The use of digital health tools has exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic, but there remains a need for a base of evidence to aid physician decision-making regarding what technology works best for which patients. NODE.Health is meeting that need.
“We really came about under this recognition that everybody’s working on the same problems, and if we could really bring the ecosystem together to understand what’s working, what’s not, we might be able to help accelerate the rate of change,” said Brian Van Winkle, NODE.Health’s executive director, during a recent episode of “AMA COVID-19 Update” examining digital health innovation in the face of COVID-19.
More than 75% of respondents to a recent Telehealth Impact Physician Survey said that, during the pandemic, the technology has enabled them to provide quality COVID-19-related care, acute care, chronic disease management, hospital or emergency department follow-up, care coordination, preventative care, and mental or behavioral health.
The AMA has been providing physicians with COVID-19 telehealth guidance as well as answering physicians’ four main questions regarding digital health tools:
- Does it work?
- Will I receive proper payment?
- Will I be liable and what are the risks?
- Will it work in my practice or workflow?
Similarly, NODE.Health, which stands for the “Network of Digital Evidence in Health,” is a non-profit organization focused on research and education. Its mission is to create, gather and share evidence and best practices and digital health, Van Winkle said.
“We focus on practical, pragmatic information that matters to clinicians,” he added. “We really want to bring practical, real time information to our members—or anybody really that’s part of NODE.Health, as we are a part of the larger ecosystem.”
NODE.Health also recently participated in an online discussion, “Lessons and Opportunities from 2020,” with the AMA Physician Innovation Network, an online community that helps connect health tech companies, entrepreneurs and physicians. Through the PIN platform, the voice, experience and needs of physicians can be heard and incorporated into new products as they are designed and developed.
Other recent NODE.Health events, include hosting its fourth annual digital medicine conference that included offering a digital medicine certificate course on digital medicine fundamentals that was worth 12.25 AMA PRA Category 1 credit™. Plans call for offering it on demand online later this month.
“We’re excited about the work that we’re doing with the AMA,” Van Winkle said, noting that this involves developing best practices on telehealth adoption and integrating digital health technology into practice workflows.
Transformation gives innovation purpose
Transformation gives innovation purpose
Integrating the technology has to be more than just change for the sake of change, explained “AMA COVID-19 Update” panelist Sameer Badlani, MD, a NODE.Health executive board member and chief information officer for M Health Fairview, a partnership between the University of Minnesota, University of Minnesota Physicians and Fairview Health Services.
“Innovation without transformation is a very expensive scientific hobby,” Dr. Badlani said. “Any innovation we invest time in, we have to do the last-mile effort in seeing whether it transforms our business or transforms the experience that our consumers face every day.”
Another aspect of NODE.Health’s work is examining digital medicine’s role in addressing health disparities and “the pandemic of racism and inequity in health care.”
“We are hoping digital medicine becomes a way to tackle racism and not just a way to perpetuate the inequities in outcomes and access to health care that have existed for so long across the globe,” Dr.
