About healthcare safety
Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns 2020: Here is ECRIs top patient safety concerns for 2020. Topping the list is “Missed and Delayed Diagnoses.” It is useful organizational exercise to go through this list and do a self-assessment and craft an improvement plan.
About healthcare IT
Ransomware Attacks on Healthcare Providers Rose 350% in Q4 2019: “A Corvus analysis reveals the vast majority of ransomware attacks on healthcare providers stem from phishing incidents, as attacks jumped a whopping 350 percent in the last quarter of 2019.”
Winners and losers of the HHS interoperability final rule: This article continues the analysis of yesterday’s post about publication of the HHS final interoperability role. One downside for patients is that the app connections allowing record access are not HIPAA compliant.
Hey Epic! Tell Me About the Voice Assistant for Clinicians: The announcement explains Epic’s voice assistant functions. For example, you can say: “Hey Epic, get me [Patient ID]’s lab tests.”
About pharma
CVS Health offers free home delivery of prescription drugs amid virus outbreak: In addition to no-copay coronavirus tests and telemedicine services, CVS-Aetna is offering free home delivery of prescriptions.
AbbVie, Lilly, Pfizer lead pharma TV spending to roaring start in 2020: “Pharma TV ad spending has started with a bang in 2020. Collectively topping $200 million, the biggest 10 TV time buyers spent more than $15 million each, with No. 1 Humira doling out more than $40 million in the first 30 days of the new year, according to data from real-time TV ad tracker iSpot.tv…January has tended to be one of the spendiest months for pharma TV [because of football ads, especially the Super Bowl]. In January 2019, for instance, the top 10 totaled $172 million, and January 2018's big 10 tallied $183 million.”
About the public’s health
FDA warns companies selling products that claim to treat coronavirus disease: Always someone looking to unethically profit from others’ fears. “The FDA and FTC jointly issued warning letters to Vital Silver, Quinessence Aromatherapy Ltd., Xephyr, LLC doing business as N-Ergetics, GuruNanda, LLC, Vivify Holistic Clinic, Herbal Amy LLC, and The Jim Bakker Show. The products cited in these warning letters are teas, essential oils, tinctures and colloidal silver. The FDA has previously warned that colloidal silver is not safe or effective for treating any disease or condition. The FDA and FTC requested companies respond in 48 hours describing the specific steps they have taken to correct the violations. Companies that sell products that fraudulently claim to prevent, treat or cure COVID-19 may be subject to legal action, including but not limited to seizure or injunction.”
7 things to know about Generation Z patients, workers: Understanding internal and external customers has always been important. But customer characteristics change- especially with generations. This short piece is a good summary of Gen Z expectations for healthcare.