Quote Of The Year

Timeless Quotes - Sadly The Late Paul Shetler - "Its not Your Health Record it's a Government Record Of Your Health Information"

or

H. L. Mencken - "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

Saturday, May 20, 2017

Weekly Overseas Health IT Links – 20th May, 2017.

Note: Each link is followed by a title and few paragraphs. For the full article click on the link above title of the article. Note also that full access to some links may require site registration or subscription payment.
-----

The ransomware attack is all about the insufficient funding of the NHS

Amber Rudd, the home secretary, can burble all she wants but the Tories have overseen chaos in NHS computing systems
The heart sinks whenever Amber Rudd, the home secretary, talks about anything to do with computers. On Saturday, in the wake of the malware attack that has crippled hospital IT systems, she was on Radio 4’s Today programme: “We are ahead of this [attack] with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), the advice is available,” she pronounced proudly, as though putting “national” and “cyber” on something automatically granted it authority.
“Patients have been inconvenienced,” she conceded, “but no patient data has been accessed and the NHS is brilliantly managing through this.”
The lack of access to patient data doesn’t apply just to the hackers, of course; NHS staff couldn’t get at it, either, because many NHS hospitals and GP practices had been hit by ransomware – a specific species of malware that encrypts all the files on your machine using a military-grade cipher, and demands payment in the practically untraceable currency bitcoin to a website on the hidden Tor network. As a business, ransomware works: the number of attacks worldwide has been going up exponentially in the past few years, so that at one point recently a substantial proportion of Tor sites were just payment sites automatically generated by ransomware.
-----

5 tenets of an anti-phishing culture for healthcare

Any hospital can adopt these to bolster their cybersecurity posture, according to Fernando Martinez, chief digital officer of the Texas Hospital Association.
May 11, 2017 03:55 PM
SAN FRANCISCO — Many healthcare organizations lack visibility into their networks enough so that they don’t really know what’s happening on their software and hardware systems, according to Fernando Martinez Chief Digital Officer of the Texas Hospital Association.
To that end, at the HIMSS and Healthcare IT News Privacy & Security Forum Martinez laid out five pieces of a technology and training strategy healthcare organizations can use to create a culture of cybersecurity, with a focus on anti-phishing efforts specifically.
-----
Patients Satisfied With Telehealth Primary Care Visits
Main cited benefits include convenience, decreased costs; privacy, adequate physical exam are concerns
THURSDAY, May 11, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Patients express satisfaction with telehealth primary care video visits, with most reporting interest in continuing use of video visits as an alternative to in-person visits, according to a study published in the May/June issue of the Annals of Family Medicine.
Rhea E. Powell, M.D., M.P.H., from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, and colleagues analyzed data from in-depth qualitative interviews with 19 adult patients after video visits with their primary care clinicians. A content analysis approach was used to analyze the data.
-----

FHIR Can Move Genomics from Prediction to Precision Medicine

FHIR will play a critical role in ensuring that genomics can move beyond a basic predictor of risk and towards a future of truly actionable precision medicine.

Jennifer Bresnick

Director of Editorial
jbresnick@xtelligentmedia.com
May 08, 2017 - In just a few short decades, the field of genomics has expanded dramatically, transitioning from a specialized discipline of academic biology into a mainstay of clinical care at academic medical centers, dedicated precision medicine hubs, and a growing number of community hospitals. Genetic sequencing kits are even available for sale to the curious public for home consumption, opening up brand new avenues for integrating genetic risk into healthcare decision-making.
At the same time as DNA sequencing is starting to hit the mainstream, big data analytics is beginning to show its value for healthcare providers who suddenly have huge volumes of genomic data on their hands.  Genomic data can tell providers a great deal about their patients – if they have the right tools to store, extract, analyze, and exchange the data with other health IT systems.
-----

