RightPatient® Hosts #HITsm Tweet Chat on mHealth Healthcare Apps and Wearables

March 25, 2015/2286 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG /by John Trader

We have the honor of hosting this week’s @HealthStandards #HITsm tweet chat on the topic of healthcare apps and wearables – two digital health tools that have recently surged in popularity to help patients better manage personal health and contain or prevent chronic disease conditions. Despite the popularity of these mhealth tools, the healthcare industry is just beginning to wrap it’s arms around how to not only aggregate and transfer the clinical, fitness, wellness and nutritional data generated by these devices to a patient’s electronic health record (EHR), but more importantly, how to gain wisdom from the data to ultimately improve both individual and population health outcomes.

The rise of mhealth healthcare apps and wearables promises to change individual and population health, but what barriers exist to realize the full potential of these tools?

Dig deeper into the discussion of mhealth apps and wearables and you will discover that behind the vendor hype, there are a lot of unanswered questions, unresolved issues, barriers, and “stickiness” problems that have people wondering if these tools will truly have the purported impact on the industry that their designers claim. Some believe that from a design perspective “there is a chasm between the good intentions of the Brand/Company and the needs of the patient.” Others feel that in the absence of a palpable and effective interoperability initiative that actually works and helps with the free flow of data between disparate systems, mhealth apps and wearables will never truly reach their full potential to not only improve individual health, but also allow clinicians to mine data and identify patterns and trends that may lead to radical improvements in population health.

Recent market developments indicating that mhealth vendors are beginning to ink deals with major EHR providers to aggregate and populate data from these devices into a patient’s health record breathes life into the manifestation of patient generated health data collected by mHealth devices to the clinical record, and according to a recent article on mhealthnews, “lends weight to the argument that wellness and fitness information can be important to the healthcare provider.” Despite the optimism, not everyone is as excited about the surge in apps and wearables, particularly clinicians who feel that burdensome business and regulatory requirements surrounding mhealth are causing undo stress and dissatisfaction.

Then there is the question of adoption and sustainability for mhealth apps and wearables. Who is most likely to use these tools? How can healthcare providers incentivize patients (especially those managing chronic diseases or part of the emergent risk population) to use them on a regular basis? Will patient demographics such as baby boomers or seniors be as open and willing to use them as millennials are?

Despite the roadblocks and challenges that mhealth apps and wearables present, few people disagree that these tools have a tremendous potential to alter the face of individual and population health outcomes to help better personalize medicine, reduce readmissions, improve outcomes, and drive comparative effectiveness research.

Join us this Friday at 11 a.m. CST for an in-depth chat on healthcare apps and wearables on the #HITsm tweet.

RightPatient® Named Top 40 Innovative Company by Technology Association of Georgia

March 18, 2015/4127 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG /by John Trader

RightPatient® was named a Top 40 Innovative Technology Company by the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG).

We are delighted to report that RightPatient® was named one of the Top 40 Innovative Technology Company by the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG). TAG’s Top 40 awards recognize Geogria-based companies for not only their innovation, but also their financial impact and efforts at spreading awareness of Georgia’s technology initiatives throughout the U.S. and globally. The best of the best in Georgia’s technology community, this award is an important benchmark of our innovative and creative technology development to address some of the core patient identification, patient engagement, personalized healthcare, and healthcare intelligence platform needs of the healthcare industry and to reduce costs and liability, improve quality of care, monitor population health, and enhance the patient experience. A link to the news release announcing the award can be found here.

We are inching closer to the release of our healthcare informatics platform that unifies big data and clinical knowledge in healthcare in an unprecedented way to drive personalized health, decision support, and predictive analytics. Built as a global healthcare ecosystem, this smart health platform aggregates data and uses deep learning and predictive analytics to personalize medicine, reduce readmissions, improve outcomes, and drive comparative effectiveness research.

Thank you to TAG for bestowing this award to us, and congratulations to the entire RightPatient® team for their dedication and hard work on all of our solutions!

Terrebonne General Medical Center Reaps Benefits of Iris Biometrics for Patient Identification

March 16, 2015/4574 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG /by John Trader

More hospitals are reaping the benefits of using iris biometrics for patient identification to help:

— eliminate duplicate medical records

— reduce preventable medical errors

— prevent medical identity theft and fraud at the point of service

— raise patient safety levels

Terrebonne General Medical Center recently implemented the RightPatient® iris biometric patient identification system.

