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EMR
-replacement for the paper chart
-accessible by a single practice
-not designed to be shared

EHR
-designed to be shared with other healthcare providers
-intended to provide better continuity of care
-significant in meaningful use
-"the next GEN EMR"
-patients can interact
-providers can enter orders

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bboJpjwGifs

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"Access to your electronic medical record can save your life".
I've worked in several medical facilities and I am still baffled by the idea that the patient does not "own" their medical record and thus must jump through hoops in order to get access to it. I've often been asked by patients for a print out of the record only to reply that they would have to go through med records. I the back of my mind I knew that the pages I had right in front of me and could easily print out, would have to be requested, processed and would ultimately end up with patient days if not weeks after. This is a sad state of reality for patients everywhere; like Regina and her husband. We really need to do better by our patients.

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Electronic Health Records (EHRs) Can Save Lives- Regina Holiday's Story

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Inside a movement to revolutionize health informatics education

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An Initiative for Technology and Health Informatics Education

The Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform (TIGER) initiative from HIMSS provides the global health workforce with innovative informatics/eHealth tools and resources to transform health for all.

The global TIGER network collaborates to integrate informatics/eHealth into healthcare education, certification, practice and research through an inclusive, interdisciplinary, intergenerational approach.

Education Reform

We create an environment that maximizes the possibilities of technology toward knowledge development and dissemination, driving rapid implementation of best practices as well as competency and curriculum development.

Interprofessional Community Development and Growth

We actively engage and collaborate with the global healthcare workforce, students and adult learners to encourage standardized, person-centered and technology-enabled processes to facilitate teamwork and relationships across the continuum of care worldwide.

Global Workforce Development

We foster a respectful learning community of diverse stakeholders that embrace shared values to drive innovation and technology around the world.

Global Recommendations

While informatics recommendations on competencies and education support the design of curricula and courses, they are unable to inform educators on how to customize content for local needs and requirements. That's why the TIGER International Competency Synthesis Project (ICSP) and the EU*US eHealth Work Project came together to describe and validate the TIGER initiative's framework of global informatics core competencies for health professionals.

Together, these projects compiled a recommendation framework of health informatics competencies (v2.0) to measure, inform, educate and advance development of a skilled workforce throughout the EU and U.S. and around the world. Although the EU*US eHealth Work Project has ended, we are compiling global case studies to continue bringing our findings to life, with a focus on all states within the EU.
Hear TIGER International Task Force Former Co-Chairs Ursula Hübner, PhD, professor, University of Applied Sciences Osnabrück, Germany, and Beth L. Elias, PhD, MS, FHIMSS, adjunct faculty, Panuska College of Professional Studies, University of Scranton, present these important project findings at the HIMSS19 Global Health Conference.
TIGER International Task Force

The TIGER International Task Force, seated under the HIMSS Professional Development Committee, provides our global community of 34 countries with knowledge, leadership and guidance in its efforts to reform technology and informatics education. It provides domain expertise through activities, projects and collaborations within the interprofessional community to support faculty, students, adult learners and providers.

TIGER Resources

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The Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform (TIGER) initiative offers tools and resources for learners to advance their technology and health informatics skills and for educators to develop valuable curricula.

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In the early days of the movement when the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT's health IT summit did not include nursing groups, leaders in the profession responded by establishing a coalition and strategic vision around health IT adoption.

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TIGER Initiative Foundation: History & Purpose - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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The TIGER (Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform) initiative was created to reform the field of health informatics. Look into the history…

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How Big Data Could Transform The Health Care Industry

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https://nursing-informatics.com/blog/informatics-trends-to-watch-in-2020/

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Technology and informatics-related processes and activities continue to evolve with each passing year. As we finish 2019 and move into 2020, a few trends in this evolution come to mind - ones that could serve healthcare and nursing well. Here are my predicted top trends for 2020.

SOURCE: Kaminski, J. (2019). Informatics Trends to watch in 2020. CJNI: Canadian Journal of Nursing Informatics, 14(4). Retrieved from http://cjni.net/journal/?p=6615

Speech Recognition Software

Several experts including Dr. Eric Topol have advocated for speech-recognition software to address the burn-out and time consuming need to document through typing into electronic health systems. Although voice-recognition software has been available for decades, the precision that is needed to be useful to healthcare has rarely been realized until recently. Even now, available software requires more sophistication to be seamless and adaptable to health provider needs. Dr. Topol expanded on why voice recognition software could be a real boon for healthcare communication and documentation through "...keyboard liberation or using natural language processing of speech to synthesize notes and eliminate the ultimate source of distraction and dislike in medical encounters" (O'Connor, 2019, p.1). This is a trend to watch for in 2020, one that could make nurses' work life much easier and less time-consuming.

View the Video: The Benefits of Speech Recognition - G2 Speech (1:26 minutes)

G2 Speech. (2019, June 6). The Benefits of Speech Recognition - G2 Speech. Video File. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/GdA6g1gHOcc

As well, speech-recognition software can act as an assistant to people in general. For example, Amazon Alexa and Leela can interface with clients to help them to set appointments, receive results, and record readings. This virtual assistant approach can also be used within healthcare facilities to enhance access to information and support. This is another trend to look out for this year. View this brief video to see examples of these systems in action within people's homes:

Voice technology for the healthcare industry (0.32 minutes)

Conduent. (2019, February 6). Voice technology for the healthcare industry. Video File. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/P23zYSWlAWQ

Personalized Healthcare

Machine learning, artificial intelligence, wearable and portable biosensors will contribute to the rise of true personalized medicine and healthcare. This trend includes personalized or precision medicine, defined as "...the tailoring of medical treatment to the individual characteristics of each patient. The approach relies on scientific breakthroughs in our understanding of how a person's unique molecular and genetic profile makes them susceptible to certain diseases. This same research is increasing our ability to predict which medical treatments will be safe and effective for each patient, and which ones will not be" (Personalized Medicine Coalition, n.d., p. 1).

Personalized healthcare also has a more expansive meaning, that incorporates client preferences, choices, and input to truly tailor their own healthcare. "An array of new technology advancements, including 3-D printing, robotics, nanotechnology, genetic coding, and therapeutic options can permit more personalized and accessible patient care. Many devices and equipment are getting smaller and more portable, and treatments will likely become more targeted-all of which can make future health care more mobile and precise. This, in turn, should increase staff and process efficacy and improve patient outcomes, as clinicians will be able to quickly find the best treatment option rather than try multiple interventions. Personalization of medications, for instance, will be based on a patient's genetic profile and the use of precision medicine, whereas designs for 3-D-printed prostheses will be based largely on a patient's specific anatomy" (Deloitte Development, 2017, p. 6).

Many people use health apps that they can download from the Apple or Android Stores to monitor their own health particulars, track health behaviors or data progressions such as weight loss, or fertility related data. People also often use wearable devices such as fitness trackers to monitor and track their physical activity which may include GPS related data such as location, and routes used for running and walking. Other apps may be used to monitor more physiological data such as pacemaker activity, heart rate, blood pressure, and so on. All in all, apps must meet standards to be recommended to clients. Health professionals can suggest which apps are the best choices for keeping their data secure, affording the best experience for the client through expert design, and API connected so that data can be shared with their health providers if they so choose.

