If you are reading this, YOU NEED TO SHARE THIS – not just LIKE IT… unless you feel that there is no one in your circle of family & friends who are dealing with chronic health issues, that could possibly benefit & enjoy improving their QOL. If you are a intractable chronic pain pt, this could give your prescriber HARD JUSTIFICATION why you need a higher dose.

For years, those who follow and read my blog… Have heard me routinely talk about pharmacogenomics (PGx). “back in the day”, I was a hard-charging, card carrying, type-A workaholic.  Now in my 8th decade on this earth, those words no longer really applies to me. I could not, in good conscience , pull back from supporting those in  the chronic pain community, to try and get up to speed with PGx. So I started looking around to find a Pharmacist that has this PGx stuff down pat. Must have been my GOOD KARMA day. I found Cari A. Lalande, PharmD, RPh
Owner | Clinical Genetic Pharmacist.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I won’t get the first penny for being a conduit in connecting Cari, with someone in the community who wants to see if PGx/NGx could help improve their overall health/QOL.  This is Cari’s professional business/practice, and she does charge for her services and will bill insurance, if it is covered. I think that it would be best, if any/all pts asked their practitioner if they will use/believe in PGx testing. There are some practitioners that are still working with 20th century knowledge and skill sets.

Last, but not least, Cari has agreed to become a contributor to my blog. Sharing stories about pts she has helped using PGx & NGx and the positive QOL outcomes she has been able to accomplished for these pts.

Health By Genetics™ is a unique pharmacist owned genetic lab designed to conduct comprehensive pharmacogenomic (PGx), nutrigenomic (NGx) molecular testing. Our wholistic approach to patient-centered care empowers individuals to live life abundantly, on their terms.

Utilizing genetics as the basis, we work with both the patient and their providers to determine the best medication choice for each thereby reducing the occurrence of side effects, polypharmacy, and increase awareness of better lifestyle choices. 

Our goal is to solve for challenges most patients face when multiple providers are involved in prescribing various

medications without communicating with each other thereby increasing the risk of adverse side effects and related events.

To continue to support our patients, because genetic testing is not a one and done type of test, we created our PharmaAssist^TM Concierge clinical services program that provides patients a personal genetically trained pharmacist to act as their patient advocate with their healthcare providers.

Click here to schedule a meeting: https://calendly.com/health-by-genetics

Click here to schedule a meeting: https://calendly.com/health-by-genetics

Nutrigenomics is a field of study that investigates the relationship between nutrition and an individual’s genes. It explores how genetic variations influence the body’s response to different nutrients and how diet can affect gene expression and function.

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Chronic Pain Incidence Is High in the U.S.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/neurology/painmanagement/104558

New cases of chronic pain — defined as pain experienced on most days or every day over 3 months — occurred more frequently than new cases of other common chronic conditions, U.S. survey data showed.

Chronic pain incidence was 52.4 cases per 1,000 person-years, reported Richard Nahin, MPH, PhD, of the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, and co-authors.

This was higher than the incidence of diabetes (7.1 cases/1,000 person-years), depression (15.9 cases), and hypertension (45.3 cases), the researchers said in JAMA Network Openopens in a new tab or window.

Moreover, chronic pain was persistent: nearly two-thirds (61.4%) of adults with chronic pain in 2019 continued to have it in 2020.

The findings come from National Health Interview Survey (NHISopens in a new tab or window) data and are the first nationwide estimates of chronic pain incidence.

Recent NHIS data showed the prevalence of chronic painopens in a new tab or window in the U.S. was about 21%, affecting an estimated 51.6 million adults. High-impact chronic pain — pain severe enough to restrict daily activities — affected 17.1 million people.

“Understanding incidence, beyond overall prevalence, is critical to understanding how chronic pain manifests and evolves over time,” Nahin said in a statement. “These data on pain progression stress the need for increased use of multimodal, multidisciplinary interventions able to change the course of pain and improve outcomes for people.”

