In a recent interview, Ed Yurcisin, Chief Technology Officer of the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), shed light on key advancements that aim to streamline quality measurement, improve interoperability, and accelerate the shift toward value-based care (VBC).Healthcare IT Today caught up with Yurcisin at the 2024 NCQA Health Innovation Summit in Nashville, TN.Learn more about NCQA athttps://www.ncqa.org/Find more great health IT content athttps://www.healthcareittoday.com/

How can healthcare organizations make the most of unstructured data like medical images, lab results, and clinical notes? In this interview, Jitesh Ghai, President & CEO at Hyland, discusses the company’s innovative approach to extracting value from unstructured data and how their enterprise imaging SaaS solution is simplifying data sharing across systems.Discover how Hyland is using AI and open standards like DICOM and FHIR to support seamless integration and enhance efficiency. Plus, hear Ghai’s vision for unifying clinical, financial, and operational data to improve patient care and drive smarter healthcare decisions.

eHealth Exchange, a non-profit started by Health & Human Services and now a separate non-profit, helps health care institutions exchange over two billion records a month. In this video, President Jay Nakashima explains the role they play, particularly in public health, scaling FHIR® and TEFCA™.Nakashima presents an interesting history of eHealth Exchange (originally named the National Health Information Network), including how close it came to being shut down after it first demonstrated in 2006 that the electronic exchange of patient documents was feasible. It is still around and thriving as a non-profit.Learn more about eHealth Exchange:https://ehealthexchange.org/Health IT Community:https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

Qualtrics is a data collection and analysis platform that’s used by many in health care, focused on “experience management.” In this video, Adrienne Boissy, MD, Chief Medical Officer, explains that good treatment depends on empathy—even on love. Leading organizations (the Mayo Clinic is mentioned in particular) use data to measure patient experience and ask whether employees are “living your values.” Watch the video for more ideas about what Boissy calls “having conversations with your data” and more details on Qualtrics' partnership with Epic. Learn more about Qualtrics: https://www.qualtrics.com/healthcare/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

MEDITECH is helping to address interoperability in Canada with their Traverse solution. Unlike an HIE, Traverse does not store any health data. Instead, it uses a federated approach where the data remains in the source system. Here’s how it works. Healthcare IT Today recently had the opportunity to catch up with the MEDITECH team at Canada’s largest health IT conference – eHealth 2024 in Vancouver, BC. We spoke with Robert (Bob) Molloy, Director of Canadian Market & Product Strategy at MEDITECH. Molloy shared details about the company’s Traverse Exchange solution. Learn more about MEDITECH Canada at https://ehr.meditech.com/global/meditech-canada/meditech-canada Find more great health IT content at https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

Before Guidewell DCMG implemented the Prisma AI service from eClinicalWorks, intake on a patient could take two days when the office was busy. Why this long? Guidewell operates in Florida and many patients come from out-of-state and their records are scattered among various HIEs and other healthcare organizations. Obtaining the records, reading them, and entering summaries into Guidewell’s own EHR was labor-intensive. Prisma AI and the Sunoh AI Medical Scribe have dramatically altered the patient visit for patient and physician alike. Prisma AI creates a summary of patient records focused on the specialty of the physician: “the good parts,” according to Lalith Samaraweera, Director of Clinical Informatics & Business Intelligence at Guidewell. Learn more about Guidewell DCMG: http://dc-fl.com/ Learn more about eClinicalWorks: https://www.eclinicalworks.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

ModMed has been offering their cloud-based EHR for 15 years, so they have built up a database on more than 600 million unstructured texts in real-life clinical use. Therefore, now that they are adopting AI, their ambient listening tool can generate specific, highly accurate structured data from a patient interview. They don’t need a Large Language Model (LLM) the same way other ambient clinical voice companies need them, according to Cofounder and Co-CEO Dan Cane, so they can avoid the errors and lack of transparency found in LLM-based solutions. Listen to the video for more details about ModMed and their AI efforts. Learn more about ModMed: https://www.modmed.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