Terrebonne General Medical Center in Houma, LA. is no exception. After a seamless integration of our RightPatient® biometric patient identification solution into Terrebonne’s McKesson EHR system at their main hospital late last year, the hospital has quickly acclimated the technology as a key piece of their strategy to raise patient safety levels, and reduce preventable medical errors that could result from patient misidentification. Terrebonne’s patients have warmly embraced the biometric patient identification solution with over 99% opting into the RightPatient® system, citing its importance to protect their medical identity and prevent unnecessary medical errors along with it’s no-touch, hygienic nature as a key feature for using the technology. Read more

New Podcast: Patient Engagement Part II with Dr. Neal Kaufman from DPS Health

March 9, 2015/4132 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG /by John Trader

Dr. Neal Kaufman from DPS Health was our podcast guest to discuss advancements and the impact of patient engagement in healthcare.

Since the topic of patient engagement continues to be a major focus and a topic of burgeoning interest in healthcare to achieve the “triple aim” of – lowering costs, improving the patient experience of care, and improving the health of populations – we decided to schedule a new podcast on the topic as a follow up to our recent discussion with Brad Tritle. A link to our podcast with Brad can be found here. Effective patient engagement is evolving in healthcare, and it’s important to keep our fingers on the pulse of what is working, what isn’t, and how the healthcare industry can improve it’s approach.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Neal Kaufman from DPS Health about a wide range of topics covering patient engagement including: Read more

On The Fence About Using Healthcare Apps and Wearables? This May Change Your Mind.

March 2, 2015/4115 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG /by John Trader

The following post was submitted by Jeremy Floyd, Director of Sales with RightPatient®

If you are still on the fence about using healthcare apps and/or wearables to better manage individual health or if it’s a brand new concept that’s peaked your curiosity but you want to know more, recent survey results may nudge you closer to adoption. Reported by mobihealth news, the survey polled 1,1015 American adults asking if they were interested in using a mobile app to manage their health. Two-thirds of survey participants responded “yes.” Two-thirds! The research report linked to the survey reported that (no surprise) millennials were more than twice as likely to show interest in using a mobile app for personalized health management compared to adults 66 and older.

Recent survey results indicate that more American adults are open and willing to the use of healthcare apps and wearables to more effectively manage personal health.

The survey went on to report that survey participants were most interested in tracking :

Diet and nutrition (47%)
Medication reminders (46%)
Symptom tracking (45%)
Physical activity tracking (44%)

The overriding point that the survey illuminates is that the era of using healthcare apps and wearables for personalized health management is upon us. No longer just shiny new tools that offer basic functionalities only used by the elite, healthcare apps and wearables are becoming vital tools that encite behaviorial shifts needed to more effectively and proactively manage our day-to-day health regimens. Couple this with the fact that mobile is the fastest-growing sector of the digital health market, and the new personal health management paradigm isn’t hard to picture.

Just a few short years ago, the birth of healthcare apps and wearables brought us clunky, rather inefficient tools that focused mostly on data reporting and wellness metrics. However, as the market evolved, the utility and connectivity of these tools matured, and more solutions were built that began to not just report data, but analyzed, shared, and extracted wisdom from it too. Apps and wearables went from “cool” to “essential” for effective health monitoring and data that produces actionable results to improve outcomes. And it seems like, it virtually happened overnight.

It could also perhaps be argued that the psychology of using of healthcare apps and wearables is as critical to the function of the tool itself. As notorious creatures of habit, our society tends to cling to tried and tested methods that have proven to be effective. Few are willing to take a leap of faith and venture into new territory that could otherwise disrupt the status quo, especially when it comes to a topic as sensitive as healthcare. Your health, is after all, your life. But what we are beginning to see as more of these healthcare apps and wearables prove their worth is a shift change in a willingness to try, backed by more physicians, healthcare providers, and peers who stand behind these tools as a necessary and essential part of patient activation in the spirit of improved patient engagement to improve outcomes. More patients are starting to look around and accept that the smartphone and digital health tools just can’t be ignored any longer and must be incorporated into their regimens throughout the patient journey. Now, it becomes a question of choosing which tools (or combination of tools) will be the most effective, based on the unique needs of each patient.

Embrace these new tools. Relish their portability. Talk to your doctor. Discuss them with your family and peers. But above all, give them a chance to make a difference.

Jeremy Floyd is Director of Sales with RightPatient®. With over 5 years of experience in providing patient safety and patient engagement technical solutions to the healthcare industry, Jeremy speaks around the country to healthcare professionals on the future of health empowerment.