The NHIS is a cross-sectional poll conducted annually by the National Center for Health Statistics. Nahin and co-authors evaluated 10,415 adults who participated in both the 2019 and 2020 surveys. Participants with chronic pain during both periods were considered to have persistent chronic pain.

The sample included 51.7% women. More than half of the study population — 54% — were ages 18 to 49. Most participants (72.6%) were white; 16.5% were Hispanic and 12.2% were Black. Most (70.5%) were not college graduates.

At baseline (2019), 40.3% of participants reported no pain, 38.9% reported non-chronic pain, and 20.8% reported chronic pain.

Of those without pain in 2019, the rate of incident chronic pain was 52.4/1,000 cases (95% CI 44.9-59.9). The rate of incident high-impact chronic pain was 12.0 (95% CI 8.2-15.8). Lower educational attainment and older age were associated with higher rates of chronic pain in 2020, regardless of pain status in 2019.

In 2020, rates of persistent chronic pain and persistent high-impact chronic pain were 462.0 and 361.2 cases per 1,000 person-years, respectively.

Of those reporting non-chronic pain in 2019, 14.9% had progressed to chronic pain at follow-up. Of those reporting chronic pain in 2019, 10.4% had fully recovered (were pain-free) in 2020.

“Although chronic pain is sometimes assumed to persist indefinitely, our finding that 10.4% of adults with chronic pain experienced improvement over time is consistent with previous evidence from studies in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the U.K., which revealed rates ranging from 5.4% to 8.7%,” the researchers noted.

The study did not include information about the underlying causes of pain and survey data were collected only twice across 2 years of follow-up, Nahin and co-authors acknowledged. It’s possible that people experiencing new or persistent chronic pain or high-impact chronic pain were less likely to participate in the 2020 follow-up survey, which may have led to rates being underestimated.

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Open Letter to DEA Administrator Milgram

Directly oversee the investigation of your DEA agents

https://www.daily-remedy.com/open-letter-to-dea-administrator-milgram/

Dear Administrator Anne Milgram,

I hope this letter finds you well.

I request you to oversee the investigation into the misconduct of DEA agents in my case. I initially filed a complaint with the Office of Inspector General which has been transferred to the Drug Enforcement Agency Office of Professional Responsibility.

The DEA has shown a lack of willingness and an inability to uphold it standards of conduct. Oversight agencies have consistently shown repeated incidents of misconduct by DEA agents, with only a few receiving much, if any, accountability.

I understand you are trying to reform the DEA and to enact much-needed reform. I thank you for listening to the public and for delaying the implementation of restrictive telehealth policies. Now I ask you to review the misconduct by DEA agents who targeted me in 2017 and manipulated evidence in my case that led to an indictment in 2018.

These agents solicited perjured statements from former employees who were forging prescriptions using my DEA license. They materially altered evidence in my case, including falsifying a police report and submitting an affidavit with false claims that were known to be untrue at the time of submission.

How they did this was quite clever. They would tamper with evidence and then obtain perjured statements to corroborate the tampering. Let me provide an example. Look at the police report I filed against the employee who was forging scripts under my name. You will see the report claims I reported her brother for threatening me, but somehow did not report her forgeries. How could I report one but not the other? Her brother threatened me because I planned to report her to the police.

This fraud was then complemented by perjured statements taken during the grand jury testimony. The same employee was asked by federal prosecutors whether she had forged scripts under my name – to which that employee answered no with no pushback from either DEA agents or federal prosecutors. This is all the more curious, since both DEA agents and federal prosecutors had many forged prescriptions in their hand.

The misconduct is easy to discern when you parse through the evidence in this way. But it makes the efforts to distort evidence in this case all the more concerning. And it’s precisely why you must directly intervene in this investigation.

