Patients who do not take their medication or follow through on doctor-prescribed treatments are a common – and costly – problem. A recent study published in the American Journal of Managed Care examined more than 857,000 patients mostly being treated for chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol. The patients were undergoing more than 1.2 million distinct therapies.Read More
Exciting changes are underway for technology in health care. In our post about what to expect in 2017 we touched on many key trends, but one particular emerging technology deserves a closer look: artificial intelligence (AI).
The alarm on your smartphone buzzes next to your bed. You get up, check your FitBit to see how many hours of sleep you logged, then pull up your calendar on your Apple watch. “Alexa, what’s today’s weather report?” you ask your Bluetooth speaker. As you’re using your daily meditation app, you get a FaceTime call from your daughter in college. All this technology is great, right? So easy, so useful, so … harmful?Read More
In the first half of 2016 alone, there were 263 health data breaches, reports Healthcare IT News. The number of individuals affected by a protected health information breach skyrocketed from less than 600,000 in 2010 to just under 112 million in 2015, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Protected health information (PHI) is a prime target for hackers and cyber criminals because in many cases it is easier to steal than credit card data or financial records. It’s also far more valuable, since health records contain all of a patient’s personal, medical, and financial data. Are you doing enough to protect yourself, your practice, and your patients?Read More
The hottest fitness app of 2016 wasn’t intended to be a fitness app at all. A week after Pokémon Go launched in July, it had an estimated 7.5 million downloads, reported MobiHealthNews. And on average, users were spending twice the amount of time engaged with the enormously popular app than they were on apps like Snapchat and Twitter. Using augmented reality, phone cameras, and GPS, Pokémon Go requires players to move around in order to capture monsters in real life.Read More
We predicted that virtual reality (VR) would be a trend in health care in 2016, and it looks like we were right. Some are calling this “the year of VR,” thanks to the wave of new, relatively affordable devices now available. Market research firm IDC projects that shipments of virtual reality devices will increase by over 2400% this year. That includes mobile headsets that are powered by smartphones as well as “tethered” headsets that are wired to a PC. Global Industry Analysts projects that the worldwide market for virtual reality in health care will reach $3.8 billion by 2020.Read More
