DIGITAL HEALTH BRIEFING: Top announcements from HIMSS 2018 - Novartis looks into virtual drug trials - Value-based care could hurt small hospitals

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EHR, CLOUD, TELEHEALTH, CYBERSECURITY TAKE CENTER STAGE AT HIMSS 2018: Industry experts converged to discuss ways to implement technology that would help facilitate health data interoperability and accessibility for consumers, payers, and providers during the HIMSS2018 conference in Las Vegas last week. Here's a look at the key takeaways:

• The US government is in on EHRs. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma announced several new initiatives for interoperability with the aim of developing a free-flowing healthcare ecosystem. For instance, the CMS unveiled MyHealthEData during the conference, which ensures that patients receive a copy of their entire health record electronically.
• Organizations are turning to the cloud to ease data collection and sharing. One of the biggest announcements during the event was Google's Cloud Healthcare API, which makes it easier for Google Cloud clients to collect, move, and access EHRs. Google's not alone in its call to leverage the cloud for interoperability, joining a slew of companies, including Cerner and Epic, that recently made similar cloud announcements.
• Telehealth has hit the mainstream. With nearly all providers either already or planning to offer telehealth 2018, the service is ready for mass market. Nevertheless, adoption is still lagging both from consumers and physicians. Much of this comes down to educating these two parties on what telehealth is and can do, Palmetto Health telehealth manager Amelia Bischoff told Healthcare Dive.
• Cybersecurity is top-of-mind for healthcare IT leaders. Cybersecurity has moved up a level in importance since 2017 to become the second highest priority for healthcare IT leaders, according to the HIMSS Leadership survey. The healthcare industry is one of the most threatened by cyberattacks. Just last week, a New York hospital suffered the biggest cyberattack since 2016. As health data continues to move online, protecting this data from malicious players and internal threats has become paramount.

Meanwhile, emerging technology including AI, blockchain, robotics, voice assistants, and virtual reality held a consistent presence throughout the week. These technologies' ability to revolutionize and solve pain points in the healthcare market has piqued a lot of interest from industry leaders. Blockchain, for instance, is being investigated as a way to increase transparency around patient data and EHRs, facilitate intercontinental data transfers, and improve the security of patient data. However, for the time being, most of the emerging technology presented at the conference will require further development before it's ready for mass market.

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NOVARTIS PARTNERS WITH SCIENCE 37 TO DEVELOP 'VIRTUAL TRIALS': Swiss drugmaker Novartis announced plans to work with virtual clinical trial company Science 37 to develop "remote trial" technology that uses video conferencing to lower the barrier of entry for recruiting study participants, according to Reuters. Just 2% of the eligible US population joins studies due to access hurdles, according to estimates cited by Novartis. Novartis and Science 37 are slated to launch up to 10 trials, which will become increasingly decentralized over three years, eventually scaling to a "site-less model, Science 37 noted. Novartis already has several virtual trials in place for cluster headaches, acne, and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, according to FierceBiotech. Meanwhile, Science 37, which is backed by Sanofi, Google, Novartis, and Amgen, has already worked with several pharmaceutical companies. The news comes amid industry concerns that poor results from R&D aren't warranting the large investments. This is just the latest instance of how telemedicine and telehealth solutions can help circumvent traditional healthcare models to lower costs and bolster participation.

THE MOVE TO VALUE-BASED CARE COULD LEAVE OUT SMALLER HOSPITALS: Smaller hospitals and independent providers may be at a disadvantage as the healthcare industry forges ahead with value-based care, according to a research letter published in JAMA. The report looked at how things like an organization's patient volume, quality, and spending impacted its ability to achieve savings in the first year of the Comprehensive Care for Join Replacement program. The CJR program bundles payment for inpatient and 90-day post-discharge care for knee and hip surgery patients, rewarding hospitals that surpass quality and cost benchmarks. On average, hospitals that achieved savings with the bundled model were larger with an average of 301 beds compared to 230 for hospitals that did not achieve savings, and had higher patient volumes. Value-based care is an emerging payment model that focuses on measuring a patient's health outcome against the cost of delivering the outcome. That differs from fee-for-service - the predominant system - that charges for the number of services delivered to the patient, such as lab tests, MRIs, and clinical visits. Since value-based care is based on positive health outcomes rather than the medical services provided, it's often more appealing to consumers. However, this can also make it difficult to measure from a business standpoint. Reports, such as this one, are aiming to figure out where the pain points are for the eventual industry shift to value-based care.

AETNA SUNSETS ITRIAGE APP TO MAKE WAY FOR NEW AETNA HUB: US health insurer Aetna has sunset its iTriage symptom checker app to make way for its new "Aetna Health" app, according to MobiHealthNews. Aetna Health, which is available to some Aetna members now, is a consolidation of a slew of features pulled into a centralized hub, and will allow users to do things like review claims, see in-network cost estimates, track progress toward their deductible, review HSA, FSA, and HRA balances, and search for medical care. Aetna acquired iTriage in late 2011 and the app survived multiple shutdowns of other ancillary Aetna apps such as, InvolveCare and Carepass. Aetna's focus on its mobile health (mHealth) app solution comes as the mHealth market prepares to take off. The global mHealth solutions market is projected to grow at an annualized rate of 34% through 2022, to reach $90.5 billion, up from $21.2 billion in 2017, according to MarketsandMarkets.

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