I have written a book that details the misconduct by the DEA in this case. I also compiled all legal documents in this case and plan to share them with investigative journalists and criminal justice reform organizations. These efforts are intended to raise awareness of the misconduct in my case. I plan to involve all interested parties in the review of DEA misconduct. Thank you in advance for your time and effort.

Respectfully,

Dr. Jay K Joshi

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FDA OKs Spinal Cord Stimulation Devices for Chronic Back Pain

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/992053

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has expanded the indication for Abbott Laboratories’ spinal cord stimulation (SCS) devices to include treatment of chronic back pain in patients who have not had, or are not eligible for, back surgery, the company has announced.

The new indication spans all of Abbott’s SCS devices in the US, which include the recharge-free Proclaim SCS family and the rechargeable Eterna SCS platform.

The devices feature the company’s proprietary, low-energy BurstDR stimulation waveform, a form of stimulation therapy that uses bursts of mild electrical energy without causing an abnormal tingling sensation to help disrupt pain signals before they can reach the brain, the company explains.

The expanded indication was supported by results from the DISTINCT study, which enrolled 270 adults suffering from severe, disabling chronic back pain for an average of more than 12 years and who were not eligible for surgery.

“This new indication for Abbott’s SCS devices, together with BurstDR stimulation, allows physicians the ability to identify and treat a new group of people, providing them with relief from chronic back pain,” Deer adds.

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CVS Health is expanding its vertical integration into providing healthcare. Besides the nearly 10,000 community pharmacies, they have specialty pharmacies, mail order pharmacies, Aetna insurance, the PBM Caremark, Silver Scripts Medicare Part D now part of Aetna and a Medicare -C (Advantage) prgms, and in many of their community pharmacies they have MINUTE CLINICS and this acquisition  of was < 60 days since acquiring  CVS closed $8B deal for health services company Signify Health

Those pts who have their medical care provided by CVS Health are pretty familiar with the restricted networks that entities like CVS force pts to use. It is much like when a fish bites down on a “baited hook” …  there is no getting off the hook.

CVS closes $10.6B acquisition of Oak Street Health to expand primary care footprint

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/providers/cvs-closes-106b-acquisition-oak-street-health-expand-primary-care-footprint

CVS Health has sealed the deal on its acquisition of Oak Street Health, picking up about 169 medical centers in 21 states.

The acquisition cleared a major regulatory hurdle back in late March when the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission allowed the antitrust waiting period to run out on without taking action to halt the deal. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, had urged the FTC to take a closer look at the deal and challenge any M&A activity in healthcare that could lead to higher prices, less competition and lower care quality.

The retail pharmacy giant announced the deal on February 8 as an all-cash transaction for $39 per share, representing an enterprise value of approximately $10.6 billion. The company financed the transaction with borrowings of $5.0 billion from a term loan agreement entered into on May 1, 2023 and existing cash and available resources.

Oak Street Health will continue to operate as a multipayer primary care provider as part of CVS Health.

Oak Street CEO Mike Pykosz will continue to lead the Medicare-focused primary care company when the deal closes, CVS said, and the provider would be folded into its newly created healthcare delivery arm.

Closing the Oak Street deal follows closely on the heels of CVS finalizing its $8 billion acquisition of home health and technology company Signify Health.

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https://nypost.com/2023/05/12/homeless-vets-are-being-booted-from-ny-hotels-to-make-room-for-migrants-advocates/amp/

Nearly two dozen struggling homeless veterans have been booted from upstate hotels to make room for migrants, says a nonprofit group that works with the vets.

The ex-military — including a 24-year-old man in desperate need of help after serving in Afghanistan — were told by the hotels at the beginning of the week that their temporary housing was getting pulled out from under them at the establishments and that they’d have to move on to another spot, according to the group and a sickened local pol.

“Our veterans have been placed in another hotel due to what’s going on with the immigrants,’’ said Sharon Toney-Finch, the CEO of the Yerik Israel Toney Foundation.

Toney-Finch, a disabled military veteran, created YIT to raise awareness of premature births, as well as helping the homeless and low-income military service veterans in need of living assistance.

