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 Welcome to this week in Health IT News, where we look at the news which will impact health it. It's Tuesday Newsday. My name is Bill Russell Healthcare, CIO, coach and creator of this week in Health. It a set of podcasts, videos, and collaboration events dedicated to developing the next generation of health leaders.

I wanna thank our channel sponsors and this week's episode sponsors our channel. Sponsors have partnered with this week in health it for a full year of content and other initiatives such as the Slack channel, which we opened up. I appreciate them for sharing the show's passion to develop the next generation of health leaders.

They are VMware star advisors, Galen Healthcare Pro talent advisors in health lyrics. Over the last three weeks, Sirius Healthcare has stepped up to sponsor these shows, uh, that we've been producing. Uh, they wanted to support the industry and highlight the great work of health it during the crisis. I'm extremely grateful for them and their commitment to the show.

Uh, we're gonna be doing field reports over the next, well, you know, until this thing really slows down. And I'm really appreciative. I've gotten a great response from CIOs. Uh, and if you're ACIO and want to do a field report, just drop me a note at Bill at this weekend, health it.com. I'll start dropping those starting probably this afternoon and, and tomorrow, uh, I am, uh, doing 10 minute interviews with some of these health systems just to find out what's going on the ground, what they've done, and we'll probably just keep revisiting them.

Uh, over this time to see how things are progressing and what they're, uh, focused in on and working on. Uh, it seems to be answering the number one question I get from people as I'm talking to them, which is, what are you hearing from other health systems? And I want to capture that and share that with the industry, uh, so that you, uh, have ideas on, on what others are doing.

Okay, now onto the news. I think one of the most exciting things is on the, uh, testing front and, uh, and President Trump talked about this yesterday. Uh, in, in the Rose Garden, and I highlighted it on LinkedIn last week, and that is that there's a new C Ovid 19 test from Abbott Labs, uh, which gives results in about five minutes.

Uh, so, uh, and then the other aspect of it is, uh, you know, you can do it on the spot right at the point of care without requiring a, a round trip to the lab, which is huge. Um, I really thought the most important part of this article is that, uh, the availability of the test, . Is that the ID now hardware from Abbott Labs that this thing runs on?

Um, it holds the largest molecular point of care footprint in the US and is widely available across doctor offices, urgent care clinics and emergency rooms and other medical facilities. Um. You know, the, the, so that's exciting in, in and of itself. Um, the next question I typically get is, how fast are they gonna be able to ramp this up?

And the company said it would launch, uh, some tests this week in select healthcare facilities that deliver urgent care. Uh, they also said that they will supply about 50,000 tests a day starting April 1st, according to John. . FRAs Vice President of Research and Development at Abbott Diagnostics. Um, . So, you know, if you have these devices, probably need to get 'em repositioned, get the cartridges ordered, and, uh, get ready to use them.

I think we will go from this 10 day timeframe, move it down a little bit. Still not gonna be enough tests, but it will, uh, it will be a lot better than what I'm hearing across the board. I'm still hearing seven to 10 days, uh, for a lot of these tests. Uh, except for the systems that have come up with their own tests.

I know that Providence has come up with their own tests. Uh, some of the academic medical centers have come up with their own tests, so you're seeing, uh, you know, different timeframes based on where you go for the testing. Uh, but anyway, this is an extremely promising, uh, step forward, so I wanted to make you aware of that.

Uh, couple things from CMS. So the, the Trump administration makes sweeping regulatory changes to help US healthcare systems. Address c Ovid 19 patient, patient. Surge, uh, cmms.gov so you can hit some of these things. I'm gonna hit the highlights, then I'm gonna talk about telehealth specifically 'cause it's, uh, probably the one that's most relevant to this audience.

So, increase Hospi hospital capacity from one of the, uh, parts of this initiative. And that's, uh, hospitals without walls CMS will allow communities to take advantage of local ambulatory surgery centers and other facilities, uh, that they hadn't been able to. They just have to be approved by the state. Uh, but then they will be able to, uh, utilize those facilities and get reimbursement from there, uh, rapidly expanding healthcare workforce.

Local private practice clinicians and their trained staff may be available for temporary employment since not essential medical and circle Surgical services are postponed during these public health emergency. So you have some offices that have closed down as a result of this. They, they're just not enough volume and, and things aren't there.

Uh, those, uh, clinicians can be redeployed, uh, into other areas. And, uh, they've, they've softened the rules around there to, uh, help health systems redeploy those workers, uh, put patients over paperwork. CMS is temporary, eliminating paperwork requirements and allowing clinicians to spend more time with patients.

