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Tag: Health Equity
09/19/2023

Symposium Focuses on Digital Tech for Mental Health

Article Excerpt: Technology offers new avenues for mental health delivery. Digital record keeping, virtual consultations, wearables that monitor activity and well-being, mindfulness apps, and AI-based chatbots are just a few examples. But these advances have not been leveraged effectively enough, Cornell Tech Professor and HealthRhythms Co-Founder Tanzeem Choudhury said in a keynote talk Tuesday at the Digital Mental Health and AI Symposium organized by the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health. Choudhury explored the challenges that have forestalled digital mental health from delivering on some of its early promises and how to move the needle forward.

Full Article: https://tinyurl.com/ysvssb4s

Article Source: Dartmouth News

09/06/2023

Technology Helps Bring Health Equity to Underserved Communities

Article Excerpt: Health equity, as defined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the attainment of the highest level of health for all people. It requires concentrated efforts to eliminate health and healthcare disparities and, more than ever, technology has become a major tool in the process. “From my perspective, technology has a huge value to provide health equity,” says Albert Blankley, COO of Common Ground Health, a health research and planning organization for the nine county Finger Lakes region founded in 1974. The organization’s mission is to bring greater focus to community health issues via data analysis, resident engagement and solution implementation, via regional collaboration and partnerships.

Full Article: https://tinyurl.com/22zwb6am

Article Source: Rochester Business Journal

07/27/2023

One-Third of ACOs Use Digital Health Tools to Treat Patients With OUD

Article Excerpt: A new study of accountable care organizations (ACOs) suggests the use of digital health tools is relatively uncommon when treating patients with opioid use disorder (OUD). When digital tools are used, they are generally seen as a complement to other treatment modalities, according to the report, which was published this month in JAMA Network Open. Digital health resources have been billed as a way to overcome some of the traditional barriers to OUD treatment, such as lack of transportation and the limited availability of trained mental health clinicians. However, the study authors said public health officials need to be mindful of equity concerns as they roll out digital health solutions, “including understanding the clinical settings in which they are offered.”

Full Article: https://tinyurl.com/yc2tn65n

Article Source: AJMC

02/21/2023

Women’s Telehealth Program Diminishes Stigma via Technology

Article Excerpt: The Medical University of South Carolina Medical Center in Charleston has a unique telemedicine program in place to help pregnant and postpartum women. The program is called Listening to Women and Pregnant and Postpartum People, or LTWP. The technology vendors are REDCap and Twillio. It’s a mid-maturity program that is responding to behavioral health needs of pregnant women, and has recently expanded to newborn virtual home visitation for all mothers with births in the hospital.

Full Article: https://tinyurl.com/4hpmzjta

Article Source: Healthcare IT News

02/13/2023

Telehealth Is Here to Stay: How Technology Has Become a Staple for Physicians and Is Serving Unmet Health Care Needs

Article Excerpt: While the pandemic was the impetus for greater utilization of telehealth across the health care continuum, it’s safe to say that due to the convenience and benefits it offers to patients and providers, telehealth is here to stay. Before COVID-19, telehealth visits only accounted for 4% of total appointments, according to our recent research, which evaluated telehealth usage across 93.7 million patients in our athenaOne network. In the first half of 2022 when many patients returned to receiving in-person care, virtual visits still accounted for 8.9% of total appointments – a relatively minor decrease from the 12.1% we saw at the pandemic’s height. In addition to large-scale utilization, it is also evident that telehealth is being leveraged for a wide range of use cases. The network research, in addition to a survey we commissioned through Dynata of 2,000 U.S. patients, both found interesting patterns in usage for behavioral health, chronic care, as well as differences in adoption across race and gender. Despite differences in adoption and utilization, one thing is clear: Telehealth will remain a pivotal component of health care delivery now and in the years to come.

Full Article: https://tinyurl.com/yhm65kvr

Article Source: Medical Economics

02/06/2023

How Technology Can Help Solve Mental Health Care’s Biggest Barrier

Article Excerpt: From telehealth and TikTok to artificial intelligence and virtual reality, the mental health care industry is embracing technology — but it’s making many clinicians uneasy. From concerns about the ethics of mental health influencers to the inaccuracy of mental health advice on TikTok and to complaints about teens misdiagnosing themselves, many experts are uncomfortable about the role technology is playing in mental health support. But technology can also help solve what’s arguably the industry’s biggest issue: access. Given the ongoing mental health crisis and the fact that many people lack adequate access to quality mental health care, it’s essential to strike a balance between technological innovation, the pace of clinical validation, and high ethical and safety standards to ensure that rigorous, culturally centered mental health support is widely available at a time when it’s so desperately needed.

Full Article: https://tinyurl.com/4d4vk7pr

Article Source: STAT News

01/09/2023

New mHealth Intervention Aims to Curb Smoking Among Black HIV Patients

Article Excerpt: Following a $1.3 million grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse, Lorra Garey, a researcher from the University of Houston RESTORE Lab, plans to lead a research project to assess the impact of an mHealth application to mitigate smoking among Black people with HIV. HIV, a virus that attacks the body’s immune system, affects a large portion of the worldwide population. According to the World Health Organization, it has led to 40 million deaths globally. In addition, the US Department of Veterans Affairs noted that about 20 percent of US citizens with HIV are not aware that they have it, according to the press release.

Full Article: https://tinyurl.com/456cr8fh

Article Source: mHealthIntelligence

01/04/2023

The Future of Remote Medicine: The AMA Presents a Framework for Measuring Telehealth Quality

Article Excerpt: Under the simultaneous pressures of a pandemic-driven explosion in the use of telehealth, a growing emphasis on value-based care, and the current state of medical technology, the healthcare industry is undergoing what appear to be fundamental changes as a consequence of the high and irreversible growth of telehealth… In December 2022, the American Medical Association (AMA), in partnership with Manatt Health, released the “Return on Health” report that develops a framework to more precisely and holistically measure the value of telehealth through detailed case studies. This initiative also focuses on the challenges and opportunities for virtual care.(1) The adoption of the latest technology is essential to the expansion of telehealth beyond routine patient care.

Full Article: https://tinyurl.com/2pay8wyd

Article Source: Imaging Technology News

09/14/2022

Physician Adoption of Digital Health Tools Is Accelerating, AMA Research Shows

Article Excerpt: The American Medical Association’s digital health research released today shows increased rates of digital health adoption among physicians over the last six years and provides insights into their expectations. “The AMA survey illustrates the importance physicians place on validated digital health tools that improve health while streamlining the technological and administrative burdens faced each day in medicine,” said AMA President Dr. Jack Resneck Jr. in a statement. “These technologies also must be designed and deployed in ways that advance health equity,” he added.

Full Article: https://tinyurl.com/ykvhp5jz

Article Source: Health IT News