Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Digital Health:

Dr. Kwo reviewed the impact of AI and digital health on healthcare delivery.  She emphasized that data can be used to create strategies to improve health outcomes and reduce costs.  AI-driven solutions provide support in:

• Early detection of various diseases.
• Virtual triage and symptom checking with the support of AI chatbots.
• Drug innovation and development.
• Medical imaging processing.
• Management of supply chain.
• Study of medical devices, etc.

She noted that healthcare is becoming more consumer-driven, which in turn drives the priorities of health care providers, insurers, and businesses.  She defines the stakeholders in the digital healthcare continuum as patients, payors, and providers.  The framework of digital health is the capture of the “care journey” of patients from predictive, preventative, prescriptive, treatments, and cure.  In addition to reducing costs and improving care, AI and digital health tools can increase collaboration among providers and create personalized solutions for patients.

Data Analytics and the Health Information Workforce

An assessment of the impact that technology has had on the health information management workforce revealed that jobs are requiring more technical skills, particularly in data analytics.  Dr. Marc’s noted that this evolution is resulting in a convergence of the disciplines of health information management, health informatics, and biomedical informatics.  Curricular competencies must continue to evolve to align with the changing workforce requirements.

Information Blocking

As defined by The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), “Information blocking is a practice by an ‘actor’ that is likely to interfere with the access, exchange, or use of electronic health information (EHI), except as required by law or specified in an information blocking exception.  The Cures Act applied the law to healthcare providers, health IT developers of certified health IT, and health information exchanges (HIEs)/health information networks (HINs).”  The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) is responsible for penalties and enforcement of information blocking, which can include civil monetary penalties and “appropriate disincentives” for providers.  Electronic Health Information (EHI) includes electronic protected health information included in the designated record set (DRS) and does not include psychotherapy notes or information compiled for use in a civil, criminal, or administrative action proceeding.  There are information blocking exceptions allowed to not fulfill requests to access, exchange, or use EHI, which include preventing harm, privacy, security, infeasibility, and Health IT performance.  Practical resources for providers concerning good practices and operational implications were developed by the Sequoia Project Information Blocking Compliance Workgroup.

Excelas continually monitors issues impacting healthcare delivery, particularly trends in technology, government initiatives, regulatory compliance, standards of care, claims and litigation.  The American Health Information Management Association is the authority for health information in healthcare, business, and technology. Several members of the Excelas team hold professional certifications through the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and are members of state HIM affiliates.