HIT Think Why healthcare security will only become more complicated

Published May 12 2017, 4:35pm EDT
The ability to protect and secure digital information is under constant threat. Attackers of all sorts force their way into systems, trick individuals into providing access and otherwise access data that is not their own.
In a state of continual threats, the issue of cybersecurity is typically at the forefront for many. Questions about cyber security include the following—can data actually be secure? Will defense measures ever be better than the offensive measure? And is it necessary to accept that all data will be hacked or inappropriately accessed at some point in time?
Given the uncertainty and focus, an analysis from the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity at the University of California, Berkeley is particularly interesting. The analysis, Cybersecurity Futures 2020, contemplates five different scenarios for what cyber security and data will look like in the near future. Each scenario offers a glimpse into a possible future. The scenarios are all quite plausible and to some degree even represent current realities.
-----

Ransomware attack shuts down NHS hospitals as malware spreads globally; 'evidence' of U.S. attack, says HHS

May 12, 2017 3:40pm
NHS hospitals were forced to divert ambulances amid a global ransomware attack that crippled computer systems.
A massive ransomware attack spread throughout countries in Europe and Asia on Friday, including Britain, where hospitals were forced to divert patients after malware prevented clinicians from accessing medical records. Meanwhile, officials with the Department of Health and Human Services said there was "evidence" of an attack in the U.S.
"HHS is aware of a significant cyber security issue in the UK and other international locations affecting hospitals and healthcare information systems," Laura Wolf, critical infrastructure protection lead at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, said in a statement. "We are also aware that there is evidence of this attack occurring inside the United States. We are working with our partners across government and in the private sector to develop a better understanding of the threat and to provide additional information on measures to protect your systems. We advise that you continue to exercise cybersecurity best practices—particularly with respect to email."
-----

HIT Think 5 reasons why the VA should reconsider plans to scrap VistA

Published May 10 2017, 3:51pm EDT
The VA waitlist scandal of a few years ago was a dark period in the agency’s history. Fallout from the scandal reverberated through the media and claimed the job of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.
Now, three years later, the push to reform the VA and prevent a similar situation continues. Naturally, the healthcare information technology tools that employees use, including the scheduling system, are a focus. The gravity of reform, however, is also pulling in the electronic health record and other clinical components of VistA, the VA’s long-serving and varied system.
While changes to VistA are warranted and necessary, trashing the entire system because one component may be flawed makes little sense from technological or financial perspectives. The VA scheduling scandal was the product of an agency overwhelmed by veterans returning from two theaters of war. In that scenario, the scheduling system became a scapegoat for organizational and human resources challenges that were bound to manifest in one way or another.
-----

TPP and Emis Health share data across SystmOne and Emis Web

Laura Stevens

9 May 2017
The two largest electronic patient record suppliers to GP practices in England are piloting how to directly link their respective clinical information systems.
Emis Health and TPP launched the London-based pilot on 2 May, which connects The Orchard Practice’s Emis Web system with Hillingdon Diabetes Service’s TPP SystmOne.
The data exchanged is initially limited, with GPs at the practice now being able to view community nursing data from the diabetes service. Clinical staff at Hillingdon Diabetes Service can now view patients’ GP records.
Dr Mohamed Adem, senior lead GP at Orchard, told Digital Health News that, with patients’ consent, their medical summary, problems, medication and allergies are now being shared.
-----

NHS Digital planning “big drive” on clinical terminology standardisation

Laura Stevens

5 May 2017
NHS Digital will be having a “big drive” on standardising clinical terminology across health and social care, according to one of its leaders.
Beverley Bryant, the organisation’s director of digital transformation, told delegates at the UK e-Health Week conference that such standardisation was critical for data sharing.
“What is the point of being a national health service if we don’t capitalise on the national nature of it through standardisation of our clinical terminology?”
-----

Despite privacy hoops, text messaging offers ‘unprecedented convenience’

May 11, 2017 9:53am
Texting offers a quicker, more efficient method of communication if doctors are willing to jump through the privacy hoops.
Text messaging is arguably the most common and convenient form of communication today, but medical professionals have been hesitant to text with patients given the labyrinth of HIPAA regulations and the potential to violate patient privacy.
The Joint Commission has done little to alleviate that confusion. The accreditation organization initially lifting its ban on using text messaging to send patient orders last year, only to temporarily reinstate it months later, before reaching a final decision earlier this year to keep the ban in place, for now.
-----

Plenty of buzz for AI in healthcare, but are any systems actually using it?

