Deep-learning model improves radiologist interpretation of X-rays

Radiology Updates

Deep-learning model improves radiologist interpretation of X-rays

Jul 12, 2021 by Raghu Vir 0 Comments

Evidence suggests that deep-learning systems show great potential for the detection of lesions and pattern classification on chest radiographs. Scientists did comparative research for both the radiologists and a deep-learning system. 

In their discussion, the authors suggested that the study showed the potential for deep-learning to improve chest X-ray interpretation across a wide range of clinical findings and concluded that further work is underway to confirm the applicability of the model as an efficient diagnostic tool in clinical practice as opposed to a substitute for radiologists.

Read the full article:

https://hospitalhealthcare.com/clinical/radiology-and-imaging/deep-learning-model-improves-radiologist-interpretation-of-x-rays/

Radiology Updates

Thermal imaging predicts venous leg ulcer healing

Jul 12, 2021 by Raghu Vir 0 Comments

A team of researchers from Australia determined that thermal imaging can tell a provider within two weeks of an initial scan if a leg ulcer will heal within 12 weeks. This technique could replace the current digital strategies or invasive planimetric tracing. A non-contact method like thermal imaging would be ideal to use when managing wounds in the home setting to minimize physical contact and, therefore, reduce infection risk.

This technique accurately measures changes in wound size and other physiological parameters over time. It is also a more time-efficient and cost-effective method.

Read the full article:

https://www.diagnosticimaging.com/view/thermal-imaging-predicts-venous-leg-ulcer-healing

Radiology Updates

FDA approves first PSMA PET imaging agent for prostate cancer

Jul 12, 2021 by Raghu Vir 0 Comments

US FDA approves the Piflufolastat F-18 injection for prostate cancer detection It is the first fluorinated prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) agent approved by the FDA commercially available PSMA PET imaging agent. It allows doctors to see suspected prostate cancer at an early stage.

This is a highly effective imaging approach to detect the spread of cancer to other parts of the body.

Read the full article: 

https://www.itnonline.com/content/fda-approves-first-commercially-available-psma-pet-imaging-agent-prostate-cancer

Radiology Updates

Korea makes medical imaging smarter with big data & deep learning

Jul 12, 2021 by Raghu Vir 0 Comments

A research team from the Korean Ministry of Science has developed a technology that improves both the speed and accuracy of disease diagnosis. They applied big data deep learning technology that has been used to diagnose the reliability of mechanical parts and equipment to ultrasound imaging equipment to develop diagnostic imaging assistance technology using machine learning.

The research team plans to modify the deep learning model to improve the accuracy of aortic plaque analysis. This technology achieves a diagnosis with an accuracy of 80%.

Read the full article :

https://www.biospectrumasia.com/news/51/18342/korea-makes-medical-imaging-smarter-with-big-data-deep-learning.html

Clinical Documentation, Clinical Documentation Improvement, Outpatient CDI

Hospital Outpatient Departments: Effective July 1, 2020 you must request prior authorization for certain hospital Outpatient Department (OPD) services

Jun 25, 2020 by Raghu Vir 0 Comments

For dates of service beginning July 1, 2020, you must request prior authorization for the following hospital Outpatient Department (OPD) services:

  • Blepharoplasty
  • Botulinum toxin injections (when paired with specific procedure codes)
  • Panniculectomy
  • Rhinoplasty
  • Vein ablation

Medical necessity documentation requirements remain the same and hospital OPDs will receive a decision within 10 days.

While only the hospital OPD service requires prior authorization, CMS wants to remind other providers that perform services in the hospital OPD setting that claims related to/associated with these services will not be paid if the service requiring prior authorization is not eligible for payment. These related services include, but are not limited to, anesthesiology services, physician services, and facility services. Only associated services performed in the hospital OPD setting are affected. Depending on the timing of claim submission for any related services, claims may be automatically denied, reviewed, or denied on a postpayment basis.

