Amazon’s Alexa launches 6 HIPAA-compliant services
Amazon announced HIPAA-compliant software for its Alexa voice assistant that allows healthcare organizations to transmit and receive patients’ protected health information. Six new Alexa healthcare skills from industry-leading healthcare providers, payors, pharmacy benefit managers, and digital health coaching companies are now operating in the HIPAA-eligible environment.
In the future, Amazon expects to enable additional developers to take advantage of this capability. The new skills are designed to help customers manage a variety of healthcare needs at home, including booking a medical appointment, accessing hospital post-discharge instructions, checking on the status of a prescription delivery, and more.
The new healthcare skills are:
- Express Scripts (a leading Pharmacy Services Organization): Members can check the status of a home delivery prescription and can request Alexa notifications when their prescription orders are shipped.
- Cigna Health Today (by Cigna, the global health service company): Eligible employees with one of Cigna’s large national accounts can now manage their health improvement goals and increase opportunities for earning personalized wellness incentives.
- My Children’s Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) (by Boston Children’s Hospital, a leading children’s hospital): Parents and caregivers of children in the ERAS program at Boston Children’s Hospital can provide their care teams updates on recovery progress and receive information regarding their post-op appointments.
- Swedish Health Connect (by Providence St. Joseph Health, a healthcare system with 51 hospitals across 7 states and 829 clinics): Customers can find an urgent care center near them and schedule a same-day appointment.
- Atrium Health (a healthcare system with more than 40 hospitals and 900 care locations throughout North and South Carolina and Georgia): Customers in North and South Carolina can find an urgent care location near them and schedule a same-day appointment.
- Livongo (a leading consumer digital health company that creates new and different experiences for people with chronic conditions): Members can query their last blood sugar reading, blood sugar measurement trends, and receive insights and Health Nudges that are personalized to them.
“Developers of the new healthcare skills are excited to enable their customers to access their healthcare services in the comfort of their own homes simply by asking Alexa,” according to an Amazon blog. “With our new Express Scripts skill, we are trying to make it easier for people to make better informed health care decisions,” said Mark Bini, Vice President of Innovation and Member Experience, Express Scripts. “In particular, we believe voice technology, like Alexa, can make it easy for people stay on the right path by tracking the status of their mail order prescription, helping us further solve the costly and unhealthy problem of medication non-adherence.”
For more information, visit https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/ff33dbc7-6cf5-4db8-b203-99144a251a21/introducing-new-alexa-healthcare-skills
Report examines challenges in evaluating, adopting innovative medical devices
Over the last six years, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a number of highly innovative medical devices that have revolutionized cardiovascular care. These novel devices have provided advanced treatment options, improved quality of life and extended longevity for patients.
Unfortunately, reimbursement has often failed to keep up with many of increasingly expensive treatment options. In the report, “The cost of medical device innovation: can we keep pace?” released today, Vizient looks at how hospitals must develop a systematic process that enables the evaluation and adoption of emerging technology in a way that benefits patients and providers in a financially sustainable way.
“A critical question facing providers is when they should implement an innovative technology. Physicians often want to be early adopters and have access to the latest technology because their goal is to always provide the best care for patients. But many potentially innovative technologies are never widely adopted for various reasons,” said Joe Cummings, technology program director for Vizient and a contributor to the white paper. “To use a value-based evaluation paradigm, the hospital’s technology adoption committee must engage in a systematic review of the clinical literature to determine pertinent clinical outcomes and also conduct financial analyses to estimate the total cost of care.”
Key findings from the report include:
- An average 273.3 percent increase in price over the predicate medical device was found in a review of Vizient data for several recent innovative cardiovascular medical device introductions.
- A review of select cardiovascular medical devices revealed considerable variability in the ratio of device cost to reimbursement. In fact, for some of the recent innovations, the device cost alone consumed a very high proportion of the overall reimbursement for the procedure, leaving minimal coverage for other expenses such as supplies, room costs and other miscellaneous resources required for the procedure.
- Hospitals, working collaboratively through multidisciplinary committees, must use a systematic, open and objective process focused on innovation assessments to determine which technologies provide better (optimal) patient care with improved value.
- Suppliers initially, then technology advocates, must provide better clinical data during the launch and early-adopter phases of a medical device introduction. The data must clearly demonstrate better outcomes to support informed decision-making by physicians and hospitals.
- Partnerships between providers and suppliers that allow for shared risk can help push both sides to improve quality and outcomes.
The report was compiled by Vizient, the largest member-driven healthcare performance improvement company in the country. The full report can be accessed here: https://newsroom.vizientinc.com/sites/vha.newshq.businesswire.com/files/doc_library/file/The_cost_of_medical_device_innovation.pdf
MUSC receives $3.6M to launch national telehealth research network
The National Center for the Advancement of Translational Sciences awarded a $3.6 million grant to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston (MUSC) in support of pediatric telehealth research. The five-year grant builds on work already underway as part of the Supporting Pediatric Research on Outcomes and Utilization of Telehealth, a network of institutions and pediatric providers within the American Academy of Pediatrics. The grant will establish a support structure for telehealth research that will provide tools, resources, education, and advocacy materials, among other resources.
“This is a huge step forward in the development of safe and impactful telehealth programs across the country,” said primary investigator for the grant S. David McSwain, M.D., MUSC Children’s Health physician and MUSC associate professor of pediatric critical care and chief medical information officer. “Academic research into the real impact of telehealth services is a critical component of developing and growing programs with the greatest potential to improve our health care system. Many physicians and other health care providers are hesitant about incorporating telehealth into their practices because it’s difficult to separate the theoretical benefits from the real value.”