May 11, 2017 11:32am
Earlier this week, one venture capitalist called IBM Watson "a joke," while researchers pointed out AI's practical shortcomings in healthcare.
It doesn’t take much to grab hospital executives’ attention these days—just casually mention the words “artificial intelligence” and watch their eyes widen at the thought of the technology’s untapped possibilities.
The promise of AI has hit the healthcare industry full force, in part because industry leaders and researchers are searching for ways to utilize a new ever-growing database of patient information.
-----

Everybody hates VistA? Not its users

Congress has continually railed on the Veterans’ Affairs EHR for being outdated, but its users say the platform is fast, secure and gets the job done.
May 11, 2017 01:28 PM
Dr. David Shulkin speaking at the Veterans Empowerment Collaboratory on May 9. Photo via Twitter
As a whole, the healthcare industry has long-since aired its frustrations about clunky electronic health records that take the joy out of medicine. Some providers have gone as far as to say EHRs turn doctors into data entry specialists.
However, when talking with users of the Veterans Affairs’ VistA -- the agency’s EHR and IT system -- the response is the exact opposite. In fact, while Congress has long since dubbed VistA as outdated, VistA users seem completely satisfied with the functionality, speed and security of the system -- among many other positive features.
-----

A Nursing Informatics Leader Parses the Challenges of EHR Optimization

May 9, 2017
by Heather Landi
In conjunction with National Nurses Week, HIMSS’ Joyce Sensmeier, R.N., reflects on the role of nursing informatics in a post-EHR implementation era
As more healthcare delivery organizations undergo clinical transformation processes, the demand for nurses with informatics training and expertise continues to gain momentum. In fact, a 2015 nursing informatics report by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) found that informatics nurses were widely seen as bringing value to the use of clinical systems and technologies at their healthcare organizations. Respondents to that survey indicated that nursing informaticists bring greatest value to the implementation phase (85 percent) and optimization phase (83 percent) of clinical systems process. Informatics nurses also were viewed as having a direct positive impact on the quality of care patients receive.
In addition, the 2017 Nursing Informatics Workforce Survey conducted by HIMSS continues to suggest that nurse informaticists play a crucial role in the development, implementation, and optimization of clinical applications, including nursing clinical documentation, computerized practitioner order entry (CPOE) and electronic health records (EHRs).
-----

67% of Security Teams Say Insiders Top Data Security Threat

A recent survey of security professionals shows that they believe the greatest data security threats stem from both malicious insiders and third-parties.

Elizabeth Snell

May 10, 2017 - Healthcare organizations must ensure that they carefully monitor who is able to access sensitive information, as potential data security threats can occur from either insiders or third-parties.
While working with trusted vendors or business associates is not new for the healthcare industry, failing to manage, control, and monitor sensitive data access could lead to inappropriate access and even a data breach.
A recent Bomgar report found that nearly two-thirds of surveyed security professionals believe that a breach originating from an insider – either malicious or unintentional – is their greatest security threat.
-----

Organizations consider holistic approach to health IT safety

Published May 09 2017, 7:25am EDT
The surging amount of information held by all the systems that contain patient data is increasingly being recognized as a safety concern, and healthcare organizations are looking for ways to lessen the risk by taking a holistic approach to health IT safety.
A variety of recent research has noted that information technology touches all aspects of care, involving not just classic clinical information systems, but registration, scheduling, billing, pharmacy and others that impact patient safety.
The ECRI Institute recently ranked information management in electronic health records as the top patient safety concern for healthcare organizations when it listed the top 10 patient safety concerns for 2017.
-----

