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Health IT execs have a new favorite dirty word
September 23, 2016 07:03 AM
When eClinicalWorks rechristened its flagship electronic health record software as the cloud-based 10e, CEO Girish Navani said something curious: “I don’t want to call it an electronic health record anymore.”
Executives at other EHR makers are striking a similar tone recently as well, nominally disassociating their products from the three-letter acronym as if it were a dirty word.
Navani’s reasoning is simply that the core eClinicalWorks EHR is only about 5 percent of what the 10e iteration actually does.
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Harvard offers digital repository of medical evidence to providers
Published September 19 2016, 7:00am EDT
Harvard Medical School has launched a free, publicly accessible digital repository of medical evidence to help clinicians practice evidence-based medicine in accordance with legislation that goes into effect in 2018.
The Protecting Access to Medicare Act, signed into law in 2014, was slated to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2017, requiring healthcare providers to use approved clinical decision support systems to consult “appropriate use criteria”—developed or endorsed by national professional medical specialty societies or other provider-led entities—when ordering certain advanced medical imaging procedures. However, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has since decided to extend the deadline to Jan. 1, 2018.
Harvard’s Library of Evidence, which is being touted as the future of clinical decision support content, will initially focus on medical imaging to help doctors choose the most appropriate imaging test for their patients to comply with the law.
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HIT Think How to achieve ROI with a behavioral health EHR
Published September 22 2016, 2:52pm EDT
No, there is no Meaningful Use for behavioral health hospitals, and yes, some mental health clinicians remain skeptical about the proposed value of electronic health records (EHR).
And yet a steadily increasing number of behavioral health facilities nationwide have adopted an EHR to improve patient care and organization performance. According to a recent Behavioral Healthcare survey, most are satisfied with the decision to make an EHR part of their daily routine.
So, does that satisfaction make it a wise value proposition to adopt a behavioral health EHR? This highly relevant question about return on investment (ROI) is not limited to behavioral health facilities, but it might be a more pressing concern for organizations that cannot count on federal subsidies.
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Task force tackles healthcare cybersecurity challenges
Published September 23 2016, 8:14am EDT
A healthcare cybersecurity task force mandated by Congress is developing a set of recommendations that it hopes will help to counter the growing cyber threats that are putting patient information at risk.
Created by the Department of Health and Human Services in response to the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, the task force is charged with examining healthcare’s challenges in securing data from hacker attacks and to see what best practices/lessons can be learned from other industries in how to successfully implement safeguards.
According to Theresa Meadows, co-chair of the Health Care Industry Cybersecurity Task Force and CIO of Cook Children’s Health Care System, the panel’s 20 subject matter experts are drawn from a wide variety of organizations including providers, payers, pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, IT vendors, and government agencies.
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CPOE effectiveness varies among pediatric hospitals
Sep 23, 2016 10:14am
An evaluation of computerized physician order entry and associated clinical decision support technology used at 41 children’s hospitals determined there to be wide variation in the effectiveness of such tools.
The study, in which researchers examined simulated scenarios from February 2008 to December 2010 using an evaluation tool developed by the Leapfrog Group, found that while, on average, pediatric CPOE systems were able to catch 62 percent of potential medication errors. Researchers also found that effectiveness ranged from slightly less than 23 percent at the lowest hospital to 91 percent at the highest; the research was published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.
“[T]he effectiveness of CDS to identify actual unsafe scenarios has previous been shown to vary quite significantly among institutions, even those using the same [electronic health record] vendor,” the authors said. “In our study, we found that although the pediatric institutions tested are identifying over 60 percent of simulated ordering errors and are consistently improving, areas in need of significant improvement remain, particularly within the advanced clinical decision support areas.”
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Doctors, researchers highlight importance of clinical trial data sharing
Sep 23, 2016 10:15am
The focus on sharing of clinical trial data is growing, and three recent perspective articles published in the New England Journal of Medicine this week break down the importance of transparency in the space and the direction in which the industry must go.
“As we work through these complex issues, we want to make it clear that the Journal is committed to making data sharing part of our everyday business,” NEJM editors write in a post introducing the perspectives.
Here’s breakdown of what each one addresses:
"Data Sharing at a Crossroads:" There must be a “simple one-stop shop for clinical trial data sharing,” say authors Frank Rockhold, Ph.D., Perry Nisen, M.D., Ph.D., and Andrew Freeman. Currently, they say, costs and resources for data sharing can be a major barrier for academic and smaller sponsors. They propose a system that would allow clinical trial data to be more easily shared. Study details and/or data, they say, would be sent to a third party, a “custodian,” who could manage scientific review and privacy. “This approach would require sponsors to give up their own effective systems but would realize economies of scale, helping to address cost barriers,” the doctors write.
