Staying Healthy: Recommended Cancer Screenings

In the United States, cancer kills more than half a million people each year – making it the second leading cause of death among Americans behind heart disease (CDC). It is important to take necessary measures to detect and treat it early because as the saying goes, the best defense is a strong offense. This list of suggested screenings from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) can help you stay ahead of your health. Some of the suggested cancer screenings include:

Spotlight

Vytalize Health

Vytalize Health provides Medicare patient management for independent primary care physicians. We provide wrap-around technology and services that enable independent PCPs to expand their role and deliver higher quality service for their Medicare patients while ensuring they’re at the forefront of the value-based healthcare system.

OTHER ARTICLES
Health Technology, AI

The digital hospital of the future

Article | July 18, 2023

​As the cost of care continues to rise, many hospitals are looking for long-term solutions to minimize inpatient services. Learn how technology and health care delivery will merge to influence the future of hospital design and the patient experience across the globe in this report developed by Deloitte US. Five use cases for the digital hospital of the future The future of health care delivery may look quite different than the hospital of today. Rapidly evolving technologies, along with demographic and economic changes, are expected to alter hospitals worldwide. A growing number of inpatient health care services are already being pushed to home and outpatient ambulatory facilities. However, many complex andv very ill patients will continue to need acute inpatient services. With aging infrastructure in some countries and increased demand for more beds in others, hospital executives and governments should consider rethinking how to optimize inpatient and outpatient settings and integrate digital technologies into traditional hospital services to truly create a health system without walls. To learn what this future of health care delivery may look like, the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions conducted a crowdsourcing simulation with 33 experts from across the globe. Participants included health care CXOs, physician and nurse leaders, public policy leaders, technologists, and futurists. Their charge was to come up with specific use cases for the design of digital hospitals globally in 10 years (a period that can offer hospital leaders and boards time to prepare). The crowdsourcing simulation developed use cases in five categories Redefined care delivery Emerging features including centralized digital centers to enable decision making (think: air traffic control for hospitals), continuous clinical monitoring, targeted treatments (such as 3D printing for surgeries), and the use of smaller, portable devices will help characterize acute-care hospitals. Digital patient experience Digital and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies can help enable on-demand interaction and seamless processes to improve patient experience. Enhanced talent development Robotic process automation (RPA) and AI can allow caregivers to spend more time providing care and less time documenting it. Operational efficiencies through technology Digital supply chains, automation, robotics, and next-generation interoperability can drive operations management and back-office efficiencies. Healing and well-being designs The well-being of patients and staff members—with an emphasis on the importance of environment and experience in healing—will likely be important in future hospital designs. Many of these use-case concepts are already in play. And hospital executives should be planning how to integrate technology into newly-built facilities and retrofit it into older ones. Technology will likely underlie most aspects of future hospital care. But care delivery—especially for complex patients and procedures—may still require hands-on human expertise. Laying the foundation for the digital hospital of the future ​Building a digital hospital of the future can require investments in people, technology, processes, and premises. Most of these investments will likely be upfront. In the short term, hospital leadership may not see immediate returns on these investments. In the longer term, however—as digital technologies improve care delivery, create operational efficiencies, and enhance patient and staff experience—the return result can be in higher quality care, improved operational efficiencies, and increased patient satisfaction. These six core elements of an enterprise digital strategy can help you get started as you begin to push your hospital into the future Create a culture for digital transformation It is essential that senior management understands the importance of a digital future and drives support for its implementation at all organizational levels. Consider technology that communicates Digital implementation is complex. Connecting disparate applications, devices, and technologies—all highly interdependent—and making certain they talk to each other can be critical to a successful digital implementation. Play the long game Since digital technologies are ever evolving, flexibility and scalability during implementation can be critical. The planning team should confirm that project scope includes adding, modifying, or replacing technology at lower costs. Focus on data While the requirements of data interoperability, scalability, productivity, and flexibility are important, they should be built upon a solid foundation of capturing, storing, securing, and analyzing data. Prepare for Talent 2.0 As hospitals invest in exponential technologies, they should provide employees ample opportunities to develop corresponding digital strategies. Maintain cybersecurity With the proliferation of digital technologies, cyber breaches can be a major threat to hospitals of the future. Executives should understand that cybersecurity is the other half of digital implementation and allocate resources appropriately.

