prospects. Her life had fallen apart spectacularly following the death of her Kinsale-born grandmother who had been the one functioning adult in her life.

Within a few years, however, she had dragged herself from the gutter to a position where she was personal trainer to A-list celebrities and international royalty, commanding fees of up to £100 (€140) per hour and sharing her expertise on national radio, TV, and newspapers in the UK.

“I was personal trainer to people who might have literally stepped over me in the street,” she says, smiling For the full article click here 

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Planned Parenthood files federal lawsuit against Ohio health department

Attorneys for Planned Parenthood sued Ohio on Sunday, asking a judge to block what it argues is an attempt by the state’s top attorney to stop the organization from providing abortion services, court filings showed.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Cincinnati on behalf of three Planned Parenthood locations where abortions are performed, is seeking a restraining order and a preliminary injunction against the state of Ohio.

It comes two days after Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, a Republican, said he would file his own injunction to block those facilities from sending fetal remains to companies that then disposed of them in landfills. DeWine said doing so violated state administrative rules.

“The state is now claiming that Planned Parenthood is in violation of this regulation, despite the fact that for decades, Planned Parenthood has followed these regulations and has never been cited by the state for violation,” Ohio Planned Parenthood President Stephanie Kight said on Sunday. For the full article click here 

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Health care sign-ups hit record in Tennessee

Jeff Leskosek isn’t happy with the health insurance coverage he is getting, but he and his wife, Sheri, were very pleased with the service at the BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee mobile health care sign-up trailer, parked in the Northgate Mall parking lot.

“It’s efficient,” Sheri Leskosek said after spending about 30 minutes Friday with BlueCross BlueShield counselor James Marx, who also manages the outreach trailer.

“It would have taken us longer had we used the computer,” her husband added, “because I’m not very computer savvy.”

Jeff Leskosek is retired. The couple lost their health insurance a year ago when Sheri left her job as a pharmacy technician at CVS. They signed up with the Community Health Alliance, but the consumer cooperative announced in November that it was closing. It said it had lost too much money and received a much smaller reimbursement than expected from the federal government for selling health plans under the Affordable Care Act. For the full article click here 

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After Numerous Health Incidents, Chipotle Has a Big Perception Problem

Recently, Chipotle has made headlines for reasons that make the aphorism “all press is good press” ring ridiculously false.

It started last month, when the Mexican fast-casual chain temporarily shut down 43 locations in the Pacific Northwest after an E. coli outbreak was linked to six restaurants in the region. It was a sizeable setback, but not an outright PR disaster.

That changed when, over the course of a month, E. coli outbreaks were traced to restaurants in seven states sprinkled throughout the country. The cherry on top of Chipotle’s E. coli-laced sundae was the news thatmore than 140 Boston College students fell ill after eating at a nearby location earlier this week. While Boston health officials believe the culprit is norovirus, not E. coli, for a public already primed to associate Chipotle with disease, it hardly mattered. For the full article click here 

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Self-Reported Health Data Improves Outcomes in Cancer Study

Early vaccination tied to fewer flu symptoms for health workers

(Reuters Health) – For health care providers, earlier influenza vaccination is linked to fewer flu symptoms and less time away from work, a Mexican study suggests.

“It’s a straightforward phenomenon: it takes three weeks for antibodies to develop, thus the earlier you get vaccinated the better,” said senior study author Dr. Adrian Camacho-Ortiz, of the University Hospital Dr. Jose Eleuterio Gonzalez in Mexico.

“The most important finding of our study is that we provide proof of this phenomenon, which is scarce, moreover in health care providers,” Camacho-Ortiz added by email. “We found that health care workers vaccinated earlier in the season had less influenza-like syndrome and were less likely to lose working days.”

Camacho-Ortiz and colleagues analyzed data on nearly 6,200 health care workers over two flu seasons at one teaching hospital in Mexico.For the full article click here 

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Why big data means big changes for personalized healthcare

In 1986, a person with lung cancer would be linked to approximately two types of disease. After the genome sequencing was completed in 2003, the medical community was able to find seven other molecular diseases associated to lung cancer and there are more to be discovered.

The access to new molecular data meant people had an increased chance of surviving lung cancer, whereas before the disease was considered a death sentence.