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HIT Think How unstructured data will impact precision medicine
Published September 23 2016, 2:35pm EDT
Unstructured data governs precision medicine. Precision medicine, defined as seeking "to improve stratification and timing of healthcare by utilizing biological information and biomarkers on the level of molecular disease pathways, genetics, proteomics as well as metabolomics,” is the future of medicine.
As a result, understanding unstructured data and its architectures is therefore critical to the future of healthcare. Since the mid-1990s, there has been popular, but yet unverified, meme that “laboratory medicine (pathology) influences 70 percent of all clinical decision-making.” If one combines all unstructured data (pathology, radiology and genomics), this meme may hold true.
Clinical research usefulness and translation of unstructured biomedical data into the continuing patient-physician interface remains a daunting challenge. Modern information infrastructures are poised to revolutionize the future of medicine. Amara’s Law states that "we tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” This article summarizes the challenges and issues to consider for distributed information infrastructures.
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National Academy of Medicine: HIT agenda must be reset
Sep 21, 2016 11:30am
The U.S. has met only one of four federal health IT goals outlined by the White House in 2004, according to the National Academy of Medicine, which notes in a new discussion paper that the agenda for the next five years should be "reset."
The paper, part of NAM’s Vital Directions for Health and Health Care initiative, notes that while the national goal of electronic health record adoption has been reached, the three other goals outlined in 2004--interoperability, supporting consumers with information and public health, clinical trials and other data-intensive activities--have not. It identifies nine central themes in three focus areas that it suggests should be the major goals for health IT over the next five years, including:
Technical underpinnings:
- Data standards and achieving interoperability at scale
- Interoperability with consumer health technology
- Improving patient identification matching to support interoperability
- Service-oriented architectures and web-based services
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Plan needed amid 'confusing' funding for a digital NHS
22 September 2016
The government’s plan to digitally transform the NHS is at risk of losing credibility as plans and funding remain “confusing”, The King’s Fund has warned.
In a report into the NHS digital health agenda, released today, the health policy think tank says plans for digital transformation are at risk from a lack of clarity, huge financial pressures and unrealistic targets.
“This agenda has been subject to a confusing array of announcements, initiatives and plans. Shifting priorities and slipping timescales pose a risk to credibility and commitment on the ground.”
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Microsoft makes its move into artificial intelligence cancer moonshot realm
The software giant joins rivals IBM and Google in putting supercomputing to work on cancer research and treatment.
September 20, 2016 03:07 PM
Microsoft on Tuesday announced artificial intelligence initiatives specifically targeting cancer. Such work puts the software giant in a supercomputing realm with rivals IBM and Google.
Microsoft said its new initiative includes four research teams. The first is harnessing machine learning and natural language processing to help oncologists glean existing research data to better understand personalized care.
A second team is pairing machine learning with what Microsoft called "computer vision" in work with radiologists to track tumor progression.
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Policymakers: Don't ignore health IT soul searching
Sep 22, 2016 8:45pm
For some reason, this month has spurred some serious reflection about health IT and electronic health records.
First, there’s last week’s analysis of the HITECH Act and the Meaningful Use program by Mathematica Policy Research. The researchers found that the success of the program was mixed; while it spurred adoption of EHRs, increased electronic data exchange and prioritized the improvement of healthcare delivery, problems remain. For instance, it’s been difficult to move Meaningful Use past the low bar set by Stage 1. Additionally, EHRs still are not well designed, providers continue to be dissatisfied with the products, EHR data continues to be too variable to be useful and barriers to interoperability persist.
The ultimate effect of the program on patient outcomes remains “unknown.”
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Healthcare must move past outdated patient portals
Sep 22, 2016 11:42am
Consumer engagement efforts must move to a more innovative place than where patient portals are today, and that means creating a platform that reaches all patients, according to a new Chilmark report.
Healthcare organizations and other stakeholders must work together to take engagement solutions out of silos, the report says. In addition, such platforms must also take into account the many places in which patients receive care, both inside and outside the home.
“It’s about taking a holistic approach to engagement, providing solutions tailored to helping consumers solve their unique healthcare problems and achieve their unique health and wellness goals,” report author Brian Eastwood writes in a blog post.