Mobile apps used within practice need stringent measures built in to ensure personal health information (PHI) protection using APIs, encryption, and data capture solutions. Using mobile and wearable apps can significantly boost communication and understanding between health professionals and patients. When apps are designed according to national standards, they can be very efficient modes for sharing data on a regular basis that can support goals, tracking to gauge progress, and keep an eye on conditions that require monitoring which all contribute to personalized healthcare.

View this brief video to see examples of these systems in action:

Dr Eric Topol: Preparing the healthcare workforce to deliver the digital future (3:57 minutes)

Health Education England. (2018, June 26). Dr Eric Topol: Preparing the healthcare workforce to deliver the digital future.Video File. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/f2UTxtgSFzU

Predictive, Prescriptive and Cognitive Analytics

As technology continues to evolve, exciting new abilities are emerging which show great potential in supporting personalized, value-based care. Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), predictive analytics and cognitive computing all show great promise in helping health professionals make valuable predictions of trends, diagnoses and outcomes. "AI is the field of study that attempts to replicate human abilities, but without human limitations of time, energy and power. By using advanced algorithms, data processing capabilities and IT systems can produce data driven predictions within seconds - with little to no human intervention. Predictive analytics backed by real time and historic data processing can identify risky medical conditions ahead of time.

Predictive analytics uses technology and statistical methods to search through massive amounts of information, analyzing it to predict outcomes for individual patients. In medicine, predictions can range from responses to medications, to hospital readmission rates. Examples include predicting infections from methods of suturing, determining the likelihood of disease, helping a physician with a diagnosis, and even calculating future wellness" (Patil, 2019, p.1).

Innovators in healthcare technology are working on ways to seamlessly incorporate predictive analytics and AI into electronic health records (EHR) using deep and machine learning coupled with natural language processing techniques to move more towards personalized healthcare. Predicting outcomes from historical data is nothing new in healthcare - health professionals have used it for years. For instance if people engage in certain behaviors such as smoking, eating a high-fat, high-sugar diet, living sedentary lives, and so on, health care professionals can predict likely outcomes. However with predictive analytics, health professionals can tie together all sorts of protected health information (PHI) or big data to personalize predictions beyond common generalizations such as smoking leads to lung cancer or chronic lung conditions in many people. But it does not stop there: predictive analytics is just the beginning of imminent powerful analytics in healthcare. Analytic types currently include descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, prescriptive, and cognitive analytics (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, prescriptive, and cognitive analytics.

Predictive analytics is only one type of analysis that can be used in healthcare. An essential dichotomy of analysis methods are now within reach - each level provides a unique perspective of health data and degree of sophistication. Descriptive and diagnostic analysis have been used in healthcare for decades, but predictive is just emerging, and prescriptive and cognitive analysis are still very rare.

Prescriptive analytics uses optimized algorithms, modeling, rules and decision techniques to build on predictive results and propose actions to be taken. "Prescriptive analytics attempt to quantify the effect of future decisions in order to advise on possible outcomes before the decisions are actually made, it tries to provide how to do the actions and what are the consequences of these actions to derive a better decision. Prescriptive Analytics can be used anytime you need to advise users on what action to take" (Sami, 2017, p. 1).

"Cognitive analytics combines a number of intelligent technologies like artificial intelligence, machine-learning algorithms, deep learning etc. to apply human brain-like intelligence to perform certain tasks. Basically, this type of analytics is inspired by how the human brain processes information, draws conclusions and codifies instincts and experience into learning such as understanding not only the words in a text but the full context of what is being written or spoken. All these intelligent technologies make a cognitive application smarter and more effective over time by learning from its interactions with data and with humans" (WeirdGeek, 2018, p. 1).

Together, predictive, prescriptive, and cognitive analytics can transform healthcare in astounding ways.

Although predictive analytics offers amazing insights that can support patient outcomes, personalizing healthcare also requires prescriptive and cognitive analytic capabilities coupled with stringent security features. Systems like IBM Watson can help health professionals support their clients in personalized ways that customize their treatments, client education, and healthcare decisions.

Watch the following video, for greater understanding of how predictive, prescriptive and cognitive analysis and AI can be applied to personalize healthcare for individual clients.

How It Works: IBM Watson Health (4:03 minutes)

IBM Think Academy. (2015, May 20). How It Works: IBM Watson Health. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/ZPXCF5e1_HI

3D Printing

3D printing is one of the most amazing and practical technologies that is rising in healthcare. "3D printing has come a long way since its debut, especially in its uses in the healthcare industry. The technology offers faster prototypes, creating everything from personalized prosthetics to "poly-pills" at a fraction of the cost. The customizable aspect of 3D printing is revolutionizing organ transplants and tissue repair, and it's even able to produce realistic skin for burn victims" (Ghosh, 2019, p. 1).

This astonishing breakthrough presents mega-opportunities to health care since these printers can be tailored to use anything from plastics to stem cells as their medium. Artificial bones can be constructed that are accepted by the body and work well after surgical reconstruction. Prosthetics can be customized more accurately for amputees, and poly-pills can be created that combine several drugs at once for people with multiple illnesses.

View the following videos to get an idea of how 3D Printing can revolutionize healthcare.

The Ultimate List of What We Can 3D Print in Healthcare - The Medical Futurist (2:58 minutes)

The Medical Futurist. (2018, May 14). The Ultimate List of What We Can 3D Print in Healthcare - The Medical Futurist.Video File. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/9XYLRaVqzNY

3D printing for biomedical applications (2:54 minutes)

Research Square. (2019, August 21). 3D printing for biomedical applications. Video File. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/vk6ALcQiZ2w

Although there are many other technological breakthroughs coming down the pipeline of innovation, these trends of Speech Recognition Software, Personalized Healthcare, Predictive, Prescriptive and Cognitive Analytics, and 3D Printing are far-reaching and utilize many of these other innovations in their processes. Keep your eyes open to see how these predictions play out over the next year, and how they affect or could enhance your professional practice.

References

Conduent. (2019, February 6). Voice technology for the healthcare industry. Video File. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/P23zYSWlAWQ

Deloitte Development. (2017). The hospital of the future: How digital technologies can change hospitals globally.Retrieved from https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/Life-Sciences-Health-Care/us-lshc-hospital-of-the-future.pdf

G2 Speech. (2019, June 6). The Benefits of Speech Recognition - G2 Speech. Video File. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/GdA6g1gHOcc

Ghosh, I. (2019). 5 Ways Technology is Transforming the Healthcare Industry. Visual Capitalist, February 27.Retrieved from https://www.visualcapitalist.com/5-ways-technology-healthcare-industry/

Health Education England. (2018, June 26). Dr Eric Topol: Preparing the healthcare workforce to deliver the digital future.Video File. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/f2UTxtgSFzU

IBM Think Academy. (2015, May 20). How It Works: IBM Watson Health. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/ZPXCF5e1_HI

Intel AI. (2018). Predictive analytics in health care. White Paper. Santa Clara, CA: Intel Corporation. Retrieved from https://www.intel.ai/nervana/wp-content/uploads/sites/53/2018/05/Predictive-Analytics-in-Healthcare.pdf

O'Connor, A. (2019, March 11). How Artificial Intelligence Could Transform Medicine. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/11/well/live/how-artificial-intelligence-could-transform-medicine.html

Patil, A. (2019, Jan. 15). AI and predictive analytics lead to improved delivery of healthcare services. Healthcare Business & Technology. Retrieved from https://www.healthcarebusinesstech.com/ai-and-predictive-analytics-lead-to-improved-delivery-of-healthcare-services/

