• Healthgrades Study Finds Patient Confidence is at Highest Levels Since March

    Jul 1, 2020

    New Data Released from COVID-19 Patient Confidence Study Reinforces Growth of Telehealth Across Nation and Shows that Consumers are More Likely to Choose a Doctor Who Offers Telehealth Services

    (July 1, 2020) – Healthgrades, the leading resource that connects consumers, physicians and health systems, today released the latest data from the COVID-19 Patient Confidence Study, a weekly measure of consumer attitudes and behaviors towards healthcare, in partnership with Infosurv. Since last reported in late May, updated data shows that overall confidence towards visiting the doctor is continuing to increase. Additional findings show that:

    • 83% of consumers are not delaying treatment for their condition, an increase in 11%.
    • 69% of consumers feel comfortable starting a new treatment within the next two months, the highest it has been for the study.
    • 60% of consumers feel comfortable visiting their primary care physician tomorrow for a check-up and 63% feel comfortable visiting a specialist tomorrow, an increase in 5% and 15% respectively.

    “Patient confidence in our healthcare system is critical so patients know that they can safely access care and do not delay important appointments and procedures,” said Brad Bowman, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Healthgrades. “Our latest findings reiterate an increasing level of confidence which is an important factor in a patient’s decision to seek treatment for their conditions and stay healthy.”

    The latest COVID-19 Patient Consumer Study data through June 12th is available to download here.

    Consumer Behavior is Shifting: New Findings Reinforce Use of Telehealth Services

    Since the onset of COVID-19, the overwhelming majority of Americans are now comfortable using telehealth services, even as consumers have returned to their doctor’s office. Findings show: 

    • At least 83% of consumers agree that telehealth can replace some or all of their in-person appointments and are open to interacting with their healthcare provider virtually.
    • 34% of consumers have participated in telehealth in the past three months.

    Patient online behavior supports these findings. Currently, there are over 432,000 providers listed on Healthgrades.com that offer telehealth services. Healthgrades.com data shows that consumers are 36% more likely to call a physician who offers telehealth over a physician that does not offer virtual care.

    Adoption of telehealth across the U.S. varies, with consumers showing slightly different sentiment depending upon their age and region when it comes to the use of the technology:

    • Consumers in the West and Northeast region were the most likely to use telehealth services, at 29% and 28% respectively.
    • Consumers in the Southwest region are the least likely – at 23% – to use telehealth services.
    • Consumers age 45 and over are more likely to say they are comfortable with telehealth (82% vs. 78%) but are less interested in using it after the COVID-19 pandemic compared to under 45-year olds. 12% of consumers 45+ say they will do less compared to 7% under 45.

    “The entire healthcare community is creating a new paradigm for delivering care safely and effectively and telehealth is central to this strategy,” said Brad Graner, General Manager, Marketplace, Healthgrades. “As telehealth is quickly becoming an important way to deliver healthcare, Healthgrades will continue to make meaningful connections between doctors and patients, both online and in the doctor’s office.”

    Consumers can now visit Healthgrades.com and search providers who offer virtual visits in a variety of specialties. Virtual visits can also be scheduled with a provider through Healthgrades.com Online Appointment Scheduling feature. Learn more at www.healthgrades.com.

    About Healthgrades:

    Healthgrades is dedicated to empowering stronger and more meaningful connections between patients and their healthcare providers. At Healthgrades, we help millions of consumers each month find and schedule appointments with their provider of choice. With our scheduling solutions and advanced analytics applications, we help our health system and life sciences clients cultivate new patient relationships, improve patient access, and build customer loyalty. At Healthgrades, better health gets a head start.

    About Infosurv:

    Infosurv Research (www.infosurv.com) is a boutique research agency based in Atlanta, GA. The company helps clients to design, develop, and deploy strategic research programs that drive insights and growth. With a fierce dedication to understanding and optimizing the customer experience, Infosurv offers tools are services that enable a 360-degree view of your customers through direct feedback, employee engagement, and custom market research. 