The original human genome project took 13 years to complete the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up human DNA at a cost of $3 billion. Today, this same process takes two days at cost roughly $15.

At the SAP Spotlight Tour earlier this week, healthcare professionals from CancerLinq, the Stanford University department of medicine and SAP’s own chief medical officer made a plea for more patient data to be made available in an effort to gain new insights for healthcare. The ultimate goal of this effort is to provide personalized medicine and treatment. For the full article click here 

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2015 health IT year in review

The past year has seen as much evolution in the healthcare IT space as any, with numerous factors driving forward momentum in everything from cybersecurity to harnessing big data, achieving interoperability, and more.

Security

With healthcare becoming a target industry for data theft, a staggering number of high profile hacks have been revealed this year, with Anthem’s massive cyberattack leading headlines through February after an estimated 80 million current and former customers had their personal data stolen in a hack regarded as the largest healthcare breach in history.

Additional breaches made news through the year, including those at ExcellusBlue Cross and Blue Shield of New York, and more at Premera, CareFirst, Concentra, Merit Health System (MS), UCLA Health, Akron Children’s Hospital (Ohio), McClean Hospital (MA), and Healthfirst, a New York payer. For the full article click here 

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Texas 34th In The U.S. When It Comes To Overall Health

NORTH TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) – When it comes to which state in the nation is healthiest, Texas falls at the lower half of the list. According to the America’s Health Rankings annual report the Lone Star State comes in 34th of the 50 states for overall health.

While our state did well on lower smoking rates and is 3rd in the nation for high school graduates, the report, put out by the United Health Foundation, says Texans don’t do so well at the dinner table.

Dr. Rhonda Randall, the senior adviser to United Health Foundation, broke down some of the areas where Texas ranks near the bottom of the list. “Physical inactivity you’re ranked 43^rd, obesity you’re ranked 40^th, and with diabetes 34^th.”

So exactly what illnesses are killing Texans most? Dr. Randall says, “Obesity comes first and diabetes follows, as well as cardiovascular deaths and cancer deaths.” For the full article click here 

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Congress Pushes for Delay in ‘Cadillac Tax’ on Health Plans

WASHINGTON—Congress is getting closer to delaying a tax on expensive employer-sponsored health plans, imperiling a levy that was a key revenue source and cost-control measure in the 2010 health law.

Bipartisan support for killing or suspending the start of the so-called Cadillac tax, which is scheduled to take effect in 2018, is growing.

With President Barack Obama saying he would veto an outright repeal, lawmakers are pushing to postpone the tax for two years. They are seeking to wrap it into a package they are negotiating with the administration that would extend several expired and expiring business tax breaks and middle-class tax credits. For the full article click here 

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Group Health stands by rules limiting who can vote on Kaiser deal

Officials at Seattle’s Group Health Cooperative said they’re sticking to plans that prevent most of the organization’s 600,000 members from voting on a proposed acquisition by California’s Kaiser Permanente.

Seattle’s Group Health Cooperative says it won’t budge on plans that exclude nearly 95 percent of its members from voting on a proposed acquisition by California’s Kaiser Permanente.

Officials with the co-op said this week they are upholding a long-standing tradition by leaving the key decision to about 27,000 members who registered to vote before the deal with Kaiser Permanente was announced last week. That’s about 4.5 percent of the plan’s 600,000 members in Washington and North Idaho.
“Our trustees and the founders were not supportive of ‘one issue voters’ or special interest groups who had not already made the commitment to take part in the cooperative process,” Susan Byington, chair of the Group Health Cooperative Board, said in a statement. For the full article click here 

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Top 10 Healthcare Data Breaches of 2015

The largest data breaches for the year all involved hacking, and the majority involved a network server.

This was a significant year for the healthcare industry in terms of data breaches. The top three healthcare data breaches alone combined to potentially affect nearly 100 million individuals. As 2015 comes to an end, HealthITSecurity.com reviewed the largest healthcare data breaches for the year. While these are not the only data security incidents that took place this year, in terms of sheer size of patients affected, these data breaches were extremely impactful. It is also important to note that the top 10 healthcare data breaches were all classified as “hacking/IT incident” by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR). For the full article click here For the full article click here 

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Health IT Regulations, Mandates Most Affecting EHR Adoption

What health IT industry mandates have had the greatest impact on the EHR adoption rate? Meaningful Use, IT certification guidelines, MACRA, and ICD-10 are among the most influential.