For botulinum toxin injections, consult the list of codes that require prior authorization for more details. Generally, the use of botulinum toxin injection codes paired with procedure codes other than 64612 or 64615 will not require prior authorization under this program.

Artificial Intelligence, Clinical Documentation, Clinical Documentation Improvement, Dictation, EHR, EHR, Healthcare, Healthcare Technology, Morning musings from a CEO, Outpatient CDI, Radiology

Saince announces the launch of tele-medicine feature within its clinical documentation solution

Jun 15, 2020 by Raghu Vir 0 Comments

Doc-U-Scribe clinical documentation solution now comes integrated with tele-medicine workflow. Physicians and administrators can create tele-consultation sessions with patients seamlessly from within the application. This process eliminates the need for providers to use separate solutions – one for clinical documentation and another for video session.

The COVID-19 public health crisis has accelerated the use of tele-medicine solutions among healthcare provides across the nation. However, many small hospitals and physician offices do not have access to a single solution that takes care of all their needs. Physicians are forced to use multiple solutions to complete their tele-medicine workflow. They are often finding this process frustrating and cumbersome.

Doc-U-Scribe clinical documentation solution which is used by hundreds of hospitals and physician offices across the country provides an integrated and seamless workflow for clinical documentation as well as tele-medicine.   This new HIPAA compliant tele-medicine solution can cut costs, increase efficiency, and improve physician satisfaction significantly.

Saince announced that this new feature will be available to all their existing customers immediately. Saince also announced that with their plug and play model, any new hospital or physician office can be up and running with their tele-medicine program within 48 hours.

Morning musings from a CEO

Pandemic – Peril and the promise

Jun 15, 2020 by Raghu Vir 0 Comments

The world right now is hurting. And it is hurting really bad. There is a lot of physical, emotional, and economic pain all around. This pain is accentuated with fear. Fear of facing the unknown. Fear of being helpless. Health workers are helplessly watching their patients die in front of their eyes. Children are helplessly watching their parents succumb on FaceTime. The world is now firmly in a grip of fear and gloom.

But behind all this fear and sadness I see hope. I see promise.

I see hope because whenever humanity faced a calamity in the past, either natural or man-made, when it came out on the side, the world became a much better place. For everyone. Each and every event that we faced in the past, be they world wars or natural disasters, brought a lot of pain along with them but after the event they also elevated humanity as a whole.

The Gita, the holy book of Hindus, says that good and bad are two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other. Sort of Yin and Yang of the Chinese philosophy.

This pandemic brought a lot of pain. It pushed a lot of people out of business. More than 40 million Americans lost their jobs. Food lines were unimaginably long.  Everyone is scared. Everyone is hurting in some way or the other. But coming out of all this suffering and pain, I’m seeing an increased feeling of compassion among people. Out of this common suffering I see camaraderie that I never saw before. Unemployment made people look deeper within themselves. The whole climate was emotionally charged.

Then George Floyd died. That triggered an outpouring of emotion. People spontaneously took to the streets, not just in big cities but also in small towns and remote corners. Not only here but all over the world. It united us as a humanity. We felt other person’s pain like we never felt it before. We felt compassionate. We saw the long-standing inequalities in the system. We started on a path to fix it. Events like George Floyd’s death happened before the pandemic too. But the reaction was sporadic. It was temporary. But this time it is different. There is something in the air this time that smells different. We are embarking on a path to make America a better nation than it already is. As a human race, we are starting to feel more united than before.

This time it is different. The scientific community is breaking down borders and collaborating in an unprecedented manner.  They are tearing apart bureaucracies. Putting aside their personal agendas. Working fearlessly and tirelessly towards a common goal for the benefit of humanity. They are realizing the power of cooperation and sharing. Governments are as usual trying to put brakes on this by making it a competitive race. I am hoping that better sense will prevail.

The earth is healing as well. We are now more open to noticing how we have been plundering the natural resources all these years. We have already reached the tipping point in climate change. We were almost at a point of no return. With this pandemic, we hit the pause button. We are seeing palpable change even in this short period when we hit the brakes on our emissions. I am hopeful that as a human race we can continue to let the planet heal.