Personalized Medicine Coalition. (n.d.). The Age of Personalized Medicine. Retrieved from http://www.personalizedmedicinecoalition.org/Userfiles/PMC-Corporate/file/pmc_age_of_pmc_factsheet.pdf

Research Square. (2019, August 21). 3D printing for biomedical applications. Video File. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/vk6ALcQiZ2w

Sami, M. (2017). The Evolution of Analytics | The 5 Types of Analytics. Retrieved from https://melsatar.blog/2017/07/30/the-evolution-of-analytics/

The Medical Futurist. (2018, May 14). The Ultimate List of What We Can 3D Print in Healthcare - The Medical Futurist.Video File. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/9XYLRaVqzNY

WeirdGeek. (2018). 5 Types of analytics: Prescriptive, Predictive, Diagnostic, Descriptive and Cognitive Analytics.Retrieved from https://www.weirdgeek.com/2018/11/types-of-analytics/

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Technology and informatics-related processes and activities continue to evolve with each passing year. As we finish 2019 and move into 2020, a few trends in this evolution come to mind - ones that could serve healthcare and nursing well. Here are my predicted top trends for 2020. SOURCE: Kaminski, J.

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Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT

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Sharing patient clinical information is not new. Before health information networks, health care providers and health plans exchanged information directly by hand, fax, telephone or e-mail. These methods are more expensive, time consuming and not secure. In other words, communication was at the center, not the patient.

Most health care providers are now using electronic health records (EHR). However, when a patient goes from one provider to another (i.e. Primary Care Physician referral to a Specialist), these EHRs are not the same. Health information networks allows these providers to share information, essentially allowing their EHRs to "talk to one another." Communication is much more efficient this way so your physician can put the patient the center.
Health care providers can submit a single request through a health information network, such as the Tiger Institute Health Alliance, to obtain electronic records from other members. The provider must have sufficient personal information about a patient to prove they have a treatment relationship before the network will allow access to patient information

This brief video provides an overview of the interoperability challenges facing the healthcare industry.

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Interoperability - Tiger Institute for Health Innovation

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Sharing patient clinical information is not new. Before health information networks, health care providers and health plans exchanged information directly by hand, fax, telephone or e-mail. These methods are more expensive, time consuming and not secure. In other words, communication was at the center, not the patient.

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How Governments Leverage Big Data Analytics to Govern Better

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The state government, federal governments, and the public sector are growing increasingly aware of the future benefits that big data can offer. Fremont,...

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Using Big Data to Improve Healthcare Services | Tiranee Achalakul | TEDxChiangMai

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What is big data?

Big data is a combination of structured, semistructured and unstructured data collected by organizations that can be mined for information and used in machine learning projects, predictive modeling and other advanced analytics applications.

Systems that process and store big data have become a common component of data management architectures in organizations, combined with tools that support big data analytics uses. Big data is often characterized by the three V's:

the large volume of data in many environments;

the wide variety of data types frequently stored in big data systems; and

the velocity at which much of the data is generated, collected and processed.

These characteristics were first identified in 2001 by Doug Laney, then an analyst at consulting firm Meta Group Inc.; Gartner further popularized them after it acquired Meta Group in 2005. More recently, several other V's have been added to different descriptions of big data, including veracity, value and variability.

Although big data doesn't equate to any specific volume of data, big data deployments often involve terabytes, petabytes and even exabytes of data created and collected over time.

Why is big data important?

Companies use big data in their systems to improve operations, provide better customer service, create personalized marketing campaigns and take other actions that, ultimately, can increase revenue and profits. Businesses that use it effectively hold a potential competitive advantage over those that don't because they're able to make faster and more informed business decisions.

For example, big data provides valuable insights into customers that companies can use to refine their marketing, advertising and promotions in order to increase customer engagement and conversion rates. Both historical and real-time data can be analyzed to assess the evolving preferences of consumers or corporate buyers, enabling businesses to become more responsive to customer wants and needs.

Big data is also used by medical researchers to identify disease signs and risk factors and by doctors to help diagnose illnesses and medical conditions in patients. In addition, a combination of data from electronic health records, social media sites, the web and other sources gives healthcare organizations and government agencies up-to-date information on infectious disease threats or outbreaks.

Here are some more examples of how big data is used by organizations:

In the energy industry, big data helps oil and gas companies identify potential drilling locations and monitor pipeline operations; likewise, utilities use it to track electrical grids.

Financial services firms use big data systems for risk management and real-time analysis of market data.

Manufacturers and transportation companies rely on big data to manage their supply chains and optimize delivery routes.

Other government uses include emergency response, crime prevention and smart city initiatives.

These are some of the business benefits organizations can get by using big data.

What are examples of big data?

Big data comes from myriad sources -- some examples are transaction processing systems, customer databases, documents, emails, medical records, internet clickstream logs, mobile apps and social networks. It also includes machine-generated data, such as network and server log files and data from sensors on manufacturing machines, industrial equipment and internet of things devices.

In addition to data from internal systems, big data environments often incorporate external data on consumers, financial markets, weather and traffic conditions, geographic information, scientific research and more. Images, videos and audio files are forms of big data, too, and many big data applications involve streaming data that is processed and collected on a continual basis.

Breaking down the V's of big data

Volume is the most commonly cited characteristic of big data. A big data environment doesn't have to contain a large amount of data, but most do because of the nature of the data being collected and stored in them. Clickstreams, system logs and stream processing systems are among the sources that typically produce massive volumes of data on an ongoing basis.

Big data also encompasses a wide variety of data types, including the following:

structured data, such as transactions and financial records;

unstructured data, such as text, documents and multimedia files; and

semistructured data, such as web server logs and streaming data from sensors.

Various data types may need to be stored and managed together in big data systems. In addition, big data applications often include multiple data sets that may not be integrated upfront. For example, a big data analytics project may attempt to forecast sales of a product by correlating data on past sales, returns, online reviews and customer service calls.

Velocity refers to the speed at which data is generated and must be processed and analyzed. In many cases, sets of big data are updated on a real- or near-real-time basis, instead of the daily, weekly or monthly updates made in many traditional data warehouses. Managing data velocity is also important as big data analysis further expands into machine learning and artificial intelligence ( AI), where analytical processes automatically find patterns in data and use them to generate insights.

More characteristics of big data

Looking beyond the original three V's, here are details on some of the other ones that are now often associated with big data:

Veracity refers to the degree of accuracy in data sets and how trustworthy they are. Raw data collected from various sources can cause data quality issues that may be difficult to pinpoint. If they aren't fixed through data cleansing processes, bad data leads to analysis errors that can undermine the value of business analytics initiatives. Data management and analytics teams also need to ensure that they have enough accurate data available to produce valid results.

Some data scientists and consultants also add value to the list of big data's characteristics. Not all the data that's collected has real business value or benefits. As a result, organizations need to confirm that data relates to relevant business issues before it's used in big data analytics projects.

Variability also often applies to sets of big data, which may have multiple meanings or be formatted differently in separate data sources -- factors that further complicate big data management and analytics.

Some people ascribe even more V's to big data; various lists have been created with between seven and 10.

The characteristics of big data are commonly described by using words that begin with 'v,' including these six.

How is big data stored and processed?