Over 99% of Patients Overwhelmingly Accepting of Iris Biometrics for Patient Identification

February 18, 2015/5475 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG /by John Trader

Iris recognition, long branded as “creepy” and “invasive” is finally getting a chance to set the record straight. Often depicted through wildly inaccurate Hollywood spy film sensationalism and embellished on the pages of science fiction novels, ask an average person to describe what this technology is and answers may range from “Isn’t that the technology that beams a laser to scan your eye?” or “Yes, iris recognition – that’s when someone scans your retina.” Answers to what iris recognition is perceived to be can oscillate from slightly inexact to outlandishly untrue. Thankfully, our experience deploying iris biometrics for patient identification in healthcare has provided us with key field research on not only how patients perceive the technology, but also their willingness to use it as a patient safety tool that eliminates duplicate medical records/overlays, and prevents medical identity theft and healthcare fraud at the point of service. Here’s what we found out:

Contrary to popular belief, patients overwhelmingly choose to enroll in iris recognition for patient identification.

One of the core tenets in our approach to developing biometric patient identification solutions for healthcare is offering the flexibility for hospitals to choose which biometric modality is most suitable or desired. Some hospitals may choose fingerprint biometrics with the confidence that their patient demographic has excellent skin integrity and would not object to this modality. Other hospitals may choose to deploy palm vein biometrics for patient identification or finger vein biometrics, both of which use near infrared light to map out a vein pattern beneath the skin’s surface. Still other facilities have evaluated the RightPatient® biometric options and decided that iris recognition is the most optimal biometric modality for patient identification. Iris recognition uses a high definition digital camera to capture your photograph and construct a unique biometric template, which is then linked to your electronic medical record. Iris recognition does not “scan” your eyes and we know that iris biometrics and retinal scanning are two completely separate biometric modalities; it is very simply a high resolution digital photograph and the technology is 100% safe for patients.

When we embarked on our journey to offer the healthcare industry a more secure and effective way to establish patient identification accuracy through the use of biometrics, our goal was to remain flexible in our biometric options and to educate our customers, understanding that hospital environments and patient populations ultimately dictate deployment parameters. Through the use of our human factor engineering expertise – which is based upon the body of knowledge about human abilities and characteristics that are relevant to design and the application of this knowledge to the design of systems for safe, comfortable employee use – we custom build our solution to help ensure a seamless experience that covers all touchpoints.

When presented with the options, we have found that many hospitals prefer to use iris recognition. The reasons vary, but essentially the non-contact, hygienic nature of the technology coupled with accuracy and matching speed make it an appealing choice. Some hospitals that use RightPatient® initially expressed concern that patients may be leery of iris recognition, which could affect participation rates. In practice, however, we have observed quite the opposite. Our customers have reported that at least 99% of patients opt-in to using iris recognition to protect their medical identities. 99%. Once patients see the technology for what it is – no different than having their picture taken with any other camera – and understand the value in enrolling, any preconceived notions are quickly neutralized.

This makes perfect sense considering the technology’s purpose is to keep patients safe from medical errors, the danger of duplicate medical records and the potential devastation that medical identity theft and fraud can cause.

You don’t even have to take our word for it. Check out this customer testimonial video on patient acceptance of our RightPatient® patient identification solution with iris biometrics:

What are your concerns about the use of iris recognition for patient identification? Please leave us your questions and comments below.

Fortune Magazine Article Highlights Growing Use of Biometrics for Patient Identification

February 10, 2015/5769 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG /by John Trader

A patient has their photo captured with an iris recognition camera at a hospital that has deployed biometrics for patient identification.

Excellent article in Fortune magazine today written by Laura Shin that addresses the topic of healthcare data breaches and whether or not the increasing use of biometrics for patient identification will add a layer of protection to help thwart hackers in the future and eliminate medical identity theft and healthcare fraud.

We are grateful that Laura included us in her research for the article, mentioning our work with implementing iris biometrics for patient identification at Novant Health’s Clemmons Medical Center location and a specific case of when a father brought his son into their facility, pointing out that: Read more

Medication Nonadherence: Healthcare’s Avoidable Achilles Heel

January 29, 2015/4789 views / 1 Comment/in BLOG /by John Trader

It’s no secret that medication use and health care costs have dramatically increased during the previous decade in the U.S. According to the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcome Research (ISPOR), adherence is “the extent to which a patient acts in accordance with the prescribed interval, and dose of a dosing regimen.” Adherence to medication therapy is often one of if not the most critical aspect of medical treatment, particularly the treatment of chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension. Perhaps even more alarming is that 20% of nonadherence cases are for prescriptions that never get filled!

The rising use of mobile healthcare apps to increase medication adherence is helping reduce costs and improve health outcomes.

