Digital Health Frontier
By John Halamka and Paul Cerrato — When clinicians have no definitive guidelines or empirical evidence on which to base their decisions, they still must come up with a care plan that meets their patients’ needs. Combining data from the available published studies with intelligence gleaned from electronic patient records can often address the dilemma.
By John Halamka and Paul Cerrato - The broad access to such services that occurred at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic should not be rolled back. Finding a way to extend the regulatory waivers that made this possible is in our patients’ best interest.
By John Halamka and Paul Cerrato - There’s no shortage of startups with creative ways to use the technology to improve patient care and make clinicians’ lives less burdensome, and that includes digital assistants.
By John Halamka and Paul Cerrato - EHR optimization remains an elusive goal for many health care providers, but several digital assistants may help solve the problem.
By John Halamka and Paul Cerrato - Enabled by natural language processing, these digital tools are slowly finding their way into clinical practice. Despite the potential to make it easier to navigate an EHR system, they come with problems of their own.
By John Halamka and Paul Cerrato - We can empower patients by providing high quality educational materials, encouraging medical self-care, and by finding ways to incorporate patient-generated health data into clinical practice.
By John Halamka and Paul Cerrato -Three patient populations are underrepresented in the AI models currently being developed. There are several practical solutions to the problem.
By John Halamka and Paul Cerrato - The history of medicine is filled with “expert” resistance to change. Marching in the brave parade of innovators who buck the system may sting, but the rewards usually outweigh the risks.
By John Halamka and Paul Cerrato - Despite some skepticism about the usefulness of AI in clinical medicine, there’s ample evidence to show CAD-assisted colonoscopy can save lives.
By John Halamka and Paul Cerrato - It’s not about fame and fortune.
By John Halamka and Paul Cerrato - AI-enabled algorithms can’t exist in an operational vacuum. To really benefit our patients, they need to be deployed with the help of an interprofessional team of experts and a set of “delivery science” principles that most developers are not aware of.
By John Halamka and Paul Cerrato - The latest proposed rules from CMS and FDA emphasize the need for a balanced, nuanced approach to digital innovation.