Weekly Roundup – December 31, 2022

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.

Measuring Indoor Air Ventilation on a Massive Scale. One of the biggest challenges of public health is measuring proxies for health (such as air quality or wastewater contents) without being obtrusive. Andy Oram spoke to Sam Molyneux at Poppy Health about their promising technology to measure air circulation in enclosed spaces through devices that are inexpensive and easy to deploy. Read more…

Patient Centricity Can Drive Digital Transformation. It’s no secret that healthcare has shifted to digital experiences. John Lynn asked members of the Healthcare IT Community to share their thoughts on how digital transformation enables more personalized care, whether through a digital-first experience or through back-office process automation that gives clinicians more time with patients. Read more…

More Providers Are Charging Patients for Portal Messages. Anne Zieger highlighted the trend of Chicago-area hospitals charging a fee for patient portal responses about new symptoms or new prescriptions. Fees top out at $35 – much less with insurance, though – and to date only represent 1% of all portal messages. Read more…

Why Improving Patient Access Will Help Providers and Plans in Tough Times. During a recession, organizations are tempted to cut back on “nice-to-have” investments, but Paul Merrild at Kyruus told Colin Hung that remaining focused on patient access improvements such as price transparency and up-to-date provider directories can provide a competitive advantage. Read more…

Automating Regulatory Reporting and RCM With AI. Much of the data that’s valuable for regulatory reporting, prior authorization, and coding is unstructured within the narrative of the EHR.  Ofer Derech, CTO at MilagroAI talked to John about AI’s potential to find key data elements and reduce denials, improve surveillance, and capture revenue. Read more…

Unpacking the Major Trends and Stories from 2022. The last edition of the Healthcare IT Today podcast for 2022 looked back at the year that was. What trends caught John and Colin by surprise, and what topics do they hope to hear a lot less about in 2023? Read more…

The Impact of the Digital Front Door. John also reached out to the Healthcare IT Today community to learn how the digital front door is meeting patients’ demands for a new healthcare experience today, from chatbots to online appointment scheduling to sharing patient-reported outcomes with care teams. Read more…

The Right Technology Can Simplify Healthcare. Clinical and office staff are leaving the healthcare industry in droves. Frustrating and inefficient technology is often to blame. Marcus Mossberger at Infor suggested that technology can also be a solution to burnout in healthcare as long as it advises, augments, and automates the work that must be done every day. Read more…

Featured Health IT Job: Senior Network Administrator for a Savannah, Georgia-based client of New Directions Staffing, posted to Healthcare IT Central.

Funding and M&A Activity:

• Fujifilm acquired Inspirata, maker of the vendor-agnostic digital pathology product known as Dynamyx.
• Allergy care platform Nectar raised $16.5 million in Series A funding.

Thanks for reading and be sure to check out our latest Healthcare IT Today Weekly Roundups. Happy New Year!

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.

Measuring Indoor Air Ventilation on a Massive Scale. One of the biggest challenges of public health is measuring proxies for health (such as air quality or wastewater contents) without being obtrusive. Andy Oram spoke to Sam Molyneux at Poppy Health about their promising technology to measure air circulation in enclosed spaces through devices that are inexpensive and easy to deploy. Read more…

Patient Centricity Can Drive Digital Transformation. It’s no secret that healthcare has shifted to digital experiences. John Lynn asked members of the Healthcare IT Community to share their thoughts on how digital transformation enables more personalized care, whether through a digital-first experience or through back-office process automation that gives clinicians more time with patients. Read more…

More Providers Are Charging Patients for Portal Messages. Anne Zieger highlighted the trend of Chicago-area hospitals charging a fee for patient portal responses about new symptoms or new prescriptions. Fees top out at $35 – much less with insurance, though – and to date only represent 1% of all portal messages. Read more…

Why Improving Patient Access Will Help Providers and Plans in Tough Times. During a recession, organizations are tempted to cut back on “nice-to-have” investments, but Paul Merrild at Kyruus told Colin Hung that remaining focused on patient access improvements such as price transparency and up-to-date provider directories can provide a competitive advantage. Read more…

Automating Regulatory Reporting and RCM With AI. Much of the data that’s valuable for regulatory reporting, prior authorization, and coding is unstructured within the narrative of the EHR.  Ofer Derech, CTO at MilagroAI talked to John about AI’s potential to find key data elements and reduce denials, improve surveillance, and capture revenue. Read more…

Unpacking the Major Trends and Stories from 2022. The last edition of the Healthcare IT Today podcast for 2022 looked back at the year that was. What trends caught John and Colin by surprise, and what topics do they hope to hear a lot less about in 2023? Read more…

The Impact of the Digital Front Door. John also reached out to the Healthcare IT Today community to learn how the digital front door is meeting patients’ demands for a new healthcare experience today, from chatbots to online appointment scheduling to sharing patient-reported outcomes with care teams. Read more…

The Right Technology Can Simplify Healthcare. Clinical and office staff are leaving the healthcare industry in droves. Frustrating and inefficient technology is often to blame. Marcus Mossberger at Infor suggested that technology can also be a solution to burnout in healthcare as long as it advises, augments, and automates the work that must be done every day. Read more…

Featured Health IT Job: Senior Network Administrator for a Savannah, Georgia-based client of New Directions Staffing, posted to Healthcare IT Central.

Funding and M&A Activity:

• Fujifilm acquired Inspirata, maker of the vendor-agnostic digital pathology product known as Dynamyx.
• Allergy care platform Nectar raised $16.5 million in Series A funding.

Thanks for reading and be sure to check out our latest Healthcare IT Today Weekly Roundups. Happy New Year!