Whatever we do in the healthcare space, it is eventually meant for the greater good of patients, which is why today the aim of modern healthcare is shifting towards value-based reimbursement and with that the process is getting modified accordingly. Gradually, patient-centric care is becoming prevalent. The current standards require enhanced patient experience, and that…

Guest Editorial I’d like to spend a moment here to take back the word “provider” in the healthcare context. It seems I can’t go a day without hearing at least one (and often more) members of a care team rebel against being lumped together not by specialty, credential, or title, but by the vague term…

Guest Editorial If you start experiencing new or odd health-related symptoms, where do you go first? For many people, especially those who are uninsured or under-insured, going to do the doctor isn’t always an option, so instead they turn to the Internet for answers. The medical field is one that is constantly growing and changing,…

Guest Editorial There is a collision of cynicism and optimism in any discussion of Millennial healthcare workers. For those who view the intrusion of digital technology into healthcare as a negative trend, Millennials, with their overdependence on technology, are part of the problem sucking the joy out of medicine. They embrace these interloping devices and…

Guest Editorial The rise of online social media and the related wave of people sharing experiences, advice and plans has had a huge impact on healthcare. Before social media, as the British Medical Journal points out, patients received advice and referrals from their private social networks — friends, family and their personal physicians. Now, robust…

EHR systems have been built with varying sets of standards, and getting a patient record (or records) from one system to another is a tedious, and often impossible affair. This is why so much emphasis is now being placed on EHR interoperability. EHR interoperability is a road paved with concerns around privacy and security. It’s…

Guest Editorial The healthcare industry does not have a rich culture of innovation. While regulatory burdens, enterprise developers, and even generation gaps have taken heat for causing grief over the course of the Meaningful Use program (RIP), there is a legacy of change-resistance in medicine that goes much further than the last ten years. As…

Over the past 4 years, there has been a major shift in the world of healthcare. The medical community has had greater influence from the government, insurance companies, lawyers, and like the rest of our society, an overarching increase in digital technology. Thus, the emergence of mainstream electronic health records (EHRs). People in present day…

Guest Editorial by Benjamin Shibata If you want to give hospital clinicians severe heart burn or an arrhythmia, talk to them about implementing a new state-of-the-art electronic health record (EHR) system.  Although EHRs may seem like an intuitive improvement over paper health records, the transition has been a huge headache because the process is being…

Apple has made their long awaited plunge into digital health with HealthKit, an iOS 8 bundled app which was unveiled at the World Wide Developer Conference of 2014. HealthKit is designed to help users keep better track of their personal and fitness data. HealthKit provides a single place to store and profile health data across multiple…

National survey shows strong support for consumer engagement solutions National eHealth Collaborative (NeHC) and its partner HealthCAWS recently conducted a targeted information gathering effort to understand stakeholders’ views on the importance of consumer engagement in eHealth, their preferred tools and available solutions.  The survey findings confirm that the future of healthcare must include consumer engagement…