Tuesday 31 May 2016
ICIT Forum 2016: Security in a Connected World: SmartCities, Transportation & IoT
While Smart City technologies have the potential to improve the quality of life for our citizens, they are creating new vulnerabilities which can be exploited by our enemies to disrupt critical services and cause physical harm. During this panel discussion, we hear from federal and technology experts on the risks posed by smart city technologies and what must be done to improve resiliency. Panelists include Arlette Hart (CISO, FBI), Jerry Davis (CIO, NASA, Ames Research Center & ICIT Fellow), Biff Lyons (ICIT Fellow, Parsons), Steve Stratton (ICIT Fellow, ForcePoint) and Kevin Chalker (ICIT Fellow, GRA Quantum).
ICIT Critical Infrastructure Forum
April 25, 2016
Ritz-Carlton Pentagen City, Arlington VA
Additional Videos from the 2016 ICIT Forum:
Keynote: Critical Infrastructure Security (Richard Ledgett, Deputy Director, NSA) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA63U…
Keynote: IT Modernization & Cybersecurity (Tony Scott, CIO, Federal Government) – https://youtu.be/WBu_jzApmgk
DevOps (CIO, U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG4xo…
Threat Intelligence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPeD2…
Energy Sector Security- https://youtu.be/0sJ91XWURgo
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Monday 30 May 2016
Suicide rates – and how Medicaid can help
Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released results this week to document that suicide rates have increased by 24 percent since 1999. The increase has been especially rapidly among women and among middle-aged people of both genders between the ages of 45 and 64. This is just a huge problem. Quite properly, the story has gotten much play. This morning’s New York Times includes a front-page story: “U.S. Suicide rate surges to a 30-year high.”
I’m glad that the story has gotten so much attention. Yet the generalized calls to action seem oddly divorced from the actual policy levers through which we might reduce this problem. Here for example is my friend (and Twitter sparring partner) Ron Fournier: For the full article click here
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Missouri health information exchange bills panned
KERFUFFLE IN MISSOURI OVER HIE BILLS: Controversy is brewing in the Missouri legislature over a bill that would create a health information commission empowered to dictate health information standards and regulate “health information organizations.” Mike Dittemore, executive director of the Lewis and Clark Information Exchange in neighboring Kansas, says the commission would “mandate good behavior” in an industry known to have some bad actors. He tells Morning eHealth that data flow in Missouri is still siloed and the new regulator would expedite the exchange of patient records. He points to Kansas as a good example of a state doing things right and says linking the two states, which share Kansas City, has been extremely difficult. — But it’s not so simple, says Angie Bass, chief operating officer of the Missouri Health Connection. The precise powers of the new state-wide commission aren’t yet clear and that’s scary Bass said. In addition, it could interfere with federal standards. “We feel like there isn’t a problem to be solved and this is an overreach of government,” Bass told us. For the full article click here
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Thursday 26 May 2016
PEOPLE POWER IS THE LOST KEY TO CYBER RESILIENCE
by Nick Wilding, Head of Cyber Resilience, AXELOS
Corporate and personal reputations are hard-won but they can be ruined in an instant. As countless examples have shown, businesses large and small are being successfully attacked by cyber criminals with often catastrophic impacts. The fact that so many organisations, of all sizes and in all sectors, have had their most valuable and commercially sensitive information compromised reflects the scale of the problem. It also highlights that no one is safe. All organisations are at risk and you can never be ‘bullet-proof’. But organisations can manage their cyber risks more effectively by adopting an organisation-wide response, led from the top that effectively balances business opportunities and risks as well as the processes, technologies and critically the people that make the organisation tick.
“It’s a well-known fact that the great majority of cyber-attacks succeed because of human error – an unwitting mistake made by anyone. “
Until this happens they will remain as vulnerable as anyone else. Cyber resilience can be described as the ability of any organisation to prevent, detect, respond and recover from the impacts of an attack with minimal damage to their reputation, market value or competitive advantage. In a resilient organisation protecting your business and most precious information is as much about preparing for an attack and setting up structures and processes to deal with one as and when it happens.
It’s a well-known fact that the great majority of cyber-attacks succeed because of human error – an unwitting mistake made by anyone. Anyone from the boardroom to the frontline. Cyber-criminals, like those in the real world, are opportunists and they are adept and persistent at exploiting these ‘unlocked doors’ into any organisation.
