Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Good And Bad Of Tech: Data Can Really Improve Care But Electronic Records? That Seems To Be A Different Story
From pathology labs to intensive care units, artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly direct role in the diagnosis and treatment of patients, according to medical specialists who gathered here this week for a meeting on the widening array of uses for data and analytics in medicine. Academy Health鈥檚 Datapalooza conference, an annual rallying cry for the use of data to improve care, is typically a place where government leaders and digital technology experts discuss wonky policy changes that could help liberate patient information walled off by an array of health organizations. (Ross, 3/29)
Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), seeking to re-energize its cancer pipeline, is turning to an artificial intelligence startup for help, inking a deal to use the firm鈥檚 analytical tools and 鈥渞eal-world鈥 patient data to better target and accelerate clinical trials. The deal with Concerto HealthAI, a Boston-based firm backed by the $1 billion SymphonyAI fund, is an effort to infuse real-world evidence from medical practices across the U.S. into Bristol鈥檚 research. Concerto uses data from CancerLinQ, a national repository of information on cancer patients, to search for patterns that may inform drug development. (Ross, 3/28)
Electronic medical records 鈥 from a variety of vendors, not just Epic 鈥 are the bane of many doctors' existence. Amid its jokes, the parody site also shared serious, real-life findings that dealing with electronic records takes up about half of a primary care doctor's day, and that a 10-hour shift in an Emergency Department can require up to 4,000 clicks. (Goldberg, 3/29)