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AMIA wants to speed up HIT safety legislation
Published September 21 2016, 6:43am EDT
The American Medical Informatics Association is pushing members of Congress to pass legislation that would speed getting new medicines into the hands of physicians.
The organization representing medical informaticists also seeks a national health IT safety strategy that would include a “trusted space” for stakeholders to meet and review evidence on new innovations, according to a statement.
AMIA leaders meet with House and Senate leaders on September 20 to urge that legislation approved in recent months by the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions be quickly finalized and passed by both houses of Congress.
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Global Breaches Soar by 15% in H1 2016
Phil Muncaster
Nearly five billion private records have been exposed globally since 2013, with data breaches increasing by 15% in the first half of the year compared to the previous six months, according to Gemalto.
The digital security firm claimed in its latest Breach Level Index that in excess of 4.8 billion records have now been stolen – that’s 41 every second – with encryption used in just 4% of cases.
The UK was highlighted as having the second highest volume of breaches – 61 – after the United States (728), with the rest of Europe on only 25.
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Report: Demonstration projects should guide development of HIT evaluation system
Sep 21, 2016 11:28am
A planning board convened on behalf of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration outlines a strategy for governing and overseeing an independent “coordinating center” to guide the development and management of a National Evaluation System for health Technology (NEST) in a report published Tuesday.
Building on the idea that the NEST--a voluntary network of data partners sharing information to better understand the performance of medical devices--can improve device innovation and influence related regulations, the report’s authors say a coordinating center should be governed by a “transparently selected” board of 11 to 15 stakeholders from across the healthcare industry.
The board urges the use of demonstration projects in two phases by the coordinating center for NEST’s initial development. Phase one projects, which should be completed in three years, would focus on balancing pre- and postmarket device evidence development and creating an “active surveillance system.” Projects in phase two, which should be completed in five years, would focus on “enhancing data collection” and developing capabilities to measure device value within the NEST, the report’s authors say.
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Surescripts Offers EHR Vendors Free Access to National Record Locator Service
Health information network Surescripts announced that it will offer EHR vendors free access to its National Record Locator Service, a service that gives providers an effective way to obtain a more complete view of a patient’s health history until 2019. Early EHR adopters of the NRLS include A number of leading EHR vendors, including Aprima, eClinicalWorks (eCW), Epic, Greenway Health, and NextGen Healthcare have already agreed to offer the capability to their users.
“Our customers have already seen increases in record location using Surescripts NRLS,” said Carl Dvorak, President of Epic. “A free NRLS could be a game changer to expand and accelerate vendor-neutral search—a big win for patient care nationwide and providers preparing for the reality of the post-reform environment.”
Surescripts National Record Locator Service Overview
Surescripts National Record Locator Service is a query and response solution that leverages Surescripts network and Master Patient Index of more than 140 million patients to locate and exchange patient records.
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The Importance — and the Complexities — of Data Sharing
Interview with Dr. Jeffrey Drazen on the future of sharing clinical trial data. (9:31)
We at the Journal are committed to making the sharing of clinical trial data an effective, efficient, and sustainable part of biomedical research. This issue of the Journal includes three Perspective articles on the topic of data sharing. Grossman et al. describe the Genomic Data Commons, which will initially house raw genomic data and diagnostic, histologic, and clinical outcome data from National Cancer Institute–funded projects.1 Lo and DeMets recommend steps for addressing clinical trialists’ primary reservations about sharing their data.2 And Rockhold et al. consider progress to date and a path forward that could avert the creation of a fragmented data-sharing landscape.3 In August 2016, we published four Perspective articles on the same topic — two by experts who favored rapid open access to clinical trial data and two by other experts who were more reserved in their enthusiasm, focusing on the hurdles to be overcome.4-7 With these articles, and with others to come, our goal is to bring to the table a wide variety of opinions about the value, risks, unknowns, and rewards that accompany data sharing in the context of clinical trials. We firmly believe that complex issues are best clarified through open discussion and the airing of various viewpoints. Only by seeing the issue through many sets of eyes can we achieve the clarity we need to move forward. We hope that you will read each of these pieces with this idea in mind. Our enemy is disease and the human toll it takes. We need to use every means possible to come closer to vanquishing the real foe.
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Seniors still lagging in use of internet health resources
(Reuters Health) – Many older Americans aren’t taking advantage of e-health resources, a new study suggests.