Uh, you're gonna want to take a look at this because any opportunity we have to reduce the burden on the clinicians while they're trying to do this work. Uh, is gonna be, uh, is really gonna be huge. So we should, uh, we should look at that. And then, uh, the one that I think is the most important for us, uh, to further promote telehealth in Medicare, uh, building on the prior action.

I'm just gonna read this building on the prior action to expand reimbursement. For telehealth services to Medicare beneficiaries, CMS will now allow for more than 80 additional services to be furnished via telehealth. Uh, during the public health emergencies, individuals can use interactive apps with audio and video capabilities to visit with their clinician.

For an even broader range of services, providers can also evaluate beneficiaries who have audio phones only. Alright, so that's huge. Uh, these temporary changes will ensure that patients have access to physicians and other providers. . While remaining safely at home, uh, this goes on. Uh, well, there's, there's just more good stuff here.

So providers can bill for telehealth visits at the same rate as in-person visits. That's huge. Uh, telehealth visits, including emergency department visits, initial nursing facility. And discharge visits, home visits and therapy services, which must be provided by a clinician that is allowed to provide telehealth now as well as established patients may not, uh, now may stay at home and have a telehealth visit with their provider.

CMS is allowing telehealth to fulfill many face-to-face visit requirements for clinicians to see their patients in inpatient rehab facilities, hospice and home health. Uh, CMS is making it clear that clinicians can provide remote patient monitoring services to patients with acute and chronic conditions, and can be provided for patients with only one disease.

For example, remote patient monitoring can be used to monitor a patient's oxygen saturation levels using a pulse oximeter. Xi, sorry. Pulse's, oximetry. Uh, in addition, CMS is allowing physicians to supervise their clinical staff using virtual technologies when appropriate instead of requiring in-person presence.

Alright, so there's an awful lot of stuff there. You can hit the CMS website, uh, get more detail around it. I know that these things are coming fast and furious, uh, to the health systems. It's hard to keep up. Uh, it's hard to make sure you have the, the right codes and everything that you need to do. Uh, around this, but it's important to, to stay current on it because they're really trying to lighten the load, lighten the burden, uh, around this and provide resources.

So, uh, it's good to keep an eye on that CMS website. Uh, another one from the CMS website. Trump administration engages America's. Hospitals in unprecedented data sharing. Uh, so generally speaking, what they're trying to do here is, uh, they're getting good information from the national labs and other things, but they're not getting enough good information from the health system.

So here's what they're saying. Uh, CMS. Sent a letter to Nations hospitals on behalf of, uh, the Vice President requesting they report data in connection with their efforts to fight the, uh, c Ovid 19. Uh, specifically the Trump administration is requesting that hospitals report COVID 19 testing data. I. To the US Department of Health and Human Services, HHS, in addition to daily reporting regarding bed capacity and supplies to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

CDC, national Health Safety Network, and HSNC Ovid 19. Patient Impact and Hospital capacity, module CMS and the Federal Agency with oversight of America's Medicare. Participating healthcare providers, including hospitals, is helping the Trump administration to attain this critical information to help identify su identify supply and bed capacity needs, as well as to enhance c Ovid 19 surveillance efforts.

Hospitals will report data without, personally, without personal identifying information to ensure patient privacy, and then it goes on to say a couple more things. Again, good to keep an eye on this stuff. And, uh, know that this reporting requirement is coming down. Uh, a lot of you, I know your analytics teams are busy.

I've been talking to some analytics people this week and I'm setting up some additional interviews this week, uh, with some other people around, uh, what health systems are doing around this analytics side. Uh, but this is something that your team is gonna want to get on top of and get in front of. Okay.

Now I picked up, uh, three more stories. I picked these up from Becker's. They're actually from last week. . . Uh, but again, I thought they were in important enough to, to, uh, to highlight. And those are, uh, the US government is preparing for the possibility of an 18 month pandemic as covid 19 cases increased 40% in one day to due to increased, uh, testing.

And, you know, I find these reports to be, it really depends on the news outlet. Uh, this comes from CNN. Uh, also there's some, uh, uh, US News and World Report. Stuff in here. Um, I, I don't share this to say, Hey, this is gonna go on for 18 months. I share this to say it's gonna go on more than two weeks. Uh, or, or when we first we got here, uh, people were saying, well, there's gonna be a surge and it's gonna go away.

