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Tag: healthtech

HIMSS 2023 – What did we take away?

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Tido Inc. at HIMSS Conference

From cars to healthcare, Vik and John chat about a variety of topics in the latest This Week in Health Tech podcast, but we focused on Vik’s experience from HIMSS. Check out the episode, we chatted a bit about AI generated automated responses to patient messages to physicians.

After our conversation an interesting study was released in JAMA about ChatGPT outperforming physicians on empathy responding to messages. There’s a lot to unpack there! There is some controversy surrounding the applicability of the study and how it was conducted, but it does raise interesting questions and possibilities for the future. It brings us back to the question about where to use technology in healthcare? How do we do this without unintended consequences or further alienating patients from healthcare? If patient’s know they are interacting with a computer, how does this impact engagement and adherence? What is the applicability in the healthcare environment?

Part of the promise of AI is to do what people do, only do it faster. Synthesize information into a coherent string of words delivered in a certain style. When we consider a response to a patient inquiry, LLMs have the ability to aggregate styles and deliver an empathetic response, they also have the luxury of time, being able to do it quickly. It can take about 15-30 seconds for these AI models to generate a response, it takes a clinician longer to craft a meaningful response.

If we allow AI to write a response, then we still need the human to read it over and make sure it is relevant, applicable, and appropriate. This assurance takes time from the clinician to read over the response, understand the patient question, the context, the patient background, and for some questions to dig a bit deeper and find out why the patient is asking a question.

Before we seek out another solution with many unknowns, we should start to look at what we have now and consider whether or now we are optimizing the current systems. Will a new AI solution really save time, or will it increase the burden with more back and forth? There are so many interconnected solutions out there, are we actually utilizing them, or are we working around them?

Making incremental, seemingly insignificant, improvements can have dramatic improvements to clinical efficiency. Reliable interconnected systems, making sure the information is flowing back and forth, and ensuring that any AI solutions that we will come to rely on actually have access to all the information, is just as essential now as it will be in the future. Disconnected systems can render AI just as inefficient as they render our clinical teams now.

Want to make sure your systems are talking to each other? Tido’s automated applications and integration monitoring can avoid many of the problems and inefficiencies that clinical teams, and AI, will experience when networks aren’t communicating and the information isn’t flowing smoothly. For over 10 years we’ve been partnering with health systems to ensure their getting the most from their current investments. Contact us today and see how we can work with you to optimize your technology investments.

Is there an orchard full of apples just outside the windows of the hospital?

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Have you ever switched from an Apple iPhone to a Samsung or other Google based phone, or vice versa? It looks familiar, but it’s just different enough to be confusing. I know… I’ve done it. Work issued iPhone, personal Samsung phone. I was able to turn my iPhone notification to vibrate when I first got it… For the next 5 years I could not turn any notification sound on. I’m not new to smart phones, but I’ve always had a Samsung, the IOS screen looks familiar, but it just doesn’t work the same.  I only used the work phone for texting and phone calls, everything else was my personal phone, good thing my scrubs had two pockets.

Websites and apps can experience similar issues with back-end functionality. With the patients, visitors and employees all having different smart-phones, ensuring a seamless end-user experience can be more important than ever. Developing a website or app for a Windows based system may not be able to viewed in the Apple ecosystem.

Everything from way-finding apps, employee intranet sites, public websites, to patient access apps all need to be customized to ensure an end-user experience that is accessible and usable. Imagine telling a patient “there’s an app for that!” only to have them frustrated when they can’t access the information they were directed to. It doesn’t provide a good experience for the patient that can negatively impact things as serious as missing important appointments, to just experiencing un-warranted stress when trying to get to an appointment. Is a patient going to rate you 5 stars if they can’t find the doctor?

Similarly for employees, frustrations can abound when apps are not optimized for different mobile devices. Apps for time and attendance, intranet sites for policies and procedures, are all often made accessible for employees to use on their mobile devices. Apps and sites that are not optimized for their device can frustrate staff trying to request a vacation, or trying to look up policies for titrating insulin drips.

Accessibility in the physical world is important for healthcare, it is just as important in the digital age to have accessibility online as well. Ramifications can be a minor inconvenience or a major frustration. More and more information resources are moved online to save paper and ensure the most up-to-date information is being used, having access is vital to smooth patient experience and care.

How do you test apps and mobile sites for compatibility against thousands of different versions of mobile devices? Ten thousand engineers typing on ten thousand phones for ten thousand years? That might work, or you might get a mobile friendly version of Shakespeare. Hope you have a good IT recruiter!

