Why Hybrid Trials May Be the Best Choice for Patient Centricity

Engaging with patients early in the study design process allows sponsors to better understand what would make a trial work best for patients, their caregivers, and their families. To get to that point, patient groups can help sponsors to identify barriers up front such as travel distance, length of study visits, and financial costs to patients to determine what aspects of the trial could be better designed to reduce patient burden.

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Building Blocks to Better Data

The one thing healthcare isn’t short on is data. The industry has data coming in from all directions, but that’s not always a perfect scenario—data that is duplicated, low quality, or siloed can present barriers to better analysis. For healthcare systems to improve the way they want, data needs to be organized and unified.

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The Key to a Healthier Enterprise: Unlocking the Potential of Nurse Scheduling

A recent study by management consulting firm McKinsey & Company revealed that 22% of nurses are considering leaving their jobs, 60% of whom said this possibility has become more likely since the beginning of the pandemic. A variety of factors influence nurses voluntarily separating from hospitals, but the 2021 NSI National Health Care Retention & RN Staffing Report found scheduling to be one of the top 10 reasons.

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Where Technology and Patient Engagement Meet

With fewer in-person appointments and more remote care, maintaining quality means finding innovative ways to engage patients. Healthcare organizations are combining data, technology, and engagement strategies to enhance care delivery, from educating patients to work toward their recovery goals to ensuring providers can intervene in real time to stave off complications, readmissions, and other reasons for patient dissatisfaction.

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Additional Respiratory Support

NHF therapy has been in use since at least the 1960s, providing respiratory support to neonatal, pediatric, and adult patients. In adults, NHF consists of the administration of a gas flow via cannula above 30 liters per minute in adults, heated to 37°C and with a humidity (water vapor) content of 44 milligrams per liter. The method is reportedly more comfortable for patients and can minimize the need for more invasive and costly respiratory support if applied early on.

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Improving Care and Monitoring at Home Through Technology

Boston-based Current Health recently merged with Best Buy to increase access to home health options. Chief Medical Officer Adam Wolfberg, MD, was part of discussions about expanding work in this area prior to the pandemic. But when COVID-19 hit, “Current Health quickly realized we had an opportunity to serve an important role,” he says. “Healthcare had a capacity problem, and we were expanding capacity to let relatively less acute patients be cared for at home.”

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Why Hospitals Should Disclose Medical Error

Each year in the United States alone, an estimated 4.8 million hospital patients suffer serious harm through preventable causes. This alarming statistic is the driving factor behind Press Ganey’s Safety 2025 Initiative, which challenges the healthcare industry to achieve an 80% reduction in patient harm by 2025. Accomplishing this feat will take a systemic rethinking of the approach to addressing medical malpractice.

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Improving Patient Access to Their Data

With more than 20 million cancer patients in the U.S., many patients are interested in volunteering their data and experiences to aid in the creation of treatments, but there isn’t a formal mechanism for that right now. So 4medica has created a patient health record app with a user interface that enables the patient to assign their data, or even individual reports and documents, to a doctor or institution.

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Radiology Study: Iodine Allergy is a Myth

In short, an allergy to iodine does not and cannot exist. We conclude that the reactions patients have had to seafood, shellfish, povidone-iodine, and iodine-based contrast agents used for imaging tests are real but are likely caused by other non-iodine component proteins or molecules.

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