Existing health IT is meant to help. Too bad it doesn't

The American Association of Family Physicians says that needs to change, and points to the kind of technology that actually enables better care.
May 09, 2017 11:29 AM
It’s a hard reality: Technologies that hospitals are using today do not adequately support the health of Americans, according to the American Association of Family Physicians.
“We believe that new types of information and new kinds of technology are needed,” AAFP wrote in the Annals of Family Medicine. “Technology has great potential to help foster connections and relationships among healthcare professionals, individuals, and communities, and to be a catalyst instead of the barrier it frequently is today.”
In the article, Vision for a Principled Redesign of Health Information Technology, the authors laid out a roadmap that they claimed should “form a national priority to close the gap in current health IT,” with expectations extending 10 years into the future.
-----

NIST issues draft of cybersecurity guidance for wireless infusion pumps

May 10, 2017 12:52pm
Wireless infusion pumps are flooding the market, creating new cybersecurity vulnerabilities, according to NIST.
Pointing to a growing number of wireless infusion pumps entering the market, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released draft guidelines for healthcare systems to address cybersecurity threats.
Although infusion pumps were once standalone instruments, the influx of wireless devices has created new and potentially dangerous cybersecurity threats that could interfere with functionality—by initiating changes to prescribed drug doses—or compromise personal data by providing hackers with an additional entry point to a hospital’s network.
-----

Ambulatory EHR Market Projected to Reach $5.2 Billion by 2021

May 9, 2017
by Heather Landi
The global ambulatory electronic health record (EHR) market is projected to reach $5.2 billion by 2021, up from $3.92 billion in 2016, driven by government support for the adoption of healthcare IT, growing usage of EHR solutions and the need to curtail healthcare costs, according to new research from MarketsandMarkets.
According to report, the ambulatory EHR market will experience a 5.8-percent growth rate during the forecast period.
The report examines both drivers of growth in the ambulatory EHR market as well as ongoing challenges that limits faster growth for the market. For instance, the report authors note that heavy infrastructure investments and the high cost of deployment are limiting the growth of the global ambulatory EHR market to a certain extent.
-----

New technology allows veterans to control prosthesis with their minds

Richmond Times-Dispatch
For the first time since the explosion, William Gadsby thought about bending his knee, and it happened.
His keys were banging against his hip so he reached down and dropped them on the floor. But he had lost his knee in 2007 during his second deployment in Iraq, when his leg had to be amputated following an explosion.
He was using a brain computer interface, or BCI, that — through circular surface electrodes stuck to his head — responded to his reflexive thought to bend his knee and unlocked the simple mechanism on the prosthesis he was wearing.
-----

The app route to patient engagement

Article posted on: May 8, 2017
The app-enabled hospital is emerging across Europe, as a healthy mix of pioneering digital strategies and niche pilot projects demonstrate the powerful role that apps can now play in patient engagement and clinical treatment. The journey is still in its infancy, but more tentative CIOs can already learn much from the experiences of these innovative digital leaders.
If we can trust the headlines, the app-enabled hospital is now commonplace: patient engagement, clinical monitoring and diagnosis, and mobilised healthcare professionals are connected, streamlined and delivering ever-improving outcomes thanks to a thriving app development landscape, which is replacing the traditional world of data silos and paper trails.
-----

Comey to hospitals: Paying ransoms is a big mistake

While meeting demands set by cybercriminals may solve the problem short-term, the FBI director tells hospitals it will come back to haunt them.
May 08, 2017 02:40 PM
While reports show some hospitals are choosing to pay ransoms to gain back access to their systems, FBI Director James Comey told the American Hospital Association on Monday that doing so only makes the problem worse.
"I understand that instinct, but it is horribly short-sighted," he said at the AHA's Annual Membership Meeting in Washington, D.C. "The idea that this will go away … is foolish. It will be back to you, it will be back to your clients, it will be back to your supply chain, it will be back to your industry."
A 2016 study by Healthcare IT News and HIMSS Analytics found that about half of hospitals polled are unsure if they would pay the ransom if their systems were compromised by cybercriminals. But about 5 percent said they actually would pay.
-----