Read More
Health Technology, Digital Healthcare

Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare: Applications and Threats

Article | September 7, 2023

Remember Big Hero 6's beloved Baymax? The lead character’s personal pudgy robotic healthcare companion was much loved and adored by the audience. We might not have wondered back then but the fascinating machine had actually been powered with Artificial Intelligence, programmed to scan a human body for any illnesses or injury while also examining the environment, offering treatment and even catering to the emotional requirements of the patient.

Read More
Health Technology

4 Key Factors Influencing the Effectiveness of Health Tech Messaging

Article | September 12, 2023

COVID-19 has sped up the adoption of healthcare technology solutions by healthcare providers. This has unexpectedly brought a peak in opportunity for health tech companies to achieve important business, demonstrating your innovations. However, it is very challenging and competitive as bigger health tech companies pivot and new health tech start-ups keep coming into the healthcare market. This also makes the healthcare technology market an increasingly competitive space. Thus, all health tech companies need to depend more on effective health tech messaging for their business purpose and credibility. This will help them bring their targeted clients on board for the long-term. Health tech Messaging Challenges Faced by Marketers Nowadays, the process of marketing products online is a combat sport. With every passing year, it is becoming more challenging for health tech marketers to beat the algorithms, build the audience, and ultimately win the hearts of the customers through effective health tech messaging. Digital health leaders are coming up with amazing technology innovations that can revolutionize the healthcare industry. Electronic medical records (EMR) software, medical billing software, medical practice management software, electronic claims software, medical database software, medical research software, medical diagnosis software, medical imaging software, telemedicine software, etc. are some of the examples of amazing technology innovations and latest healthcare technologies. But, things fall apart when it comes to marketing through effective health tech messaging. The following are some of the health tech messaging challenges faced by marketers. • Communicating the purpose and value of your business and the products effectively to clients • Making the clients understand the credibility of the technology products and your business • Product positioning • Lack of clear healthcare marketing strategy • Bad marketing advice • Lack of effective and compelling marketing content • Failing to understand the client/buyer persona • Failing to understand the brand pillars, • Ignorant of effective use of various messaging channels, and much more Why Does Effective Health Tech Messaging Matter? From the introduction part, you might have already understood the power of a good health tech messaging strategy. If you do not have a unified marketing strategy, you will end up merely alienating potential customers; they may end up in confusion about the purpose of your health tech brand. Moreover, without an effective health tech messaging strategy, you may become incoherent to your audience. But the real impact of a cohesive and good health tech messaging strategy will surely go beyond everything we have talked about already and empower your business in all aspects. Different marketing materials, whether they are social media posts, emails, podcasts, videos, or something else, your health tech messaging strategy will guide you in determining what to focus on and what tone to be used. If you are planning a social media campaign or writing blogs and articles, you will know the attention-grabbing ways of speaking to your customers. This is possible only if you have a defined messaging strategy. Customer service teamwork also becomes more effective and easier, when you have a good health tech messaging strategy. Educating the customer is easier when you speak to them in a tone and language that you know they will understand. Doing it consistently makes you win the customer. How Health Tech Messaging Can Work for Reaching Healthcare Decision Makers It is not an easy task to engage healthcare decision-makers in hospitals, insurance providers, health systems, and private practices. These high-powered directors, managers, and executives are busier than ever. This makes the process of health tech marketing difficult. Apart from overwhelming job responsibilities, these healthcare professionals are also inundated with ads, emails, and phone calls. So rather than sending them messages randomly, it is important to help your prospects when they are free from their daily disruptions and have time. Here, an effective health tech messaging strategy can help you reach out to decision makers easily. Health tech messaging strategy lays out various health tech marketing techniques, tricks, or tactics. These health tech messaging techniques or methodologies are helpful in the three stages of your health tech client journey: awareness, consideration, and decision making stages. Through all these stages of health tech massaging, you help or influence health tech decision makers to recognise they have a problem, consider a solution, and finally they take the decision to purchase your product. 4 Factors Influencing the Effectiveness of Health Tech Messaging Performing your brand messaging haphazardly is not going to take you anywhere in reaching out to people, who need your products. Instead, you should slow down yourself a bit and build a compelling health tech messaging strategy. Test it, launch it, and learn from it. If you are strategic, you are truly going to drive your mission despite the noise that is existing on the internet today. Here are four important factors that will help you make your health tech messaging strategy effective and compelling. Understanding Your Targeted Audience You have a better idea of who you are and what you offer. Now you need to know who your audience is, which is equally important in building health tech messaging strategy. Throughout the process of messaging, it is vital to keep your ideal buyer in mind. So, you will only create messages that will resonate with the needs, interests, motivations, and pain points of your potential clients. The