Big data is often stored in a data lake. While data warehouses are commonly built on relational databases and contain structured data only, data lakes can support various data types and typically are based on Hadoop clusters, cloud object storage services, NoSQL databases or other big data platforms.

Many big data environments combine multiple systems in a distributed architecture; for example, a central data lake might be integrated with other platforms, including relational databases or a data warehouse. The data in big data systems may be left in its raw form and then filtered and organized as needed for particular analytics uses. In other cases, it's preprocessed using data mining tools and data preparation software so it's ready for applications that are run regularly.

Big data processing places heavy demands on the underlying compute infrastructure. The required computing power often is provided by clustered systems that distribute processing workloads across hundreds or thousands of commodity servers, using technologies like Hadoop and the Spark processing engine.

Getting that kind of processing capacity in a cost-effective way is a challenge. As a result, the cloud is a popular location for big data systems. Organizations can deploy their own cloud-based systems or use managed big-data-as-a-service offerings from cloud providers. Cloud users can scale up the required number of servers just long enough to complete big data analytics projects. The business only pays for the storage and compute time it uses, and the cloud instances can be turned off until they're needed again.

How big data analytics works

To get valid and relevant results from big data analytics applications, data scientists and other data analysts must have a detailed understanding of the available data and a sense of what they're looking for in it. That makes data preparation, which includes profiling, cleansing, validation and transformation of data sets, a crucial first step in the analytics process.

Once the data has been gathered and prepared for analysis, various data science and advanced analytics disciplines can be applied to run different applications, using tools that provide big data analytics features and capabilities. Those disciplines include machine learning and its deep learning offshoot, predictive modeling, data mining, statistical analysis, streaming analytics, text mining and more.

Using customer data as an example, the different branches of analytics that can be done with sets of big data include the following:

Comparative analysis. This examines customer behavior metrics and real-time customer engagement in order to compare a company's products, services and branding with those of its competitors.

Social media listening. This analyzes what people are saying on social media about a business or product, which can help identify potential problems and target audiences for marketing campaigns.

Marketing analytics. This provides information that can be used to improve marketing campaigns and promotional offers for products, services and business initiatives.

Sentiment analysis. All of the data that's gathered on customers can be analyzed to reveal how they feel about a company or brand, customer satisfaction levels, potential issues and how customer service could be improved.

Big data management technologies

Hadoop, an open source distributed processing framework released in 2006, initially was at the center of most big data architectures. The development of Spark and other processing engines pushed MapReduce, the engine built into Hadoop, more to the side. The result is an ecosystem of big data technologies that can be used for different applications but often are deployed together.

Big data platforms and managed services offered by IT vendors combine many of those technologies in a single package, primarily for use in the cloud. Currently, that includes these offerings, listed alphabetically:

Amazon EMR (formerly Elastic MapReduce)

Cloudera Data Platform

Google Cloud Dataproc

HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric (formerly MapR Data Platform)

Microsoft Azure HDInsight

For organizations that want to deploy big data systems themselves, either on premises or in the cloud, the technologies that are available to them in addition to Hadoop and Spark include the following categories of tools:

storage repositories, such as the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) and cloud object storage services that include Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Google Cloud Storage and Azure Blob Storage;

cluster management frameworks, like Kubernetes, Mesos and YARN, Hadoop's built-in resource manager and job scheduler, which stands for Yet Another Resource Negotiator but is commonly known by the acronym alone;

stream processing engines, such as Flink, Hudi, Kafka, Samza, Storm and the Spark Streaming and Structured Streaming modules built into Spark;

NoSQL databases that include Cassandra, Couchbase, CouchDB, HBase, MarkLogic Data Hub, MongoDB, Neo4j, Redis and various other technologies;

data lake and data warehouse platforms, among them Amazon Redshift, Delta Lake, Google BigQuery, Kylin and Snowflake; and

SQL query engines, like Drill, Hive, Impala, Presto and Trino.

Big data challenges

In connection with the processing capacity issues, designing a big data architecture is a common challenge for users. Big data systems must be tailored to an organization's particular needs, a DIY undertaking that requires IT and data management teams to piece together a customized set of technologies and tools. Deploying and managing big data systems also require new skills compared to the ones that database administrators and developers focused on relational software typically possess.

Both of those issues can be eased by using a managed cloud service, but IT managers need to keep a close eye on cloud usage to make sure costs don't get out of hand. Also, migrating on-premises data sets and processing workloads to the cloud is often a complex process.

Other challenges in managing big data systems include making the data accessible to data scientists and analysts, especially in distributed environments that include a mix of different platforms and data stores. To help analysts find relevant data, data management and analytics teams are increasingly building data catalogs that incorporate metadata management and data lineage functions. The process of integrating sets of big data is often also complicated, particularly when data variety and velocity are factors.

Keys to an effective big data strategy

In an organization, developing a big data strategy requires an understanding of business goals and the data that's currently available to use, plus an assessment of the need for additional data to help meet the objectives. The next steps to take include the following:

prioritizing planned use cases and applications;

identifying new systems and tools that are needed;

creating a deployment roadmap; and

evaluating internal skills to see if retraining or hiring are required.

To ensure that sets of big data are clean, consistent and used properly, a data governance program and associated data quality management processes also must be priorities. Other best practices for managing and analyzing big data include focusing on business needs for information over the available technologies and using data visualization to aid in data discovery and analysis.

Big data collection practices and regulations

As the collection and use of big data have increased, so has the potential for data misuse. A public outcry about data breaches and other personal privacy violations led the European Union to approve the General Data Protection Regulation ( GDPR), a data privacy law that took effect in May 2018. GDPR limits the types of data that organizations can collect and requires opt-in consent from individuals or compliance with other specified reasons for collecting personal data. It also includes a right-to-be-forgotten provision, which lets EU residents ask companies to delete their data.

While there aren't similar federal laws in the U.S., the California Consumer Privacy Act ( CCPA) aims to give California residents more control over the collection and use of their personal information by companies that do business in the state. CCPA was signed into law in 2018 and took effect on Jan. 1, 2020.

To ensure that they comply with such laws, businesses need to carefully manage the process of collecting big data. Controls must be put in place to identify regulated data and prevent unauthorized employees from accessing it.

The human side of big data management and analytics

Ultimately, the business value and benefits of big data initiatives depend on the workers tasked with managing and analyzing the data. Some big data tools enable less technical users to run predictive analytics applications or help businesses deploy a suitable infrastructure for big data projects, while minimizing the need for hardware and distributed software know-how.

Big data can be contrasted with small data, a term that's sometimes used to describe data sets that can be easily used for self-service BI and analytics. A commonly quoted axiom is, "Big data is for machines; small data is for people."

Continue Reading About big data

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What is Big Data and Why is it Important?

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Learn about the characteristics of big data, how it's used by organizations, its business benefits, big data technologies, the challenges that users face.

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I was surprised by how much more experience I have with informatics than I had previously considered. Informatics is a part of every part of our lives and healthcare is no exception. I have worked with EPIC and LMR (two EMRs) while in health care and specifically with Epic I have seen the fascinating concept of Informatics come to great use.

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I was surprised by how much more experience I have with informatics than I had previously considered. Informatics is a part of every part of our lives and healthcare is no exception. I have worked with EPIC and LMR (two EMRs) while in health care and specifically with Epic I have seen the fascinating concept of Informatics come to great use.