OntarioMD is working closely with clinicians, provider organizations, consultants, and vendors, to accelerate the adoption of AI in healthcare. They are trying to cut through the hype to arrive at the best way to deploy the technology to maximize impact while minimizing cost and disruption. Healthcare IT Today caught up with Fox again at the eHealth 2024 conference in Vancouver, BC. We wanted to see the progress his organization has made on their AI initiative that was started a year ago and hear about other interesting projects they have on the go. Learn more about OntarioMD at https://www.ontariomd.ca/ Find more great health IT content at https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

ScribeMD performs well at the common use of ambient voice to create notes, which Toubiana says they can do in 20 seconds, producing notes that more than 99% of the time require no editing. In addition, ScribeMD provides a search engine, which allows doctors to query up-to-date guidelines and other information, a tool to analyze lab reports, and a tool for patient outreach. Learn more about ScribeMD.ai: https://www.scribemd.ai/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

This video interviews leaders from a health information technology services firm, HCTec, and a front-line safety-net health care system, St. Barnabas Hospital in the South Bronx, New York City. In this extensive discussion, these leaders explain the elements of a successful partnership that implemented a new EHR, ERP system, and patient portal in about nine months. Michelle Moran, Chief Growth Officer at HCTec, explains that they have a wide range of expertise to aid with everything from onboarding digital systems to staff augmentation: "The right people in the right place," she says. Their long experience with systems such as Epic helps an organization that's new to the product, such as St. Barnabas, get the system working quickly and overcome unexpected problems. Jitendra Barmecha, MD, Senior VP and Chief Information and Digital Strategy Officer at St. Barnabas (SBH Health System), says they decided to overhaul their infrastructure 18 months ago. They started by installing an Oracle ERP system, then an Epic EHR along with the Epic portal, MyChart. Learn more about HCTec: https://hctec.com/ Learn more about St. Barnabas Hospital: https://www.sbhny.org/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

According to Rich Eels, VP of Innovation & Integration at United Digestive, the company is committed to continuous improvement. This trait works well with eClinicalWorks in the cloud, given the ability of a cloud service to introduce new features quickly. Running on Microsoft Azure also provides access to many resources and features. United Digestive makes extensive use of the patient access features of eClinicalWorks, allowing patients to view schedules and book appointments online. One of the exciting new features, thanks to AI, is the system's ability to go through a patient list when some patient has cancelled an appointment, and offer the slot to another patient who has been waiting to see the doctor. Learn more about United Digestive: https://www.uniteddigestive.com/ Learn more about eClinicalWorks: https://www.eclinicalworks.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

Maryland Endocrine has quickly made the big journey from paper billing to on-site payments. The company had eClinicalWorks installed since 2004 (they were actually eClinicalWorks' 34th customer), but when Kimberly Stahl, Practice Administrator, came to the company, it was still collecting payments by sending paper bills by post. Bills were often delayed for months or never sent at all. The company's eClinicalWorks deployment had not been updated for years and was suffering from the bugs of outdated software. Stahl helped to save the eClinicalWorks deployment, after which the company rapidly modernized its workflow. Patients face a kiosk when they enter, saving time at check-in. They are notified of bills by text and phone calls, so payments have dramatically increased. The cost of billing is also greatly reduced. Learn more about Maryland Endocrine: https://marylandendocrine.com/ Learn more about eClinicalWorks: https://www.eclinicalworks.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

The KLAS Research report on Global Patient Engagement 2024 found that healthcare organizations outside the US are investing in patient portals, digital front door experiences (self-scheduling and self check-in) and virtual care/patient monitoring. Healthcare IT Today sat down with Everton Santos, Vice President of International at KLAS Research to hear his insights on this report from KLAS. Learn more about KLAS at https://klasresearch.com/ Find more great health IT content at https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

