Welcome to our Healthcare IT Today Weekly Roundup. Each week, we’ll be providing a look back at the articles we posted and why they’re important to the healthcare IT community. We hope this gives you a chance to catch up on anything you may have missed during the week.
2023 Health IT Predictions: Consumerism. Healthcare IT Today kicked off 2023 by asking the experts in our community to offer their thoughts on the year ahead. Our latest round of predictions kicks off with the ongoing consumerization of healthcare. Our experts say retail health and telehealth will continue to make gains as consumers vote with their feet to find a better care experience. This should also result in a greater push for price transparency, especially given concerns about the cost of care in an uncertain economy. Read more…
2023 Health IT Predictions: Analytics and Interoperability. It’s no secret that healthcare organizations want to get better at sharing data and generating insights. Our experts expect an emphasis on real-time data and actionable analytics in 2023, with a particular focus on drug diversion and behavioral health. Not surprisingly, information blocking is top of mind as well. Read more…
2023 Health IT Predictions: Health Equity and Social Determinants. Our experts predict two related trends for 2023: More organizations will make an effort to address health inequity because more patients will be at risk. A combination of improved care coordination and broader coverage of mental health and telehealth should help, the experts said. Read more…
2023 Health IT Predictions: Pharma. Data, analytics, and automation will be the biggest pharma topics in 2023, according to our experts. It’s also interesting to see where our experts see this technology being applied: Gathering patient insights, enabling prevision medicine (especially in oncology), and addressing drug costs all came up more than once. Read more…
2023 Healthcare IT Predictions: Patient Needs, Innovations, and M&A Activity. In the latest Healthcare IT Podcast, John Lynn and Colin Hung literally shook the crystal ball and offered their own predictions for 2023. Once they established that revenue and workforce management will dominate healthcare conversations in 2023, they discussed whether patient needs will be met, what innovations they hope to see, and which mergers and acquisitions they expect. Read more…
Don’t forget to check out all our predictions on the 2023 Health IT Predictions page!
Activating Price Transparency Starts With Readily Accessible Data. The CMS Transparency in Coverage Final Rule went into effect on January 1. Andy Oram talked to Marcus Dorstel at Turquoise Health about how payers and providers are exposing price data for easier aggregation and comparison. Read more…
Milwaukee County Addresses Health Equity With Data and GIS. The Wisconsin county declared racism a public health crisis in 2019. In the years since, the county has used population data and Geographic Information System technology to provide COVID-19 vaccines and other resources to the right neighborhoods, county official Zachary Swingen told Colin. Read more…
How DE&I Initiatives Can Address Healthcare Workforce Challenge. Patients say they receive better care when they speak the same language as their providers and have shared cultural experiences. Shanil Ebrahim at Deloitte Canada talked to Colin about how tapping into underutilized pools of talent has the twofold benefit of bringing in more workers and more diverse workers. Read more…
The Tools for HIE Success Already Exist. Many healthcare stakeholders believe HIEs struggle because they have complex and expensive technical infrastructure needs. Sonia Chambers at West Virginia Health Information Network showed that CRISP Shared Services provide a reliable platform and agile technology that HIEs can tailor to their unique needs. Read more…
How Blockchain Could Save Healthcare At Least $2 Billion Every Year. Healthcare currently spends billions of dollars to collect and update provider demographic information and maintain it in proprietary databases. Michael Kim at MultiPlan described how a blockchain distributed database could help multiple entities keep track of the same information. Read more…
The Definition of Electronic Health Information Has Expanded – But Don’t Panic. Under the information blocking rule, nearly any info used in healthcare decision-making is now EHI, and anyone touching health info must play by the rules. Mariann Yeager at The Sequoia Project noted that compliance can be challenging but the clinical and business benefits outweigh the risks. Read more…
Featured Health IT Job: Microsoft BizTalk, SQL Cluster Engineer, a remote position with Stoltenberg Consulting, posted to Healthcare IT Central.
Funding and M&A Activity:
- Capacity management vendor LeanTaaS acquired Hospital IQ, which makes workflow automation software. The new company’s combined valuation is more than $1 billion.
- Risk management solution provider Censinet announced a $9 million funding round.
- EMR vendor Careficient acquired Net Health’s home health and hospice EMR and RCM product lines.
- Onc.AI closed a $25 million Series A funding round; the company focuses on clinical management of immuno-oncology.
- RCM company RSi acquired Invicta Health Solutions, a financial and operational technology integration firm.
- Epic-hosted virtual care platform KeyCare completed a $27 million Series A funding round.
Thanks for reading and be sure to check out our latest Healthcare IT Today Weekly Roundups.