“One of the vets called me on Sunday,’’ she said.

“He told me he had to leave because the hotel said the extended stay is not available. Then I got another call.

“We didn’t waste any time,’’ the advocate said.

“That’s when we started on Monday to organize when and where to move them all.

“I am glad you called me today,’’ she told The Post.

“Last night, I was crying.”

Toney-Finch said 15 of the veterans got the heave-ho from the Crossroads Hotel in Newburgh about 60 miles north of New York City in Orange County — a new epicenter of Big Apple’s migrant crisis since Mayor Eric Adams began bussing Gotham’s overflow there against local officials’ wishes.

The other five displaced veterans were split between two other local facilities — the Super 8 and Hampton Inn & Suites in Middletown, Toney-Finch said.

The Middletown hotels are not believed to have migrants yet but were reportedly on the city’s shortlist to take some.

She said the hotels didn’t explicitly say the vets had to move because of the migrants but that it was clear to her that was the case, given the timing.

All 20 of the booted veterans have ended up at a Hudson Valley hotel about 20 minutes away, said Toney-Finch, who asked that The Post not name the site.

The Crossroads, Super 8 and the hotel where the vets are now staying had no comment when contacted by The Post on Friday.

Hampton Inn did not immediately respond to a message left on voicemail.

Toney-Finch said the veterans had originally been set to temporarily stay at the three hotels for up to four weeks, till permanent housing for them could be found.

The vets were about two weeks into their hotel stays when they got the boot, she said.

“Now we have to work from ground zero. We just lost that trust [with the vets],” the organizer said.

“A lot of them are Vietnam veterans. We do help them on a constant basis to get them benefits and help them find a place in society.”

State Assemblyman Brian Maher, a Republican who helps rep Orange County, said, “Shining a light on this is important because we need to make sure these hotels know how important it is to respect the service of our veterans before they kick [them] out of hotels to make room.”

“They really ought to think about the impact on these people already going through a traumatic time,’’ he told The Post.

“Whether you agree with asylum-seekers being here or not, we can’t just ignore these veterans that are in our charge that we are supposed to protect: the New Yorkers and Americans.”

“We need to put them first.”

Toney-Finch said she believes it all comes down to money.

“They want to get paid’’ more, she said of the hotels, referring to what her group shells out to get the vets housing compared to what the city is paying for each migrant.

“That’s so unfair, because at the end of the day, we are a small nonprofit, and we do pay $88 a day for a veteran to be there,” she said.

While it’s unclear what the city is paying upstate, various reported deals between the Big Apple and Manhattan hotels have called for payments such as $190 a night — part of an estimated $4.3 billion migrant price tag for taxpayers through spring 2024.

Adams began bussing migrants flooding the city to The Crossroads on Thursday — hours before a key federal immigration-rule change was set to take effect and feared to increase the influx even more.

Hizzoner’s move spurred a vicious war of words between Adams and officials in Orange and neighboring Rockland County, where the mayor also has threatened to bus migrants — till a lawsuit at least temporarily blocked the move.

Maher said it’s outrageous that veterans are getting caught in the crossfire of the migrant crisis.

“For these people only being there a few weeks, then to be told after having a level of trust developed, ‘Hey, you have to get out,’ That’s not right,’’ he said.

“One thing I’m doing today is my staff and I are putting together care packages to let them know: ‘Listen, we are embarrassed by this.’

“We put a bunch of things in the care package as well as cards for the veterans to say, ‘Thank you.’ ”

And does anyone wonder why our military is having trouble meeting their recruitment goals ?

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The perceived prevalence of OIH in clinical practice is a relatively rare phenomenon

Opioid Induced Hyperalgesia—Exploring Myth and Reality

FDA Mulling Trial Design Issues for Long-Term Opioids in Chronic Pain

https://www.medpagetoday.com/painmanagement/opioids/104064

To evaluate the long-term efficacy and tolerability of a representative extended-release (ER)/long-acting (LA) opioid in a 12-month placebo-controlled trial, FDA staff are considering an enriched enrollment randomized withdrawal (EERW) study design, they noted in a briefing documentopens in a new tab or window ahead of an advisory committee meeting.

