Analytics

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality will dedicate nearly $2 million for the creation of the PCOR Clinical Decision Support Learning Network, aiming to address the barriers hindering the incorporation of patient-centered outcomes research into CDS tools.

The HIMSS Innovation Center is presenting a display to Florence Nightingale on the anniversary of her birthday, May 12, which is also Nursing Informatics Awareness Day. She was born in 1820. Nightingale is considered to be the founder of modern nursing, and many people in the field of healthcare look to her as having built the foundation for nursing informatics. The display features a letter signed by Florence Nightingale, as well as a book she owned, donated by Maureen Mitchell, RN, associate professor, graduate program director, School of Nursing, Cleveland State University. The items are on loan to HIMSS for two years. Learn more about Nighingale’s life and contributions to nursing: "Florence Nightingale’s focus on hygiene and cleanliness was vital to patient safety," said Joyce Sensmeier, RN, vice president, informatics, HIMSS North America. "Her methods resulted in drastically lowered mortality rates, and improved overall hospital performance. Her ideas and reforms changed healthcare on a global scale. HIMSS strives to emulate Nightingale’s dedication to patient care and the advancement of healthcare." Learn more about the background of the artifacts donated by Mitchell. Listen to Mitchell’s discussion about Florence Nightingale and nursing informatics.

After years of dwelling in the shadows of healthcare, the long-term and post-acute care industry may finally be ready to join its hospital colleagues in the IT spotlight.  

"With respect to some business practices: It's time to lead, follow or get out of the way," CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt said at the 2016 Health Datapalooza in Washington, D.C. "If you want to lead the way with innovations that help consumers, great; if you want to follow by using established standards for data and measurement and technology, also great," he added. "If you have a business model which relies on silo-ing data, not using standards or not allowing data to follow the needs of patients – pick a new business model or pick a new business." On the heels of the April announcement of the proposed MACRA ruling, Slavitt spoke to healthcare innovators, industry leaders and developers early Tuesday evening. And while he had no further news to share with the specifics of the proposal, it was clear his intentions were firm. "What Vice President Biden said should stick with us: As taxpayers, we did not spend $35 billion so companies could build their own silos," Slavitt said. "At this stage, there's no room for business practices that don’t match the need of patients." On the forefront of Slavitt's thoughts were patients with the least access to care and an "obsession with a plight of the independent physician." However, "physicians are baffled by what feels like the 'physician data paradox.' They're overloaded on data entry and yet rampantly under-informed," Slavitt said. And the majority of providers are seeing a chasm between the time needed to invest in making the IT work and the actual positive results within their practices. "Technology isn’t doing the things we know it can," he added. "Help us make smarter decisions, reduce our wasted time, help us communicate or understand what to expect next." While these issues are troubling, according to Slavitt, the solution isn't the need for more IT inventions. But rather five crucial steps to initiate change in the healthcare industry: the massive release of data; changing incentives to reward providers for patient outcomes; creating "core" quality measures across all payers; advancing interoperability; and the proposed replacement of meaningful use. "These steps are designed to make it easier for you to innovate, to open up competition and to move the focus from designing around regulations, to allowing you to design around patients’ and physicians’ needs," Slavitt said. "The opportunity for you to transform healthcare into an information industry has never been more ripe or more urgent." Twitter: @JessieFDavis Email the writer: jessica.davis@himssmedia.com Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook and LinkedIn

NantHealth, the personalized medicine company founded by Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD, has registered for a $92 million initial public offering. That number may seem low for a company used to securing nine-figure investments, but it is likely just a placeholder.

The workgroup’s research found productivity hiccups in providers’ coding, and clinical documentation alongside positive impacts for payers in the areas of claims validation and data analytics. But isn’t it too early to tell whether the transition really went well? 

For Vice President Joe Biden, his National Cancer Moonshot Initiative is more than just a government program – it's personal.

The next big step in population health is greatly expanding what defines a population. And that process will require a new generation of technologies, according to Adrian Zai of Massachusetts General.

Two-thirds of healthcare organizations believe personalized medicine is already having a measurable effect on patient outcomes, according to a new survey. Even more, 75 percent, say it will impact their organizations over the next two years.

IBM is making quantum computing available to the public, providing access to a platform from any desktop or mobile device via the IBM Cloud. It has implications for healthcare, where another supercomputer, IBMWatson, is already at work helping researchers and clinicians eradicate cancer, making sure the world’s population gets better sleep and sorting big data to boost genomics work and precision medicine. With IBM Quantum Experience, the new cloud-based platform unveiled today, users can create algorithms and run experiments, learn about quantum computing through tutorials and simulations and get inspired by the potential of a quantum computer. The goal, say IBM executives, is to make it easier for researchers and the scientific community to accelerate innovations. [See also: IBM Watson teams up with American Cancer Society to pit cognitive computing against cancer.] Today’s announcement comes days after Big Blue launched on April 29, secure blockchain services for healthcare, government and financial services on the IBM Cloud. Blockchain is the technology underpinning bitcoin, but IBM executives and others note that blockchain is much broader than bitcoin. "Clients tell us that one of the inhibitors of the adoption of blockchain is the concern about security," Jerry Cuomo, vice president, Blockchain, IBM, said in a statement. "While there’s a sense of urgency to pioneer blockchain for business, most organizations need help to define the ideal cloud environment that enables blockchain networks to run securely in the cloud." [See also: IBM Watson takes analytics prowess overseas: Supercomputer to work on big data and genomics in Italy.] Blockchain becomes more attractive wrapped in the new security framework IBM introduced on April 29 along with new blockchain services IBM’s quantum processor, IBM Quantum Experience, is housed at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in New York. A universal quantum computer can be programmed to perform any computing task and will be exponentially faster than classical computers for a number of important applications for science and business, according to IBM executives. “Quantum computing is becoming a reality and it will extend computation far beyond what is imaginable with today's computers," said Arvind Krishna, senior vice president and director, IBM Research, said in a statement. "This moment represents the birth of quantum cloud computing. By giving hands-on access to IBM's experimental quantum systems, the IBM Quantum Experience will make it easier for researchers and the scientific community to accelerate innovations in the quantum field, and help discover new applications for this technology." Twitter: @Bernie_HITN Email the writer: bernie.monegain@himssmedia.com