Homegrown EHR software alerts docs to readmissions

by Matt Kuhrt 
May 9, 2017 10:29am
When a patient gets readmitted within five days, new software uses a hospital's scheduling system to text the hospitalist who discharged the patient.
New software aims to help close a care gap by alerting hospitalists to readmissions that occur within five days of discharge.
A two-week trial of the Murmur program presented at the Society of Hospital Medicine 2017 Annual Meeting produced notifications about 14 patients distributed among 18 attending hospitalists, according to an article in Medscape (reg. req.). The program links a hospital’s electronic health record system to its scheduling software, then uses that information to send a text to the hospitalist who discharged a patient in the event that patient gets readmitted.
-----

Hospital Impact: 4 takeaways for navigating telehealth following ATA 2017

May 9, 2017 11:45am
Telemedicine can improve care and reduce costs, but providers have to be ready and empowered to innovate.
The American Telemedicine Association’s Telehealth 2.0 conference is an annual learning and networking event that brings together over 6,000 industry experts to discuss the latest trends and technology in the sector. This was not my first year as an attendee, but it was my first as an exhibitor.
My North Highland colleagues and I were able to have many conversations with both attendees and vendors. Over the course of three days, my interactions revealed several takeaways that are top of mind for various stakeholder groups, including providers, practitioners and telehealth newcomers.
-----

As EHR vendors jockey for 'mindshare,' Epic holds slight lead among healthcare execs

Telemedicine, MACRA implementation and patient engagement round out the top priorities in a new study from Reaction’s Research Cloud.
May 08, 2017 01:29 PM
Healthcare executives are still focused on buying electronic health records, a new report shows, but when it comes to choosing between the top vendors, Epic is slightly edging out the rest. 
EHR purchasing decisions are one aspect of the new report from Reaction’s Research Cloud, which gives hospitals an idea of what technologies their peers and competitors are moving forward with. 
According to a new Reaction Research Cloud study of senior healthcare executives at hospitals, health systems and physician group practices, of those planning to buy inpatient EHRs in 2017, 40 percent will choose Epic, 39 percent want Cerner and 31 percent are looking at Meditech. The story is the same for outpatient EHRs: Epic at 45 percent, Cerner at 32 percent and MediTech at 31 percent.
-----

Better record sharing coming to Bend

Portal will cut unnecessary tests, med errors
By Tara Bannow, The Bulletin, @tarabannow
Published May 5, 2017 at 12:01AM / Updated May 5, 2017 at 09:47AM
Imagine traveling and not being able to use ATMs linked to your bank account. Sounds crazy, right? Welcome to the world of medical records.
“Today I can walk across the street from St. Charles to (Central Oregon Pediatric Associates) or Mosaic and my records don’t follow me without a fair amount of manual work,” said Brian Wetter, vice president of infrastructure and analytics for PacificSource Health Plans.
These days, the vast majority of patients’ medical information is stored in doctors’ electronic health records systems. It’s a huge improvement from the paper records that used to crowd filing cabinets, but it doesn’t solve the significant problem of easily sharing that information between providers, short of using a fax machine or having patients bring their folders with them.
-----

Bauer’s personal NHS experiences drive digital action

David Bicknell Published 09 May 2017
NHS England’s director of digital experience says her first-hand brushes with the NHS during her difficult second pregnancy are fuelling her desire to change the service for patients
NHS England’s director of digital experience Juliet Bauer has told of how her recent experiences with the organisation are driving a desire to improve its efficiency for patients, including the role of technology in delivering that efficiency.
Speaking at the recent e-Health week event, Bauer said her passion for change was coloured by her recent experiences that took place only streets from the conference venue at Olympia in London.
-----

Senate moves ACA repeal to slow lane after House vote

Published May 05 2017, 3:40pm EDT
Passage of the House’s healthcare bill gives the Obamacare repeal effort new life after months of wrangling, but key Republican senators are already pushing it aside to write their own bill with no clear timetable to act.
The narrowly passed House measure can’t get anywhere near the 51 votes needed as is, even though Republican senators insist they’re united on delivering on their seven-year vow to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Instead, they want to write their own bill.
Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who chairs the Senate health committee, Rob Portman of Ohio, and Roy Blunt of Missouri, a member of GOP leadership, described the plan even as the House was celebrating passing its repeal after weeks of back-and-forth.
-----

Can computer-assisted coding revolutionize care delivery?