On Wednesdayopens in a new tab or window, the Anesthetic and Analgesic Drug Products Advisory Committee will consider the advantages and limitations of using an EERW design to evaluate morphine sulfate ER in a phase IV trial — part of a postmarketing requirement — among patients with chronic non-cancer pain who had initial tolerability to the ER opioid.

The committee will also discuss looking at the incidence of opioid-induced hyperalgesia (OIH), a condition in which a patient’s increase in pain can be attributed to the treatment with an opioid, among other objectives, such as changes in physical function and in levels of anxiety and depression.

FDA staff said the EERW study protocol might be the best available design amid the many challenges of conducting placebo-controlled clinical trials for chronic pain over an extended time period.

“Due to the unique clinical considerations regarding patients with chronic pain appropriate for long-term opioid therapy, the design of the clinical trials intended to evaluate the treatment effect of analgesics in this patient population poses certain challenges,” they wrote. “There are different options with respect to clinical trial designs, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.”

“There are also challenges in selecting appropriate patients, controls, and endpoints, as well as to retain enough patients to generate interpretable data,” they added.

To address these concerns, FDA staff wrote that the EERW design “varies from the conventional clinical trial design in the timing of randomization and dichotomization to two treatment groups, opioid or placebo,” noting that this design uses “a long prerandomization period and a relatively short period where patients will be on double-blind drug.”

“The EERW design, while not ideal, appears to offer the best compromise to answer this public health question,” they wrote.

In addition, the EERW study design “may inform the incidence of OIH provided that the protocol includes appropriate OIH surveillance and a prospective definition of OIH,” they added.

The advisory committee will also be asked to discuss the likelihood of maintaining a sufficient number of study participants using the study design, specifically considering the acceptable degree of dropout related to its effects on the interpretation of outcomes.

FDA staff noted that dropout during a 12-month trial could be the most challenging aspect of evaluating the long-term efficacy of opioids. “Our prior experience suggests a substantial dropout rate even over the 12 weeks of prior randomized trials (in the 40-50% range), and therefore raises the real concern that a dropout rate in a 52-week duration trial would be higher, undermining the robustness of the between-group comparison at the trial primary timepoint,” they wrote.

Other factors, such as the adequacy of the length of the study (38 to 52 weeks) and secondary endpoints, including time-to-treatment failure, pain scores, and a proposed tapering scheme to mitigate concerns over unblinding the participants, will also be discussed.

Finally, the advisory committee will be asked to consider other potential study designs that could be used in the assessment of long-term use of opioids.

“With respect to the parallel-group, placebo-controlled randomized controlled study, this approach poses the challenges of recruiting patients into a long duration placebo-controlled study — in patients who have severe pain intensity having failed other treatments,” FDA staff wrote. “The prior study included a long-term placebo-controlled period and failed due to recruitment issues.”

After the original postmarketing requirement was issued in 2013, the Opioid Postmarketing Requirements Consortium (OPC) started a 26-week study in patients with high opioid requirements in 2016, but decided to end the study in 2018 due to several factors, including challenges with patients and changes to opioid prescribing requirements. The OPC submitted an updated protocol for a 52-week trial in January 2020. With guidance from FDA staff, the EERW protocol was refined and submitted for consideration.

Last week, the FDA issued several updatesopens in a new tab or window to the prescribing information and labeling for immediate-release (IR) and ER/LA opioids that will make the increased risk of overdose with increased doses more clear. The changes will also highlight the risk of OIH.

While the FDA typically follows the advice of its advisory committees, isn’t required to do so.