things you want to know about your targeted clients are called buyer/client persona. Buyer Persona It is better to create a buyer persona that tells who your customer and what their goals are. Buyer persona also will help you align your brand with your customers. According to HubSpot, a buyer persona can be a semi-fictional representation of your potential customers based on real data and market research and about your current customers. Knowing who your messages are aimed at is important in developing a successful health tech brand messaging strategy. Before you go any further, buyer persona makes you know: • Who you are marketing to • What they care about and value • The sort of language they use and will respond to • Geographical location • Educational and income levels • Psychographics and behavioral patterns, etc. Focusing on Your Differentiating Factors from Competitors To figure out your differentiating factors from the competitors is as important as you understand your place in the market. You will have to assess the differences and similarities between the products and services you offer and your competitors’ offerings. Also, compare the targeted audience of you and your competitors. Understanding your competition, you face from the market, will get you a clear image of your brand and what health tech message you may have to send out to your targeted audience. Just remember that each of the health tech brands can have only one message; it needs to be unique. Due to the competition, messages can be too similar, but it should not make your customers get confused about your business. Thus, communicating your uniqueness to your audience is a very important factor. In this regard, conducting some competitor analysis may help you a lot. Making your Value Propositions Obvious You can influence how people perceive your brand if you could successfully communicate the values of your business. Values are principles or mission that guide all actions of brands. Storytelling can be effectively used to illustrate the values of your brand. Success stories from Salesforce and Microsoft’s Story Labs are examples. These stories can be on things such as empowering small businesses or improving the world through technology. It creates loyalty when you make your clients feel they are part of something that is going to change the world for the better. It is very helpful to start your health tech messaging process with your value prop because it is the core of what you do and who you are. Your value prop explains both the emotional and functional benefits your service or products provides. This means the value people get out of your products. Communicating the values of your company is considered strong health tech messaging only when it specifies how your brand is going to solve a problem and why should people choose your product. Using Multiple Technology Channels for Brand Messaging In general, digital health tech messaging has to be pinpointed. The spray and pray method will not work to bring in inbound leads. However, if you want to reach out to health tech audience with your health tech messaging, you should be there on all the channels they are on. Here are a few examples of channels, which can be used to reach out to people effectively with your health tech messaging process. Digital Ads If digital ads are used effectively for health tech messaging, you can reach out to your target audience easily. When digital ads are used correctly, you can pinpoint the audience through audience targeting and keywords. Moreover, through ad channels, you can reach out to people who otherwise would not have ever known about your products. However, if you are not using digital ads effectively, you will lose money without any results. Social Media Most people are active on some sort of social media channels. Many of these people use these channels either for networking or educating themselves in their field. This is the reason why you should concentrate on social media platforms for effective health tech messaging in a way that encourages interaction and feedback. Along with establishing a strong relationship with your prospects, you can also use social media platforms to build brand awareness through health tech messaging process. Emails Emails are the fruitful medium for effective health tech messaging. You can build brand awareness through seeding emails regularly. It will work as a bookmark than a selling point. Potential clients will remember the good interaction you had with them through emails when they have a problem in the future. Along with these channels, other channels such as videos, websites, blogs, articles, podcasts, etc. also can be used for effective health tech messaging. These multiple channels, where most of your potential clients are present, are selling points for your health tech products or helps in lead generation for healthcare technology products. To sum up, what matters more in health tech messaging and marketing is projecting your values, differentiating factors, knowing A to Z about your targeted audience, and meeting them on the channel, where they are present. Your health tech brand message is something that makes you dwell in the minds of people. Thus, how you are perceived matters a lot. Start building your brand today by sending out effective health tech messages to your potential clients. Frequently Asked Questions How does health tech messaging help? Heathtech messaging helps you to improve your business by making your potential clients understand what you are and what you do. Brand awareness of your products is done through effective health tech messaging. What is the best health tech messaging method? The best health tech messaging method is to project your business values in all the marketing campaigns you do. It should specify what your customers can expect from your products and services and what changes it will make in society. How does technology help in healthcare? Technology helps healthcare to avail all patients the best treatment available and make them satisfied and engaged. Also, technology helps healthcare industry to innovate treatments and revolutionize the entire practice in the healthcare sector. Why is technology important in healthcare? For achieving optimum patient satisfaction and engagement, technology is important in healthcare. Also, technology plays a role in improving the healthcare system and saving the lives of people.

