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The vendor said it can create a ‘golden record’ by combining the new tool with its data warehouse to give payers, providers and patients more complete information. 

The new app mimics the Uber set-up, with certified interpreters standing by to come to a hospital and help interpret languages between caregivers and patients.

The hardware and software combination brings a touchscreen UI and the company integrated it with medical grade sensors. 

The Ottawa-based Rich said he’s most interested in learning about the challenges of getting patients engaged via new technologies and the quest to integrate digital health into their lives.

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There are so many new medical devices today flooding the market, offering hope for a brighter tomorrow. But what good are they if they cannot be integrated into electronic health records or continuity of care efforts? “Integrated medical devices can contribute to efficient workflows and improved patient safety, but only if done with the strong collaboration between the technologists and the nursing end-users,” said Linda Burnes Bolton, chief nursing officer at Cedars-Sinai Health System. [Also: 21 awesome photos from past HIMSS conferences] Bolton will share Cedars-Sinai experience in a HIMSS16 session, The Next Frontier of Biomedical Device Integration, along with Jennifer Jackson, who directs clinical engineering and device integration at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. This session will describe how to successfully achieve device integration, as well as best practices for optimizing workflow, data entry and clinical documentation. The big potential is “integrated technology used to improve patient safety and documentation without compromising nursing workflow,” Bolton added. [Poll: What topics will define HIMSS16?] Despite significant advances in medical technologies, there is a consensus that a lack of corresponding improvements in the quality of healthcare delivery in the US is inhibiting progress. “High value medical device integration programs consist of strong executive leadership, a clear vision, and the commitment to quality and innovation from several stakeholders,” Jackson said. To that end, Jackson and Bolton also plan to address: unique staff structures needed to succeed, how traditional patient monitoring can be integrated to boost collaboration, and ways to tie a medical device integration program into published recommendations. “The Next Frontier of Biomedical Device Integration,” is scheduled for Monday, Feb. 29, 2016 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the Sands Expo Convention Center in Marcello 4404. Twitter: @HealthITNews This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

The proliferation of patient portals offered by provider organizations has created significant usability challenges for patients while providers are feeling pressure to integrate portals to improve service quality, enhance workflow and provide a more unifying experience to patients. “The rising interest in and demand for patient-facing tools, especially patient portals, has attracted to the market a number of different vendor approaches and consumer-focused patient health record offerings designed to meet various situation-specific provider and patient needs,” said Santosh Mohan, a management fellow in IT transformation in the office of the CIO at Stanford Health Care who previously served as a senior consultant at The Advisory Board Company. Mohan stresses his opinions are his own and do not reflect those of Stanford Health Care. “Interoperability challenges and the lack of a centrally envisioned strategy for making these tools available to patients are resulting in a landscape where health information is increasingly available online, but spread broadly across the portals of various care settings and organizations that own the data.” [Also: 21 awesome photos from past HIMSS conferences] As a result, patients increasingly are being challenged to interact with multiple portals, often making it more difficult for them to be effective participants in their own care, and providers are facing the need to integrate portals to improve service quality, enhance workflow and provide a more unifying experience to patients in order to compete for consumers, Mohan explained. “Curbing ‘portal sprawl’ and rethinking patient engagement techniques to bring them up to par with consumer online experiences from other industries is no easy feat – it requires providers to cautiously navigate a complex vendor landscape and carefully evaluate ways to streamline patient experience, all without compromising functionality, usage and existing levels of patient acceptance,” he added. Mohan will deliver a presentation titled “Too Many Patient Portals – What Can You Do About It” on Tuesday, March 1, 2016, at HIMSS16. The session will be in the Sands Expo Convention Center in Galileo 1004. “My session’s objective is to surface some emerging approaches that provider organizations are pursuing to integrate patient portals across various care settings within their enterprises, and to weigh the pros and cons of these approaches,” Mohan said. “This is a roundtable session, so I will get participants to share their challenges and goals with respect to their portal-related efforts and to surface some best practices. The goal is to discuss how we can make portals accessible in a meaningful way and be effective at the same time.” Mohan suggested one big takeaway from the session will be attendees gaining a better understanding that organizations should plan portal strategies for the long-term but remain flexible in the near-term. “The immediate value of offering a quick, integrated view of a patient’s health profile must be balanced with the ultimate goal of morphing a portal into an advanced and engaging tool for the patient,” Mohan said. “Ultimately, a portal should act like a health-GPS, providing patients with situation-relevant content, navigating them back to health, and helping them stay on course. The challenge for provider organizations is how to bring this vision to life.” Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