    Posted 7.2.2020

  • CI Security Announces Strategic Partnerships to Integrate Medical IoT Device Visibility and Intelligence with MDR

    Managed Detection and Response Provider to Deliver Comprehensive Solution for Organizations to Manage Security Risks for Connected Medical Devices

    SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–CI Security®, a leading provider of Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services for healthcare organizations and critical infrastructure, announced today a set of unique partnership integrations with leading Internet of Things (IoT) and Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) security vendors Ordr, Medigate, and Cylera, combining device security and visibility with 24×7 Critical Insight MDR.

    “With our existing expertise amplified by our new IoT/IoMT security partnerships with Ordr, Medigate, and Cylera, we can significantly reduce the operational burdens placed on healthcare organizations and their security teams.” – CEO Garrett Silver

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    Connected medical devices (IoT/IoMT) create a unique challenge for healthcare organizations. In hospitals, security risks can translate into patient risks, and while IT security teams are increasingly focused on addressing these risks, they often lack visibility into the security posture of IoMT environments. Asset inventory can also be outdated and inaccurate due to a reliance on manual processes. While biomed and clinical engineering teams are increasingly collaborating with IT security teams, IoMT is notoriously difficult to manage. Vulnerability management is especially difficult, as medical devices cannot typically be scanned by standard vulnerability management solutions, as active scans have the potential to disrupt the performance of a connected medical device. Thus, lists of known vulnerabilities are not well maintained, especially if the asset inventory is incomplete. Even when vulnerabilities are known, many medical devices run outdated or unsupported operating systems, such that the manufacturer may not support patching of the operating systems.

    The combination of device management solutions and MDR can provide holistic risk reduction.

    Solutions like Ordr, Medigate, and Cylera passively ingest data from networks to identify IoT and IoMT, creating an accurate and detailed inventory. From that inventory, vulnerabilities and key risks can be identified so that they can be managed. These tools provide critical information to IT teams so that they can manage security risks.

    By combining these tools with CI Security’s Critical Insight MDR solution, CI’s expert security analysts can provide 24×7 monitoring of the IoT and IoMT environments. The threat detection capabilities provided by the Critical Insight MDR platform, coupled with additional alerts and capabilities from the IoT and IoMT device security solutions, allow CI to identify anomalies and signs of potential threat activity. Because CI’s security analysts perform full and thorough investigations, they can alleviate the alert fatigue felt by IT Security personnel from the many systems that produce alerts. CI will escalate incidents only in situations when a real threat is present, and CI’s security analysts will provide critical response support. CI can also augment its response guidance with information from the detailed device inventory provided by the device management solution.

    For organizations that require a fully scoped security assessment, CI Security’s professional services organization can further perform Biomedical Risk Assessments or IoT Risk Assessments to organizations through these partnerships, helping fulfill critical regulatory or risk management needs.

    “Now, organizations can benefit from the robust Critical Insight Managed Detection and Response offering coupled with deep visibility into their IoT/IoMT devices. Because CI absorbs the work of 24×7 monitoring, busy healthcare IT teams can focus on the transformative projects that are enabled by the device management solutions, knowing that acute security issues will be escalated to them from CI’s security analysts should they occur,” said Garrett Silver, CEO of CI Security. “CI Security continues to be a leader in MDR for healthcare. With our existing expertise amplified by our new IoT/IoMT security partnerships, we can significantly reduce the operational burdens placed on healthcare organizations and their security teams, freeing capacity so they can work on the urgent projects and innovations that support patients and their families.”

    “From my work in hospitals, I’ve seen firsthand how life-saving devices get added to the network and create security challenges,” said Drex DeFord, former CIO at Seattle Children’s Hospital and CI Security executive strategist. “These new partnerships address this problem and allow security teams to get a real handle on the IoT/IoMT devices on their networks.”