It was understandable that much of the discussion in 2024 focused on how and where healthcare was falling short on cybersecurity. In general, healthcare had not prioritized or invested in cybersecurity compared to other regulated critical industries like banking and transportation. Healthcare IT Today thought it would be interesting to flip the script on cybersecurity in healthcare. Instead of focusing on where we needed to improve, we wanted to hear where we were doing well. We reconnected with Steve Cagle, CEO at Clearwater, the largest pure-play provider of cybersecurity and compliance solutions for the healthcare industry. We spoke to Cagle at ViVE2024 about the Change Healthcare incident, so it was fitting we spoke to him at the end of 2024. Here his response to the question – What is healthcare doing well when it comes to cybersecurity?Learn more about Clearwater athttps://clearwatersecurity.com/Find more great health IT content athttps://www.healthcareittoday.com/

Collecting social determinants of health (SDOH) information from patients is challenging. It is not easy to ask if a person is experience food insecurity or is currently unhoused. Qliqsoft is making it easier to get this important information while maintaining dignity. Healthcare IT Today caught up with Bobbi Weber, VP of Product Marketing & Customer Success at Qliqsoft, a company that provides HIPAA-compliant, real-time communication between doctors, nurses, caregivers and patients. We wanted to find out more about how the company is helping healthcare organization collect SDOH information. Learn more about QliqSOFT at: https://www.qliqsoft.com/ Find more great health IT content at https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

There were three burning questions we wanted to ask NextGen’s CEO David Sides. (1) How are they improving their mobile app? (2) What’s happening with Mirth? (3) How are they approaching cybersecurity? Good news on all fronts. David Sides, CEO at NextGen Healthcare (NextGen) graciously agreed to sit down with Healthcare IT Today for an impromptu interview. We had three burning questions to ask him about NextGen – questions we have had other people ask us. Learn more about NextGen at https://www.nextgen.com/ Find more great health IT content at https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

Rural areas represent 20.0% of the U.S. population, a percentage that has actually increased recently. TruBridge has joined a consortium of experts called the TRAIN program (standing for “Trustworthy, responsible AI network”) to make sure that these experts take into account the needs of rural residents and the health care sites that serve them. Rural areas, even though they are not quite the melting pots of large cities, can be quite diverse. Wes Cronkite, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at TruBridge, refers in this video to an instance where AI was in use in a rural area and failed to recognize problems in a small minority population. Learn more about TruBridge: https://trubridge.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

Kaustubh Sharma, Co-Founder and CEO at ambient voice provider MarianaAI, promises a “three-click process” to generate documentation from a patient visit. He describes their product as an “end-to-end approach” that starts even before the patient enters the room, pulling together a summary of the patients’ conditions in 30 to 60 seconds to help the physician guide the visit. Learn more about MarianaAI: https://marianaai.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

Connexall addresses traditional hospital concerns such as fall prevention, other patient safety, and reducing alerts. According to Sandy Saggar, Interim Chief Executive Officer, they achieve this through great flexibility. On the one hand, they connect to a wide range of medical devices through standard protocols and remain vendor-neutral, which is important for hospital systems that have to integrate many systems after a merger or acquisition. Saggar is interested in working with emerging technologies (autonomous robots, generative AI, digital assistants) but focuses on improving and deriving the most benefit from existing systems. “What can we do today that can directly influence patient care and care-givers?” he asks. Learn more about Connexall: https://www.connexall.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

This video provides a wide-ranging discussion of data acquisition, analytics, and AI in health care involving Dr. Keith Morse, MD, Professor, Pediatrics, and Medical Director of Clinical Informatics at Stanford Children’s Health, and Dr. Armando Bedoya, MD, Chief Analytics and Medical Informatics Officer at Duke Health. They had both just spoken at the SAS Innovate 2024 conference about the use of AI, data, and analytics in their organizations. Learn more about Stanford Medicine Children's Health: https://www.stanfordchildrens.org/en.html Learn more about Duke Health: https://www.dukehealth.org/ Learn more about SAS: https://www.sas.com/en_us/home.html Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

