Targeted Genetic Sequencing: Changing the Way We Think About Chronic Disease
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that six in 10 adults in the U.S. have a chronic health condition such as heart disease, lung disease, cancer, diabetes, or Alzheimer’s, while four in 10 have two or more chronic diseases. And Americans with five or more chronic conditions, who make up 12% of the population, account for an astounding 41% of total healthcare spending. That’s nearly $1.6 billion each year.
Wellness and Awareness: A Look at the State of Health in 2021
Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent with CNN and a practicing neurosurgeon, spoke with attendees at the recent Health Experience Design Conference 2021 to talk about his observations as a correspondent, his takeaways from the COVID-19 pandemic, and his views on where we go from here.
Democratizing Healthcare: The Wait Is Over
A growing number of communities have proven that data democratization improves health structures and overcomes barriers to help communities of color respond to the health challenges of COVID-19. The inconsistencies at state level have demonstrated how the pandemic has disproportionately impacted people of color. The spread of the pandemic has been a shared concern for all of the American public as the mortality rate for Black Americans is 2.3 times as high as white Americans.
Conducting Field Visits During COVID-19
Shannon Ford, senior manager of human-centered design with Alluma, spoke at Health Experience Design 2021 recently to discuss how her team used technology and adaptability to conduct field visits when in-person observation became untenable. The field visits were part of in-context observation, shadowing, and interviews, all meant to help put together an application and implementation enrollment process for a healthcare coverage system.
The COVID Vaccine Pause: A Case for Greater Patient Engagement
In several early cases of J&J vaccine blood clotting, patients were treated with heparin, which is a normal treatment for blood clots; however, in these cases the heparin worsened the situation. The pause helped educate hospitals and health systems going forward on how to treat similar symptoms in those with the J&J dose.
A Year of COVID-19 Data: Lessons Learned
Researchers have begun to dig into the results of this data collection and identified trends that have helped them understand mortality rates during the pandemic and beyond. BD recently published two papers on specific data discoveries during COVID-19, and Kalvin Yu, MD, FIDSA, senior medical director with BD, discusses some of the key takeaways from that research.
The Right ID: How Patient Matching Can Support Better Care
Like many health systems developed through mergers and acquisitions, M Health Fairview sported consistent branding across what had previously been the Fairview Health and HealthEast Care systems, but it had a disparate array of back-end medical record systems behind the scenes.
Addressing Inequity
For Maria Hernandez, president and CEO of Impact4Health, an organization that provides training and support for health systems around health equity, physicians may face a unique challenge in addressing the biases that can lead to this uneven treatment.
Taking Hold of the Condition-Specific Virtual Coaching Opportunity
With chronic conditions accounting for seven of the top 10 causes of death worldwide and 90% of $3.8 trillion in U.S. annual healthcare costs, employers are wise to pay attention to this opportunity and look for ways to incorporate coaching into benefits packages.
Sustaining the Success of Telehealth
During the Health Experience Design 2021 conference, Dennis Mihale, MD, chief medical officer for Upward Health, discussed lessons learned not only as an early adopter of telehealth in general, but also by having that advance familiarity when COVID-19 forced healthcare organizations across the world to reconsider their approach to telehealth.