    To learn more about Critical Insight Managed Detection and Response, please visit: https://ci.security/solutions/managed-detection-response

    To get Managing IoT Risks: a How-To Guide, please visit: https://research.ci.security/2019-medical-iot-webinar

    To see why IoT users need an added layer of IT security, please visit: https://research.ci.security/content/u/mdr-for-iot-devices

    About CI Security

    CI Security provides Managed Detection Response services, combining purpose-built technology with expert security analysts to perform full-cycle threat detection, investigation, response, and recovery. CI Security is focused on defending critical systems in healthcare organizations and in the public sector. CI Security helps customers gain Critical Insight into their security posture through the MDR platform and Information Security consulting services. Find out more at https://ci.security.

    Contacts

    Jake Milstein
    CI Security
    206-347-0588
    [email protected]

     
    Posted 7.2.2020

  • Forward Advantage’s Communication Director Now Offers Cloud Fax

    Fresno, CA (July 1, 2020) – Forward Advantage announced today the introduction of the CloudFax Connector – optional cloud-based fax transmissions for Communication Director’s information exchange platform. Developed as an API integration between Communication Director and Concord Technologies, a leading cloud fax service provider, the CloudFax Connector provides high reliability plus the added benefit of on-demand scalability without the need to purchase additional static capacity – allowing quick adaption to changing business needs. 

    Communication Director provides intelligent, automated and on-demand report distribution. This leading, server-based platform is widely known for its ability to work with EMRs, clinical systems and other applications in the healthcare setting. While traditional fax continues to meet most of a hospital’s faxing needs, Forward Advantage uncovered a customer need for higher reliability and on-demand scalability to handle peak faxing volume. The CloudFax Connector adds this reliability and scalability to Communication Director, making it a powerful, highly flexible solution that can be customized to accommodate the right delivery methods for users and their recipients. 

    “Healthcare has an unprecedented need for fast, secure access to critical information,” said Chris Roggenstein, president and CEO of Forward Advantage. “Ensuring that the right information is delivered to the right place at the right time is the central focus of our business, and we continuously evaluate new offerings that drive this initiative. Created based on conversations with customers, the CloudFax Connector provides the added flexibility and reliability that our healthcare customers need right now.”

    Benefits of Communication Director with the new CloudFax Connector include:

    • True virtual fax delivery with no need for a digital gateway or fax board
    • Ability to meet changing business needs with:
      • On-demand scalability
      • Flexible option of using cloud and/or FoIP
    • Increased recipient satisfaction from more reliable deliveries

    -MORE-

    “Concord Cloud Fax enables independent software developers to embed technology in their applications so healthcare providers can securely and reliably exchange patient documentation in the cloud and take a strong step towards digitizing document-driven clinical and administrative workflows,” said John Harrison, Chief Commercial Officer at Concord Technologies. “We deeply value this relationship with Forward Advantage and the Communication Director platform. The combined solution will provide healthcare organizations a highly scalable and reliable solution that makes a very real impact on reducing the administrative burden of document handling.”

    Please visit https://www.forwardadvantage.com/cds-4-platform/ or call 877.636.7927 for more information on this exciting new offering.

    About Forward Advantage

    Since 1993, Forward Advantage has provided innovative and cost-effective solutions for healthcare organizations. With more than 1200 customers, the company uses its deep expertise to address a wide range of healthcare challenges by listening to its customers and collaborating with them on solutions that improve the healthcare experience with better access to information. Examples include automated and intelligent report distribution, streamlined identity and access management, migrating and archiving legacy data, secure messaging, and interoperability solutions connecting hospitals and physicians. More information on Forward Advantage and its solutions can be found at www.forwardadvantage.com.

    About Concord Technologies

    Concord Technologies helps organizations in healthcare and other highly regulated industries automate their manual and document-intensive processes. Concord’s cloud fax service is the dominant, cloud fax solution in healthcare in the U.S. and is responsible for the delivery of more than a billion healthcare documents each year. Concord is headquartered in Seattle, Washington and employs more than a 100 people in the USA and India. www.concord.net. 

     

    Media Contact:

    Audrey Brislin                             

    Forward Advantage

    Phone: 877.636.7927

    [email protected]

     

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    Posted 7.2.2020
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