Automated testing at every stage of development can help ensure accessibility is maintained across desktops and mobile devices. For over 10 years Tido Inc has partnered with hospitals and health systems to provide automated mobile and web testing at every stage of development. Ensuring minimal issues on launch, and faster development times. Contact us today to see how we can help, from development of custom apps and intranet sites, we can extend your IT teams when you need.

Have the holidays driven us crazy? Crazy about AI maybe!

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AI in Healthcare

Have you heard all the rage in AI? ChatGPT was making the rounds last few weeks as it was open to the public to play around with. The website is pretty cool, but it did take me a few days to get on it to play around due to traffic. For last week’s blog post I decided to hop on the bandwagon and see if Artificial Intelligence could replace a content writer’s Human Intelligence (insert sarcastic comment). Don’t tell the boss I did this though, AI doesn’t have bills to pay. Seriously though, the other blog post last week was written by ChatGPT.

Whether AI, ML, or other letter combination when it comes to advanced computing, there is no doubt that language processing will find it’s way more and more into healthcare. How do I know this? Because AI told me so, go read the other post!

Integrating AI effectively into the clinical space can help nursing in a variety of ways. It can be used to aggregate information on a single patient about their current visit and past visits to help guide interventions. It can also be used to effectively aggregate patient data from large populations to help study the effectiveness of new interventions vs past interventions.

Maybe we use the AI to write custom discharge instructions that are patient specific and relevant to their care? Starting off with a basic template this can be really powerful to drive better engagement and adherence to instructions. Current discharge instructions are often pages long with information dispersed throughout a large packet, providing a succinct summary can make it much easier for patients.

ChatGPT was initially devised as a chat bot, often rudimentary forms of chatbots can be found for patient intake for medical practices, urgent care, or to guide patients toward specialists. If we can better aggregate these sessions into a basic medical history or offer guidance toward potential diagnosis, then there can be significant time savings just on the nursing triage.

Pretty cool stuff that has the potential to really improve healthcare by helping the clinician and the patient alike.

With integrating any computer process automation there are several concerns that arise.

What is the reference source material? In the case of ChatGPT it uses large databases of published material, this can include unverified sources or opinion pieces. With any AI/ML, knowing the referenced source will be important.

Is the output relevant? AI can be confused, just like me, but we often use slang terms that AI may not recognize, this can lead to some weird output. The output definitely needs to be reviewed by professionals.  In the other post there are number of inaccuracies when it comes to the semantics, but they do matter.

How will it be integrated? Is it clear to patients when they are interacting with AI vs. a real human? If not it can be upsetting and cause patients to lose faith in the care system.

How much do we rely on AI? FDA regulations are starting to address this in terms of decision support, but how far AI goes into making patient care and treatment decisions that may fall into a gray area that can be difficult to navigate and ultimately requires a trained professional to adjudicate.

Tido Inc can help your organization answer these questions and help to integrate or develop applications so your organization can effectively leverage AI and ML to help improve clinical workflows and experience.  Now let’s see how much Holiday shopping has messed with my Amazon algorithms!

AI will revolutionize nursing! – Written by AI

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AI in Healthcare

As we continue to advance in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), it’s becoming increasingly clear that this technology has the potential to revolutionize the way we approach healthcare, including the field of nursing. In the next few years, we can expect to see AI being used in a wide range of applications, from improving the accuracy of medical diagnoses to helping nurses manage their workloads more effectively.

One of the most exciting ways that AI is set to transform nursing is through its ability to improve the accuracy of medical diagnoses. AI algorithms are capable of analyzing vast amounts of data, including medical images and test results, to identify patterns and make predictions about a patient’s condition. This can help nurses to make more accurate diagnoses, and it can also help to identify potential health problems before they become more serious.

In addition to improving diagnostic accuracy, AI can also be used to help nurses manage their workloads more effectively. By analyzing data on patient visits and treatment outcomes, AI algorithms can help to identify trends and patterns that can be used to improve the efficiency of healthcare delivery. This can help to reduce wait times and improve patient outcomes, while also allowing nurses to focus on the patients who need their help the most.

Another way that AI is set to transform nursing is through its ability to improve the effectiveness of certain treatments. AI algorithms can be used to analyze the data from clinical trials and other studies to identify the most effective treatments for specific conditions. This can help nurses to make more informed decisions about which treatments to prescribe to their patients, which can lead to better health outcomes.

Overall, the potential of AI to transform nursing is enormous. As we continue to develop and refine these technologies, we can expect to see a wide range of benefits for both patients and nurses. Whether it’s improving diagnostic accuracy, helping nurses manage their workloads, or identifying the most effective treatments for specific conditions, AI has the potential to make a huge impact on the field of nursing.