Read More
Health Technology

AI in Healthcare Businesses: From Efficient Uses Cases to ROI Growth

Article | May 30, 2022

It’s no secret now that healthcare is an in-demand field. Today, business leaders need modern and intelligent decision-making solutions for their customers and clients. They must also focus on the right investment areas and learn the tricks for investing, spending, and setting goals for revenue generation to accelerate business. With continuous developments in the healthcare sector, integrating AI into processes can help increase ROI. Therefore, if you, like any other business leader, are looking for solutions to empower your services and products in the healthcare domain, this article will help you through AI’s ultimate use cases and churn out a higher ROI. What’s with AI in Healthcare at Present? AI’s role in healthcare is evolving and enhancing traditional business operations, particularly marketing. According to a study by IBM, 71% of customers expect real-time communication. Thus, global demand is fueling the rising adoption of AI marketing solutions. The effects of AI in healthcare are evident. Gartner reports increased marketing efficiency and effectiveness (86%), improved decision-making (71%), better data analysis and new insights (79%). Global AI spending will rise from $450 million in 2019 to over $28 billion by 2024 is not surprising. Similar and further studies are ongoing on various use cases of AI in healthcare at scale. What are the efficient use cases of AI that will help healthcare businesses boost their ROI? Let’s find out. How is AI Applied in Healthcare? The promising applications of AI in healthcare to improve outcomes are very intriguing. While there is still much to achieve in the AI-dependent healthcare business, there is sufficient potential that tech companies are willing to invest in AI-powered tools and solutions. Let’s examine the potential examples of AI in healthcare to prepare and support business strategies accordingly and foster higher ROI generation. Predictive Analytics AI-based predictive analytics impacts a business by automating administrative tasks, predicting sales outcomes for a year, customers’ behavior and making strategies accordingly. According to a Forbes study, AI-based predictive analytics can save businesses $18 billion in tasks, expenses, and pricing. To understand this, one example of using AI to automate admin tasks is a collaboration between the Cleveland Clinic and IBM. Cleveland Clinic uses IBM’s Watson to mine big data and provides personalized services for customers and clients on marketing deeds. Some of the practical applications of AI and predictive analytics in healthcare are: Monitoring market trends to maximize marketing efforts Organizing datasets Creating marketing campaigns tailored to each demographic-based client Mining collective data for future decision-making Fraud Prevention AmerisourceBergen Corp detects fraud and misleading business operations through AI. A sales account team conducts audits with AI to detect usual lea and queries to prevent hefty expenses for businesses. The example explains that implementing AI in your process will help detect any significant fraud attempts inside your business operation. This will help your business save huge expenditures. Boost Sales By putting down false leads, AI helps in maximizing sales numbers, resulting in significant ROI generation. For example, AI transforms data into personalized data, which reduces the cost of operations. Chatbots Most healthcare businesses leverage chatbots on their websites to engage more and more customers and boost engagement. In this way, businesses tend to gain multiple leads and convert them into clients by providing the best marketing solutions. Chatbots are fruitful for AI start-ups in healthcare—small businesses can deploy AI to their websites. By doing so, they can save millions in administrative costs and attract numerous leads. The most prominent examples of AI in healthcare hail from giant tech titans such as IBM, Amazon, and