Over the past decade, the EHR marketplace has become a burgeoning industry, with the number of adopters increasing in parallel. Spurring and impacting the latter’s investment in EHR adoption are several pits of federal regulation and mandates.

How have these regulations affected the use of EHRs? And which ones have affected EHR adoption the most?

Below we discuss the top regulations and mandates that have impacted EHR adoption. For the full article click here 

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Excessive PHI Sharing Top Healthcare Cloud Security Concern

CloudLock Cybersecurity Report gives insights into healthcare cybersecurity needs and habits.

Excessive PHI sharing is the top concern for healthcare entities when it comes to cloud security, according to CloudLock’s Q4 2015 Cybersecurity Report. In a study that investigated a total of eight IT security industries and numerous case studies, CloudLock determined that personally identifiable information (PII) and a surplus of data sharing are vital concerns to the industry.

Nearly 72 percent of practices concentrate most heavily on preventing excessive sharing in the cloud, and 38 percent of organizations concentrate on protecting PII.

As far as type of PII is concerned, patient information, PHI, and medical record information is top priority for healthcare organizations. Other high areas of concern include diagnosis, financial information, medical condition, Social Security number, and diagnosis. For the full article click here 

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Plunging in Polls, Ben Carson Rolls Out Health Care Policy

Plunging in the polls amid the presidential race’s renewed focused on foreign policy, Ben Carson on Wednesday tried to change the subject.

Carson rolled out a health care plan, both online and at an event in Michigan on Wednesday afternoon, and the plan’s launch underscores some of the candidate’s crucial weaknesses: He’s tackling an issue on which few are focused while the rest of the nation is embroiled in a debate about terrorism and national security in which Carson has struggled to find firm ground. For the full article click here 

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Don’t Play Games With Your Health

As a HealthTech start-up CEO, I’m straddling two worlds. One world is as an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, and the other as a doctor and neuroscientist. The first world is built and rewarded on hockey-puck growth, wild valuations, beta-launches, and speed: Google, Facebook, Twitter, Uber – the faster, the better.

In the second world, faster is not always better. This world is modulated by rigorous process, evidence, regulation and even an ancient oath (Do No Harm) put in place to protect and save our lives.

With increasingly advanced technology, we’ve seen apps and products hit the market that make all sorts of promises. Some claim to help users fight anxiety and stress, others depression, still others are even billed as suicide prevention. We have also seen companies use technology to promise, at the prick of a finger or drop of saliva, vast knowledge of, and answers about, our health.

At first glance, this seems like exciting progress. And partly, it is. The merging of tech and health will undoubtedly mean great strides in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease. However, in terms of research and regulation, traditional medicine collides with the tech revolution. For the full article click here 

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Congress Still Limits Health Research On Gun Violence

Mass shootings and police shootings have spurred calls for authorities to take action to reduce the violence. But policymakers may be stymied by the dearth of public health research into both gun violence and deaths that involve the police. One big obstacle: congressional restrictions on funding of such research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Right now, the CDC studies all kinds of violence. There’s a program on child abuse and youth violence, and the public health agency collects data on suicides and sexual assaults.

But there are some glaring research gaps. The CDC doesn’t systematically collect data on deaths at the hands of law enforcement, and there’s actually a law that effectively stops it from doing research on gun violence. For the full article click here 

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What did Twine Health learn from its pre-market phase?

Twine Health first came on our radar as a participant and then winner of a Brigham and Women’s digital health pitch competition. Nearly two years later, with a few clinical studies behind it, the health tech company is poised to go to marketwith its health coaching platform for patients with chronic conditions.

In an interview with Co-founder and Chairman Frank Moss, a serial entrepreneur who is also a veteran of IBM and MIT Media Lab and a co-founder and chairman of Matter, he talked about how Twine Health drew on some of the feedback from its studies to tweak its approach. For the full article click here 

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Health Officials: Boston College Illness Outbreak is Norovirus

City health experts and Chipotle Mexican Grill agreed Tuesday that as many as 80 mostly Boston College students sickened over the weekend likely were victims of the “vomiting disease” known as norovirus and not victims of the more serious nine-state E. coli O26 outbreak.