Families are healing as well. Families are spending time together. They are talking with each other. They are having verbal conversations instead of texting to each other from across the room. They are eating together, playing together, staying together and coming together. When families stay together, communities stay together. When communities heal, nations heal.

Fighting and terrorism across the world has come down quite a bit. In this process a lot of lives has been spared. I hope they use this time to introspect and come together because the virus does not play favorites. When there is a common enemy, everyone comes together.

Hence, I see promise on the other side of this pandemic. To deliver a bundle of joy, the mother goes through a lot of pain.

I am optimistic. I am hopeful. I am human.

Clinical Documentation Improvement, Outpatient CDI

When Pursuing CDI, Using Risk Adjustment Is Vital

Mar 1, 2019 by admin 0 Comments ,

As healthcare has moved away from fee-for-service reimbursement models toward a more value-based system, the idea of using risk adjustment to account for individual patient risk and chronic conditions has become far more important for providers seeking to maximize quality of care.

In today’s healthcare environment, providers are often required to fight simultaneous battles on several fronts. For those pursuing clinical documentation improvement (CDI), they must balance sometimes-conflicting regulatory demands, workflow needs, etc. Further exacerbating the problem is the persistent shift of care provision to the ambulatory setting and the increasing demands it places on provider organizations.

As we have discussed in previous blog posts, outpatient CDI efforts face a number of unique challenges, such as decidedly larger case volumes than most inpatient settings and far shorter clinical visits. These shorter visits produce less usable patient data and offer a condensed window during which multiple team members must work in synchrony—accurately and efficiently—to gather that data. Outpatient providers must also go further, factoring in risk adjustment for each individual in their larger patient populations as well.

Often, problems with risk adjustment appear when inaccurate or incomplete diagnosis coding slips through the documentation workflow. For instance, failure to capture patients’ Hierarchical Condition Categories (HCCs)—and recapture year-over-year—can greatly skew risk scores for individual patients and potentially the overall population. Such mistakes can filter downstream to errors in patient care and increasing claim denials and, potentially, wreak havoc on pay-for-performance reimbursements.

This dynamic puts increased pressure on physicians to capture correct documentation at the point of care—getting it right the first time without a great deal of revision. Many have addressed the issue through Computer Assisted Physician Documentation (CAPD), which provides a number of CDI features. CAPD improves accuracy and lessens physicians’ burdensome workflow by precluding the need to rehash previously captured documentation.

The goal of these products is to allow physicians to complete patient care documentation faster and spend more time with their patients. Unfortunately, many traditional products, which were designed for inpatient settings, lack effective integration of risk adjustment. As a result, many providers are prevented from seeing the most accurate picture of the population they serve—and value-based care programs are not as successful as they could be.

To learn about PowerSpeak+RAPID – a CAPD platform combining powerful front-end medical speech recognition software (PowerSpeak) and Risk Adjusted Physician Documentation (RAPID) – contact Saincesaince inc logo

Medical Transcription

Study: Burnout is a Public Health Crisis, Support and Easing EHR Usability Should Be the Focus

Feb 28, 2019 by admin 0 Comments

Sooner or later, the consequences of physician burnout will hit everyone where it hurts, a new study highlights.

The report from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the Harvard Global Institute, the Massachusetts Medical Society, and the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association examines the many burdens today’s doctors face, often in the absence of adequate support. Further underscoring burnout’s status as an urgent and growing public health crisis, the researchers focus much of their attention on electronic health records (EHRs)—particularly the onerous demands they often create.

Electronic Medical Records

As we’ve previously discussed, the amount of time physicians spend inputting data into EHRs continues to be an issue for hospital leaders, healthcare regulators and, most important, the doctors themselves. Multiple studies released last year pointed to EHRs as the leading cause of burnout, listing strategies—such as dictation and transcription services—for decreasing EHR’s demands on physicians’ time.

