Again, in the last week, I have come across a few news items which are worth passing on.
First we have:
Sullivan Nicolaides leak exposes hypocrisy
Article from the Courier Mail.
March 30, 2009 11:00pm
THE initial reaction of pathology giant Sullivan Nicolaides to news that the medical details of hundreds of its clients had found their way on to the internet for all to see was to label The Courier-Mail reporter who told the company of the breach a "terrorist".
Its behaviour has not improved much since, despite what appears to be a major failure involving the security of its patient records.
The company seems to be having trouble grasping the idea that this episode is more than a public relations problem that needs to be managed. Its internal inquiry into the incident should include a thorough examination of its security systems so that patients are reassured their private records are locked away from prying eyes. As well, the company's executives should have a good look at themselves and ask whether their behaviour in relation to this breach was in the best interests of their employer or the public.
Sullivan Nicolaides and its major competitors constitute Australia's largest pathology services providers. Given that Australians are living longer and benefiting from increasing sophistication of medical diagnosis, more and more people are accessing the services these companies provide, and trusting their privacy will be protected in the process.
.....
That there have been 50 reports of privacy breaches by companies or governments since August suggests some organisations have a problem reconciling what they say about respecting individual privacy and how they treat the confidential information given to them by those individuals. The media should not be criticised for bringing that problem to light.
More here:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,,25265407-13360,00.html
Can I suggest that, as I began with last week, the it is the Courier Mail that has been really rather sad in all this and this editorial makes the point quite nicely. If they identified the problem they should have let S&N know, allow them time to fix it and then maybe publish about it. That way the harm would not have been perpetuated and those patients who were affected would know that the issues have been addressed. Sure there was a breech, but the victims were sadly the patients and the Courier Mail totally ignored their interests as far as I see it.
No wonder a key part of many corporate risk management plans in Queensland is to have a well developed strategy as to how to handle abuse from this essentially monopoly organ of the press.
A bit more of their hysterical reporting is found here:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,,25266776-3102,00.html
Online leaks splash confidential medical details on net
Article from Courier Mail
Anna Caldwell
March 30, 2009 11:00pm
I note no other media have picked up the story as far as a Google News search is concerned. Sensible I suggest.
Second we have:
The View from the Cross
Dr Raymond Seidler
Time to press the panic button
Friday, 3 April 2009
IN a week when the RACGP sends out a survival kit for GPs containing information on how to deal with difficult or violent patients and a rural New South Wales GP, Dr Hamish Steiner, appears on The New Inventors with a panic button that sends out a silent duress alarm to all other computers on a practice network, we have the awful reality of one of our colleagues, GP Theo Rothonis, being stabbed in his Waterloo practice by a 65-year-old patient.
We don't know the mental state of Dr Rothonis' attacker, but Waterloo, like Kings Cross, has a higher level of mental illness than the wider population.
Most psychotics are victims of assault rather than perpetrators. However, many chronic schizophrenics are now managed by GPs with little assistance from an overstretched public mental health system and psychiatrists who would rather treat depression and anxiety than the sharp end of psychosis. Emptying out psychiatric hospitals has not been a successful move.
For those of you who believe in synchronicity, perhaps these events are linked in some perverse way. They should provide us with an opportunity to become serious about our own protection.
More here:
http://www.medicalobserver.com.au/Blog/12/34/Default.aspx
Violence against GP’s is a worrying problem. This sounds like a useful technical idea.
Third we have:
THE RUST BUCKET
April 3, 2009
Healthcare calls
By Len Rust
Healthcare is an issue that touches us all. Unfortunately an outmoded delivery system and budgetary pressures have compromised our ability to provide adequate public healthcare in many locations.
Every time we encounter the healthcare system, information about our background, medical history, health status, and insurance coverage is immediately required. And every medical encounter produces another trail of documentation.
Despite some dazzling use of technology the medical industry lags behind other industries in the application of ICT in many areas. Physicians and their staff still carry thick manila folders filled with pages of handwritten notes. Doctors often query patients about their medical history because the needed information is buried deep inside their files.
Due to pressure from governments, budgetary issues, and consumer reactions to spiralling costs, the time may well have come for enforced health IT activity. Health care providers have always lagged behind other industry sectors in their adoption of ICT. Now, authorities need to act.
Interoperability standards and policies need immediate attention. Studies of the benefits of health IT have found enough evidence to conclude that technology can improve compliance with medical treatment guidelines to reduce medication errors and decrease the use of unnecessary medical care. There is also a need for a roadmap for community hospitals and a wider array of community health operators Australia-wide.
More here:
Good to see the mainstream ICT press discussing Health IT.
Fourth we have:
Commentary
7:35 AM, 2 Apr 2009
Alan Kohler
Investors lose heart
There are many small tragedies within a global disaster like this, and one of them is Ventracor – for years one of Australia’s leading biotech prospects.
Two weeks ago, Ventracor went into voluntary administration and is now, amazingly, facing complete closure. It has no debt and a technology that works: 400 people are walking around in the United States with its artificial heart whirring in their chests.
Over more than a decade a group of Australian shareholders has put $200 million, and a dedicated staff of medical scientists have put their lives, into developing an Australian artificial heart. It is now licensed for use in Australia and Europe and is on the brink of FDA approval in the US.
Yet administrator Steve Sherman of Ferrier Hodgson has enough cash to last no more than a couple of months. Unless he can find a corporate buyer, the company will simply close and the IP on its device will be picked up at a garage sale. The shareholders will get nothing.
And the signs don’t look good at this stage: the board has been trying to sell the IP or the company for six months, with no takers, which is why they gave up and called in Steve Sherman earlier this month.
More here:
This is a good analysis of how a high tech company can go very bad, very quickly. Some worthwhile lessons here for the technical entrepreneur.