Internet use has “become part of the social norm,” said lead researcher Dr. Yan Hong of Texas A&M University in College Station, who specializes in human health behavior. But there’s still a “digital divide” between those who have access to the internet and those who don’t, Hong told Reuters Health by phone.
“Older adults are particularly vulnerable to digital inequality because they’re often the last group to get on board with the latest technology,” she said.
The Pew Research Center reported recently that while only 1 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds don’t go online, the same is true for about 41 percent of adults older than 65.
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Dignity Health, Catholic Health Initiatives join forces to create Precision Medicine Alliance
The initiative will offer advanced technologies and genomic profiling to nearly 150 hospitals, focusing first on cancer treatment, hospital executives said.
September 19, 2016 10:41 AM
San Francisco-based Dignity Health and Englewood, Colo.-based Catholic Health Initiatives today launched the Precision Medicine Alliance.
The goal is to offer patients from both healthcare systems faster and more accurate diagnostic and treatment protocols based on their genetic and molecular profile information.
The program will be available at nearly 150 hospitals and care centers across the U.S., serving about 12 million patients annually and creating the largest community-based precision medicine program in the country, officials said.
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Vindell Washington: Expanded oversight falls within ONC's role
Sep 20, 2016 1:15pm
In his first briefing with the media since taking over as National Coordinator for Health IT in August, Vindell Washington talked at length about the role of his office going forward, with particular attention paid to oversight interoperability.
Discussing the potential expansion of ONC’s oversight abilities, Washington said such responsibilities clearly fall within ONC’s purview.
“There’s this idea that we need a little bit of an ability to do direct oversight of the actual certification,” he said. “We have less-than-optimal oversight into the testing that goes along with certification, and then, the last sort of prong is around this idea of surveillance or some transparency on the surveillance side. I would say that it’s fairly driven by a maturation of the program and a maturation of the environment.”
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Interoperability remains a top priority for new ONC coordinator
Published September 20 2016, 6:21am EDT
Vindell Washington, MD, the newly appointed National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, might be on the job for just a few more months—his service officially ends on Jan. 20, 2017—but he’s determined to ensure that ONC’s health IT initiatives have a positive, lasting legacy.
At a media briefing on Monday, Washington told reporters that his priority as National Coordinator for Health IT is to continue to implement ONC’s Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap as part of the Department of Health and Human Service’s delivery system reform initiative. The public-private roadmap seeks to enable the healthcare industry’s transition from fee-for-service to a value-based payment through the use of interoperable HIT, he said.
“I believe that the work we’re doing on information sharing is actually foundational work for a number of the Administration’s priorities. I think it’s important for delivery system reform, and I think it’s particularly important for the Precision Medicine Initiative and the Cancer Moonshot,” said Washington, who joined ONC in January as principal deputy to National Coordinator Karen DeSalvo, MD, and replaced her in August.
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New ONC chief Vindell Washington, MD: 'Time to pivot toward information sharing'
The newly-minted National Coordinator for Health IT offered his thoughts on interoperability, quality reporting, privacy and security, EHR certification, innovation and more.
September 20, 2016 01:44 PM
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has seen its influence and agenda-setting power evolve somewhat over the past decade, but one thing is clear, said its newest chief, Vindell Washington, MD: The agency has helped bring the industry to "a place that is, quite frankly, astounding."
Consider healthcare organizations' adoption of information technology, "the fact that we're looking at well over nine out of 10 – 97 or 98 percent – of hospitals being digitized, and three-quarters of physicians offices being digitized," said Washington, responding to reporters' questions during a media availability on September 19.
"If you look at where people thought we would be when those programs started and ONC was sort of getting its sea legs, people have been astounded by that," he said. "When we have our sessions with foreign delegations, that's one of the questions: 'How did you get to this level of adoption?'"
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HIT Think Why unified notes could lessen documentation times
Published September 20 2016, 3:31pm EDT
In 2009, an article in Methods of Information Medicine reported that physicians spend 26.6 percent of their time documenting care and 27.5 percent of their time in direct patient care. In their conclusion, the authors wrote, “Computer-based tools and, in some areas, documentation assistants may help to reduce the clinical and administrative documentation efforts.”
More recently, an article by Sinsky et. al. just published in the Annals of Internal Medicine reports that physicians spend 49.2 percent of their time documenting care and 27 percent of their time on direct patient care. When in the examination room with patients, physicians devote 52.9 percent of their time on face time with patients and 37 percent of their time on electronic medical record (EMR) work. The physicians in the study also reported that they spent one to two hours each evening performing patient documentation.
