New Tech Offers Possible Benefits — Like Predicting Who Will Get Sick — But Also Poses Risks
Independence Blue Cross, a Philadelphia-based insurance firm, is trying to identify discharged hospital patients likely to be readmitted to the hospital using an algorithm that examines records like billing claims, labs, medications, height, weight and family history. But the practice raises some privacy concerns. In other news, NPR reports on the level of confidentiality for online health searches. And a security researcher warns that drug pumps are at risk to be hacked.
Kaiser Health News:
Insurer Uses Patients’ Personal Data To Predict Who Will Get Sick
And this point in patients’ recovery — when they’ve been discharged and have to sink or swim on their own — is the stage that everyone in the health system is paying special attention to right now. For too long, too many people like John Iovine would take a dive at this stage and end up back in the hospital again. The industry calls these returns to the hospital preventable readmissions, and they are a huge drain on finances, costing Medicare alone $15 billion annually. That’s why Medicare launched an initiative a few years ago that penalizes hospitals that see too many patients readmitted too soon. And in turn, that spurred many hospitals to pay more attention to the problem. (Bookman, 6/8)
NPR:
Online Health Searches Aren't Always Confidential
In the privacy of a doctor's office, a patient can ask any question and have it be covered under doctor-patient confidentiality. But what happens when patients want to search possible symptoms of a disease or ailment online? It's common to search for treatments for a migraine or stomach pain on WebMD, or a flu strain on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. But there's no way to know who else may be privy to that search information. So where does that data go when a patient presses enter? (6/8)
The Hill:
Researcher Warns Drug Pumps Could Be Hacked To Give Fatal Dose
A researcher says a line of IV drug pumps can be remotely hacked to deliver an incorrect, and possibly fatal, dosage of drugs to patients. Security researcher Billy Rios told Wired that a range of pumps from manufacturer Hospira, including one line that the company stopped selling in 2013, include a flaw that allows someone to alter the device’s software to change the dosage. (McCabe, 6/8)