This unique video presents a far-ranging conversation with Nio Queiro, President of The Queiro Group. Topics include changes in revenue cycle management (RCM), the role of AI, the importance of being willing to evolve with the times, and finally, a discussion of Queiro's inspiring and practical book,  Joy Notes: Balancing the Trauma with Triumph. The Queiro Group consults with health care institutions to improve the efficiency of their revenue cycle and to adopt digital technologies for such goals as forming an Accountable Care Organization (ACO), advanced medical services, or adopting new devices and interventions. They want AI tools at the provider and the payer to collaborate. Learn more about The Queiro Group: https://www.queirogroup.com/home The playlist she mentions and the book on Amazon: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6JY69JnRGkKYVJlLUFNZDr?si=bcbe1340805b4181 https://amzn.to/4b3eAPx Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

As we continue to share more about ambient clinical voice, we're excited to share an interview with Matt Keefer, MD - Chief Medical Informatics Officer at Children's Hopsital Los Angeles (CHLA), and Ed Lee, MD, MPH - Chief Medical Officer at Nabla, to hear about CHLA's experience using Nabla first as a pilot and now rolling it out to all 600 specialists at CHLA. Dr. Keefer talks about the clinician experience in the pilot and how one of the most interesting reactions to the pilot was when doctors said variations of, "You're not going to take this away from me are you?" followed by "I'd pay for this if you're not going to buy it." Learn more about CHLA: https://www.chla.org/ Learn more about Nabla: https://www.nabla.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

Independent clinical practices are in danger everywhere: if they don't go out of business, large hospital chains tend to pipette them up. Bill Lucchini, CEO of Nextech, wants these independent practices to survive. Nextech's EHRs and solutions for practice management and patient engagement software are highly specialized to Dermatology, Med Spa, Opthamology, Orthopedics, and Plastic Surgery in order to make it as efficient as possible. Learn more about Nextech: https://www.nextech.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

According to Ryan Witt, Vice President, Industry Solutions at Proofpoint, Inc., phishing emails are still the most prevalent and dangerous sources for security breaches. In this video, Witt and Joshua Roth, Chief Information Security Officer at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC), discuss how they protect against breaches through fundamental investments in tools and training. This interview with Healthcare IT Today took place in the shadow of the recent cyberattack on Change Healthcare, which is still preventing thousands of health care providers from receiving payments. Learn more about Proofpoint: https://www.proofpoint.com/healthcare Learn more about Children’s Hospital of Orange County: https://www.choc.org/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

PredictionHealth produces an ambient voice solution for physical therapy and occupational therapy settings, applying AI not just create the various post-visit notes they need but also to offer analytics. Pedro Teixeira points out some of the challenges that differentiate PT and OT from other clinical settings: sessions take place in gyms, the presence of music and clanging weights produces an "interesting audio environment" that the transcription tool must deal with, and people are often walking around, so some clinicans want to speak into a device clipped to their clothing and turn it off and on during a session. Learn more about PredictionHealth: https://www.predictionhealth.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

PointClickCare, having promoted interoperability for a long time in a few areas such as senior care, has expanded to include acute care, and particularly to connect it with post-acute care. Brian Drozdowicz is Senior Vice President and General Manager of Acute & Payer Markets. In this video, he and Chief Medical Officer, Hamad Husainy, DO, FACEP, parse the effects of new regulations at both federal and state levels, as well as the allure of value-based care. Learn more about PointClickCare: https://pointclickcare.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

Rural and community hospitals face the same challenges as larger health systems. However, with smaller pools of talent and fewer resources, they need more help from their digital partners to address those challenges. Altera Digital Health (Altera) is leveraging the cloud to help this important customer segment. Healthcare IT Today had the opportunity to sit down with Mark Pratt, MD – Chief Medical Officer at Altera Digital Health to learn more about the company’s efforts for rural and community hospitals. Learn more about Altera Digital Health at https://www.alterahealth.com/ Find more great health IT content at https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