CAC software can automate nearly 90 percent of medical coding and enable hospitals to compare actual care with best practices to increase efficiencies, report says.
May 05, 2017 03:15 PM
Computer-assisted coding tools are showing considerable potential to improve both billing and care delivery and many hospitals are gearing up to deploy CAC software in the near future.
During the tumultuous lead-up to ICD-10, in fact, the widespread consensus was that the code set switchover would trigger widespread CAC adoption and now a new WinterGreen Research report projects that the overall market will rise to $5.1 billion by 2023.
-----

For better EHR deployments, execs are finally listening to their staffs

CXOs are working harder to involve doctors and care teams in the selection and implementation of technology, report finds.
May 05, 2017 02:20 PM
Healthcare organizations are getting smarter about the ways they deploy their technology, and doing better at putting it to work for clinicians, a new report shows.
Forty-three percent of respondents to a survey from the Experience Innovation Network say they involve front-line staff and physicians in the selection and configuration of new IT systems.
That may sound like a no-brainer, but it's become a common complaint that clinicians are frustrated by poorly configured EHRs that don't fit with their workflow and were implemented with little input from them.
-----

What’s Digitization Doing to Health Care?

May 9 2017, 3:00am

New software is industrializing medicine by turning doctors into data entry clerks—and making them suicidally depressed in the process.

In more ways than one, medicine is dying.
A 2015 article in JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that almost a third of medical school graduates become clinically depressed upon beginning their residency training. That rate increases to almost half by the end of their first year.
Between 300 and 400 medical residents commit suicide annually, one of the highest rates of any profession, the equivalent of two average-sized medical school classes. Survey the programs of almost any medical conference and you'll find sessions dedicated to contending with physician depression, burnout, higher-than-average divorce rates, bankruptcy, and substance abuse.
-----

FBI Director James ​​​​​​​Comey: Hospitals, bureau must team up to combat healthcare cyberthreats

May 8, 2017 11:45am
FBI Director James Comey said it's key that hospitals join forces with the bureau for better cybersecurity. (FBI)
FBI Director James Comey,  a keynote speaker at this morning's American Hospital Association annual membership meeting, said one of the key approaches the bureau is taking to improve its cybersecurity threat response is to build stronger relationships with private community entities.
Hospital executive teams that don’t know at least one person at the FBI's local field office are “failing, and we’re failing.”
-----

Digital technology: Focus on the patient experience

by Matt Kuhrt  
May 8, 2017 10:17am
Focus on patient convenience can pay off when deploying new technology, according to Dave Kriesand of Banner Health.
As traditional medical practices and hospital systems continue to see competition from retail healthcare, patient convenience has become the name of the game. Rising out-of-pocket medical costs are driving patients to “vote with their wallets,” Dave Kriesand, Banner Health’s vice president of consumer experience, told PatientEngagementHIT. 
Kriesand says a focus on convenience can help traditional providers compete, and digital technology, such as online appointments, can play a pivotal role. 
-----

The 5 most insightful quotes from Datapalooza

May 8, 2017 9:21am
For all the subtle—and not so subtle—ribbing that Datapalooza enjoys for its wonky title, the conference usually lives up to its name.
This year, which featured several newly appointed government officials, was no different. The conference’s furious two-day data dump makes it nearly impossible to catch every “jot and tittle,” as Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price would say. Here’s a recap of the four most telling quotes.
-----
PAS: Internet Info Can Lower Parent Trust in Doctors' Diagnosis
Computer-generated diagnoses may mislead patients or parents, researcher says
FRIDAY, May 5, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Health information gleaned online can alter parents' views on the advice they get from a pediatrician, according to research scheduled to be presented at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies, held from May 6 to 9 in San Francisco.
The researchers presented 1,374 parents with a vignette of a child who'd had a rash and worsening fever for three days. The parents had at least one child, and the parents' average age was 34. The participants were split into three groups. One group was then given online information describing symptoms of scarlet fever, while a second group viewed information on select symptoms of Kawasaki disease. A third group of parents -- the control group -- saw no online information. All of the parents were told that a doctor had diagnosed the child with scarlet fever.
-----