Despite the importance of adhering to a medication schedule, medication nonadherence is a serious problem costing Americans anywhere between $100 billion to $289 billion a year with the World Health Organization (WHO) recently stating that the average nonadherence rate is 50% among those with chronic illnesses. Furthermore, research indicates that failure to follow prescription instructions causes approximately 125,000 deaths per year and up to 10% of all hospitalizations. The consequences of nonadherence include: Read more

New eBook: Understanding the Differences Between Patient Identification Technologies

January 26, 2015/5626 views / 0 Comments/in BLOG /by John Trader

RightPatient® released its first eBook covering the topic of how to make sense of patient identification technology options in healthcare.

Accurate patient identification in healthcare is often underrated as one of, if not perhaps the most important functions to ensure the right care is delivered to the right patient. The unfortunate rise in medical identity theft and fraud coupled with the increased scrutiny of the healthcare industry to provide safer environments for patients has pushed many hospitals and medical facilities to reassess patient identification protocols and investigate the adoption of technologies that will help increase authentication accuracy, prevent the creation of duplicate medical records and overlays, and eliminate medical identity theft and fraud. More hospitals are moving away from traditional, paper based identification checks and towards technologies that automate authentication and rely more on proving identities based on “what you are,” compared to “what you have.” Read more

Removing the Word “Scan” from Iris Recognition for Healthcare Biometrics

January 14, 2015/5614 views / 3 Comments/in BLOG /by John Trader

Look no farther for a sensationalized depiction of biometric identification technology than the Tom Cruise movie “Minorty Report.”

RightPatients-iris-recognition-is-not-retinal-scanning

Most people confuse iris recognition with retinal scanning that beams visible light into the eye to capture individual biometric credentials.

Packed with scenarios that stretch the truth on how biometric technology actually works, the movie has unfortunately become a rallying cry for those opposed to the technology as an example of just how invasive the technology is to our personal privacy. While there are arguments to be made on both sides on whether biometric identification technology is a privacy detractor or a privacy boost, one thing is true: In the real world, front end biometric hardware devices work much differently than what we see on the big screen or when flipping through the pages of a science fiction novel. Which brings us to the topic of iris recognition.

When most people hear the words “iris recognition” they immediately confuse the technology with “retinal scanning,” a completely separate and totally different biometric modality. As our community already knows, iris recognition and retinal scanning are two completely different biometric modalities each operating under separate functional parameters and each using a different method of capturing individual biometric characteristics. Most people associate iris recognition with something that looks like this:

The picture above shows a retinal scanner beaming visible light into the human eye to read the unique physiological characteristics of the retina, located in the back of the eye. Despite it’s extremely high identification accuracy, retinal scanning is widely considered to be one of if not the most invasive biometric modality and an impractical technology for commercial use in high throughput environments. Conversely, iris recognition uses a sophisticated digital camera to capture your photograph, which maps unique data points of your iris (located in the front of the eye) and uses that information to create a unique identity template which is used on subsequent identification attempts and is also an extremely accurate .

Iris recognition does not beam any visible light into your eyes, is 100% safe to use, and does not perform anything even close to a “scan” – it is simply a digital photograph (albeit much more sophisticated that pictures we take with our digital cameras and cell phones). Here, we see a patient at a hospital using an iris camera for identification – notice how there aren’t any lights or lasers beamed into their eyes during the photograph capture process:

RightPatient-is-safe-for-patient-identification-in-healthcare

Iris recognition cameras do not beam any lights or lasers into the human eye. They simply take a digital photograph.

Why is it important to know that iris recognition does not “scan” your eyes? Like it or not, the proliferance of biometric technology for individual identification is a reality that we all must come to terms with. In fact, if you have never participated in a biometric identification deployment, chances are at some point you will considering the rapid pace in which many industries are adopting the technology as a tool to increase security, create efficiencies, eliminate waste and fraud, and raise accountability and productivity. In healthcare, many hospitals and medical facilities have already deployed iris recognition biometrics for patient identification, and are expanding their deployments to provide the technology for accurate patient ID at each and every touchpoint along the care continuum.

In the healthcare industry specifically, understanding what to expect when you participate in a biometric identification deployment is a key factor in accepting the technology as a key tool to help stop medical identity and fraud at the point of service and to eliminate duplicate medical records which are a direct threat to your safety. So the next time you visit the hospital or a medical facility that has deployed iris biometrics for patient identification, you are now empowered with the information on how the front end technology works and can rest assured that you are not being “scanned” in any way, shape, or form. It’s a photograph, not a scan!

What other common misunderstandings about biometrics may cause you trepidation?