Source: Rite Aid

Here's The Latest in Health Care:

•  CMS has rolled out a new pilot program to give clinicians access to claims data for their Medicare patients. The “Data at the Point of Care” pilot, along with Blue Button 2.0, are part of the agency's MyHealthEData initiative, an interoperability effort that aims to give patients more control over their health data. CMS launched Blue Button 2.0 last year to allow beneficiaries to connect their Medicare health information to third-party apps and computer programs via an application programming interface. The goal is to overcome silos in the healthcare system, allowing clinicians to view a more complete medical history for patients before making decisions about their care.  Read More

•  The drugstore chain Rite Aid is adding telehealth to its in-store health care services. In partnership with InTouch Health, Rite Aid will begin offering a virtual service that connects customers with clinicians via its RediClinic Express kiosks located in retail stores. The RediClinic Express kiosks deliver a virtual health assessment with integrated medical devices and point-of-care testing. Patients will be able to speak with RediClinic clinicians in real-time via a secure, high-definition video connection.  Read More

•  Many IT and security professionals have historically had reservations about keeping mission-critical data, especially protected health information (PHI), in the public cloud. In recent years, technological and operational developments have reduced or eliminated any of those major concerns. CIOs, CISOs and other leaders are now much more comfortable about the cloud, to the point where the cloud is now used as a major or even primary means of data hosting. New security tools in health care have evolved to the point that a shift in this perspective is achievable.  Read More

•  Doctors in the U.S. treated a patient with a genetic disorder using the powerful gene-editing technique CRISPR, the first treatment of its kind. The patient is being treated for sickle cell disease, which affects millions of people around the world, and this course of treatment is a major landmark. In the study, doctors are using cells taken from patients' own bone marrow that have been genetically modified with CRISPR to produce a protein usually only made by fetuses and babies for a short time following birth. Doctors hope the protein will compensate for the defect that causes sickle cell disease and will enable patients to live normally for the rest of their lives. While it may take months, if not years, of careful monitoring before the treatment is determined to be safe and effective, this is a huge step forward.  Read More

Each Friday, Signor Goat reports the latest from the week in health care. Check back next Friday for your dose of our little medical corner of health care news. Brought to you by pMD, innovators in charge capture, secure messaging, clinical communication, MIPS registry, and care navigation software.

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