Clearly, the future predicted by the authors of the 2009 article did not come true. It appears that EMRs increase the amount of time physicians need to invest in documentation at the detriment of the time spent interacting with patients.
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Validic Report: How Digital Health Devices and Data Impact Clinical Trials
Pharma and biotech will increasingly turn to digital health tools over the next five years to better collect, analyze and act on patient-generated health data (PGHD), according to a new research paper published by Validic. The study conducted over two months includes survey responses of the BioPharma Dive readership from nearly 200 global pharma and biotech companies, CROs and technology providers to provide insights on the benefits and challenges of using digital health data and devices in clinical trials.
Research reveals the rise in acceptance and use of PGHD and digital health technologies are being driven by increased pressures to reduce trials costs, streamline processes, demonstrate real world-efficacy, address medication adherence and improve treatments for chronic diseases.
In fact, over 60 percent of respondents stated they have used digital health technologies in clinical trials and over 97 percent said they plan to use these tools increasingly over the next five years. Findings from the survey point to the increasing prevalence of technology-driven clinical trials and growing need for automated access to real-time, remotely-collected patient data.
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3 Tips for EHR Efficiency from a Solo Practitioner
A primary care physician describes the EHR system workflow that works for his practice
by Debra Beaulieu
MedPage Today Staff Writer
MedPage Today Staff Writer
09.18.2016
The AMA's time-motion study released last week quantified a major complaint about EHRs, concluding that for every hour physicians spend with patients, they spend another two hours interacting with their electronic medical records systems.
In an editorial accompanying the study in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Susan Hingle, MD, an associate professor of internal medicine at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, articulated an equally valid, arguably more productive conclusion:
"Now is the time to go beyond complaining about EHRs and other practice hassles and to make needed changes to the healthcare system that will redirect our focus from the computer screen to our patients and help us rediscover the joy of medicine," Hingle wrote.
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ONC national coordinator rebuts report on doctor discontent with EHRs
News and Features Writer
Vindell Washington, M.D., the new national coordinator for health information technology, hits back at a survey citing widespread physician dissatisfaction with EHRs.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The new ONC national coordinator, Vindell Washington, M.D., pushed back at a recent report that nearly half of U.S. physicians don't like their EHRs and think they're causing physician overwork.
Washington, an emergency medicine physician and former president and chief medical information officer of a Louisiana healthcare system, took over the top post at the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology in August 2016, succeeding former National Coordinator Karen DeSalvo, M.D.
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Why Healthcare is a ‘Sitting Duck’ in Data Protection Measures
A recent Intel Security report found that the gap between data loss and breach discovery is getting larger, with healthcare organizations particularly vulnerable in data protection.
Healthcare organizations and manufacturers are very vulnerable when it comes to their data protection measures, according to the Intel Security 2016 Data Protection Benchmark Study.
While the gap between data loss and breach discovery is increasing, healthcare organizations are “sitting ducks,” the report’s authors explained. Furthermore, the typical data loss prevention approach is increasingly ineffective against new theft targets.
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FBI Urges Organizations to Report Ransomware Incidents to Federal Law Enforcement
September 19, 2016
by Heather Landi
The Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a public service announcement last week urging victims to report ransomware attacks to law enforcement to help the FBI gain a more comprehensive view of the current threat.
According to the FBI notice, new ransomware variants are emerging regularly and cybersecurity companies reported in the first several months of 2016 that global ransomware infections were at an all-time high. “Within the first weeks of its release, one particular ransomware variant compromised an estimated 100,000 computers a day,” FBI officials stated.
Ransomware is a type of malware installed on a computer or server that encrypts the files, making them inaccessible until a specified ransom is paid. According to the FBI, ransomware is typically installed when a user clicks on a malicious link, opens a file in an e-mail that installs the malware, or through drive-by downloads (which does not require user-initiation) from a compromised Web site.
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IoT Will Quash 'Digital Snake Oil' Jeers, Says Qualcomm CMO
Scott Mace, September 20, 2016
Physicians will have learn what the automated systems can and can't do, and recognize their own roles as the developers of the algorithms that smart systems will use, says a proponent of the Internet of Things.
Enough sensor-equipped, collision-detecting, self-braking cars will be on U.S. roads by 2022 to eliminate one third of all traffic highway deaths, the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety predicted last year.
