VA Connection

Did some initial consultation with the VA, seems to be having some problems.

Hidden Costs, Flawed Training Plague the V.A.'s Huge Software Upgrade

By The New York Times

The Department of Veterans Affairs is in the process of overhauling the country's oldest electronic health record system at the country's largest hospital network. Even if it goes smoothly, planners have repeatedly warned, it will be an extremely complicated task that will take 10 years and cost more than $16 billion.

And so far, it is going anything but smoothly.

The new health record software is supposed to increase efficiency and speed up care in the beleaguered veterans' health system, which serves more than nine million veterans. But when the department put it into use for the first time in October at a V.A. medical center in Washington State, it did the opposite.

The department's inspector general issued two scathing reports on the rollout this week. One found that the company that was awarded a no-bid contract by the Trump administration to do the overhaul underestimated costs by billions. The other report said the training program for hospital staff that the company created was so flawed and confusing that many employees considered it "an utter waste of time."

5G Telemedicine and the Military

Brought to my attention by Walter Riker.  Will ask for more comment from the VA, sure it is being looked at. 

Telemedicine with 5G could be a gamechanger for military health

FederalNewsNetwork, July 22, 2021

Telehealth became an even bigger industry during COVID-19. Doctors were forces to think of creative ways to see patients as people were forced to stay home to avoid the spread of the virus.

However, as 5G is starting to roll out, telehealth may be breaking into a completely new plane. At Joint Base San Antonio (JBSA) the Air Force is testing capabilities that could be the future of medicine.

“5G brings a whole new paradigm and architecture to the table. From what we’ve seen before even up through the current 5G  non-standalone that you see advertised on TV today,” Jody Little, executive program manager for 5G NextGen at JBSA, said during a Federal Insights discussion sponsored by Verizon. “Now you can bring large amounts of data forward or back to it and operate in the forward edge. You can virtualize these applications and get very ultra-low latency. And now you’re supporting lots of sensors. Whereas in, say, 4g, you could support maybe 100. Here, you can support 1000s.”  ... ' 

Detecting Likelihood of Suicide

Have consulted and spoke at the Veterans Administration.  Here is another pattern recognition type problem of interest.  

Can an Algorithm Prevent Suicide?

The New York Times, Benedict Carey

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is using machine learning algorithms to help identify veterans at risk of suicide. The VA's Reach Vet algorithm is the first such program used in daily clinical practice, and is designed to generate a new list of high-risk veterans every month. When someone is flagged at risk, their name appears on the computer dashboard of the local clinic's Reach Vet coordinator, who contacts them to set up a meeting. The algorithm is based on analysis of thousands of veteran suicides; it considers numerous factors in veteran medical records to focus on those with the strongest cumulative association with suicide risk. Initial results indicate that over six months, high-risk veterans more than doubled their use of VA services—and had a lower mortality rate—with Reach Net installed, compared to a control group. ... 

By 2020, 1 in 5 Healthcare Orgs will Adopt Blockchain

Quite a strong prediction, which they claim gets back to the drive of having only one, verified version of the truth.  Also the natural need for a completely connected health IOT needing new kinds of security.   Makes a point of the broader idea of 'Smart Contracts' as well. 

By 2020, 1-in-5 healthcare orgs will adopt blockchain; here’s why
Blockchain lets the healthcare industry exchange data in a standard format, automate complex processes and apply AI against large silos of medical data. It might even allow patients to sell their data for rewards.
               
 By Lucas Mearian in Computerworld

While the financial services and shipping industries have been quick to deploy blockchain, the healthcare industry could soon follow their lead as it looks to increase efficiency and security, reduce costs and expand services with the distributed ledger technology.

In essence, blockchain could help reshape healthcare interoperability by serving as a next-generation middleware that couples health data with decentralized, distributed, and immutable qualities, according to a new report by IDC Health Insights.

As a result, by 2020, 20% of healthcare organizations will have moved beyond pilot projects and be "using blockchain for operations management and patient identity," the report said.

Blockchain's interoperability could underpin data exchange, serving as an alternative to today's health information exchanges (HIEs); essentially, it would act as a mesh network for transmitting secure, near real-time patient data for healthcare providers, pharmacies, insurance payers and clinical researchers, according to IDC..... "