Microsoft. They are assisting healthcare providers with AI to create and deploy digital-human employees. Segmentation of Marketing Targets Is your target audience not responding to your marketing campaigns (for example, by not clicking a link, subscribing or unsubscribing to a newsletter, or not registering for a medical event)? If that's the case, how should you go ahead? Using AI-based tools allows your marketing to easily identify target behaviors and reactions based on the type of marketing actions to be carried out. Analyzing these actions can help segment targets based on your company's marketing objectives. The most significant development took place in April 2022, when Amazon Alexa became fully HIPAA compliant. It works with health developers and service providers that manage protected information for customers. AI Leads to Data Modernization It’s all about the data—not any data! There’s a precise association between AI and data management, resulting in data modernization. According to a Cognizant research study, healthcare leaders have made significant progress in modernizing their data. In contrast, most upcoming businesses are expecting to do so by 2024. The maximum acceleration of AI in modernizing data will be seen in the manufacturing and marketing of healthcare products and services, respectively. It is because AI helps to churn data easily. The accessibility of data, in particular, becomes simpler with automation than doing it manually, which generates a massive amount of data. Such effects of AI in healthcare can be one of the prime reasons for the higher ROI of your business in the future. “There has never been a greater need for skilled analytic talent in health care. Because AI is becoming more strategic, organizations must ensure access to this skill set, either by growing their analytic teams or seeking out experienced partners." Steve Griffiths, CEO of Optum Enterprise Analytics AI Expenditure is on the Rise McKinsey says that by 2025, the use of AI in healthcare will be widespread, resulting in significant expenditure by global healthcare leaders. AI is a significant concern for healthcare decision-makers, investors, and innovators as customers extensively engage and react to AI-powered services and solutions. AI is constantly bringing improvements to almost all processes, including cost savings, management of services and products, and monitoring of multiple operations. Even small businesses in the healthcare industry are proactively investing in AI applications to match steps with the current wave of innovation in healthcare services. Accelerate ROI Using AI AI in healthcare is becoming one of the prime responsible technologies for accelerating ROI. Technology can eradicate multiple business growth challenges. Let’s find out how. Enhanced Performance As previously stated, use cases of AI in healthcare can relieve stress on employees. This would allow them to devote their time to more value-added marketing activities to churn more ROI. Emphasize Cost-Effectiveness Most of the businesses associated with healthcare are concerned about the costs involved. With AI, they now develop policies to spend less on non-essential activities and necessitate profit-oriented actions. "We believe in the potential of AI to deliver insights and operational efficiencies that unlock better health-care performance." Robert Musslewhite, CEO at OptumInsight Frequently Asked Questions How is AI used in healthcare? AI in healthcare automates and predicts processes by analyzing data throughout. It is used to predict potential customers, improve business management workflows, and manufacture medical products. How does AI drive growth in the healthcare industry? AI drives business growth by improving the ability to understand better day-to-day customer patterns and needs based on services and products. How is AI changing the Healthcare industry? AI applications in healthcare have demonstrated their potential to improve analytics and data management and assist service providers in making timely medical decisions.