Cancer treatment is changing for the better and the application of precision medicine deserves some of the credit. Lincoln Nadauld, MD, director of Cancer Genomics at Intermountain Healthcare in Utah, said healthcare is facing a “tremendous paradigm shift. The clinical implementation of precision cancer medicine is rapidly changing the way that advanced cancer patients are treated, and improving outcomes in many cases.” Intermountain Precision Genomics, a service of Intermountain Healthcare, offers genetic sequencing of solid tumors with in-depth sequencing that identifies individual mutations within a person’s cancer cells and identifies specific DNA targets for personalized drugs. Using genomics, Intermountain has been able to identify different treatment options for nearly 80 percent of its cancer patients, Nadauld said. Intermountain offers the genomic testing to any provider nationwide, or worldwide. [Also: 11 essential quotes from notable HIMSS keynotes] The precision cancer medication — in pill form — offered by Intermountain does not have the same negative side effects that cancer treatments in the past have had, Nadauld added, and patients can take the medication in the comfort of their own homes.   Nadauld will share insights during a HIMSS16 session “Precision Medicine: The future is Here.” All of this progress does not come without some challenges, though, some of which include IT infrastructure demands, electronic health record integration and data storage considerations, Nadauld said. “While the improved treatment options associated with precision medicine approaches are exciting, the impact on information technologies is substantial and will require ongoing attention,” Nadauld said.   Despite the challenges, Nadauld said he is excited about the progress of precision medicine, especially for cancer patients.  “The past five years have seen an increasing focus and attention on precision medicine in scientific publications, popular press, and even State of the Union addresses,” he added. “While much of the conversation has centered on the promise of precision medicine, there have been few examples of actual clinical application of precision medicine principles.” “Precision Medicine: The future is Here,” is scheduled for Feb. 29, 2016 from 2-3 p.m. PST in the Sands Expo Convention Center Delfino 4004. Twitter: @HealthITNews This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

Leading health IT vendors get in precision medicine game at White House Summit, including Allscripts, athenahealth, McKesson.

Can healthcare providers succeed in population health management without buy-in for patients? Not likely, no. There are, however, ways of engaging those patient populations where a little information can go a long way. Take ARcare, for instance, a private nonprofit corporation serving primary care and dental needs in rural Arkansas. Just don’t let the geography fool you. ARcare is a Blue Button participant and a HIMSS Davies Award winner. Among the IT-savvy population health initiatives, ARcare increased clinicians’ ability to treat patients with diabetes. And it did so with common and relatively inexpensive technology: SMS texting. [Poll: What topics will define HIMSS16?] “We use population health management to improve diabetes and hypertension education with interactive SMS with our patients,” ARcare CIO Greg Wolverton said, adding that ARcare uses the HIMSS Patient Engagement Framework. Wolverton will discuss ARcare’s challenges and successes in a HIMSS16 session titled “Consumer-Driven Care and the Push Toward Population Health,” on Thursday. Culled from lessons learned along the way, Wolverton recommends that healthcare organizations moving toward population health management not only recognize the role of messaging tools working in conjunction with electronic health records to coordinate care across various facilities, but also identify agile and scalable efficiencies those technologies can enable. What’s more, laying the technological foundation for consumer-driven care can give healthcare organizations data to better understand how these approaches impact patients and population alike and, from there, optimize care plans for individuals. Finally, there’s the financial upside. “Population health when properly managed can improve patients’ health,” Wolverton said, “and increase operational revenue for providers.” Wolverton’s session “Consumer-Driven Care and the Push Toward Population Health,” is slated to take place Thursday March 3, 2016 from 11:30-12:30 PST in the Sands Expo Convention Center Palazzo E. Twitter: @SullyHIT This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.