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Monday 23 May 2016
Saturday 21 May 2016
ICIT Forum 2016: Opening Keynote by Richard Ledgett, Deputy Director, NSA
Richard Ledgett, Deputy Director, NSA, delivers the opening keynote at the 2016 ICIT Critical Infrastructure Forum. Mr. Ledgett’s talk included an analysis of the top threats to our Nation’s Critical Infrastructures and how the intelligence community is responding to the threat.
ICIT Critical Infrastructure Forum
April 25, 2016
Ritz-Carlton Pentagen City, Arlington VA
Additional Videos from the 2016 ICIT Forum:
Keynote: IT Modernization & Resiliency (Tony Scott, Fedreal CIO) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBu_j…
DevOps (CIO, U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG4xo…
Threat Intelligence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPeD2…
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Monday 16 May 2016
Regenstrief: Health IT falling short of its potential
If healthcare information technology is to fulfill its promise of improving health outcomes, the country needs a “rational and well-funded” agenda for HIT development, use and assessment.
That’s the finding of a wide-ranging evaluation of current health IT by the Regenstrief Institute and its conclusion regarding the barriers that must be overcome to move the industry forward.
“We have been making progress, but there’s definitely a gap between where we are today and where we would like to be across a lot of aspects of health information technology,” says Burke Mamlin, MD, a Regenstrief Institute investigator and Indiana University School of Medicine associate professor of clinical medicine. For the full article click here
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Friday 13 May 2016
Yale researchers launch Hugo health IT platform
A team of researchers from the Yale School of Medicine and the Yale New Haven Health System have partnered to launch Hugo, a new cloud-based health IT platform that allows users to acquire their own health data for participation in studies.
Researchers say Hugo gives people a secure way to access their electronic health records from a variety of healthcare systems, synchronizing their data with a large research database. There are features that allow users to contribute additional information through wearing certain devices and providing answers to questionnaires.
“This could be a game changer,” Harlan Krumholz, MD, SM, the Harold H. Hines Jr. Professor of Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine, director of the Yale-New Haven Hospital Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, and a Hugo developer, said in a prepared statement. “Hugo harnesses the very latest in digital health technology and puts patients in the center, making them true research partners.”
“We believe this is going to be a new era of discovery,” Robert J. Alpern, MD, dean of the Yale School of Medicine, said in the same statement. “It’s going to ensure that we’re doing research better, less expensively, and in a way that fully respects and honors those who participate.”
The first research study to use Hugo will focus on “hospital readmission and emergency department use after hospital discharge.” The Yale Center for Clinical Investigation, Yale-New Haven Hospital, and Yale Medical Group are all assisting the Yale School of Medicine with the study. For the full article click here
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Doctors’ single-payer prescription for health care reform
Many months before Bernie Sanders entered the presidential race, we (along with Dr. Adam Gaffney, an energetic younger colleague, and Dr. Marcia Angell, the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine) convened a nonpartisan group of 39 leading physicians to envision health care reforms that would fix the glaring problems that remain despite the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
After the Supreme Court removed the final roadblock to the law in 2015, President Obama declared that at last “in America, health care is not a privilege for a few, but a right for all.” Yet doctors on the ground knew that wasn’t entirely true. We continue to see patients who dangerously delay their care because of cost concerns or insurance obstacles. At least 27 million Americans remain uninsured, and for tens of millions with insurance, sky-high copayments and deductibles (which average $5,300 in the bronze plans sold on the ACA exchanges) mean they’d be bankrupted by a serious illness. Many more people have narrow network coverage that won’t pay for care at top cancer centers or academic hospitals.
Meanwhile, giant insurers and hospital conglomerates with a single-minded focus on their bottom line increasingly dominate health care. And doctors and nurses contend with insurers’ growing demands for mind-numbing electronic documentation. These trends predated the ACA, but the law accelerated them. The ACA has also fueled medical merger-mania and the health system’s administrative complexity and cost. For the full article click here
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Smartphone-based system may improve health of patients with chronic diseases
A new study shows how mobile technology can allow patients to work collaboratively with clinicians to improve their health. The research, which appears in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN), may signal a paradigm shift in the model of healthcare delivery.
Self-management has been advocated as a way for patients to cope with the challenges of living with a complex chronic disease and gain some measure of control over their own health. It’s important that it be thoughtfully integrated into the overall goals of care, however.
