Acute-level care at home is another innovation driven by the pandemic, though the concept is not new. But as hospitals needed to free up beds and CMS loosened restrictions, health systems both set up programs and invested in partnerships that could help.

Medically Home offers the logistics, hardware and software technology to make it possible for care providers to give the same acute level care at home that they would in the hospital, says CEO Rami Karjian, who spoke to Healthcare Finance News Executive Editor Susan Morse. The result has been good for both providers and patients.   

Talking Points:

• Kaiser Permanente and Mayo Clinic are providing hospital-level care at home through Medically Home
• Patients getting kidney and bone marrow transplants at Mayo are recovering at home
• Kaiser and Mayo invested $100 million in Medically Home in May 2021
• Other strategic partners such as Global Medical Response have added $110 million
• Medically Home provides the technology and logistics to scale about 20% of what is done in brick and mortar hospitals
• The hospital at home model is not new, but interest has risen during the pandemic
• This has been spurred by CMS flexibilities during the PHE
• A coalition of over 25 health systems have asked CMS to continue the flexibilities
• Payers and providers in value-based care contracts need not worry about Medicare FFS incentives

More about this episode:

Kaiser, Mayo, Medically Home found coalition to promote advanced hospital-at-home services

Mayo Clinic announces advanced care at home model with Medically Home

Mayo Clinic, Kaiser put $100M toward hospital-at-home care

The rise of hospital at home care

Healthcare groups urge Congress to extend Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver

With private equity investing billions, digital products are in a boom period. Clover COO Jamie Reynoso, whose area of expertise is on health insurance innovation, talks about what healthcare leaders need to know about the intersection of digital health and private equity. 

Healthcare organizations are at the center of clinical technology innovation, and with good reason: Healthcare technology advancements need to remain focused on the patient experience. Join Mobile Heartbeat VP of Product Management Bill Reid as he provides insights into the development of clinical collaboration technology. Learn how to future-proof your organization’s technology investments, and develop an actionable strategy for transitioning to cloud technology.

This week: Racial, ethnic minorities experience worse care than whites; Amazon Care expanding to 20 new cities. Plus: Epic announces Cheers, a new customer relationship management system.

Links to the stories:

Medicaid enrollees in minority groups experience worse care than white counterparts

Amazon Care expanding in-person services this year

Epic to showcase new CRM system and more at HIMSS22

Many health IT experts, innovators and vendors have touted digital health as a mechanism to overcome hurdles to care. But at the same time, we also know that digital health tools can exacerbate difficulties, especially for people with disabilities.

Josh Basile, community relations manager for accessiBe, joins Kat Jercich, senior editor of Healthcare IT News, to discuss  how organizations can ensure websites and other software are accessible for everyone. 

Talking points:

• COVID-19 as a catalyst for driving online accessibility
• Disability as a matter of "when," not "if"
• Frequent misconceptions about disability
• The challenges —and advantages—presented by telehealth
• Why accessibility in healthcare websites is so important
• The different needs of different groups of people
• The evolving nature of accessibility
• The business case for ensuring tools are accessible

More about this episode:

Telehealth may worsen digital divide for people with disabilities

Expansion of remote tech can help safeguard care for people with disabilities

For people with disabilities, accessing care can be 'overwhelming'

Telehealth as a tool to keep people with disabilities out of the hospital

Telehealth making it easier for people with disabilities to access care

This week: VA struggling with data migration into Cerner HER; AliveCor debuts personal ECG tech. Plus: Federal court bans Martin Shkreli from pharmaceutical industry for life.

Links to the stories:

Watchdog: VA did not ensure quality of migrated data in EHR modernization efforts

AliveCor rolls out credit card-sized ECG

Court bans Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli for life from the pharma industry

Among the many mysteries of COVID-19, a major one regards "long COVID": symptoms that persist for weeks, and sometimes months, after someone first tests positive for the disease.

Experts and scientists have begun using data repositories to try and answer some of the questions surrounding long COVID. Joining Healthcare IT News Senior Editor Kat Jercich to discuss how health IT can advance long COVID research are Michael Simon, director of data science at Arcadia, and Dr. Brett Giroir, former assistant secretary for health and a member of the COVID Patient Recovery Alliance.

Talking points:

• How COVID-19 changed the potential for data analysis
• A recent study suggesting the effects of vaccines on long COVID
• The policy implications of the findings
• Virtually everyone is at risk for long COVID
• Some necessary caveats about the findings 
• What follow-up research should investigate
• The Patient Recovery Alliance's history and mission
• Hopes for the near future for data and policy

More about this episode:

UC Health creates unified data set to aid COVID-19 researchers

Research Data Alliance finalizes COVID-19 data sharing guidelines

NIH All of Us program makes more COVID-19 data available

UK announces five new COVID-19 vaccine research projects

Meet the informaticist trying to solve the mystery of long COVID

When payers adopt electronic payments, reimbursement can be slowed down by legacy systems and manual processes. Kimberly Scaccia, VP of Revenue Cycle for Mercyhealth, talks about end-to-end solutions to accelerate the payment cycle. 

(Sponsored) Pandemic-induced delays have exacerbated gaps in patient care. Technology can help empower your clinicians to close these gaps and boost the overall success of population health management programs.

This week: OSHA rescinds vaccine mandate for employees at large companies; Akili to merge with Social Capital. Plus: Vulnerabilities found in Log4J logging tool.

Links to the stories:

OSHA scraps rule mandating vaccines for large employers after SCOTUS decision

Video game therapeutic developer Akili Interactive to go public via SPAC

Feds: Health sector bad actors 'actively leveraging' Log4J vulnerabilities