Um, it's probably gonna be longer than what, uh, you know, than what we think. I don't know what the dates are. I'm not even projecting what the dates are. The reason I share this on this week in health, it is to prepare your teams for a little longer cycle than . Um, uh, then maybe they had been anticipating and it's important to get people in the right mindset.

Uh, this is, uh, you know, it's not quite a marathon, but it's definitely not a sprint. Uh, it was a sprint to get to this point. We stood up. I mean, the numbers I'm hearing are just unbelievable. I. Uh, you know, 30 times the number of telehealth visits as we had this time last year. Uh, it's incredible the amount of scaling and the amount of work that health it has done, uh, is, is I, I can't wait to capture some of these stories and, uh, begin to really analyze the data of, of what we've been able to accomplish in this short period of time.

Uh, now with that being said. Um, you can't work your teams at this pace for, uh, for too long of a period of time. So, uh, just keep in mind that this might go on three, six months. So, um, pace yourself, take care of your teams. Um, do, do all the things that you need to do. I came across this story and I thought it was really interesting.

This is, uh, manufacturing companies three M and Honeywell will increase their production. Uh, protective masks and will be allowed to sell directly to hospitals. Now, I know that I'm gonna talk about this story and some people are gonna get very upset, uh, that they're the PPE and the, the unavailability of masks.

But I thought it was really fascinating that the story I read about three M to me was really fascinating in that, uh, you know, they have production of masks, I think on three continents, and in each one of the continents they produce masks. They locally source . Uh, all the materials needed for production that showed a lot of foresight on their part, that there was not gonna be this ability to move, um, the raw materials from one area to another for this.

The second thing I thought that was really forward thinking was, uh, inside of their factories, they had almost doubled the capacity, uh, idling. because they looked at how the, the demand for masks has gone up based on wildfires and other things over the years, and they know that it ramps up very rapidly.

And so you see three M being able to increase their capacity significantly, they're gonna be able to support, uh, 420 million masks, uh, over the course of this year. Um, now I know that, uh, oh gosh, uh, mark Cuban took a hit at three m saying they're charging more. Uh, for the masks. And I, you know, quite frankly, uh, at this point, uh, you know, part of the problem with Mark's math is that yeah, if they can source 'em all for China, they're gonna be 95 cent masks if they're gonna source 'em from North and South Dakota, I.

They're not gonna be 95 cent masks because we pay them more. You have to ramp up capacity. The cost per mask is gonna be a little bit higher. Uh, I don't think they're being a bad corporate citizen, that that would be outside of the character of three M in general. Um, I wish they could produce double that amount, but you know, the whole industry has to support it.

Honeywell's gonna increase their capacity to 120 million masks. So you're talking about, uh, you know, 540 million masks, uh, now through the remainder of this year. and, uh, uh, so anyway, the, the market is responding to that. I thought the three M story was interesting to me that they had the foresight to, uh, locally source and to have that much capacity idling and ready to go in case of an emergency.

So I thought I'd share that as well. I, I just, uh, almost from a management lesson to be thinking through things a little bit, uh, more forward. Um. Another story from Becker's. 52% of C Ovid 19 patients are younger than 55. I I, you know, I share this 'cause, I mean this is this week in health. It, I just share these numbers because I think these numbers are interesting.

So, um. I think those numbers are interesting. I, I really want to talk to somebody who's looking at the, at the numbers. I'm gonna interview Dale Sanders, who's been, uh, if you're not following him on LinkedIn, uh, or, uh, yeah, LinkedIn specifically. He's been sharing a lot of, uh, he's just reading perpetually and, uh, sharing some great reports, uh, really doing the work, uh, trying to understand, you know, how we're gonna be able to handle this better in the future.

Uh, I, I love the stuff he's posting. It's, it's, uh, really well thought out. and, uh, and I, and I appreciate his insight, uh, into these things. So, um, let's see. How much time do we have left here? Well, that's about 15 minutes. You know, uh, I'm gonna be sharing these reports there, uh, the field reports. And, uh, you know, what I'm finding is a lot of a, a lot of the organizations are talking about telehealth and are talking about VDI, they're talking about the ability to scale up.

Talking about the ability to stand up these, uh, clinics, we're finding that, uh, everybody's at a different point. I, I've talked to, uh, federally, uh, federal Qualified Healthcare Clinics and they had to wait for the money to show up. It's not like they had a pool of money to, to. To, um, you know, just sitting there ready to move forward.