With this in mind, a team led by Alexander Logan, MD FRCP(C), Stephanie Ong, BScPhm, MSc, and Vanita Jassal, MD FRCP(C) (University of Toronto, University Health Network, and Mount Sinai Hospital) recruited 47 patients with chronic kidney disease into a 6-month study on the potential of a smartphone-based system that enabled patients to monitor their blood pressure, assess their symptoms, maintain an accurate medication list, and view key laboratory test results. Patients, of whom 60% had never used a smartphone, received real-time personalized feedback, and providers received alerts when treatment thresholds were crossed or critical changes occurred. For the full article click here
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5-Month Pilot Leads To Comprehensive Rollout Of Telemedicine Program
Tandigm Health plans to expand its telemedicine initiative using a video appointment platform.
Many healthcare analysts anticipate telemedicine will evolve from a specialty service to standard practice over the next decade. Enhanced technology is transforming telemedicine into a service that will revolutionize the way doctors provide service to patients resulting in more convenient and accessible options than ever before.
Looking to capitalize on that predicted trend, Tandigm Health has announced it will expand its five-month pilot program into a full-scale telemedicine initiative, connecting physicians with their patients through TouchCare telephonic and video support to increase access, engagement, education, and health management. Partnering with mobile health company TouchCare, this HIPPA-compliant program allows Tandigm’s network of primary care physicians to securely connect with their patients face-to-face via their mobile device. For the full article click here
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Saturday 7 May 2016
Telemedicine programs boosting patient engagement but not ROI, study says
Telemedicine is changing from a specialty offering to a more mainstream service, with a new study showing that two-thirds of respondents name telemedicine as the top or one of the highest priorities – a 10 percent increase from the 2015 survey results.
But challenges remain, notably reimbursement and earning a return on the investments needed to fund telehealth technologies and programs.
“Telemedicine decision-making is rapidly moving from individual departments and specialties to an enterprise initiative,” said Steve McGraw, CEO of REACH Health, which conducted the study. “Both hospitals and health systems reported significant increases in the average number of telemedicine service lines which are active or being implemented.”
REACH Health surveyed 390 healthcare executives, physicians, nurses and other professionals, covering a wide variety of telemedicine-related topics such as priorities, program models, management structures and more. For the full article click here
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Thursday 5 May 2016
Vegetable oils are a health boon
Flax seed oil, rapeseed oil, olive oil and even avocado oil – there are dozens of edible vegetable oils which can form a part of a healthy balanced diet.
Cold pressed olive oil is one of the healthiest oils which is widely available. High in monounsaturated fats, which are linked to good heart health, it is also jam packed with vitamins and anti-oxidants. These are the compounds which help ward off cancer and premature ageing.
The first pressing ‘virgin olive oil’ is definitely the best when it comes to health. Every time olive oil is processed, it contains less of the important active ingredients although it also becomes more affordable. Avocado oil has recently become more popular and is also high in monounsaturated ‘healthy fats.’ However, it is expensive and not widely available.
Flax seed oil is high in omega-3 long chain fatty acids, which are normally found in fish oils. Vegetarians or people on restricted diets can obtain these essential fatty acids, which are important for maintaining the brain, from this source. However, the form of omega-3s in flax seed oil is not so easily converted to useable EPA and DHA, so someone may still need to take supplements. For the full article click here
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Oh no, Donald Trump didn’t! And what is the woman’s card, anyway?
When Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump accused his presumptive Democrat opponent, Hillary Clinton, of playing the ‘woman’s card’ in the race to the White House, it backfired.
Clinton was the first to respond, unleashing many other retorts from both women and men – and an extra $2.4 million in campaign fundraising.
“If fighting for women’s health care and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the woman card, then deal me in!” Clinton shot back.
One of our favorite commentaries came from Kirsty Styles, writing onthenextweb.com: Styles writes about a deck of cards in production now by a creative sister and brother team which is celebrating famous women, such as Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Mary Cassatt and Beyonce. Clinton is the ace in this deck, which is due on the market in July.
While enamored of the idea, in her column Styles points out that the Woman Card deck doesn’t reference any female tech innovators who’ve made America great.
Styles suggests three to get the creators of the card deck fired up for tech: Pioneering computer programmer Grace Hopper, Radia ‘don’t call me the Mother of the Internet’ Perlman and women in tech champion Anita Borg. For the full article click here
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White House to hold workshops on AI’s promises, pitfalls
Artificial Intelligence (AI) holds both promises and pitfalls for many industries,including healthcare, which is leading the White House to host workshops on the technology’s future.
In a blog post, Ed Felten, deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer, notes the importance of AI in efforts such as President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiativeand Vice President Biden’s cancer moonshot, but also acknowledges the risks the technology carries.