Fifth we have:
New treatment 'zaps' high blood pressure
- Nick Miller
- March 31, 2009
MELBOURNE researchers have developed a new surgical technique that "zaps" nerves around the kidneys to dramatically reduce high blood pressure.
They say the technique could benefit more than a million Australians — and millions more around the world — at high risk of heart attack or stroke from high blood pressure that resists conventional drug treatments.
"(The problem is) pretty much a time bomb," said lead researcher Associate Professor Markus Schlaich, of the Baker IDI Institute.
"This resistant hypertension causes a dramatic increase in cardiovascular risks, and there's no other way we can help."
Around a third of adult Australians have elevated blood pressure, of whom one in six have a form that drug treatments either cannot fix or cause bad side effects.
The technique uses a catheter with a radio energy emitter on the end. It is inserted into an artery in the groin and travels up to the blood vessels around the kidney. There it "switches off" the nerves in the sympathetic nerve system involved in regulating blood pressure.
More here:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/new-treatment-zaps-high-blood-pressure-20090331-9h7n.html
Some very interesting Australian research that has received international coverage.
If you have access the Wall St Journal coverage is here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123846254881572087.html#mod=djemHL
Old Blood-Pressure Treatments Make High-Tech Comebacks
By RON WINSLOW
ORLANDO, Fla. -- More than a half-century ago, doctors treating patients with uncontrolled high blood pressure might resort to crude and invasive methods such as severing nerves or zapping neck arteries with an electrical charge.
Both strategies reduced blood pressure, but the procedures came with such major complications that they were reserved essentially for life-and-death situations. With the development of modern drugs, the treatments fell by the wayside.
Sixth we have:
Action video games improve eyesight
March 30, 2009
Article from: Reuters
ADULTS who play a lot of action video games may be improving their eyesight, US researchers say.
They said people who used a video-game training program saw significant improvements in their ability to notice subtle differences in shades of grey, a finding that may help people who have trouble with night driving.
"Normally, improving contrast sensitivity means getting glasses or eye surgery - somehow changing the optics of the eye," said Daphne Bavelier of the University of Rochester in New York, whose study appears in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
"But we've found that action video games train the brain to process the existing visual information more efficiently, and the improvements last for months after game play stopped."
For the study, the team divided 22 students into two groups. One group played the action games "Call of Duty 2" by Activision Blizzard Inc and Epic Games' "Unreal Tournament 2004." A second played Electronic Arts Inc's "The Sims 2," a game they said does not require as much hand-eye co-ordination.
More here:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25263043-23289,00.html
Very interesting little study and an interesting outcome of game playing!
Lastly some slightly more technical news:
Conficker's makers lose big, expert says
Hackers' work was for nothing as attention mushroomed, argues Symantec exec
Gregg Keizer 02 April, 2009 07:43
The malware makers who crafted Conficker must be extremely disappointed, a security expert said Wednesday, and not because the Internet didn't come crashing down as some of the wildest speculation had predicted.
"All of their work has gone for naught," said Alfred Huger, vice president of development for Symantec Corp.'s security response team, referring to the hackers who created the Conficker worm.
Ironically, it was the extraordinary success of Conficker that made the hackers' work essentially a wasted effort, Huger said. "Most of the work done on Conficker was because of all the attention it got, absolutely," he said, pointing to the drumbeat of coverage since the worm first surfaced in November 2008, and the frenzy that led up to today, when its newest variant started switching to a new communications scheme.
"This is the biggest worm, in terms of press coverage received, since we experienced Code Red," Huger noted. Code Red, which struck Microsoft Corp.'s server software in 2001, slowed networks to a crawl. "And that's great. I think the threat was genuine, and without all the attention, it could have been a big problem."
Much more here:
Seems this was all a bit of a beat up – so far. I wonder whether there will be a sting in the tail.
If concerned about it – the fix is available here:
How to avoid a Conficker infection
On a different note:
10 operating systems the world left behind
AmigaOS, CP/M, OS/2, DOS -- which OS do you miss the most?
Matt Lake 03/04/2009 08:02:00
You're not really supposed to love an operating system. It's like your car's hydraulic system, your digestive system or the global financial system. It's supposed to do its job -- and not get in your way while you're doing yours.
But like your car, your guts and the economy, computers are more complicated than they seem. And so are our feelings about them.
As the tech community gears up to celebrate Unix's 40th birthday this summer, one thing is clear: People do love operating systems. They rely on them, get exasperated by them and live with their little foibles. If that's not the basis of a lasting love, I don't know what is.
So now that we're more than 30 years into era of the personal computer, Computerworld writers and editors, like all technology aficionados, find ourselves with lots of memories and reactions to the operating systems of yesteryear. We have said goodbye to some of them with regret. (So long, AmigaOS!) Some of them we tossed carelessly aside. (Adios, Windows Me!) Some, we threw out with great force. (Don't let the door hit you on the way out, MS-DOS 4.0!)
Today we want to honor a handful of the most memorable operating systems and interfaces that have graced our desktops over the years. Some of them lasted for years. Some of them had remarkably short lives but inspired trends that we are benefiting from to this day. And a few of them ... well, they were just cool for school.
The world may have left these operating systems behind, but some of us didn't. A few die-hards are hanging onto ancient hardware just to keep those beloved operating systems running. Others have reverse-engineered the OS code in open-source projects. And some of us still have those old Install disks, waiting for the right computer to come along so we can relive those days of yore.
So, what's on the far side of your software shelf?
More here:
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/296895/10_operating_systems_world_left_behind?eid=-6787
Just a little bit of nostalgia for the oldies – sadly I can remember and have used at least ½ of these!
More next week.
David.