In the fast-paced realm of pharmaceuticals, where innovation can mean the difference between life and death, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the landscape of drug discovery and development. Mati Gill, CEO at AION Labs, stands at the forefront of this revolution, pioneering the use of AI to tackle the challenges inherent in the pharma industry. With a unique combination of expertise in AI and pharmaceuticals, Gill leads AION Labs in its mission to harness the power of technology for the greater good. In our recent video interview, he shared insights into how AI is transforming drug discovery, emphasizing the need for innovation in an industry marked by complexity and high stakes. Learn more about AION Labs: https://aionlabs.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

When healthcare staff approach a hospital room, it’s important to know basic things about the patient like their preferred language, whether they’re in isolation, or whether they’re not supposed to eat (an NPO order). Traditionally, these facts are handled through physical markers or even buried in the patient record. The “digital white board” and “digital door sign” technologies from eVideon display the necessary information automatically where it’s clearly visible and provide a look into what the hospital room of the future looks like powered by technology. Amy Bender, Informatics Manager, and Richard Crews, Inpatient Informatics Analyst II, at Tampa General Hospital, describe in this video what it’s like to have the digital door sign available in their hospital. Information is often taken directly from their EHR and displayed at the entrance to the room. No longer does a nurse have to take extra time to post a physical marker. Learn more about Tampa General Hospital: https://www.tgh.org/ Learn more about eVideon: https://www.evideon.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

At HIMSS, we sat down to talk with CommonWell Health Alliance to learn about their passion for interoperability and some of the latest happenings with the CommonWell community. This included an update on CommonWell’s new technical service provider, ELLKAY and their recent designation by the federal government as a Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN). CommonWell was formed 11 years from a consortium of major EHR vendors to carry out the mandate for interoperable data exchange in the HITECH and Affordable Care acts. As Executive Director Paul L Wilder points out, they are a “switchboard” through which clients can find patient data, but CommonWell doesn’t maintain any patient data itself (unlike, for instance, many health information exchanges). Along with these important updates, we also asked Liz Buckle, Director of Product at CommonWell Health Alliance, to talk about their work on CommonWell 2.0 and their journey to TEFCA. Plus, Buckle shares with us a bit about how they’re approaching FHIR and what role that’s going to play for CommonWell going forward. Learn more about CommonWell Health Alliance: https://www.commonwellalliance.org/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

For Rishi Sarna, MD, Chief Clinical Officer at Backline, communication is central. He points out that communications have lagged behind everything else in medicine, and are holding back progress in patient care and the physician experience. In the video interview below, we sat down with Dr. Sarna and Jackie Rice, VP and CIO at Frederick Health, to discuss these challenges and Frederick Health’s work with the Backline team to address them. Learn more about Frederick Health: https://www.frederickhealth.org/ Learn more about Backline: https://backlinehealth.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

Healthcare cloud solutions have become much more sophisticated, reliable, and easier to connect. Gone are the days of a single cloud instance that can support all your needs. However, managing the various cloud options can be challenging if you don’t have a thoughtful approach to it and work with great partners. At the HIMSS 2024 conference, we moderated a panel hosted by Rackspace Technology and Dell Technologies with healthcare multicloud experts and former CIOs who shared the benefits and challenges of implementing and integrating multicloud solutions in healthcare. Plus, they discussed how these models can evolve and adapt as the needs of healthcare change over time including how you can simplify your efforts to support multicloud and all of the AI solutions coming to healthcare. Learn more about Rackspace Technology: https://www.rackspace.com/strategic-alliances/dell-technologies Learn more about Dell Technologies: https://dell.com/Healthcare Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