The workshops will be held over the coming months, Felten writes, including one on June 7 that will focus on AI for social good, which includes healthcare efforts.Post For the full article click here
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Yale New Haven Health System Shares Lessons Learned On its Value Journey
Last week, I had the benefit of attending the first annual National Symposium on Value Innovation at Yale, hosted by Yale New Haven Health System (YNHHS) leadership.
The event was a collaboration with YNHHS, the Yale School of Management, the Center for Outcomes Research & Evaluation (CORE), the Yale Center for Biomedical and Interventional Technology (CBIT) and health IT vendors Strata Decision Technology and PeraHealth.
The goal of the event, according to YVHHS leadership, was to share the health system’s lessons learned and best practices as part of its ongoing journey toward improving quality and lowering cost across the system.
What struck me was that this was a health system that includes Yale-New Haven Hospital, the primary teaching hospital for the Yale School of Medicine, and regularly ranked among the best hospitals in the country, openly sharing its struggles and challenges as it transitions from volume to value with an audience that included healthcare leaders from hospitals and health systems throughout the country.
I’ve been covering the health IT space for less than a year, yet it’s my understanding that up until very recently, healthcare was very insular. Yet, it seems that we’re starting to see the wheels turning on more open discussions and sharing of best practices. For the full article click here
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New report ranks Sweden top for patient satisfaction
Sweden has come out top in a new global study for patient satisfaction, with two other Scandinavian countries – Finland and Norway – following closely behind.
The report, which involved more than six million patients in 25 countries, gave Sweden a 92.37% patient satisfaction rating with neighbouring Finland and Norway at 91.92% and 90.75% respectively.
Eight European countries in top 10 list
Interestingly, eight of the top 10 countries on the list, by global customer and employee satisfaction research firm, HappyorNot, were European – with the US (number four) and New Zealand (at number eight) the only two outsiders.
For many healthcare facilities, the performance level of their patients’ experience of care is linked to financial incentives associated with operational improvement strategies, such as, for example, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Triple Aim Initiative and the UK NHS’s World Class Commissioning or CareQuality Commission.
Patient satisfaction: a complex picture
“The importance of improving patient satisfaction by gathering feedback is a rising theme in the many countries, for example the UK which has a number of initiatives aimed at improving the patient experience including the Friends and Family Test to implement feedback tools to support collecting, measuring, and monitoring patient experience,” said a spokesman. For the full article click here
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Wednesday 4 May 2016
Fighting High Tech Muggers And Their Ransomware
MCLEAN, Va (WUSA9) — Imagine someone breaking into your home and stealing your your files, your photos – all your favorite things.
Victims say that’s what it’s like to be hit by ransomware, malicious software code that encrypts all the files on your computer. You’ve got a maybe 50-50 chance of recovering your precious memories if you pay a ransom. But you can fight back.It’s like a high tech mugging and it’s surging, hitting people and businesses across the country. The FBI estimates internet pirates extorted at least $25 million in ransom from Americans last year.
In the first few months of this year, it’s maybe ten times that.”I felt like a thief had come up through my computer screen and was in my house,” said Catherine, a McLean mother of three who was a victim. “I had at least a thousand photographs on there.”
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Tuesday 3 May 2016
EXABEAM ESTABLISHES FEDERAL ADVISORY BOARD TO SUPPORT COMPANY’S MOMENTUM WITHIN THE PUBLIC SECTOR
Members of the Advisory Board Include Cybersecurity Leaders from the US Air Force, Department of Defense, and Department of Energy
May 2, 2016
SAN MATEO, Calif., – May 2, 2016 – Exabeam, the leader in user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) for security, today announced the establishment of its Federal Advisory Board, led by established cybersecurity experts with experience in government agencies. The goal is to assist agencies within federal and state governments to improve detection of and response to modern cyber threats.
The founding members of the Exabeam Federal Advisory Board include:
- Robert Lentz, president, Cyber Security Strategies, and former CISO for the U.S. Department of Defense.
- Maj. Gen. (Ret.) John Maluda, former director of cyberspace transformation and strategy in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, and Chief Information Officer.
- Pete Tseronis, CEO, Dots and Bridges LLC, and former CTO for the U.S. Department of Energy.
“Exabeam’s Stateful User Tracking provides a new approach to assessing behavioral risk within the enterprise network,” said Robert Lentz, president of Cyber Security Strategies. “Since most organizations can no longer rely on a secure network perimeter, they must detect threats that build within the network itself. Exabeam enables security analysts to detect and respond to attacks before they cause data loss.”
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