Members of the Boston College men’s basketball team were among the first sickened, with as many as 10 players experiencing symptoms before last Sunday’s game. If the BC Eagles team has enough recovered players to take the court against the nationally ranked Providence College Friars at Rhode Island’s Dunkin’ Donuts Center on Wednesday night, Chipotle executives in Denver will probably still breathe a sigh of relief. For the full article click here 

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Google Life Sciences, Alphabet’s Health Care Moonshot Lab, Is Now Called ‘Verily’

Here come the Alphabet soup renames. Yesterday it was Google Ventures, the conglomerate’s venture arm, which is now just GV.

Today it’s Google Life Sciences, the experimental health care lab that spun out of Google X. Henceforth, it is “Verily.”

The Alphabet company is led by respected biologist Andy Conrad. Linus Upson, a 10-year Google vet who co-founded the Chrome browser with CEO Sundar Pichai, joined as head of engineering in May. As we reported earlier, Upson has been in talks with a leading geneticist about a potential genetic engineering project. For the full article click here 

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Mental health services suspended in Co Donegal

The HSE says it is making every effort to resume full mental health services for older people in Co Donegal, which have been suspended for new referrals since September.

It says the curtailment of services is “of a temporary nature” due to a staffing shortage, but recruitment of a consultant will start early in 2016. Donegal GPs were told mental health services for older people were being temporarily closed in a letter sent on September 7th. The closure was caused by difficulties filling in for a member of staff on sick leave.

“Without urgent contingency planning, the Donegal Mental Health Service can no longer provide a consultant-led, safe service for the elderly population of Donegal,” consultant psychiatrist Dr CJ Haley said in the letter.

“Therefore, all referrals received by the Mental Health Service for Older People will be returned to sender. A liaison service to Letterkenny General Hospital can no longer be provided.” For the full article click here 

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Two-thirds of major NSW Health IT projects are running late

Six of the NSW Department of Health’s nine largest technology projects are running behind schedule, prompting the state’s auditor-general to call for a review into the way IT initiatives are managed.

The health system’s IT authority, eHealth NSW, currently has nine projects worth more than $20 million on its books.

These include the $170 million statewide electronic medications management rollout, a $90 million rostering overhaul, and the $31 million migration into the GovDC data centres.

But more than half have seen their schedules slip by between one and five years. For the full article click here 

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It’s Time The Tech Industry Paid Attention To The Healthcare Needs Of The Hispanic Community

Entrepreneurs and investors are missing a big opportunity concerning Hispanics and their health.

A recent survey of AngelList counted 89,405 U.S.-based startups. Out of these startups, only 15 target Hispanics and only one, Consejo Sano, focuses on healthcare services for Hispanics.

Meanwhile, the Hispanic population in the US reached a new high of 55.4 million in 2014 and is expected to grow to 30% of the total US populate by 2050.  Collectively, it represents the 15^th largest consumer economy in the world with over $1 trillion in buying power. However, fewer than 4 percent of healthcare providers speak Spanish, and many are not attuned to the population’s cultural and economic diversity. For the full article click here 

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Health care industry stands out in Top Workplaces survey

Greater Memphis is a medical hub, a place of hospitals and clinics, doctors and nurses, and all manner of technicians and assistants.

So it’s no wonder a large share of health services enterprises are represented in The Commercial Appeal’s Top Workplaces 2015 edition.

Indeed, among the largest employers, seven of the Top 10 are health care enterprises, and if you count nursing homes, hospices and social service nonprofits, six of the Top 15 medium-size organizations.

In June, The Commercial Appeal encouraged employees in every industry in Greater Memphis to nominate their companies. For the full article click here 

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Officials Rally for an Extension of a 9/11 Health Bill

Standing in the shadow of the towering rebuilt World Trade Center, scores of firefighters and police officers, led by Mayor Bill de Blasio and two United States senators from New York, rallied on Sunday to press Congress to extend a 9/11 health bill.

The bill would pay for medical care for emergency medical workers and others, including police officers, firefighters and construction workers who risked their lives on Sept. 11, 2001, or in the weeks and months after to recover bodies and begin the cleanup. They were exposed to toxic chemicals that have sickened or killed many of them.