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It made me happy to learn about the TIGER initiative. I am increasingly aware of the need to advocate for my knowledge and intuition as an RN. I am inspired by the group of RNs that kick started the initiative and spoke up to "take a seat" and be a part of the conversation surrounding Informatics in healthcare. I believe strongly in RNs being a part of the decision making and design of systems that encompass patient care. I am proud to be in this roll and thankful for those in leadership that rally on behalf of RNs everywhere.

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It made me happy to learn about the TIGER initiative. I am increasingly aware of the need to advocate for my knowledge and intuition as an RN. I am inspired by the group of RNs that kick started the initiative and spoke up to "take a seat" and be a part of the conversation surrounding Informatics in healthcare. I believe strongly in RNs being a part of the decision making and design of systems that encompass patient care. I am proud to be in this roll and thankful for those in leadership that rally on behalf of RNs everywhere.

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It is so frustrating to consider the fragmented healthcare system of the US. With its many broken pieces I am particularly frustrated at the myriad of EMRs that are a part of healthcare. In my previous position working in healthcare I functioned as an family practice RN. I would receive medical records from medical facilities that did not have a similar Electronic medical record and would be endlessly annoyed by the idea that EMRs could not be "linked". I understand now that the issue is standardization and communication across systems. I dream of the day that we can treat patients in any part of the country and immediately have access to their complete health care records. This will make healthcare safer and allow for the continuity we so badly  need to decrease costs across healthcare and improve patient care quality.

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It is so frustrating to consider the fragmented healthcare system of the US. With its many broken pieces I am particularly frustrated at the myriad of EMRs that are a part of healthcare. In my previous position working in healthcare I functioned as an family practice RN. I would receive medical records from medical facilities that did not have a similar Electronic medical record and would be endlessly annoyed by the idea that EMRs could not be "linked". I understand now that the issue is standardization and communication across systems. I dream of the day that we can treat patients in any part of the country and immediately have access to their complete health care records. This will make healthcare safer and allow for the continuity we so badly  need to decrease costs across healthcare and improve patient care quality.

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I appreciated the optimism of this video but must point out that it was published nearly a decade ago and we are still so far from a country that shares health data and has interoperability. I live outside of Boston MA and can say that even within this Mecca of amazing hospitals there is still disconnect and inability to share information. Providers in the outpatient and inpatient settings are still struggling with requesting consents from patients and receiving medical information in a paper or CD format. It feels that we should have been further along at this point. Hopefully another ten years from now we will be closer to that goal and offer a better world to our health care workers and our patients.

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Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT

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It was approx 12 years ago that I switched to a smart phone. I recall when Skype was the only technology to speak "face to face" and that (at the time) could only be done via a computer. To say that our world has changed is an understatement. As hesitant and occasionally resistant as I may feel about accepting this much technology into my life I recognize that it is equally futile because our future lies within concepts such as IoT. In my own home I have several of the discussed technologies and anticipate that as time goes on I will surely acquire more because they make life so convenient and efficient. I look forward to seeing how healthcare will utilize technology further to connect providers and improve patient care.

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IoT | Internet of Things | What is IoT ? | How IoT Works? | IoT Explained in 6 Minutes | Simplilearn

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The concept of the DIKW pyramid can truly be applied to anything from data in retail, to healthcare and beyond. The ability of a vendor to take raw data and pull wisdom from it is the difference between success and failure. I am fascinated by the way technology is helping us make this process happen in an almost intuitive way.

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Why the DIKW Pyramid Is Essential for Your Data Team

The heart of your data strategy should be a hierarchical model you've probably never heard of. Here's why it's so important and how you can apply it in your own organization.

Data is the lifeblood of the digital economy, which makes it essential that every business should have an effective strategy for optimizing its data. The heart of that strategy should be the DIKW Pyramid.

Never heard of it? The DIKW Pyramid, which has been around in one form or another since the 1940s, ascends through the four levels that give it its acronymic name: data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. The pyramid is used in the knowledge management realm but is fairly new to data science and may be unfamiliar to many leaders in the business and IT communities. Every chief data officer, however, should be conversant with its concepts, which provide the discipline necessary to build a data strategy that can deliver insight and wisdom.
From Raw Data to Wisdom
As Caroline Carruthers and I point out in our book, The Chief Data Officer's Playbook, the DIKW Pyramid's thematic roots may go back to T.S. Eliot's 1934 play, "The Rock".

Where is the life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

Turn that cycle from losing wisdom and information to gaining them, and you have the framework for the pyramid, which has been used in fields as varied as military preparedness and nursing informatics. Soon, it will appear in the best and most coherent data strategies.

The DIKW Pyramid delivers collected, curated, and contextualized data to data engineers and data scientists, It provides a dashboard-like view and takes its users on a data journey, with each step answering questions and adding value.

Take customer data, for example. Using the DIKW Pyramid as a framework, raw data is refined into more valuable information about customers, and key elements are added to produce knowledge about their wants and patterns. This eventually allows data engineers and scientists to use insights about the customer to predict what they will want next and, therefore, what products to develop -- a decision that certainly requires wisdom.
Best Practices for Applying the DIKW Pyramid
Many business leaders agree that their organizations have not quite mastered every level of the pyramid. To get started, begin with the data, which should be both plentiful and of high quality. Just as you'd need a lot of fuel to produce a golden nugget, you need a lot of data to produce a small amount of wisdom. You need to identify the right data and the right technology to produce valuable insights into customer behaviors, market trends, or whatever your organization's goals may be.

As you move further up the pyramid, the skills needed to ensure success by people working at higher levels change. As you go from customer support teams collecting the raw data to intelligence and engineering teams that sift through information and derive relevant knowledge, you need to ensure that everyone in the chain is experienced with relevant skill sets. Only then can you support effective data storytelling and get to the top of the pyramid -- where business leaders make decisions that increase revenue, improve services, or foster better relationships with customers.

To deliver pyramid-driven data storytelling, you need an organization-wide effort, beginning with buy-in at the top of your enterprise. C-suite teams and your board of directors need to understand the importance of using the pyramid and to see the cause and effect of making decisions based on this model. Data teams should demonstrate its value with a dashboard depicting customers and the supply chain that details the kinds of decisions that will impact customers and increase revenue or reduce costs. The dashboard should depict the correlations between real life use cases and the DIKW Pyramid.

Awareness of the pyramid must spread through the entire organization. DIKW is not hierarchical; it is an ecosystem in which every part supports all others. Everyone in the organization needs to understand the DIKW concept, how it relates to them and their jobs, and where they fit within the pyramid. The goal of following these best practices is to build an operating model that supports the DIKW Pyramid.
Data Strategies Will Continue to Evolve
As data and data-driven decision making become ever more important to a business's ability to compete and drive revenue, the DIKW Pyramid will become increasingly essential to building an effective data strategy. Data leaders should keep it at the core of their strategies, which will evolve along with the business landscape and the pyramid itself.

About the Author

Peter Jackson is the chief data and analytics officer of Exasol. He is a data evangelist and co-author of two best selling data books: "The Chief Data Officer's Playbook" and "Data Driven Business Transformation." Prior to joining Exasol, Peter was director of group data sciences at Legal and General, where he was responsible for the group's data strategy and for driving innovation and digital transformation globally. During this time, Peter also served as the chief data officer for the L&G Investment Management business, an Exasol customer. Additionally, Peter held the first chief data pfficer role at Southern Water, leading the utilities giant's data transformation and helping it become a data-driven organization.