So they had to, uh, they had to, uh, approach this a little differently. And that's one of the things I wanted to really point out from these field reports is, um, it's gonna depend on your market. It's gonna depend on the surge and how it's happening. It's gonna depend on, uh, your financial situation. How you approach this, uh, and where you're at currently in your digital journey.

Um, you know, how you approach this. Some, some people were able to just to, you know, just turn a couple of knobs and increase their capacity. Others had to be very creative. I. Uh, within financial constraints and very creative within, uh, technology constraints. And I think that, I find that interesting and I think that's important to understand that you can't listen to, uh, a certain health system and say that's what we're gonna do.

Uh, because you know, their market's different, the size of their hospitals are different. Uh, there's just too many variables that are a little different than used than than yours. Uh, now obviously Telehealth, VDI work from home, um, uh, you know, remote, uh, testing facilities. These are all, these have all been pretty common.

Uh, one of the things I will say is I'm hearing a lot about what we've done. And I'm also talking to some health systems that are in pretty effect, uh, in the affected areas. The, uh, you know, places that are starting to surge. And I, what I would say to people right now is we do these things called tabletop exercises in, uh, disaster recovery, where we sort of play this game where, um.

You know, you have somebody come in and they sort of play the dungeon master, if you will, for the disaster, and they just like flip cards and say, okay, your data center power just went out. Uh, the, you know, your generator doesn't work. Yeah. I mean, they just keep flipping cards and say This is what's gonna happen next.

Um, I like that exercise. I think that exercise is probably, if you have any spare cycles right now, I would play that exercise. Uh, there's a lot of health systems right now that are in the, um, we sprinted, we're in the, we're prepared, but we're waiting for the surge. Start playing that exercise. Say, what if our surge gets to this point, what if it gets to this point?

What if we need to, you know, what are the, the, what's the next group of things that the health system is gonna ask health it for? I think there's an awful lot around analytics. Uh, there's a, I mean, I think we did a lot of EHR work. I think we did a lot of . Uh, you know, capacity work and those kind of things.

Uh, think about telehealth into the rooms. Um, you know, start limiting the amount of contact that, uh, your, uh, clinicians are having with the patients. If you can do that to, uh, create safety. Um, I dunno. I mean, just keep playing that game of, you know, what's next. If it's surges in your market, you know, how do you, uh,

How do you get information across the, the entire market? Have you built the, uh, the network of relationships across the other health systems? Um, do you have a way of sharing, uh, supplies and supply shortages across the, uh, market that you serve across the, uh, region that you serve, across the state that you serve?

Uh, so that potentially there are ways to move resources around. Uh, outside of your specific health system? Uh, I don't know. I, I just, I, I like the tabletop exercise 'cause it causes you to be creative. Bring people in a room, bring or in a room, don't bring 'em in a room. , uh, bring 'em on to a, a zoom meeting and start talking about, okay guys, what, okay, people in this room, uh, you know, what do you think is gonna be next for it?

And start playing out some scenarios. Um, and, and just, just see where it takes you. That would be my encouragement right now if, uh, I am coaching CIOs and it's, and one of the things I started talking to 'em about this week, if they have some cycles and some of 'em have some cycles, it hasn't surged yet in their markets, uh, they are, uh, well prepared.

They're doing a lot of great work. And, uh, you know, now's the time to, to be thinking about, uh, what happens, uh, in certain, uh, cases and scenarios. All right, well, that's all for this week. Special thanks to our sponsors once again, VMware Starbridge Advisors, Galen Healthcare, healthly, and Pro Talent Advisors for choosing to invest in developing the next generation of health leaders.

This shows a production of this week in Health It. For more great content, check out the website this week, health.com or the YouTube channel. We're now up over, I think, 300 some odd, uh, subscribers to the YouTube channel, which we . Uh, really just started promoting this year, so I'm excited about that growth.

Uh, if you wanna support the show, the best way to do that is to share it with a peer. Uh, we, I believe we are the fastest growing health IT podcast in the space. Uh, and that is due to you guys sharing it with your peers, you guys promoting our content on social media. And I really wanna thank you for that.

Uh, we're gonna be back again with the, uh, field reports through the end of the week. I have a couple of great interviews coming up as well. Uh, we're just gonna keep dropping episodes until, uh, until it seems like I shouldn't be dropping an episode every day. And, uh, I don't, I can't tell you when that's gonna be.

So I'm in the same boat that you guys are in. Uh, we will, uh, we'll play this day to day. And see what, uh, see what tomorrow brings. Uh, thanks for listening and thank you for all that you're doing out there in the field. That's all for now.