The bill would extend the World Trade Center Health Program, which is part of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. The program expired on Oct. 1; another part of the act, the Victim Compensation Fund, is set to expire next October. For the full article click here 

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Futurist Talks Why Data Gap in Digital Health Is Killing Innovation

2015 has been another banner year for digital health. According to StartUp Health, nearly $5 billion has been invested into digital health companies to date. And, digital health has become a truly global phenomenon, with innovation hubs emerging in Finland, Israel, Canada and other parts of the world.

But, in the midst of all this activity, it’s only natural to ask: What can we expect to see in digital health in 2016 and beyond? And, how long will it take for the hype surrounding digital health to match reality? For the full article click here 

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Qld fails in bid to sue IBM over $1.2b payroll saga

The Queensland government’s attempt to sue global giant IBM over the $1.2 billion health payroll debacle have been thrown out of court.

In a major embarrassment for the Queensland government who has tried to cast the blame for the IT debacle onto IBM, Supreme Court Justice Glenn Martin said a 2010 agreement cleared the company of any legal action over the botched IT system which over-paid and under-paid, or not paid at all, 80,000 health workers.

The Palaszczuk government could also be left to pay IBM’s significant legal costs over the case.

A spokeswoman for IBM said the court decision proved the issues relating to the Queensland Health system were resolved five years ago, despite the attempts by the state government to “re-write history”. For the full article click here 

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Capital Health says surgeon is sabotaging neuroscience center he headed

Capital Health System invested tens of millions of dollars into creating a neurosciences institute in the late 2000s in advance of opening their new $530 million hospital here in 2011.

And they recruited a top neurosurgeon named Dr. Erol Veznedaroglu to spearhead it, hiring him away from Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia in 2008.

Capital Health then sank millions more into supporting Veznedaroglu and the team that would develop Capital Institute for Neurosciences into a national power, the company says. They still hail him as “one of the most experienced cerebrovascular neurosurgeons in the country.”

Last week, in a lawsuit filed in federal court, Capital Health called Veznedaroglu a greedy, self-interested and disloyal doctor with “an unmatched megalomania” who sabotaged Capital’s institute, repackaged it under a new name and sold it off to the highest bidder – Drexel University. For the full article click here 

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Tech-Savvy Players in Health Informatics Out to Expand Market

KOCHI: Information technology has surely got a place in the healthcare industry. As healthcare equipment become more IT-enabled, Health Informatics (HI) or Health IT is one thing which has great business potential in the future. The size of the market worldwide will be worth $27 billion by 2019 from $15.5 billion in 2013.

The share of India will only be $0.91 billion (around Rs 6,074 crore) by then with a growth rate of 16 per cent. As major players in the industry, ZH Healthcare, Practo and Cloudex Healthcare Solutions are in the process of expanding the market in the country, the future looks promising. Compared to the total healthcare industry in the country, HI contributes only 0.35 per cent of the market. The overall Indian healthcare market today is worth Rs 6.68 lakh crore and is expected to grow to Rs 18.7 lakh crore by 2020, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.9 per cent. When the market  grows it seems Health IT services will also expand. For the full article click here 

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Group Health acquisition by Kaiser draws worry and praise

Reaction was swift — and mixed — Friday after the announcement that Seattle’s homegrown medical cooperative, Group Health, may be acquired by the California behemoth Kaiser Permanente.

Callers buzzed phone lines at Group Health’s administrative offices as well as the satellite centers throughout Washington and Northern Idaho, officials said. Employees huddled with colleagues and managers. Hundreds of conversations ensued, even as officials said no change in care or coverage is immediately planned. Most were “wonderfully positive,” said Diana Birkett Rakow, Group Health’s executive vice president of public affairs. For the full article click here 

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SocialWellth partners with HITLab for digital health app certification push

SocialWellth formed a strategic partnershipwith HITLab in the first part of a push to establish a standards and certification program for digital health apps calledXcertia. The collaboration news was timed to coincide with HITLab’s conference this week.

SocialWellth, founded and led by David Vinson, has an app curation lab that has grown to more than 500 apps. Last year, it supplemented the lab with assets that came from itsacquisition of Happtique.