FDA to create centralized digital health unit

Published May 08 2017, 7:28am EDT
The Food and Drug Administration is creating a digital health unit within its Center for Devices and Radiological Health in an effort to develop internal technical expertise, and streamline the agency’s software review process and regulation of medical devices.
“Because it’s such an emerging area, having a centralized unit in the Center Director’s Office is important for coordination on digital health topics and having consistency in applying policies,” says Bakul Patel, associate director of digital health in the FDA’s CDRH.
-----

HIT Think Why real-time security defenses are needed to fight malware

Published May 08 2017, 4:51pm EDT
No security solution is a silver bullet. When savvy organizations build out their security stacks, they make sure they have a variety of solutions that protect them at different stages along the malware attack cycle should any of their "upstream" defenses fail.
But how exactly are healthcare organizations doing that? What stages and solutions are they prioritizing, and how are their resulting security stacks holding up against modern malware attacks? To find out, IT and security pros at small- and medium-sized organizations were surveyed. Here are the results.
Four out of five organizations say they have protection that addresses each stage of the attack cycle.
-----

Enjoy!
David.

Friday, May 19, 2017

These Are Some Thoughtful Pieces That Needs To Be Further Discussed And Considered.

These appeared last week.

What’s Digitization Doing to Health Care?

May 9 2017, 3:00am

New software is industrializing medicine by turning doctors into data entry clerks—and making them suicidally depressed in the process.

In more ways than one, medicine is dying.
A 2015 article in JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that almost a third of medical school graduates become clinically depressed upon beginning their residency training. That rate increases to almost half by the end of their first year.
Between 300 and 400 medical residents commit suicide annually, one of the highest rates of any profession, the equivalent of two average-sized medical school classes. Survey the programs of almost any medical conference and you'll find sessions dedicated to contending with physician depression, burnout, higher-than-average divorce rates, bankruptcy, and substance abuse.
At the risk of sounding unsympathetic, medicine should be difficult. No other profession requires such rigorous and lengthy training, such onerous and ongoing scrutiny, and the continuous self-interrogation that accompanies saving or failing to save lives.
But today's crisis of physician burnout is the outcome of more than just a job that's exceptionally difficult. The debate in Washington over the American Health Care Act to repeal and replace Obamacare, changing the degree of health coverage guaranteed to Americans, has monopolized our attention. But underneath, glacially slow changes to the way doctors deliver care are occurring. Medicine is undergoing an agonizing transformation that's both fundamental and unprecedented in its 2500-year history. What's at stake is nothing less than the terms of the contract between the profession and society.