Anyone who has been on a hospital ward, whether as clinician, patient, or visitor, has noticed the continual din of beeps and chirps—it can drive you crazy. It’s notable that one of the simple ways Rauland‘s communication system improves the hospital experience is to reduce noise by routing alerts quietly to the person who needs to handle them. Another key benefit of using Rauland, according to Director of Product Management Joseph DeLisle, is that it checks the content of a call or alert and directs it to the right person. For instance, if the patient is just asking for a pillow, the call goes to a technician instead of a nurse. This relieves the nurses of trivial tasks and lets them “practice at the top of their licenses.” Michelle Allen, Vice President and General Manager at Rauland, says that the emerging crisis in nurse burnout and resignations is caused partly by having new administrative burdens with inadequate support from IT systems. (She cites other factors as well, such as bigger workloads, sicker patients, and safety concerns.) Hospitals are always deploying new technologies, and these often increase the burden of recording and sharing data unless they are all integrated. Learn more about Rauland: https://www.rauland.com/en Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

Grace Cordovano, PhD, Founder of Enlightening Results, co-Founder of Unblock Health, and a devoted patient advocate, says that administrative burdens and failures at data sharing affect more than clinicians and administrators: These glitches in the healthcare systems also contribute to burn-out among patients and their families. Cordovano and Colin Banas, MD, MHA, Chief Medical Officer at DrFirst, talk in this video about recent regulatory advances in data sharing and how both clinicians and patients are helped by transparency in bureaucratic areas such as prior authorization. Learn more about DrFirst: https://drfirst.com/ Learn more about Unblock Health: https://www.unblock.health/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

Health care is not one single system, but multiple systems offering a bewildering variety of diagnostic and treatment options, backed by a plethora of payment systems that vary from patient. According to Krisi Hutson, Senior Director of Solutions at Availity, AI can help administrative staff from the front desk to the billing office negotiate the maze. Hutson points out that the average turnover of clinical administrative staff is 12-18 months. In this video, she lays out a typical scenario where a patient arrives for treatment and wants to know what the likely payment is. How can you expect an administrator to collect and analyze all the necessary information. That is where Availity helps. Learn more about Availity: https://www.availity.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

LG is a well-established consumer electronics brand. The company is best known for its bright displays. It was therefore no surprise that they were an exhibitor at the RSNA24 conference in Chicago, IL. What was surprising, was how much effort the company is putting into expanding their product line to cater specifically to the healthcare market and to CIOs across industries. While at RSNA24 Healthcare IT Today spoke with Jim Salamon, National Sales Leader for LG Medical Displays. We asked him how LG is tailoring its product line to suit the unique needs of healthcare and the approach they are taking to be more relevant to CIOs. LG recognizes that CIOs are looking to reduce the number of devices and SKUs that are deployed in their organizations. That is why the company is working to ensure its products can satisfy multiple enterprise needs. They are also expanding their product set in North America with more advanced imaging solutions which will be first introduced overseas. Learn more about LG Medical at https://www.lg.com/us/business/medical Find more great health IT content at https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

Healthcare has become a data-driven industry as the volume of data continues to grow and organizations are able to use that data to provide more personalized care. However, data alone won’t advance healthcare. New systems and processing power that can turn data into insights is the key to accelerating discoveries and improving care. At the HIMSS 2024 conference, we brought together an incredible panel hosted by AMD and Dell Technologies to discuss the ways high performance computing (HPC) is key to helping healthcare organizations solve the big challenges healthcare faces. Plus, we looked at how security has to be baked into these solutions and how the right platform can simplify your infrastructure management. Learn more about AMD: https://www.amd.com/en/campaigns/amd-and-dell Learn more about Dell Technologies: https://www.dell.com/en-us/lp/dt/industry-healthcare-it Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

According to Adeel Sarwar, Chief Technology Officer at CareCloud, doctors spend at least 20% of their clinical work time on administration. In this video interview, Sarwar and A. Hadi Chaudhry, Chief Executive Officer and President at CareCloud, talk about their use of AI, and now generative AI, to relieve doctors of this burden and achieve more face-to-face time with patients. Learn more about CareCloud: https://www.carecloud.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