Although app certification programs have claimed that they want to take the wild west out of the app market by vetting apps, they have not had a great track record. One of Happtique’s biggest shortcomings was that it had lax standards on the security of the apps it certified and lost credibility. A program initiated by UK’s National Health Service failed to make it past the pilot stage. For the full article click here 

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Report: Global Health Care Cybersecurity Market To Grow Significantly

The global health care cybersecurity market is projected to increase significantly by 2022, in large part because of an increase in cyberattacks in the industry, according to a report by Grand View Research, Healthcare IT News reports (Monegain, Healthcare IT News, 12/2).

Report Findings

According to the report, the global health care cybersecurity market was valued at $5.5 billion in 2014.

North America held the largest share of the market, at 40% (Heath, Health IT Security, 12/2). The report noted that the health care industry in North America is a target for cyberattacks because of the: For the full article click here 

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Live from the IHT2 Atlanta Health IT Summit: Cornerstone Health Care’s Transformational Dive into Population Health

Grace Terrell, M.D., CEO and president of  High Point, N.C.-based Cornerstone Health Care, gave a keynote presentation on her organization’s bold jump into population health management at the iHT2 Health IT Summit in Atlanta on Dec. 3.

The keynote, “Using Analytics in Value-based Contracting,” was delivered on the final day of the iHT2 Health IT Summit (the Institute for Health Technology Transformation is a sister organization to Healthcare Informatics under the joint umbrella of the Vendome Group, LLC) at the Omni Atlanta Hotel at CNN Center. At the core of Dr. Terrell’s presentation was the idea that any system’s population health journey will require a complete transformation from what traditional healthcare has been about. For the full article click here 

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USA TODAY forum examines solutions to community health problems, inequities

Health care spending last year rose at the highest rate since 2008, thanks in large part to far more people being insured but also a 12% increase in drug spending, federal data out Wednesday showed.

The rate of growth in health spending is lower than before the Affordable Care Act took effect, but many believe the cost increases require more of a focus on non-medical solutions to health issues.

National experts will explore some of these evidence-backed programs during a Friday morning forum that will be live-streamed on usatoday.com. For the full article click here 

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Northern Health says scammers impersonating its employees

Northern Health is warning people in B.C.’s north about two reported scams where the scammers pretend to be with Northern Health to get information about potential victims.

The first is operating in the Prince George area.

A person pretending to be with the health authority approaches a home under the pretense of an air quality survey, then comes back a short time later and requests access to the victim’s home. The person reportedly has some sort of identification that says they’re with Northern Health.

“Our program areas are not conducting door-to-door surveys … if a Northern Health employee does come to your house, it’s usually with a pre-scheduled appointment,” Northern Health spokesman Jonathan Dyck told Radio West’s Rebecca Zandbergen. For the full article click here 

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Chilmark: Longitudinal care plans key to health IT’s potential

Even as healthcare organizations struggle first to embrace and ultimately achieveinteroperability of patient data, they need to start thinking about what do with the information once they’re able to move it around securely. That means learning how to develop longitudinal coordinated care plans, according to a new report from Boston-basedChilmark Research.

“While the technology and concept are immature, Chilmark Research believes strongly that care plans are an important next stage of realizing the potential of health IT to provide a more cohesive, inclusive experience for patients who have put their wellbeing in the hands of the healthcare system,” said the report, authored by Chilmark analyst Matt Guldin.

“[E]ven as medicine has produced innovations like the Human Genome Project and minimally invasive surgery, it has not found a way to reliably share the full story of a patient’s care or coordinate healthcare professionals around a shared set of goals and assumptions for a patient. This is where care plans come in,” the report explains.

For now, data remains siloed. “They’re still focused on getting information out of hospitals,” Guldin said. For the full article click here

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Obamacare, Pricey New Drugs Send Up US Health Spending

Obamacare and pricey new drugs for hepatitis, cancer and multiple sclerosis helped drive U.S. health spending to new highs, government researchers reported Wednesday.

Health spending grew by 5.3 percent to $3 trillion in 2014, experts at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) found. That’s the biggest growth in five years, but much of it was to be expected as 17 million people got coveragefor health care for the first time in years.