The rise of the electronic medical record

An electronic medical record, or EMR, is not all that different from any other piece of record-keeping software. A health care provider uses an EMR to collect information about their patient, to describe their treatment, and to communicate with other providers. At times, the EMR might automatically alert the provider to a potential problem, such as a complex drug interaction. In its purest form, the EMR is a digital and interconnected version of the paper charts you see lining the shelves of doctors' offices.
And if that's all there were to it, a doctor using an EMR would be no more worrisome than an accountant switching out her paper ledger for Microsoft Excel. But underlying EMRs is an approach to organizing knowledge that is deeply antithetical to how doctors are trained to practice and to see themselves. When an EMR implementation team walks into a clinical environment, the result is roughly that of two alien races attempting to communicate across a cultural and linguistic divide.
When building a tool, a natural starting point for software developers is to identify the scope, parameters, and flow of information among its potential users. What kind of conversation will the software facilitate? What sort of work will be carried out?
This approach tends to standardize individual behavior. Software may enable the exchange of information, but it can only do so within the scope of predetermined words and actions. To accommodate the greatest number of people, software defines the range of possible choices and organizes them into decision trees.
Yet medicine is uniquely allergic to software's push toward standards. Healthcare terminology standards, such as the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine (SNOMED), have been around since 1965. But the professional consensus required to determine how those terms should be used has been elusive.
This is partly because not all clinical concepts lend themselves to being measured objectively. For example, a patient's pulse can be counted, but "pain" cannot. Qualitative descriptions can be useful for their flexibility, but this same flexibility prevents individual decisions from being captured by even the best designed EMRs.
More acutely, medicine avoids settling on a shared language because of the degree to which it privileges intuition and autonomy as the best answer to navigating immense complexity. One estimate finds that a primary care doctor juggles 550 independent thoughts related to clinical decision-making on a given day. Though there are vast libraries of guidelines and research to draw on, medical education and regulations resist the urge to dictate behavior for fear of the many exceptions to the rule.
Over the last several years, governments, insurance companies, health plans, and patient groups have begun to push for greater transparency and accountability in healthcare. They see EMRs as the best way to track a doctor's decision-making and control for quality. But the EMR and the physician are so at odds that rather than increase efficiency—typically the appeal of digital tools—the EMR often decreases it, introducing reams of new administrative tasks and crowding out care. Many EMRs are designed to facilitate the job of billing before aiding in clinical decision-making. The result is a bureaucracy that puts controlling costs above quality and undervalues the clinical intuition around which medicine's professional identity has been constructed.
The EMR and the physician are so at odds that rather than increase efficiency—typically the appeal of digital tools—the EMR often decreases it.
Inputting information in the EMR can take up as much as two-thirds of a physician's workday. Physicians have a term for this: "work after clinic," referring to the countless hours they spend entering data into their EMR after seeing patients. The term is illuminating not only because it implies an increased workload, but also because it suggests that seeing patients doesn't feel like work in the way that data entry feels like work.
The EMR causes an excruciating disconnect: from other physicians, from patients, from one's clinical intuition, and possibly even from one's ability to adhere faithfully to the Hippocratic oath. If a link between physicians' computer use and suicide seems like a stretch, consider a recent paper by the American Medical Association and the RAND Corporation, which places the blame for declining physician health squarely at the feet of the EMR.
Drop-down menus and checkboxes not only turn doctors into well-paid data entry clerks. They also offend medical sensibility to its core by making the doctor aware of her place in an industrialized arrangement.
There is a great deal more here:
On a similar theme we also saw this last week:

Existing health IT is meant to help. Too bad it doesn't

The American Association of Family Physicians says that needs to change, and points to the kind of technology that actually enables better care.
May 09, 2017 11:29 AM
It’s a hard reality: Technologies that hospitals are using today do not adequately support the health of Americans, according to the American Association of Family Physicians.
“We believe that new types of information and new kinds of technology are needed,” AAFP wrote in the Annals of Family Medicine. “Technology has great potential to help foster connections and relationships among healthcare professionals, individuals, and communities, and to be a catalyst instead of the barrier it frequently is today.”
In the article, Vision for a Principled Redesign of Health Information Technology, the authors laid out a roadmap that they claimed should “form a national priority to close the gap in current health IT,” with expectations extending 10 years into the future.
The AAFP authors said in one year data visualization technologies will be central to care decisions, software will be capable of integrating patient-generated health data into EHRs, and new tools will emerge to better enable doctor-patient communications.
“We will see new technologies and new roles for technology that enable health system redesign and improvement, while supporting comprehensive payment models that focus on care delivery and health,” they said.
Looking ahead 3 years, the AAFP projected that transparent and actionable data will be widely available, including evidence-based medicine at the point of care. Technologies will also enable patients to engage in healthy behaviors and access their own medical records. And on the provider back-end, technology will drive more reliable learning within the health system.
More here:
The point here, that needs to be grasped, is that the place and use of EHRs is not settled and more work is need to really have them fit for purpose.
We clearly need EHR like applications to manage clinical information safely and predictably but just how that should work and just how they should be used is still emerging.
These articles, and many others, need to be considered and responded to in more depth than present has been the case.
David.