**This blog post written by AI, I was busy and had holiday shopping to do.  Here was the request:  “Write a 500 word blog post on how AI will transform nursing in the style of Johnathan Klaus”

Tido Inc. can help with digital strategy and custom applications!

An app a day keeps the doctor away.

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Healthcare applications on phone

Apps for digital health are proliferating throughout the healthcare ecosystem. Not just consumer facing, apps for clinical teams are growing as well. EHR companies have their own app stores, there’s the SMART App Gallery, and more apps are being created every day for use by healthcare professionals. As federal regulations start to kick in, the proliferation of digital apps for clinical use is only likely to increase. According to the ONC research, it shows more than 20% rise in the number of apps that integrate with certified electronic health records (EHRs) at end of 2020. The number of new clinical and administrative apps with SMART on FHIR integration is increasing at a very rapid rate.

There are many benefits of apps used by clinicians, better patient care and engagement, increased efficiencies, time management, records access, clinical decision support, education and training are just some of the tools available in app stores today. They have the potential to help clinical staff perform and manage their day better, improving patient care and staff satisfaction. It is widely reported that clinical staffing is becoming an increasing challenge to healthcare organizations, frustration with ineffective or difficult technology is just one of the issues, and it can be an important barrier to enabling staff to provide the best possible care to patients.

While there is a lot of news focused on the shortages of nurses and doctors, IT teams are also feeling pressure. Competition for healthcare IT personnel is increasing, new digital app developers, virtual first practices, and existing brick and mortars are just some of the employers seeking to hire experienced IT staff. Is there a plan to maximize the expertise and focus of these teams? What is the core competency of the healthcare organization’s IT team? Is it new app development and integration, or is it ensuring a safe and secure IT network and connectivity of existing physical infrastructure?

Much like patient care has become highly specialized, IT teams are becoming more focused to respond to increasing threats and internally connected equipment. Additional resources are often not allocated to allow IT teams to focus on adding to digital apps to the clinical toolbox. Doctors and clinical staff asking for more tools and integrations can often get lost in all the background noise, or are just told “we don’t have the bandwidth for that right now”, especially if its a small specialized department. Does the organization want to hire and train a professional team to assist in one-off choices or development?

Apps and other tools that do not meet the needs of clinical staff are a wasted use of increasingly scarce resources. Anyone working in Healthcare IT or Biomedical engineering can tell you, clinical staff are very creative when it comes using tools and equipment. Nurses and doctors will find all sorts of new uses for existing tools and infrastructure that was never envisioned by the creators, or it just won’t be used at all. But, they also have great ideas for new tools to help make their job easier and better. An organization seeking to harness this creative energy will likely need help managing the myriad of choices, or the creation of new tools.

How are new apps implemented? How are they supported? Maybe the Physical Therapy team has an idea that will save hours per day, how do we get that developed? Maybe there’s an existing app out there? If healthcare organizations are looking to increase employee engagement and efficiency, these are questions that will need to be answered moving forward. Whether a smaller physician practice, or a large multi-hospital system, retaining and maximizing existing staff resources will be key to success in the current healthcare environment. Apps and other tools can help improve efficiency and effectiveness, but getting them done right is just as important as getting them in the first place.

Tido can help healthcare organizations manage these questions. Check out Tido’s Digital Apps Strategy and Management and Custom Mobile and Web Applications solutions. See how Tido can help healthcare organizations implement existing tools, or help to harness the power and creativity already inside.

Is your digital front door open or closed?

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Healthcare digital applicatioons

According to a recent JD Power survey the majority of their respondents have accessed telehealth services and for many services it is the preferred method of interaction. 80% of their respondents report that telehealth is the preferred method for prescription refills. 51% of providers offer an online scheduling option according to a recent survey from Optum. It doesn’t stop there, the digital front door is the modern gateway for health systems to welcome patients.

Imagine walking into a hospital or doctors office and finding a void or blank wall. Sounds a little dystopian, but it is quite possible this can be the experience of customers coming to a website and trying to enter an appointment.

A digital front door is the modern access point for healthcare, and it’s more than just a front a door. Digital strategies require a seamless digital experience for all services offered by the organization. A seamless transition from the digital to the physical front door if needed. Consider all the options available for enhancing the digital experience beyond the front door.

Is the health system going to be offering online appointment scheduling?

Want to steer patients away from the ER and towards Urgent Care with chatbots and digital symptom checkers connected to the first available appointment for telehealth or virtual urgent care?

Customers and the Federal Government clamoring for price transparency, is your system connected to health insurance and billing to offer price estimates?

SMS options offer easy appointment reminders and many other opportunities for engagement, are the messages going through?

Are you offering SMS or online intake questions to speed registration? Are they feeding over to the EHR for the receptionist to see?