Americans now spend $9,523 per person a year on medical expenses – by far the most among developed countries. Every year, actuaries at CMS assess U.S. health spending and compare it to recent years. They also look at what drives it. They saw a spurt for 2014. For the full article click here

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Live from the iHT2 Atlanta Health IT Summit: The Many Layers of the Industry’s Push Towards Interoperability

Health IT leaders discussed and debated the different trends and challenges around interoperability, and what the future holds at the IHT2 Health IT Summit in Atlanta on Dec. 2.

The panel session, “Driving Interoperability Across Systems,” at the iHT2 Health IT Summit (the Institute for Health Technology Transformation is a sister organization to Healthcare Informatics under the joint umbrella of the Vendome Group, LLC), was moderated by Denise Hines, CEO of Georgia’s eHealth Services Group and executive of the Georgia Health Information Network (GaHIN). Joining Hines on the panel were: Donna Lynch, vice president, clinical informatics, Covenant Health (Knoxville, Tenn.); David Dull, M.D., chief medical officer, St. John’s Health System in the greater Detroit, Mich. area; Jeff Gartland, vice president at RelayHealth (the Alpharetta, Ga.-based McKesson business unit which focused on clinical connectivity); and Steve Rushing, director of health initiatives, Enterprise Innovation Institute, Georgia Tech. Below are excerpts of the panel discussion on interoperability at the Omni Atlanta Hotel at CNN Center, with the questions being asked by Hines. For the full article click here

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Advanced Health Call Center picks EAFB for new home

BOX ELDER, S.D. –

Cost of living, quality of life, and talented workers are the top reasons why advanced health is choosing KOTA Territory as their second home.

It took two years of searching to find a place for their new home, but advanced health is happy to be here.

The call center on Ellsworth Air Force Base is designed to let retired medicare advantage clients and workers schedule in–home appointments.

According to the Chief Operating Officer for Advanced Health, it was the people they met during their re–location search who were the real reason that the company decided to move here.

“Most of the time, when we go into these discussions, we always felt like we were being sold on the concept of ‘Hey. Come here.’ But here, people just had conversations and they generally seemed interested in having us locate the business here,” Advanced Health C.O.O. Kevin Davis said.

Davis says he has 43 employees now, but plans to fill all 204 positions within the next three years. For the full article click here

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Two-Factor Authentication Use Increases, ONC Finds

Nearly half of all hospitals had two-factor authentication abilities in 2014.

Hospital health IT departments are gaining capabilities for two-factor authentication at an increasing rate, helping to improve healthcare data security. Two-factor authentication capabilities are important for increasing health data security, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) reported, because it puts more barriers between sensitive health information and potential data thieves.

According to a recent report from the ONC, the number of hospitals with two-factor authentication capabilities has increased by 53 percent since 2010 (Figure 1).

In 2010, only about one-third of hospitals had these security capabilities; however, by 2014, nearly half of surveyed hospitals had two-factor authentication capabilities.

Two-factor authentication means that users need to input more than just a username and password in order to log into a certain data portal. For the full article click here 

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Excessive screen time, obesity main health concerns for children, study says

Too much time in front of a screen, obesity, and a lack of physical activity have been identified by parents as the three biggest health concerns for Australian children and teenagers.

The Australian Child Health Poll, conducted by Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital, found having an unhealthy diet and bullying were also considered by parents as in the top five children’s health issues.

The poll’s director, Dr Anthea Rhodes, said the top 10 concerns related to modern lifestyles, rather than traditional issues like allergies and accidents.

“When we’ve looked to the public and asked them to tell us what’s important, they’ve very clearly told us, it’s those issues relating to lifestyle, child welfare and also mental health that are the big problems in their eyes,” she said. For the full article click here 

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New Alberta Health Services board aims to clarify lines of authority

Alberta Health Services’ new board of directors faces a difficult but urgent task to establish a governance model that can end the “turbulence” that has jolted the health authority in recent years, chairwoman Linda Hughes said Friday.

Speaking publicly for the first time since being tapped to head the new six-member board, Hughes said she believes at least some of the problems at AHS can be traced to ongoing confusion among executives, board members and the health ministry over how the health system should be run.

“I do think it’s often an issue of people understanding where the lines of authority are,” she said following the board’s first meeting in Edmonton. “We need to develop a strict governance policy that really establishes the roles and responsibilities. If it’s clear, it will work effectively.”