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I find this interesting, especially #6,7 & 9. Could something like this, generate specific treatment plans for chronic pain pt who have had their pain meds decreased or cut and BP increases and 4 or 5 different BP meds and their BP doesn’t change.  Would the AI be smart enough, to realize the cause & effect of increased BP and the reduction of pain management and recommend that pain meds be restarted and recommend increased pain meds dose if the BP goes down some, but not down to expected BP range.

For those of you who watch the TV show Chicago Med,  what they call OR 2.0 seems to have wall to wall large video screens and cameras and a AI interactive voice that monitors just about everything that goes on… including comparing the surgeon’s activity/movement as compare to their previous surgeries and have called out a surgeon that was not up to his “normal movement/proficiencies.

Of course, these AI program can be designed with biases, like prohibited from recommending the implementation or increasing opioids or control meds.

25 Ways Generative AI Will Change Healthcare

https://shulkinblog.com/f/twenty-ways-generative-ai-will-change-healthcare

It seems Generative AI (GA) is all that everyone is talking about.  Some futurists are predicting major changes to the way we live our lives and others even suggest that we are facing an existential risk to mankind. The truth is that we are clearly in unchartered territory and none of us really know where this is going to lead.

There is no doubt that GA will be disruptive to healthcare’s status quo.  As GA grows in sophistication, it will change or even eliminate many traditional healthcare roles. GA will also raise new concerns about ownership and privacy of patient data.  And no doubt there will be other unintended consequences that arise from this technology.  But the potential for improving care and outcomes is probably the most exciting to think about.

Rather than looking too far into my crystal  ball, I’ve chosen to look at the most likely places we will see5 the impact of GA in healthcare. GA is already being used in a number of the areas that I have listed below.  Where possible, I’ve identified companies that are already demonstrating results from their work.

1. Medical Imaging and Pathology –  Generative AI will help will soon become standard of care in radiology and pathology to ensure more accurate diagnosis, improve the efficiency of processing and reading studies, and address workforce shortages. (Ibex is a company using AI to improve diagnostic accuracy in pathology readings)2.

2. Patient Empowerment and Navigation- GA will dramatically improve the ability of patients to get information about their health and treatment options.  This will fundamentally change the nature of the patient-provider relationship  GA will enable chatbots to create personalized medical advise and assistance for patients and enable more efficient navigation of the health system.(Galileo is allowing patients to connect with the right healthcare solution)

3.  Remote Patient Monitoring-  GA will increasingly be used to alert medical professionals to trends seen in vital signs, physiologic and patient reported data that can predict patient risk.  It will also allow monitoring to become more autonomous independent of healthcare professionals. (Cadence is providing remote monitoring solutions and data analysis for several conditions like congestive heart failure and Kaia is providing analysis of data from musculoskeletal conditions)

4.  Improved Diagnosis- GA will be used to analyze patient data (electronic patient records, laboratory test results, radiographic images, genomic data) to improve diagnostic accuracy.(Google Health/Deep Mind and Babylon Health are using machine learning to better match symptoms with diagnoses).

5.  Drug Discovery- GA will help identify new drug candidates faster and cheaper than current methods (Saama is a company that is ingesting data and GA to dramatically improve the time required for drug discovering)

6.  Personalized Treatment Plans-   GA will generate specific treatment plans for patients based on medical history,  lab data, and genetic makeup.

7. Reduce Drug Adverse Events-  GA will be used to identify side effects and pharmacogenomic difference for patients taking multiple medications, OTC products, dietary supplements, and foods.

8. Fraud, Waste, and Abuse-  GA will help detect fraud and inappropriate utilization through pattern recognition and data identification.

9  Health Risk Assessments-   GA will be used to increasingly predict a patients risk of developing disease and help target preventative care and vaccine applicability.

10.  Access to Care-  GA will be used to help match supply and demand of healthcare services, address no-show rates,  and better predict resource utilization in order to ensure more efficient and timely scheduling of services. (Dexcare is a company using technology to address access)

11.  Reduced Documentation- GA will be able to create patient notes and complete other paperwork tasks that take time away from patient time with healthcare professionals.  This will improve efficiency,  the patient experience, and reduce professional burnout.

