7- DATA, DATA,& MORE DATA IN HEALTHCARE by PHARMAGEEK

Healthcare organisations are a major target for cyber criminals – and the consequences are huge. How can attacks be stopped?

 

The last five years has seen a surge of attacks on the healthcare industry, with the largest breaches impacting as many as 80 million people. In July this year, it was revealed that 150,000 NHS patients' data was shared over a three-year period following a major breach.

 

Over in the US, the 2015 cyber-attack on Anthem saw hackers steal 78.8 million patient records, claiming highly sensitive data, including names, social security numbers, home addresses and dates of birth.

 

Meanwhile, this year, hackers breached the Singapore government’s health database with a targeted cyber-attack, accessing the data of 1.5 million patients.

 

Healthcare breaches are especially serious because personal data can, in some cases, mean the difference between life and death. For example, says Carlisle, it could cause medications to become mixed up – or people might fail to get treatment for conditions such as diabetes.

 

Healthcare providers often struggle to find room in tight budgets to invest in new IT systems, leaving them vulnerable. “Compliance issues are commonplace in healthcare too, where organizations need to meet stringent requirements of governing bodies such as HIPAA

 

While network and endpoint technologies are a required element of an organization’s IT security stance, they are increasingly less effective at keeping external attacks at bay, They are also an inadequate way of securing cloud, big data, internet of things (IoT) and container deployments.

 

The critical nature of healthcare environments means users require immediate access to healthcare data across a range of devices and applications. Therefore, Security can often be seen as a barrier rather than an enabler.

 

It’s integral that healthcare organizations bolster their data security and compliance efforts. Data should be encrypted so it would be “worthless” in the event of a cyber-attack.

 

The good news is that healthcare data breaches are now in the consumer collective consciousness – and organizations are more aware than ever of potential data misuse.

 

Via nrip

From HIMSS, by John Sharp:

Blogs, Journals, News, White Papers To help small practices, vendors need to think like patients

A report on a series of presentations on patient engagement at HIMSS15. The presentations included statistics on patients strong preferences to be notified by texting of appointments and other reminders and their desire to be equal partners in healthcare decision making

Telemedicine market to soar past $30B
An increasing aged population and healthcare costs are propelling the market growth.

Why what works for Uber may not work for medical apps

While many innovators and futurist like to see Silicon Valley startups with high valuations as a model for healthcare. This excellent piece points out the weakness of this argument - healthcare is based on a social contract, the risk of losing everything (not an option in healthcare),  unnecessarily galvanizing the opposition, misreading the law,  Uber’s strategy hasn’t even worked in the transportation industry yet (they now have 70 lawyers).

Patients and Families as Partners

Amer Haider of the startup Doctella shares his experience with his father’s hospitalization and the frustration of trying to obtain personal health information. Amer is an advocate of involving patients in patient safety through the use of checklist, but this hospital frustrated his attempts to get involved in a family member’s care.

My Medical Records | How To Get Them

From the Louisiana Health Quality Forum which is promoting getting one's health data - how and what to get - directly to patients. An important direct to consumer approach which should be copied by other states.

Will Personal Health Information Exchanges (PHIE) Lead the Consumer Medical Record Revolution and Bridge the Gap Between PHRs and EHRs?

This strong argument for patient access to medical records proposes an approach from a Frost and Sullivan white paper on using PHIEs rather than HIEs to get patients their data. Quotes leaders in the field including David Kibbe..

Sharing Your Fitness Tracker Data? ‘Pace’ Yourself

This article discusses the potential uses of fitness tracking devices in research. Runkeeper meets researcher.

Social Media Use in Chronic Disease: A Systematic Review and Novel Taxonomy

From the American Journal of Medicine, this literature review showed that "48% of studies indicating benefit, 45% neutral or undefined, and 7% suggesting harm. Using social media to provide social, emotional, or experiential support in chronic disease, especially with Facebook and blogs, appears most likely to improve patient care."

5 Things You Should Know About Your Electronic Medical Records

From the Cleveland Clinic blog, a good basic primer for patients on their portal.  The author, Steven Nissen, MD, warns that it may include medical jargon you may not understand but it will keep you well informed about your health numbers and your doctor's recommendations (assuming your portal has Open Notes).

The 2015 #HIT99 Results Are In..

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Via rob halkes