Among the major sources of turmoil at AHS has been a revolving door of executives, including seven different CEOs in seven years. Current CEO Vickie Kaminski is the latest departure, announcing last week she will be resigning halfway through her three-year contract.

In a brief interview Friday, Kaminski insisted the reasons for her departure were more personal than political. For the full article click here 

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INTERVIEW: Dr Chong Yoke Sin, CEO, Integrated Health Information Systems, Singapore

Dr Chong Yoke Sin, CEO, Integrated Health Information Systems, Singapore, talks to ETHealthworld about the advantages of IT in healthcare.

1. Tell us about the advent and progress of IT in healthcare in Singapore?

Healthcare in IT in Singapore started 30-40 years ago, when we had the first systems that were focused on billing of patients. Since then we have progressed towards clinical systems and electronic medical record at acute hospital and outpatient level.

The next phase is to go from an acute hospital setting and counter towards whole of patient encounter where the care plan for every patient can actually be followed from our healthcare system. We are basically going from healthcare provider centric IT system to the one which is totally patient centric. For the full article click here 

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Health privacy investigation at Wellington Hospital after complaint

A Wellington hospital worker is under investigation for improperly accessing a patient’s medical records.

The Capital & Coast District Health Board confirmed an investigation had been underway for months, and was only sparked after the alleged victim complained in July.

“[The complaint] was made by a person that was concerned their record may have been looked it,” chief operating officer Chris Lowry said.

An audit of the staff’s access to electronic health records since 2012 revealed a single potential breach, although Lowry was unable to confirm whether it occurred years or months ago.

“When we do the audit we look at the role of the person assessing the record and look at whether it is appropriate.”

Both the Privacy Commissioner and the complainant had been informed but Lowry refused to discussed further details while the four-month investigation was ongoing.

She would not comment on what private medical records had been accessed, where in the hospital the staff member had worked and whether the staff member was still working at the DHB. For the full article click here 

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Australian health system faces ‘triple whammy’, says KPMG health expert Mark Britnell

Global health expert Mark Britnell says Australia’s world class healthcare system could be at risk of failing to care for ever older and sicker patients because of a “triple whammy” of structural problems.

Britain-based Mr Britnell warned that although Australia’s healthcare system has “served it well”, political blame games had thwarted real rejuvenation.

More importantly, he stressed, the split between federal and state governments, which sees the Commonwealth fund and manage primary care like doctor visits and blood tests, while the states run and fund hospital care, is not suited to the needs of modern healthcare.  For the full article click here 

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Rise of Centralized Decision Making in Health IT

“Merger fever” and the prevalence of employed physicians has led to a predictable but significant shift inhealthcare IT: centralized decisionmaking. Slowly disappearing are the days when departments in the same hospital or health system could select their own vendors to provide various services. Large health systems are now centralizing their purchasing and rolling the implementations out system-wide.

It’s a simple strategy, but the implications are far-reaching. CIOs, CMIOs and CNIOs are now being assembled from multiple hospitals within a system to demo, pilot and make product decisions for the entire network. They say streamlining vendor relationships is facilitating interoperability, combating the inefficiency caused by duplication of efforts, and leveraging scale to cut costs.

Some technologies lend themselves more easily to system-wide deployments. EHR systems, for example, are an obvious choice because of their promise of interoperability. As a result, EHR implementations by companies such as Cerner, Epic and VistA are leading the trend. For the full article click here 

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Letter: Misguided notions on mental health issues

I disagree with the argument posed in Chad Simon’s ’16 Nov. 23 op-ed “Depressed? Who isn’t?” It comes across as misinformed, contrived and utterly pointless on the state of mental health issues.

Firstly, Simon describes Counseling and Psychological Services as the “most inefficient and unqualified” service offered at Brown — a remark extended from an egocentric viewpoint. Yes, CAPS has its issues, most of which are institutional. But to downplay the work that the psychologists, psychiatrists and administrative personnel do is very inconsiderate.

CAPS is understaffed, and taking into account that the staff members attend to more than 350 students a week, we should remember to acknowledge their hard work. It is wrong to direct our anger at the CAPS personnel, who work very hard to help the Brown community. The source of the inefficiency is the administration, which has been unrelenting in making CAPS more accessible to Brown students. For the full article click here 

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