It might seem strange to compare a patient's hospital stays to a consumer indulging in the extravagances of a four-star hotels. Yet Yale-New Haven Health System is improving its healthcare services based on real-time patient feedback, collected via tablets, about anything from the cleanliness of rooms to the friendliness of nurses. Consumers choose hotels based on their reputations for comfort, dining and other amenities. Similarly, patients have several options for healthcare providers, says Lisa Stump, CIO of Yale-New Haven Health System. And in an age where Yelp and Twitter can make or break reputations, hospitals must deliver the best experiences to make patients prefer their facilities.
A health IT industry group plans to award $1 million for the development of a solution that tackles a long-standing problem with matching patients to their electronic health records. The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) Jan. 19 launched its National Patient ID Challenge. The group will award the prize money in February 2017 to the developer of a system that ensures any hospital can accurately match patients with their electronic records. Mismatching health records can lead to serious medical errors, a researcher told Bloomberg BNA Jan. 19. The issue could derail federal efforts to reduce health spending through the use of health IT.
he U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the MITRE Corporation are working together to foster a more a collaborative approach to address the sometimes abject vulnerability of critical medical devices to cyberattack. At HIMSS16, in fact, FDA director of emergency preparedness, operations and medical countermeasures Suzanne Schwartz, MD, and MITRE senior principal cybersecurity engineer Margie Zuk, senior principal will discuss those efforts during the session "Systemic Management of Medical Device Cyberscurity." Schwartz shared some thoughts on device security ahead of the conference.
Eight-nine percent of healthcare providers say technology has changed patient expectations, according to a recent EMC report. Respondents to the survey, which polled 236 healthcare leaders from 18 countries, said more than half of their patients wanted faster access to services. 45 percent wanted 24/7 access and connectivity and 42 percent wanted access on more devices. Another 47 percent said they wanted "personalized" experiences. "Consumers buy across a spectrum of principles," Dave Dimond, chief technology officer of EMC said. Millennials buy on price. The Baby Boomer generation buys on cost and quality, and the builder generation buys based on quality and trust."
Telemedicine has been much in the news as researchers investigate how technology can extend the reach of medical services, and a host of start-ups and app developers look for ways to incorporate medical care into our relationships with our devices. And so in pediatrics, there is discussion about the potential for making health part of that adolescent connectedness. Some research shows that adolescents are open to at least certain aspects of medical care delivered by phone, and a variety of efforts are underway to incorporate texting into health and mental health services for adolescents, to extend the reach of counseling services, and even to provide help to teenagers in crisis.
Dr. Albert Woo held the tiny skull in his hands, turning it over and studying its imperfections. There was too much bone around the nose. The right eye socket was out of place. The reconstructive facial surgery would have to protect the tear ducts and delicate structures of the eye. Woo and a colleague planned out the operation using the replica created with a 3-D printer. The next morning, when they opened up the skull of 5-year-old Myah McWilliams, they already knew what to do. "If I'm going to take a child to the operating room, I want to know that it counts," Woo said.