Traversing the halls at HIMSS19 can leave attendees feeling overwhelmed, and the challenges facing the healthcare industry, and IT in particular, can be massive and vexing. However, many of my conversations in Orlando this week can be characterized as being significantly optimistic. There’s no lack of positive vibes that the importance of the industry is on the upswing. It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the industry is dealing with problems that are...
In August last year, health secretary Matt Hancock ordered a review of ongoing plans to replace IT systems at the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England, NHS Improvement, the Health Research Authority and the CQC. The IT project, known as the Future Services Programme (FSP), will replace the current contract with French-headquartered Atos, which ends in April 2020. Following Hancock’s review, NHS England confirmed the FSP would now support Google’s G-suite technologies and...
New recommendations aim to advance the sharing and access of health data across borders in the European Union. The European Commission has published this week a Recommendation on the development of a European EHR exchange format that would enable citizens to access their electronic health information securely across member states. The Commission says this will boost medical research, increase quality of care and decrease costs. Some EU countries have already made progress on making parts...
Could 2019 be the year where distributed ledger technology transcends its early hype and enters into its "plateau of productivity" phase? At least one expert thinks so. At the HIMSS Blockchain Forum on Wednesday, Jim Tate, founder of EMR Advocate and, more recently, Elysian Blockchain, used a couple of rock lyrics to describe distributed ledger technology. First were the words of David Bowie: "Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming." Or perhaps more...
VivaLNK debuted an Internet of Things-enabled wearables sensor platform, TriFin Labs unveiled a patient engagement platform, eMDs launched a revenue cycle management system and Philips introduced an epidemiology system that uses genomics and deep learning The HIMSS19 exhibit hall this week features health IT vendors offering a wide-ranging selection of technologies and tools designed to help healthcare organization improve care, gain efficiencies and lower costs. Here is another round-up of new products from vendors on...
There’s near unanimity among healthcare IT professionals—security is at, or near, the top of their lists of concerns. Perhaps it would seem that there are more complex challenges for these executives. But hardly any issues are as pervasive or as insomnia inducing. As healthcare organizations have now widely adopted electronic information systems, that has increased the risks for protecting sensitive patient data. Hackers have learned to monetize their attacks by encrypting data and asking for...
“Where you eventually want to get here is relatively simple: You want patients and their delegates to get free access to electronic, easy to use information within 24 hours.” Adam Boehler Director CMS Innovation Center ORLANDO, Fla.—For as much as the CMS tries to move away from it, the phrase “meaningful use” continues to hang over the agency’s information technology agenda. While the release of proposed regulations last week to bolster data exchange generally got...
Eight recent health IT vendor contracts and go-lives: 1. Veterans across the U.S. will soon have the option to access their medical data through the iPhone’s Health app, thanks to a new partnership between Apple and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. 2. Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic and technology company Leidos entered into a strategic collaboration to advance the research, development and market adoption of tools and technologies for patient care. 3. MIB, a membership...
HIMSS19 show floor. Modernizing Medicine. Every February, approximately 40,000 health IT professionals from across the country gather at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference to discuss the future of healthcare and the new tech innovations in the pipeline. Like the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) for the tech world, HIMSS sets the stage for the coming year in health IT, showcasing new innovations and setting the themes that will define the months to...
Source: Thinkstock By Fred Donovan February 13, 2019 – Outdated healthcare IT infrastructure is attracting cybercriminals to hospitals, which are the most vulnerable type of organization, judged a new cybersecurity report. Other factors attracting cybercriminals to healthcare include lack of experienced cyber personnel, highly valuable data, and vulnerability to ransomware attacks, the Cisco/Cybersecurity ventures 2019 Cybersecurity Almanac report noted. The report predicts that ransomware attacks on healthcare organizations will quadruple by 2020 and that the...