Rather than taking a deep dive on specific EHR solutions, the Harvard study seeks to drive home the urgency of the issue. And in acknowledging similar studies, the researchers seek to add their voices to the swelling chorus demanding action.

Among the research they cite is the 2018 Survey of America’s Physicians Practice Patterns and Perspectives conducted by Merritt Hawkins on behalf of the Physicians Foundation, in which an astounding 78 percent of physicians reported feeling burnout at least some of the time. As the researchers note, no stakeholder escapes harm.

Physician burnout impacts patient health and well-being by increasing medical errors and decreasing patient experience scores. Likewise, a separate crisis emerges for hospitals as physicians cut back their hours.

According to the study, “every one-point increase in burnout (on a seven-point scale) is associated with a 30–40 percent increase in the likelihood that physicians will reduce their work hours in the next two years.” Beyond reshuffling the workload, the cost of recruiting and replacing a physician can range from $500,000 to $1 million, according to a 2017 report in JAMA Internal Medicine.

For their part, doctors continue to call for new strategies at every opportunity. As we quoted one surgeon last year, “Develop a better and more user-friendly EHR. It shouldn’t take 20 minutes to do something that dictation takes three minutes.”

For help understanding how a state-of-the-art dictation and transcription platform can deliver proven benefits to physician practices, hospitals, integrated delivery networks (IDNs) and medical transcription services organizations (MTSOs) of all sizes, as well as successfully integrate with leading EHR systems, read about Saince’s Doc-U-Scribe product or contact Saince.saince inc logo

Clinical Documentation Improvement

When Pursuing CDI, Using Risk Adjustment Is Vital

Jan 8, 2019 by admin 0 Comments

As healthcare has moved away from fee-for-service reimbursement models toward a more value-based system, the idea of using risk adjustment to account for individual patient risk and chronic conditions has become far more important for providers seeking to maximize the quality of care.

In today’s healthcare environment, providers are often required to fight simultaneous battles on several fronts. For those pursuing clinical documentation improvement (CDI), they must balance sometimes-conflicting regulatory demands, workflow needs, etc. Further exacerbating the problem is the persistent shift of care provided to the ambulatory setting and the increasing demands it places on provider organizations.

As we have discussed in previous blog posts, outpatient CDI efforts face a number of unique challenges, such as decidedly larger case volumes than most inpatient settings and far shorter clinical visits. These shorter visits produce less usable patient data and offer a condensed window during which multiple team members must work in synchrony—accurately and efficiently—to gather that data. Outpatient providers must also go further, factoring in risk adjustment for each individual in their larger patient populations as well.

Often, problems with risk adjustment appear when inaccurate or incomplete diagnosis coding slips through the documentation workflow. For instance, failure to capture patients’ Hierarchical Condition Categories (HCCs)—and recapture year-over-year—can greatly skew risk scores for individual patients and potentially the overall population. Such mistakes can filter downstream to errors in patient care and increasing claim denials and, potentially, wreak havoc on pay-for-performance reimbursements.

This dynamic puts increased pressure on physicians to capture correct documentation at the point of care—getting it right the first time without a great deal of revision. Many have addressed the issue through Computer-Assisted Physician Documentation (CAPD), which provides a number of CDI features. CAPD improves accuracy and lessens physicians’ burdensome workflow by precluding the need to rehash previously captured documentation.

The goal of these products is to allow physicians to complete patient care documentation faster and spend more time with their patients. Unfortunately, many traditional products, which were designed for inpatient settings, lack effective integration of risk adjustment. As a result, many providers are prevented from seeing the most accurate picture of the population they serve—and value-based care programs are not as successful as they could be.

Power Speak - Speech Recognition and Reporting Software

To learn about PowerSpeak+RAPID—a CAPD solution that combines powerful speech recognition technology (PowerSpeak) with real-time risk adjustment using HCCs (RAPID), please contact Saince.