Read More

Spotlight

Vytalize Health

Vytalize Health provides Medicare patient management for independent primary care physicians. We provide wrap-around technology and services that enable independent PCPs to expand their role and deliver higher quality service for their Medicare patients while ensuring they’re at the forefront of the value-based healthcare system.

Related News

Virtual reality has a role to play in cancer treatment and prevention

AppliedVR | August 03, 2017

Matthew Stoudt offers a simple test for anyone doubting the effect virtual reality could have on a hospital patient. He leads people to the edge of a ledge with a 500-foot drop. Then he asks them to take a step. Some of the 3,000 people who have taken his test do. But many, including one CEO, do not. Of course, these aren’t actual jumps. The entire time, the person is wearing a pair of virtual reality goggles, taking in this ledge experience in the virtual world. But Stoudt, the CEO and cofounder of AppliedVR, offers the test to demonstrate how virtual reality can truly hijack the brain.

Read More

How does MD Anderson Cancer Center choose and integrate new technology?

MD Anderson | August 01, 2017

At the MedCity CONVERGE conference this week, Rebecca Kaul, MD Anderson Cancer Center Chief Innovation Officer offered an overview on a topic familiar to other providers and often mystifying to new healthcare startups - how does it decide on which new technologies to integrate and why? Although she refrained from naming any vendors and wouldn’t go near the decision to end a collaboration with IBM Watson Health, she highlighted some of the factors that go into making these decisions.

Read More

Puma’s controversial cancer drug secures FDA approval

Puma | July 17, 2017

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration was forced to draw a line in the sand on Monday, with its approval of neratinib (Nerlynx), an adjuvant treatment for patients with early stage HER2-positive breast cancer. Manufactured by Los Angeles, California-based Puma Biotechnology, neratinib polarized experts with its Phase 3 data showing marginal efficacy and high rates of side effects. Many have questioned whether the benefits really outweigh the risks. On Monday, FDA settled that debate by granting it marketing approval.

Read More

Virtual reality has a role to play in cancer treatment and prevention

AppliedVR | August 03, 2017

Matthew Stoudt offers a simple test for anyone doubting the effect virtual reality could have on a hospital patient. He leads people to the edge of a ledge with a 500-foot drop. Then he asks them to take a step. Some of the 3,000 people who have taken his test do. But many, including one CEO, do not. Of course, these aren’t actual jumps. The entire time, the person is wearing a pair of virtual reality goggles, taking in this ledge experience in the virtual world. But Stoudt, the CEO and cofounder of AppliedVR, offers the test to demonstrate how virtual reality can truly hijack the brain.

Read More

How does MD Anderson Cancer Center choose and integrate new technology?

MD Anderson | August 01, 2017

At the MedCity CONVERGE conference this week, Rebecca Kaul, MD Anderson Cancer Center Chief Innovation Officer offered an overview on a topic familiar to other providers and often mystifying to new healthcare startups - how does it decide on which new technologies to integrate and why? Although she refrained from naming any vendors and wouldn’t go near the decision to end a collaboration with IBM Watson Health, she highlighted some of the factors that go into making these decisions.

Read More

Puma’s controversial cancer drug secures FDA approval

Puma | July 17, 2017

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration was forced to draw a line in the sand on Monday, with its approval of neratinib (Nerlynx), an adjuvant treatment for patients with early stage HER2-positive breast cancer. Manufactured by Los Angeles, California-based Puma Biotechnology, neratinib polarized experts with its Phase 3 data showing marginal efficacy and high rates of side effects. Many have questioned whether the benefits really outweigh the risks. On Monday, FDA settled that debate by granting it marketing approval.

Read More

Events