Healthcare has always relied on data. What's changed is the explosion of data in healthcare and the availability of this data to clinicians as well as a whole host of healthcare professionals. Bringing context and meaning to this vast amount of data including unstructured health data is going to be key for every healthcare organization. We sat down with Dr. Paulo Pinho, Chief Medical & Strategy Officer at Discern Health, and Dr. Tim O’Connell, Co-founder and CEO at emtelligent, to learn more about what they're doing to contextualize data and improve processes for providers, payers, and researchers across even the most complex use cases. Learn more about emtelligent: https://emtelligent.com/ Learn more about Discern Health: https://discernhealth.ai/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

Many factors make revenue cycle management (RCM) a big headache for U.S. health care providers. Aakarsh Sethi, Senior Product Manager at Infinx, lists the forms of "fragmentation" in payments: not just many different payers, but different plans with different coverage at each payer, along with pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and other third party managers, and rules that are constantly changing. Infinx (pronounced "in-fin-ex") works currently with more than 4,000 providers, applying machine learning to automate RCM. Stuart Newsome, VP of Marketing at Infinx, describes the company's "intelligent payer mapping," an LLM-based service that determines whether a procedure needs prior authorization, and then whether the patient's condition and symptoms meet payer guidelines.  Infinx is taking a novel approach to mapping out a healthcare organization's payers to make sure the list of payers is updated properly.  It's done with a multi-modal approach, where the system cascades through clearinghouse connections with payer portal automations to fill in the gaps. Learn more about Infinx Healthcare: https://www.infinx.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

Tombot’s AI-powered robotic puppy companion is more than just an emotional support animal, through an array of sensors it can also remotely monitor patients. The company is planning to have a beta version available soon with full production later in 2024. There were many impressive technologies and digital solutions on display at #ViVE2024, but by far the more impressive (and cutest) was the one from a company called Tombot. They have an interactive, fully automated, emotional support animal that addresses the behavioral and psychological needs of patients with Dementia. Healthcare IT Today got a preview of their robot from Tombot’s CEO, Tom Stevens, who called it an “immortal puppy”. Learn more about Tombot at https://tombot.com/ Find more great health IT content at https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

The OpenNotes Lab will bring transparency, collaboration, and innovation to the intersection of healthcare AI and patient-centered care. The Lab builds on the organization’s 15 years of advocacy and research. The Lab will apply OpenNote’s expertise in research, advocacy, and innovation to an emerging area of healthcare – AI - to ensure it enhances patient care and is not a burden on clinicians. Healthcare IT Today had the opportunity to sit down with Liz Salmi, Communications & Patient Initiatives Director at OpenNotes and Chethan Sarabu, MD, FAMIA, FAAP - Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine to learn more about OpenNotes and OpenNotes Lab. Learn more about OpenNotes at https://www.opennotes.org/ Find more great health IT content at https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

Health care payers, such as CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, traditionally have only billing data on their patients. That's why Mo Weitnauer, chief product officer at MRO, calls clinical data "the hottest commodity" in health care. Piyush Khanna, Vice President Clinical Services at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, would like to store all their data in a single repository and use it for "bidirectional conversations" between the payer and providers. This can provider doctors with data at the point where the clinical decisions are being made—for instance, to perform dialysis at-home or in the clinic. Being able to bridge the data gap between payer and providers can provide tremendous benefit to patients, providers, and payers. With the help of MRO, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield's repository covers 3,000 providers serving 1.2 members, and they think they can expand the number soon to 3.5 million. They have increased their STARS rating, and are seeking more operational efficiency by having data more quickly. Learn more about MRO: https://mrocorp.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

Dan O’Connor, Vice President, Service Desk Delivery at HCTec, says that resolving a customer service call involves a lot more than fixing the problem that the customer bought. You have to leave the customer feeling that you cared about them. Conveying that sense of care might be more important than solving the problem. Furthermore, every call is about patient care, even if it’s helping a staff person use their computer. That’s because they are all ultimately serving a patient. In this video, O’Connor explores service desks with Audrius Polikaitis, Chief Information Officer at UI Health, which serves several campuses at the University of Illinois. Originally, UI Health assigned tasks to multiple departments—IT, facilities, etc.—but decided they needed a “single front door” for anyone needing help. They do ask callers to distinguish between regular service and the “clinical service desk,” which mostly helps people use the EPIC EHR. Learn more about University of Illinois Health: https://hospital.uillinois.edu/ Learn more about HCTEC: https://hctec.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