12. Virtual Assistants and Robotics- GA can create automated processes and robotic devices to speed workflow in clinical settings.  These virtual assistants and new robotic innovations will make medical practices more efficient and help in a variety of ways including logistics and supply chain management.  Robotic patient assistants will become commonplace in long term care and the home settings for assistive care services.

13.  Regulatory Compliance- GA will enable simulation techniques and synthetic data to test new pharmaceuticals, devices, and digital strategies to examine real world evidence, speed regulatory approvals, and to ensure adequate post-marketing surveillance.

14.  Pre-Authorization of Services-  GA can efficiently run data from patient reported data, physician records, and other clinical sources to ensure compliance with guidelines and give rapid authorization to high costs services and products.

15.  Medical Education and Simulation- GA be increasingly be used to train medical professionals,  assess competencies, and test new devices and procedures to improve safety ensure faster regulatory approval (Companies like Indegene and Edocate are  increasingly using interactive data and scientific information to provide interactive education)

16.  Medical Billing –  GA will help with revenue cycle management by improving the accuracy of billing, coding records, finding data from various clinical sources for accurate risk adjustments, and in ensuring accurate revenue capture. (Cedar is using data with behavioral economics to improve transparency and the billing experience).

17. Clinical Trial Design- GA can run various scenarios and use synthetic data to test and identify clinical trial designs with high precision for recruitment, data analysis,  and compliance with protocols.(Trinetx is a company that is using patient data to develop better clinical trials and drug discovery and MD Clone is creating synthetic data sets to better test innovation and new discoveries}

18.  Surgical Performance- using video capture of surgical procedures,  GA can identify unnecessary variations in surgical performance,  identify preventable postoperative complications and improve surgical operating times by predicting surgical resource needs. (Theator is implementing surgical learning systems to improve operative performance)

19.  Improving Outcomes in Behavioral Health – With natural language processing, GA can analyze behavioral health sessions to identify more effective treatment interventions (Eleos uses NPL and AI to identify value based behavioral healthcare and reduce inefficient care)..

20.  Reducing Disparities and Addressing Disabilities- GA will not only help identify where disparities in care exist through data analysis but it will also create solutions.  Through targeted outreach,  educational and behavioral strategies that are targeted to specific needs of communities, more effective health interventions can be implemented.  (Companies like CareJourney and Datavant are using data from a variety of sources to identify opportunities for improvement and Voiceitt is using AI to facilitate better communication for those with severe speech disorders).

21. Reducing Gaps in Care-  When it comes to chronic illness management,  GA can more easily use data and algorhythms to identify gaps in care that often result in poorer outcomes for patients.

22. Early Intervention-  GA can use unstructured data and image analyses to identify patients a risk that would benefit from early intervention.  We are already seeing this with kidney disease, sepsis, early stroke identification, and even suicide prevention.  (AIdoc is using GA to identify early intervention for patients with stoke and a number of other conditions)

23. Improving Point of Care Testing –  GA will allow the smartphone to become an even more useful tool for diagnostic evaluations.  With improved molecular testing and lateral flow analyses,  GA will allow more sophisticated testing to be run in the home setting.  (Ixlayer offers an enterprise system for managing data for point of care testing and TytoCare brings the ability to test right in the home).

24.. Reducing the Cost of Care- GA can help develop tools to identify “low value” care.  GA will help already existing technology getter better at identifying care that is not appropriate or effective and channel resources into areas where effective care can best targeted.

25. Reducing Medical Errors- Using predictive modeling, GA can help identify before they occur and create early warning systems to alert healthcare professionals and patients (or caregivers) of high risk situations.(Sparta Science is a company using predictive data to identifying patients at risk for falls and in speeding rehabilitation).

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