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Why the DIKW Pyramid Is Essential for Your Data Team | Transforming Data with Intelligence

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The heart of your data strategy should be a hierarchical model you've probably never heard of. Here's why it's so important and how you can apply it in your own organization. Data is the lifeblood of the digital economy, which makes it essential that every business should have an effective strategy for optimizing its data.

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At my previous position I was involved in the transition from a dated EMR to the new EPIC health information system used by many of the major hospitals in the Boston area including Mass General Brigham. Though I always imagined that undertaking the implementation of such a system must be complex, I don't think I ever actually considered the intricacy and detail that must have gone into the process. In my office the medical director and office manager put great care into preparing the staff and training us to use the system prior to the "go-live" date so that our transition was smooth and did not impact patient care. I recall the day we went live and remembered speaking with staff from other offices that put less attention into the implementation piece and thus were caught unprepared and frustrated by the change much more than the staff of our practice. I remembered thanking my managers for the time and attention they gave to the implementation process because it was undoubtedly difficult but they made it look effortless.

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#stitch with @jackeeofall_ #greenscreen 25?! 😨 Handling your healthcare shouldn't feel like a full-time job. #patientportal #healthhistory

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@wingspanhealth
#stitch with @jackeeofall_ #greenscreen 25?! 😨 Handling your healthcare shouldn't feel like a full-time job. #patientportal #healthhistory
♬ original sound - Wingspan Health

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Can you translate what the patient takes? Do you speak nurse? #nurses #healthcare #nursingstudent #icunurse #icu #er #hospital

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@nursemakala.k
Can you translate what the patient takes? Do you speak nurse? #nurses #healthcare #nursingstudent #icunurse #icu #er #hospital
♬ Steven Universe - L.Dre

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SPOT ON!
As a new nurse I feel panicked. NOT by the patient care. NOT by med administration. But, by the documentation. The seemingly ENDLESS documentation I have to complete before the end of a shift. It is panic inducing. I'm frequently asking my preceptor, "why?! we just did this. why do we have to put it here too?" She looks at me nodding with a chuckle and simply says I know. I wish things could make more sense. I see SO much wrong with this system. I don't understand why a huge world renounced organization would invest billions only to buy a system that wastes precious time with extra clicks and NO pay off for the patient.

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EHR State of Mind | An Electronic Medical Records Parody

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"Taking the EHR from a PASSIVE data collection tool to an active actionable tool that could be used at the point of care."

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OSU Center for Clinical and Translational Science

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Timely?
Efficient?
Effective?

Health info net is a great concept and program that would be useful if it weren't for the already other COUNTLESS numbers of existing electronic health programs. My head is spinning at the idea of implementing ANOTHER click into my day OR logging into ANOTHER system.

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How Provider's use Maine's Health Information Exchange

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Log into the computer.
Log into EPIC.
Log into PMP.
Log into MIIS.
Log into Lexicomp/ Uptodate.
Log into Outlook.
Log into Teams.

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https://www.masshiway.net/Services/Public_Health_Reporting
MIIS: a collection of immunization data reported to the Mass Dept of Public Health
PMP: Prescription Monitoring Program

I appreciated access to this program while I worked in ambulatory care. It was hard having pediatric patients that had NO medical record with them, coming in for a new patient well-child check and NO previous vaccine history. Doctors and NPs scrambled and kids fell through the cracks with vaccine schedules as a result of a broken system. When we could pull info from the MIIS it was a relief and at least had some footing in establishing care.

The PMP was an integral part of our safe prescribing initiatives and was a required step prior to prescribing controlled substances for patients. I used to run this report for providers prior to them sending any controlled med scripts to the pharmacy. This eliminated doctor shopping, multiple prescriptions through multiple facilities, and patient prescribing errors.

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The Mass HIway enables the electronic submission of reporting for public health registries to improve public health research, intervention, and program development. This allows for easier compliance with applicable state laws and can also help providers earn incentives in the Promoting Interoperability Programs. For information on the Public Health Registries available Massachusetts, click here.

Registry Interfaces via the Clinical Gateway

The Mass HIway is connected to the following Public Health Programs. Please note that the capture of patient consent is not a requirement for mandatory public health reporting.

Syndromic Surveillance (SS): State data submitted to the CDC's BioSense program via HL7 message to identify excess morbidity and mortality.

Immunizations (MIIS): Supports compliance with state law M.G.Lc.111, s.24M for submission of immunization data to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) via HL7 message. Click here for official MIIS Regulations and here for the MIIS Compliance Schedule (March 2015)

Electronic Lab Reporting (ELR) Supports electronic submission of laboratory results to the MDPH Bureau of Infectious Disease to meet regulation 105 CMR 300.170 via HL7 message.

Massachusetts Cancer Registry (MCR): Provides an electronic means to comprehensively identify and report cancer cases to the Massachusetts Cancer Registry via CDA, HL7 or R2 message for further reporting to the CDC as required by Massachusetts law.

Specialized Registry (MAVEN): Web based disease surveillance and case management system.

Children's Behavioral Health Initiative (CBHI)

Opioid Treatment Program (OTP) via XML (only for A1s), HL7 ADT (A01, 03, 08); QRY_19

Childhood Lead Prevention Program (CLPPP) VIA .csv, .txt fixed length file

Occupational Lead Poisoning Registry (Adult Lead) via HL7 message

e-Referral: Supports health information exchange from healthcare provider organizations
to affiliated community-based organizations via CCD or HL7 message.

Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) in testing

Registry Interface Connections by Vendor

MIIS: Allscripts, athenahealth, Cerner, eClinicalWorks, GE Qvera, Surescripts

Opioid Treatment Program: Netsmart, SMART

eReferral: eClinicalWorks

Syndromic Surveillance: Cerner

MCS: athenahealth in test, Aprima initiated

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The Mass HIway enables the electronic submission of reporting for public health registries to improve public health research, intervention, and program development. This allows for easier compliance with applicable state laws and can also help providers earn incentives in the Promoting Interoperability Programs. For information on the Public Health Registries available Massachusetts, click here.

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HIE: "Sharing health info improves patient care, saves times and eliminates waste in th system".

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Health Information Exchange: Improving Patient Care & Streamlining Clinical Workflow

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"Telehealth improve the human connection"

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"Telehealth improve the human connection"

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"With telemedicine can tailor the medical experience to each person's life experience"
Sofija Volertas described telemedicine as a "supplement" to health care or "additional tool in the toolbox" that mitigates access to human connection.
1. Technology is improving.
*apple watches
*auscultation devices
*remote BP/ BS monitoring
2. Providers have MORE time to listen. After in-person visits patients can feel their concerns have not been heard. Providers focus on the assessment and neglect to address or make a connection with the patient. During a telemedicine visit, providers MUST listen because it is all they can do.

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Telemedicine is the new doctor’s house call | Sofija Volertas | TEDxGreensboro

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Too Good to be true? TELEHEALTH & Cyberattacks

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Too Good to be true? TELEHEALTH & Cyberattacks

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As fantastic as telehealth is we must stay vigilant to the increased challenges it poses to security and HIPPA violations from cyber attacks.