Few would argue that the customer’s digital health experience should be as seamless and reliable possible, providing an early opportunity to build engagement and trust. The digital front door may be the first experience a customer has with the organization, if the digital experience is not seamless, doubt starts to creep in about the rest of the experience. Systems that have disrupted connections can lead to a rocky experience for the customer. If they’ve already filled out the registration information online, why do they need to do it again?

High reliability organizations require high reliability systems. While most networks are stable and function as expected, even a small glitch can have large consequences and disrupt the customer relationship. If the patient and clinician experience is that none of these systems work, or do not work consistently, why should they keep using them? Customers place a lot of trust with clinical staff, if the staff doesn’t have faith in the systems, they will steer customers away from digital solutions, negating the time and investment spent on these solutions.

Are you pro-actively monitoring for network disruptions? Is the IT system meeting the expectation of clinicians and staff? Pro-active monitoring, reporting and resolution of disruptions builds faith in the systems that support clinical staff and customers.

Healthcare should be welcoming, are you slamming your digital front door in the face of customers? Check out Tido’s end to end monitoring and digital apps test automation solutions, ensure your digital front door leads to the services your customers want and need.

Implementing Test Automation in Health Care || Part 1: Website Testing

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In this episode of This Week Health Tech, Vik and Jimmy talk on website test automation strategies for healthcare. This is the first part in a month long series focusing on Healthcare Web, Mobile, EHR Testing and Test Automation.

Here is what they discussed:

  • “What is test automation?”
    • Vik begins this episode by defining testing and the importance of test automation. Testing within the healthcare space is underrated, mainly because of low QA resources. Vik explains why test automation should become a top priority for healthcare providers.
  • “Who is in charge of managing the website, testing, etc.?”
    • Website management is a collaboration between departments, including IT and Marketing. Vik elaborates on how different departments have specific roles in terms of maintenance, updating, testing, etc.
  • “Let’s divide testing into 3 categories: Continuous, Automated, and Live”
    • Along all stages of development, continuous testing needs to be performed. When the test script development is finished, then those scripts can be used to automate testing against a combination of browsers/OS. Live testing must be done as well, to ensure a correctly working user experience.
  • “Once you have the Selenium automated test scripts written, you can fire them off anytime.”
    • Vik describes the process of using a testing framework, such as Selenium, to perform automated tests. Test scripts can be written in a multitude of languages (Java, Python, C#, etc.). By using a real cloud device, the automated scripts can be ran against hundreds of browser/device/OS combinations.
  • “Lets talk about testing techniques.”
    • Typical techniques include Functional, Compatibility, and Performance testing. Vik goes into detail on how each type relates to testing.
  • “The number of web and mobile applications will continue to grow.”
    • Vik makes the case again on the importance of testing for the future. The number of health apps will continue to grow, especially because of COVID. Continued testing for mobile apps is the only way to ensure that the consumer will receive a correctly working product.

Listen to the full episode:


Click below for more information regarding Tido’s test automation packages:
Test Automation Packages

Learn more about Tido’s Digital Packages:
Tido’s Digital Packages

Scheduling Your COVID-19 Vaccine

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In this episode of This Week in Health Tech, Vik and Jimmy cover the timely topic of COVID-19 vaccine scheduling/distribution.

Here is what they discussed:

  • “What is the protocol for getting a vaccine?”
    • As the vaccine continues to be administered, Jimmy asks Vik what the protocol is on who gets the vaccine first. Vik lays out the protocol, starting with essential workers and the elderly getting it first.
  • “Phone lines are clogged up bad, and it’s starting to affect patients.”
    • More and more people are calling hospitals to gain information on vaccine scheduling. This has caused the phone lines to be clogged up, which could lead to other critical issues not getting the attention they need. Vik mentions a couple solutions to the problem of phone lines, such as using a robust intranet to give information, such as an FAQ.
  • “What do you think are some good FAQ questions?”
    • Jimmy asks Vik to lay out the types of questions that would help address questions related to vaccine scheduling, such as where/when to schedule.
  • “Use the technology at your hands to help people.”
    • Vik talks how Tido Inc. has helped hospital systems deal with the logistics of vaccines and using certain tools to make sure that the 1st and 2nd dose are administered for the correct time window.
  • “Lets try and use technology in healthcare to help with this really complex situation.”
    • On top of providing good healthcare, there has been a logistical issue that technology can help deal with. Vik mentions the importance of automation in making sure that vaccines are scheduled correctly.

Listen to the full episode:

Learn more about Tido’s Integration Packages:
Tido’s Integration Packages


Click below for more information regarding Tido’s test automation packages:

Test Automation Packages