healthcare technology

It might not be long before algorithms routinely save lives—as long as doctors are willing to put ever more trust in machines.

An algorithm that spots heart arrhythmia shows how AI will revolutionize medicine—but patients must trust machines with their lives.

A team of researchers at Stanford University, led by Andrew Ng, a prominent AI researcher and an adjunct professor there, has shown that a machine-learning model can identify heart arrhythmias from an electrocardiogram (ECG) better than an expert.

The automated approach could prove important to everyday medical treatment by making the diagnosis of potentially deadly heartbeat irregularities more reliable. It could also make quality care more readily available in areas where resources are scarce.

The work is also just the latest sign of how machine learning seems likely to revolutionize medicine. In recent years, researchers have shown that machine-learning techniques can be used to spot all sorts of ailments, including, for example, breast cancer, skin cancer, and eye disease from medical images.

more at : https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608234/the-machines-are-getting-ready-to-play-doctor/

The EHR interoperability challenge is what stands between a physician's ability to look up, extract, and track a patient's medical activities and records at medical sites other than their own. This could be at a laboratory where a patient's specialty blood work is being analyzed or they're having surgery on an inpatient or outpatient basis.

When it comes to tracking these patients, it's literally as they move about in the sphere of the healthcare world. The interoperability challenge occurs because you need your EHR to talk to systems outside your practice.

Solving this challenge means maintaining continuity of care for patients, minimizing or eliminating the duplicity of services, and helping physicians share patient information so they can gain insight from specialists that would complement their diagnoses.

Many EHR companies aren't willing to share access to their systems unless a physician is part of their overall user base. If you work in a particular hospital or practice that has their product, these particular companies will share information with physicians. The problem is they won't work with peripheral players, or physicians who are unaffiliated with the hospital or practice where their EHR is installed.

Why is it in the hospital's interest to provide access to patients via their EHR?

Sharing access to patients via the hospital's EHR creates a win-win situation where the hospital can keep the patient in their system.

these are excerpts from an interview David Wasserman, an advisor with the practice solutions and medical economics group at the Massachusetts Medical Society.

read more at the original  http://www.diagnosticimaging.com/ehr/solving-ehr-interoperability-challenge