April 8, 2021 | COVID drove mortality rates up
INDUSTRY NEWS
Open Notes went live Monday, April 5. Health care organizations must provide patients with free, full and immediate electronic access to their doctor's clinical notes as well as test results and reports from pathology and imaging. Noncompliant organizations will eventually face fines for "information blocking." There are exceptions; most relate to withholding notes to prevent harm to the patient. The US, along with Scandinavian countries, are the world leaders in implementing open notes in clinical practice, Medscape Medical News reports. (Medscape Medical News)
Ransomware cost health sector $20.8B in 2020
Ransomware attacks cost the health care industry $20.8 billion in downtime in 2020, which is double the number from 2019, according to a new Comparitech report. The health care industry experienced 92 individual ransomware attacks. A separate SonicWall Cyber Threat Report found that the number of ransomware attempts against the health care sector jumped 123% last year. One pandemic-related example: Hackers have targeted data around COVID-19 vaccine research and the vaccine supply chain. (Fierce Healthcare; Comparitech report; SonicWall report)
INNOVATION & TRANSFORMATION
Re-imagine relationship-based care
The pandemic’s forced innovation has created the opportunity to re-imagine relationship-based health care, according to a paper published in the Journal of Patient Experience. Authored by two consumer advocates and two physicians, it identifies four essential components of relationship-based care, four barriers to achieving it and four system changes needed to enable it. The pandemic has provided the opportunity to “leverage technology to transform a unidirectional model into one that values relationships as critical facilitators of health and well-being for both patients and providers.” (Journal of Patient Experience)
3M Health Information Systems recently launched its Social Determinants of Health Analytics platform. It combines clinical, social and population health data to create a complete picture of patient health, and it supports collaboration with community-based organizations. Florida-based Community Care Plan piloted the program. "We learned the vital role that health literacy plays with our members, especially those with chronic conditions. We are now establishing programs to address health literacy, not only for our members, but in the community at large," Miguel Venereo, MD, SVP and chief medical officer, said in a prepared statement. (Healthcare IT News; announcement)
CONSUMERS & PROVIDERS
Press Ganey: Be vigilant about patient unhappiness
Invoking the Anna Karenina Principle, Press Ganey reports that happy patients are happy in similar ways, but unhappy patients are unhappy in many different ways. Their research found that the most common comments among happy patients related to courtesy and respect. Negative comments varied, with the most common sources of unhappiness being long wait times, noise complaints and chaos with the discharge process, the researchers write in the Harvard Business Review. “These findings demonstrate that preventing negative experiences requires the same kind of vigilance needed to prevent the vast range of potential safety problems.” (Harvard Business Review)
PCC, PBGH: Build back better with primary care
Primary care must be part of any Congressional and/or administration effort to “build back better,” write Ann C. Greiner, president and CEO of the Primary Care Collaborative and Elizabeth Mitchell, president and CEO of the Purchaser Business Group on Health. They offer several concrete recommendations, including behavioral health integration and a move away from fee-for-service. “As we build back better and extend the coverage gains made by the Affordable Care Act, we must strengthen the platform on which achieving better, more equitable, more affordable care depends: primary care.” (STAT News)
NEW & NOTED
Health care workers consider exiting: More than one in five health care workers (21%) have at least moderately considered leaving the workforce, and 30% have considered reducing hours because of the pandemic and the accompanying stress. Having at least one child at home had a significant effect on whether an employee was considering leaving or reducing hours. (JAMA Network Open)
COVID drove mortality rates up: The mortality rate in the US climbed 15.9% last year from 2019, according to data published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. COVID-19, which played a role in almost 378,000 US deaths last year, was the third-leading cause of fatalities, behind heart disease and cancer. COVID-19's tool was particularly high among the elderly. (Medscape; MMWR)
FCC ready for applications: The FCC will soon open the second round of COVID-19 Telehealth Program applications. Guidelines have been revised to prioritize low-income areas as well as those most affected by the pandemic. The funds are intended to support “efforts of health care providers to continue serving their patients by providing telecommunications services, information services, and connected devices necessary to enable telehealth” during the pandemic. (mHealth Intelligence)
MULTI-MEDIA
McGraw on new data-blocking rules, upcoming HIPAA overhaul
In this podcast, Deven McGraw, the chief regulatory officer for Ciitizen, explains what the information-blocking rules mean. She also touches on the upcoming HIPAA overhaul. She previously served as deputy director for health information privacy at the OCR and as acting chief privacy officer at the ONC. (HIMSSCast)
On April 6, The Bipartisan Policy Center and the Get the Medications Right Insitute (GTMRx) convened a panel discussion to identify ways to build vaccine confidence and overcome vaccine hesitancy in local communities. During the session, GTMRx announced the formation of a new National Taskforce: Building Vaccine Confidence in the Medical Neighborhood. In order to offer a “level-setting” tool for the Task Force as they begin crafting recommendations to overcome barriers and build vaccine confidence in local communities, GTMRx has commissioned a report on the Background and Resources to Build Vaccine Confidence in the Medical Neighborhood. You can watch a recording of the event here.
MARKETVOICES...QUOTES WORTH READING
“2020 offered a perfect storm for cybercriminals and a critical tipping point for the cyber arms race. The pandemic—along with remote work, a charged political climate, record prices of cryptocurrency, and threat actors weaponizing cloud storage and tools—drove the effectiveness and volume of cyberattacks to new highs.”—Bill Conner, president and CEO of network security hardware vendor SonicWall, quoted by Fierce Healthcare