Talk about technology bending the cost curve of healthcare. "That's with today's technology," says James Mault, MD, chief medical officer of Qualcomm Life, who highlighted this prediction at Qualcomm's annual Connect conference in San Diego, CA last month.
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The Culture Of Data Sharing Has To Change
September 20, 2016
While the role of data and data sharing and its significance in transforming our nation’s health care system is sometimes overlooked, the Health Care Payment Learning & Action Network (LAN) is taking steps to raise awareness of this crucial aspect of health care payment reform. We should not underestimate the extent by which the data sharing that is needed will generate new business models and new ways of delivering care that improve treatment and the health of our patients.
In the last few years, data and data exchange have emerged as the new currency in health care, a powerful force that is redefining traditional relationships in the health care marketplace as our country moves from a health care system that rewards volume to a quality-based system. The topic is so important that the LAN devoted an entire white paper to the subject. This paper proposes a set of principles for how to integrate data sharing into health-improvement efforts.
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http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/opinion/how-to-improve-your-organizations-cybersecurity-training
HIT Think How to improve your organization’s cybersecurity training
Published September 16 2016, 3:12pm EDT
Today’s healthcare industry today is vastly different from what it was just five years ago. While changes in government regulations have had a major impact, the more stunning evolution has to do with the use and reliance on technology and big data.
Healthcare organizations of all types integrate leading-edge hardware and software solutions into everything that they do. It requires a massive investment, and is driven by two primary objectives:
- Improve quality of care. An array of new mobile devices enables providers to gather and analyze data of all kinds—from diagnostic details to treatment records—and they can apply this knowledge for treatment and service faster than ever before.
- Increase productivity of providers. State-of-the-art information management systems enable providers to capture a broader range of service and operating data in increasing depth in order to refine patient care and streamline business processes.
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HIE advances efforts to match patients to their records
Published September 16 2016, 3:22pm EDT
Healthix, a large health information exchange vendor serving New York City and Long Island, is going live with a new service to improve the matching of patients with their records.
The HIE, with a database of 16 million unique patients, matches patient records using information from multiple sources and serves about 1,400 provider facilities throughout the region.
Healthix in August delivered 430,666 clinical event notifications delivered to providers along with 155,035 clinical summaries delivered to electronic health record systems via CCD or C-CDA continuity of care documents, and about 8,000 secure messages are sent monthly, says Tom Check, president and CEO. The company also offers analytics services to predict patients at risk and needing interventional care.
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How to better protect health data of high-profile individuals
Sep 19, 2016 11:04am
The hack that compromised medical information of Olympic athletes illustrates the challenges of protecting health data for high-profile individuals.
More incidents are likely when such data is stored with organizations less well protected than a major medical center, Sean Curran, a security expert with consultancy West Monroe Partners, tells HealthcareInfoSecurity.com.
While the hack on the World Anti-Doping Agency that exposed Olympians’ data was attributed to a Russian group, malicious insiders, whether politically or financially motivated, also can be difficult to stop, especially if they already have access privileges.
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When Information Storage Gets Under Your Skin
Tiny implants can replace keys, store business cards and medical data—and eventually a lot more
Members of the so-called bodyhacker movement have been implanting RFID chips under their skin, programming them to perform various tasks. Photo: Henrik Andree, Telefónica BASECAMP/Digiwell.com
By Nina Adam and William Wilkes
Sept. 18, 2016 10:11 p.m. ET
Patrick Paumen doesn’t have to worry about forgetting his keys and being locked out of his apartment. That is because he doesn’t need a key anymore—he simply unlocks the door with a wave of his hand.
The 32-year-old IT expert from the Dutch city of Heerlen is one of a growing number of people with electronic implants under their skin, mostly to use as keys or for identification.
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mHealth Platform Automatically Triages Patients
Researchers in Scotland have developed mHealth technology that can triage numerous patients at once using facial recognition and gaming software.
Researchers at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland have developed mHealth technology that can triage numerous patients at once using facial recognition and gaming software.
The motion control-based pulse oximeter technology, which was developed using technology from Microsoft’s Kinect motion controller for games consoles, is combined with a camera to create a passive surveillance system that can capture vital signs and instantly present them to clinicians to ensure patients needing urgent care are treated as soon as possible.
The technology, which is currently being tested in the respiratory ward at Victoria Hospital in Fife, can detect blood oxygen levels and heart rate in up to six patients simultaneously.
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Enjoy!
David.