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You're reading the web edition of STAT Health Tech, our guide to how tech is transforming the life sciences. Sign up to get this newsletter delivered in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday. Improving health access for the well-connected
It sounds like a home run for health care access. But Teladoc's new partnership with Amazon - allowing millions of consumers to dial up doctors on a smart speaker - is unlikely to improve care beyond well-heeled consumers who already have plenty of access. "People who have Alexas already both have the means to afford these technologies and they have high technical literacy," which is typically correlated with health literacy, Northeastern University computer science professor Timothy Bickmore told STAT. "These are patients who are generally already able to take care of themselves." That said, business analysts lauded Amazon's foresight in inking a deal with an established player in the telehealth industry, where it hopes to expand its business in coming years. Mohana has the full story.

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Microsoft launches a bold experiment in health AI
In closing its $16 billion deal to buy Nuance Communications, Microsoft is now set to launch a bold plan to incorporate AI into a broad array of health care services. Executives told Casey the strategy is not limited to Nuance's speech recognition technology, but aims to create a cloud-based platform to support the use of AI tools in medical imaging, patient engagement, data security, and clinical decision support in different specialties. Check out the full story here.

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Health entities face a cybersecurity mandate
Amid the Ukraine news and President Biden's State of the Union address, it would have been easy to miss the U.S. Senate's approval of a cybersecurity bill with big implications for health care entities. The measure, whose prospects look good in the House, requires firms in critical sectors such as health care to notify the government when they get hacked or pay ransom to regain control of their data systems. Its passage would mark a sea change in the government's ability to track a wave of cyberattacks that have hit health systems and other businesses across the United States in recent years.
A boost for BenevolentAI in drug repurposing
The University of Oxford's RECOVERY trial of Covid-19 therapies confirmed the benefits of a drug originally flagged by an AI tool created by BenevolentAI. The trial found that treatment with baricitinib, a drug marketed by Eli Lilly for rheumatoid arthritis, reduced deaths by 13% in patients hospitalized with Covid-19. BenevolentAI's technology flagged the potential of the drug in January 2020. The results are not exactly a reason to run around declaring AI can save the world or revolutionize drug research. But they do point out that the technology can help repurpose existing drugs to assist patients facing novel or hard-to-treat diseases.
The latest money

Lynx, a maker of software to customize health billing and payments, came out of stealth with a $17.5 million fundraising haul led by Obvious Ventures and .406 Ventures. The company's software enables users to offer discounts and other incentives to encourage use of telemedicine or other services.

Arrepath, a Princeton, N.J., company using AI to combat drug-resistant infections, raised $20 million in seed financing from Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, Insight Partners, and Innospark Ventures. The company is building technology to help discover anti-infective drugs.

CancerIQ, which is building analytics to detect cancers earlier, raised $14 million in a Series B round led by Merck Global Health Innovation Fund and Amgen Ventures. Launched by Black female co-founders, the company is seeking to address inequality in preventive cancer care.

Moving up

Stanford Health Care named Nigam Shah to be its first-ever chief data scientist. Shah is currently a professor of medicine and biomedical informatics at Stanford.

CVS Health announced two new hires: Amaresh Siva will be its senior vice president of digital technology, and Musab Balbale will be its chief merchant. Siva previously managed supply chain data at Lowe's; Balbale was a VP of merchandising at Walmart.

What we're reading

About the Author

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Health care organizations face a cybersecurity mandate

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You're reading the web edition of STAT Health Tech, our guide to how tech is transforming the life sciences. Sign up to get this newsletter delivered in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday. Improving health access for the well-connected It sounds like a home run for health care access.

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For Providers:
1. Ability to gather MORE patient data.
2. Boosted use of healthcare apps.
3. Ease of education for providers.
For Patients:
1. Social Connection
2. Attention to cognitive, emotional, mental and behavioral health.
3. Telehealth.
4. Simulation games to upgrade technical knowhow, monitoring and medical procedures.

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Gamification apps are one of the major trends not only in education, but also in healthcare. According to Research and Markets, the global healthcare gamification market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 54.7% from 2017 to 2022. This is due to growing technological advancements, life on-the-go, increasing digitalization, and an increased focus on health and wellness.

In this article, we'll explore the benefits of gamification in healthcare; we'll give gamify app examples and explain how to gamify your existing app.

Healthcare Gamification: What Is It?
Healthcare gamification means applying gaming principles, game design techniques, and game mechanics to non-game applications in order to improve clinical outcomes.
In most healthcare and wellness-related applications, gamification manifests itself in three ways:

Progress bars used to measure success. They increase the perceived value of the service by invoking progress-related psychological biases.

Sharing progress and results with friends or other users of the service. It creates a competitive spirit to elicit better use of the service.

Giving progress medals, badges, stars or other virtual gifts at each stage so that users get a sense of achievement.

More advanced medical applications feature various gamified exercises for individuals with movement impairments, older people, people suffering from back pain, etc.

The most relevant solution topics that include healthcare app gamification are:

Self-management medication and chronic condition,

Fitness and nutrition,

Rehabilitation and physical therapy,

Emotional health,

Healthcare for kids.

Gamification in a health app is a win-win situation for both users and healthcare providers. Users enjoy their experience with an application, while healthcare providers engage users and improve their satisfaction with the app and the brand in general. This, in turn, draws more users and promotes customer retention.

The Benefits of Gamifying Healthcare Apps

For healthcare providers

More patient data. When you gamify a healthcare app, the potential for gathering relevant patient data is increased. Software like this motivates users to give more feedback which helps wellness and healthcare companies find new trends. It also helps to make products that address the needs of the target audience. At the same time, you must keep users' personal data confidential.

Boosted use of healthcare applications. Gamification allows users to track their journey without any kind of hassle at all. It can be anything from booking an appointment and storing medical records to playing a game or adding something useful. Self-services also relieve medical staff from routine paperwork, transferring some of the offline appointments to online and freeing them to focus on how to help more people.

Ease of education. Gamification allows doctors to learn material in less time and with greater success rate compared to the traditional learning methods of reading educational materials. Thus, maintaining and improving healthcare knowledge improves their quality of work.

For patients

Gamification techniques allow users to engage digitally and change their minds from the diseases they are suffering from. They also enhance user learning capacity making it easy to understand all concepts with ease, and provides more motivation to continue the journey towards a healthy mind and body.

Trends in Healthcare Gamification

Social connection. The prevalence of social media generates high adoption rates for health gamification, due to increasing needs for social connection in today's globalized and online-based world. When users share their results and activities on social networks with friends, they become more motivated to reach their targets.

Attention to cognitive, emotional, mental, and behavioral health. There are many cognitive and emotional areas that can benefit from gaming theory. For example, there are a lot of bio-feedback apps that help to release anxiety via ocean sounds and deep breathing exercises.

Telehealth. Integration of telecommunications and electronic information has proved to be beneficial in supporting long-distance clinical healthcare. This trend became widespread among SMBs around the healthcare industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, helping to unload offline medical centers and serve the patient flow. With the overall penetration of video conferencing and streamlined media, telehealth app usage will only grow in the coming years.

Simulation games. These are used to upgrade clinicians' and medical researchers' technical knowhow, monitoring, and medical procedures. Immersive simulations are often used to enhance patients' health by making them visualize the health-related behavioral consequences.

Gamification App Examples in Healthcare

In this section we have collected examples of gamification in healthcare and wellness applications. You'll see how gamification simplifies medication management and allows patients to understand their chronic conditions better. Gamification techniques can also make the repetitive fitness routine tasks more rewarding and engaging.