VBA offers numerous portals to payers and their clients (which include doctors, patients, brokers, and more)—"one-stop shopping" for a large range of services. To ease the user experience with these services, the company has started using generative AI for training on their platform through a tool called VBA Assist. President and CEO Mike Clayton cites their mission to "make the health care experience better for everyone" and explains some of their services: 24/7 self-service for patients, real-time chat, notifications for picking up meds or scheduling visits, risk modeling and more. Learn more about VBA: https://vbasoftware.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

[Sponsored] Healthcare organizations are increasingly reliant on mobile devices for daily operations. The proliferation of devices brings new challenges including loss, security risks, and a strain on IT resources. Managing those devices not only reduces risk, but also improves workflow efficiency says Dr. Daniel Siegel, CEO of NavvSystems, a company that offers a mobile device management platform. Healthcare IT Today sat down with Dr. Daniel Siegel to discuss the challenges of managing mobile devices in healthcare. Learn more about NavvSystems at https://www.navvtrack.com/ Find more great health IT content at https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

In this interview, Dr. Tim Davis, founder of Source Healthcare and creator of BluByrd, shares his journey of overcoming scheduling and data-sharing challenges in his surgical practice. Learn how his search for the right EHR led him to DrChrono and how its open APIs enabled him to develop BluByrd—a solution that automates data exchange, reduces errors, and enhances patient safety. Dr. Davis explains how BluByrd improves efficiency, decreases cancellations, and ensures a seamless experience for both staff and patients. Hear firsthand how his passion for technology and patient care has reshaped operations at Source Healthcare and is now helping other surgical centers. Learn more about Source Healthcare at https://www.sourcehealthcare.com/ Learn more about BluByrd at https://www.blubyrd.com/ Learn more about DrChrono at https://www.drchrono.com/ Find more great health IT content at https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

The ambient voice solution at Medvise.AI focuses on the revenue cycle. According to CEO Gautamdev Chowdary, they have trained their voice-to-text transcription on medical input and made it extremely accurate with full automation. They have also achieved 100% accuracy in billing through a few extra features. If the conversation did not provide enough information to assign the best ICD or CPT codes, the service asks a few simple questions of the doctor after the visit. The codes can then be assigned and stored in the medical record within 30 seconds. COO Sean Ross says that a doctor who does not want to take time to review the note can also request a human scribe at Medvise.AI to do the final check. He says that their goal is to "eliminate data entry." Learn more about Medvise.ai: https://medvise.ai/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

It's reasonable for a company like MRO to have a chief interoperability officer. According to their chief interoperability officer, Anthony Murray, the company has spent 22 years building tools to "exchange data seamlessly" in health care.  This includes much of the healthcare data that's been locked up in free text data in many healthcare systems. In our interview with Murray, he shares some of the main challenges that healthcare has with achieving interoperability in today's environment. This includes an important focus area of MRO to be able to share data between providers and payers. Murray shares some of the solutions MRO has put in place to navigate around these challenges. Plus, he shares how healthcare standards are impacting these efforts. Murray says, standardization is improving. Learn more about MRO: https://mrocorp.com/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/

Paulo Pinho, MD, Chief Medical and Strategy Officer at Discern Health, highlighted to us that analytics have to be explainable to be trusted. It's not enough to show a correlation, but to demonstrate that the clinical intervention was responsible for the improved patient outcome. Patients as well as clinicians demand explainability (also known as transparency and accountability). Ben Hsieh, Vice President of Product, says that Discern Health works with payers, providers, and Health Information Exchanges (HIE). Their service concentrates currently on care management for value-based care. Learn more about Discern Health: https://discernhealth.ai/ Health IT Community: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/