Welcome to our Healthcare IT Today Weekly Roundup. Each week, we’ll be providing a look back at the articles we posted and why they’re important to the healthcare IT community. We hope this gives you a chance to catch up on anything you may have missed during the week.

2024 Health IT Predictions: Cautionary Views of Healthcare AI. Our ongoing series of 2024 Health IT Predictions turned to some reasons to be wary of AI. The Healthcare IT Today community emphasized the need to focus on proven AI use cases, apprehension about generative AI for clinical content, and meaningful discussions about the ethical use of AI. Read more…

2024 Health IT Predictions: AI Use Cases in Healthcare. At the same time, there’s much optimism about where AI will have an impact in healthcare. Responses included task automation, resource allocation, clinical documentation, predictive analytics, diagnostics, and supporting the hospital at home. Read more…

2024 Health IT Predictions: AI’s Impact in Healthcare. The experts also weighed in where AI is poised to have a significant on the industry beyond day-to-day care delivery. These areas include identifying patients in need of treatment, modernizing outdated processes, and addressing resource gaps. Read more… 

2024 Health IT Predictions: The Needs of Patients. Affordability, personalization, consumerism, loyalty, data access and ownership, access to care, and collaborative care are just some of the trends in patient outreach and education that our experts see for the year ahead. Read more…

2024 Health IT Predictions: General Perspective. Our predictions wrap up with some general thoughts on what will happen across the health IT landscape. Efficiency, burnout, public-private partnership, competition, vendor consolidation, and an uncertain market for digital health deals rank among the top topics on everyone’s minds. Read more… 

2024 Health IT Predictions on Video. As a bonus, we recorded members of the Healthcare IT Today community offering their thoughts on the year ahead. Four of the six interviewees predicted AI will dominate the discussion in 2024, although the transition to UDS+ and the ongoing shift of care to ambulatory surgery centers also earned a mention. Read more…

How AWS Helps Clinicians Work at the Top of Their Licenses. Transitioning to the cloud puts predictive analytics and other tools at the fingertips of clinicians, according to Dr. Angela A. Shippy at Amazon Web Services. At the AWS re:Invent conference, she also talked to Healthcare IT Today about ensuring all providers can benefit from moving to the cloud. Read more…

Are You Ready to Move From a Health System to a Health IT Vendor? Andy Oram interviewed three executives who transitioned from clinical IT to digital IT settings. One key motivator: Being able to bring expertise to a wider audience, whether it’s interacting with customers directly or using your reach to contribute to the field in other ways. Read more…

Raleigh Radiology’s Journey to Improve Patient Centricity. Colin Hung sat down with Frank Manole at Raleigh Radiology and Rishi Nayyar at PocketHealth to learn about what convenience and digital access mean to radiology patients, as well as why that’s different than the typical physician’s office. Read more…

CIO Podcast: Achieving Epic Gold Star Level 10. John interviewed UMass Memorial Health’s Sergio Melgar about the hardest part of becoming Epic Gold Star Level 10, the work that went into earning the recognition, and where the health system is taking its Epic implementation next. Read more…

Healthcare Is the Path of Least Resistance for Cybercriminals. Given that the primary cause of healthcare data breaches is unauthorized access, organizations would be well served to shore up identity security, according to Steve Gwizdala at Ping Identity. That includes identity verification, authentication, and governance. Read more…

What to Know Before Implementing Prior Authorization Automation. It’s no secret that prior authorization (and denials) take up valuable time. Smart practices should look beyond automation to EHR and practice management integration as well as workflow customization when considering their options, said Dr. Steve Kim at Valer. Read more…

Healthy Bottom Lines Rely on Collaboration, Technology, and AI Investments. MDaudit CEO Ritesh Ramesh discussed the company’s 2023 Benchmark Report. With multiple factors threatening financial well-being, organizations need cross-functional collaboration to optimize revenue opportunities and mitigate compliance risks. Read more…

AI and AIOps Are Reshaping the Future of Healthcare IT. The best way to realize the potential of AI is to embed it into IT operations, noted Scott Pross at Monalytic. That involves the use of tools, technologies, and processes that help healthcare organizations manage modern, complex IT environments. Read more…

Ease Manual Processes for Medical Claims for International Patients. Processing claims for medical tourists from outside the United States has its own layer of complexities, Rob Stuart at Claim.MD said. With the right software, hospitals can convert international billing codes into standard formats for faster claims submission. Read more…

Bonus Features for January 14, 2024: Epic Research shows telehealth results in more follow-up visits that in-office care, and Elevance Health to offer smartphones to qualified Medicaid beneficiaries. Read more…

Funding and M&A Activity:

• Veradigm acquired RCM vendor Koha Health.
• Constellation Software subsidiary Harris Operating Group acquired EHR vendor MEDHOST.
• Digital health platform Guidehealth acquired Arcadia’s managed services organization and Value-Based Care Service.
• Metabolic health company knownwell raised $20 million in Series A funding.
• Spatial computing platform XRHealth raised $6 million in funding.

Thanks for reading and be sure to check out our latest Healthcare IT Today Weekly Roundups.