Self-Management Medication and Chronic Condition Apps

Mango Health is an app designed to motivate patients to take their medications on time. It also provides information about various types of medication and warns about side effects and drug interactions.

Mango Health

Manage My Pain app allows users to document specific locations of pain, track when pain gets worse, how long it lasts, and the are of your body that is in pain. It also supplies recommendations on how to combat pain.

Manage My Pain

Flaredown is a health monitoring app in which you "check-in" daily and give a brief update on your treatments, conditions, and symptoms and track how these factors affect your state.

Source: Flaredown

Fitness and Nutrition Apps

Probably the most widely used and well-known fitness application is Health by Apple. An iPhone and iWatch combo allows you to track practically everything, for example:

What's more, you get different shareable badges and awards for activity.

Health

MyFitnessPal integrates daily calorie counting and useful nutritional information for users to take control of their weight. You can log what you eat throughout the day choosing products from a nutrition database and see if the food measures up to your goal.

MyFitnessPal

Zero is a fasting application enabling you to set your fasting goals and track how your mood changes during the fasting period. You can choose any type of fasting (16:8/20:4/36-hour/custom fast) and see the number of people who are fasting with you. The app provides information about your fasting stage and how your body may react to the lack of food.

Zero

Rehabilitation and Physical Therapy Apps

Eye Workout: Eyesight Exercise is an eye training program designed to improve your eyesight and relax your eyes. You can get voice-over instructions and tips, track your progress, see week and lifetime statistics, as well as get achievements for everyday use.

Eye Workout: Eyesight Exercise

Prehab is an educational platform that teaches users how to take control of their own health through physical therapy workouts. The app gives you workouts, tips and the ability to directly communicate with therapists at the tip of your fingers. You can log your workouts and track your exercise performance.

Prehab

Physera contains workouts created by physical therapists to build strength and flexibility. It can always help, whether it's rehab from an injury or just nagging pain. You can choose a custom workout using an extensive exercise library and track your exercises, or you can create your own.

Physera

Emotional Health Apps

Loóna is a mood-alerting app that lets you quickly disconnect from a long stressful day and get in the right mood for sleep. Each night you get a recommended "sleepscape," which is a guided session that combines storytelling, activity-based relaxation, and unique sounds. You need to complete it to reset your mind and create the perfect mood for sleep.

Loóna

Happify incorporates science-based activities and games. It helps users to improve their emotional well-being and overcome stress. The app has more than 30 tracks to choose from and tracks user progress to see how their skills compare. All the tracks are based on scientific research from neuroscientists and psychologists at Stanford, Harvard, and Penn.

Happify

Moodfit shapes up your mood when you're looking to understand your feelings, including depression, anxiety, or high levels of stress. The app allows you to track daily progress, gives visual insights with actionable exercises, and reminds you about your mood goals.

Moodfit

Healthcare apps for kids

My PlayHome Hospital prepares children for hospital visits. The children can become doctors themselves: Check a patient's heartbeat with the stethoscope, give prescriptions in the doctor's room, and change the blood bags in the emergency room.

My PlayHome Hospital

MyTeeth helps kids aged 1 to 9 to brush their teeth patiently for three minutes, with the right technique for their age, with joy, and without missing a spot. Additionally this web and mobile app motivates children every day and includes all the information required for parents to support their child optimally.

MyTeeth

Yummiloo is a food-filled paradise. In this educational app kids learn the basics of food identification and nutritional curriculum through an engaging game. Kids are introduced to the Yum Yums, and instructed to gather fruits and vegetables. Yummiloo educates kids about eating a mix of bright, vibrant-colored foods to help their bodies grow.

Yummiloo

How to Gamify Your Existing Healthcare App

Strategy

At this stage you should single out the pain points that gamification needs to address. For example, problems with focusing while meditating, motivation loss during fasting, or difficulties during rehabilitation.

App gamification strategy is based on two core principles: mechanics and dynamics.

Mechanics drives the activity of the user. For example, a user should burn 1000 kcal to get a badge.

Dynamics are the behaviors and patterns of the game embodied in three elements:

Constraints: The limits imposed on the player. For example, a user should complete an exercise within a particular time frame.

Emotions: They make a game more meaningful and increase the user's connection with the game.

Personalization: Gamification elements are based on the symptoms the user specifies in the app. For example, a mindfulness app offers a variety of meditations and activities depending on the user's psychological state.

There are two core principles you need to stick to while making an engaging gamified healthcare application:

Rapid feedback: Users should get immediate feedback in the form of achievements or rewards, or recommendations from the doctor.

Progression: Users should be able to track their progress and compare their initial results with the current ones. That's why the app should deliver strong analytics.

At this stage, you collect all the gamification ideas and requirements in order to design the application.

Design
At this stage, you need to design the various game elements.

Badges, unlocks, points and stickers: for example, for accomplishing a training or meditation session.

Leaderboards: If users are training collectively, they can find out who is most successful.

Challenges: Through continued challenges and quests, users are motivated to continue using an application. Challenges should be regularly updated to provide the user with sufficient options to maintain the motivation to use the application.

A descent level of engagement can be achieved with the help of two concepts:

Fogg's behavior model singles out three key factors that define a user's behavior:

Motivation (pleasure, hope, rejection, acceptance, fear)

Trigger (a certain signal that lets a user know when to perform the action)

Ability to perform the action.

Engagement loop. This gamification principle adds three more layers to Fogg's model:

The feedback a user gives after any action

User journey (a particular stage where a user is situated)

Loop (every user's feedback should be followed with the next motivational level).

Implementation

Remember that the main purpose of your application is to help people get healthier, be it tracking their activities or cultivating new habits. Gamification is just a hook that keeps users motivated. It should not distract from the main goal that the user wants to achieve with the application. You're developing a healthcare application with game elements, not just a game.

It's also important to keep in mind that gamified health apps collect personal user data, and its security should not be breached. Privacy is of the utmost importance and unlike many other digital privacy and security concerns, healthcare apps are subject to fierce legislation. That's why you will need to obtain certifications through the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Other steps that will protect your patient-users include:

Adding user passwords or other forms of user authentication

Installing and enabling encryption on mobile devices

Maintaining updates to avoid network infections.

Decide on the devices you want to support. Gamification in mHealth (on smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches) gives users quick and instant accessibility to your app, whereas gamified apps on desktop devices are useful for older users and those performing more in-depth, time-intensive research.

For the Finale

Gamification in healthcare is one of the most effective ways of encouraging healthy behaviors and helping patients to manage their chronic conditions. That's why the healthcare providers who integrate gamification techniques into their applications gain the competitive edge. Contact Agente if you want to understand how game mechanics can benefit your solution.

Author:

Andrew is the Founder of Agente. The decade of experience in the UX design field, web development, and business development help him to find efficient solutions for clients and share this knowledge with the audience.

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Healthcare Gamification: Guide with Examples, How to Gamify Your App | Agente

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Considering how difficult it can be to spread surveys and have people participate through traditional methods of research, I believe this use of gamification is fantastic and very useful. The use of this technology can help with data collection in numbers that would otherwise be impossible. In a way, tech companies are helping health care make monumental strides.

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Why Healthcare Workers should be Using a Password Manager

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Why Healthcare Workers should be Using a Password Manager

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How the Patient Portal Can Help Solve Staffing Shortages

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