ICIT Report: CISO Solution Fatigue – Overcoming the Challenges of Cybersecurity Solution Overload

Due to the plague of APTs, malware, ransomware and other malicious initiatives by invisible adversaries, few C-level executive positions are as critical as the CISO. A well informed CISO can improve the engagement of the C-Suite and improve the cyber posture of the organization. However, due to a variety of factors, CISOs combat information overload and vendor solution overload on a daily basis and must learn how to prioritize and communicate strategically to be effective in their role.

In this report, entitled ” CISO Solution Fatigue – Overcoming the Challenges of Cybersecurity Solution Overload,” ICIT discusses the growing phenomenon of solution overload and provides strategic recommendations for CISOs and the vendor community to overcome this obstacle in order to ensure optimal security for the organization.  Specifically, the report discusses:

• Contributing Factors to Solution Overload
• Addressing Organizational Needs
• Communicating Across the Organization
• Return-on-Investment For the full article click here 

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Event Information: Leveraging MFA Everywhere and Derived Credentials for Federal Identity Management

Registration is required to join this event. If you have not registered, please do so now.

Event status: Not started (Register)

Date and time: Thursday, June 30, 2016 10:00 am
Pacific Daylight Time (San Francisco, GMT-07:00)
Change time zone 

Program: CIS Monthly Demo 

Duration: 1 hour

Description: HSPD– 12 calls for a mandatory, government– wide standard for secure and reliable forms of identification issued by the federal government to its employees and to the employees of federal contractors. The implementation of this standard will ensure the identification for government employees and contractors is reliable and secure.

Join this webcast as Centrify’s Jonathan Bensen and Greg Cranley address key steps and strategies for a successful implementation of an identity management program and HSPD– 12 / PIV solution, including MFA, use of CAC and PIV to access all systems, applications, databases and Big Data and use of Derived Credentials to authenticate individuals who use mobile devices and need access to controlled facilities, information systems, and applications. For the full article click here 

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Dr Google will see you now: New health symptom checker takes on GPs

If you wake up feeling a bit ill, the first place you’re going to turn to isn’t your local GP clinic – it’s probably Google.

You’re not alone: roughly 1pc of all Google searches – that’s millions of them every day – are related to medical symptoms. Usually, the range of results is enough to turn the most rational human into a raging hypochondriac, but Google has announced a new health symptom checker that claims it gives you medically accurate information.

For instance, if you search Google for “headache on one side,” it shows you a list of possible conditions such as “migraine,” “tension headache,” “sinusitis,” and “common cold”. It will also give you some home treatment options and tell you if you should see a doctor. For the full article click here 

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Health advisories in Zika-affected countries may have prompted more women to seek abortions

Women who live in some Latin American countries where the Zika virus is spreading are increasingly seeking access to abortion — even though, in many instances, abortion is illegal or restricted. Since November 17th, 2015, when the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) issued an epidemiological alert about Zika, the number of requests for abortion medications has increased significantly, sometimes even doubling, scientists have found.

The Zika virus causes microcephaly, a condition in which babies conceived by infected moms are born with abnormally small heads. Since no Zika vaccine has been approved, some infectious disease specialists think that delaying or avoiding pregnancies is the only safe way to avoid giving birth to babies with brain damage. The PAHO alert prompted several Latin American countries to declare national emergencies, caution citizens about Zika-related birth defects, and urge women to avoid pregnancies. For the full article click here 

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HEALTH OFFICIALS WARN OF BRAIN-EATING AMOEBA IN WATER

CHARLOTTE (WTVD) –Health officials are on alert after an 18-year-old Ohio woman died Sunday after visiting the U.S. National Whitewater Center in Charlotte.

Her suspected cause of death is being listed as Primary Amebic Meningoencephalitis — a rare infection caused by Naegleria fowleri. This one-celled organism is not harmful if swallowed, but can cause serious injury, even death, if contaminated water is forced up the nose.
The infections are extremely rare; there’s been fewer than 10 cases reported annually in the country in the last 53 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The amoeba is “naturally present” in warm lakes during warmer weather when the water is typically warmer. An infected person can experience sickness up to nine days following the exposure. For the full article click here 

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NHS Fife adopts new patient information system

(Fife, UK) NHS Fife has signed up to a new patient information system that will share essential information securely across organisations and geographical boundaries.

Edwards told BJ-HC that the new system has many benefits moving forward. He said: “Across the health boards in Scotland, we have all decided on this approach. This new system is a modern platform and a converged platform for our people. It is also a known quantity so it will minimise training needs.

“This will enable one modern platform to integrate the whole system. We will also be able to carry out orders from clinicians within the new system and we see this as a huge benefit.

“It will also link with our clinical portal, which is an application that lets you see what is happening within the system.

“Sharing of information is one of the biggest benefits. Ultimately it will allow us to have just one dialogue in NHS Scotland to a supplier, instead of having 14 or 15 conversations through every board in Scotland. It makes life easier for all concerned.” For the full article click here 

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Sharfstein leaves Sheppard Pratt, an expanded mental health system, after 30 years

When Dr. Steven S. Sharfstein came to the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital 30 years ago as medical director, the Towson facility had 320 beds filled with patients who spent many months or even years getting treatment.

That was how mental health care was delivered back then.

As Sharfstein prepares to step down July 1 as president and CEO at what is now called Sheppard Pratt Health System, his 25-year term at the institution’s helm has paralleled the evolution in how mental health is treated, funded and administered nationally.

During his time on the job, the hospital took steps to survive and provide care to many more people with depression, substance abuse, autism, eating disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health conditions. For the full article click here 

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ICIT Analysis: The Wound Collectors – Profiling the Self Radicalized Lone-Wolf Terrorist

Acts of domestic terrorism in the West are escalating at an alarming rate. Lone wolf attacks and attackers have sparked public, political and law enforcement curiosity due to the, seemingly, random and independent action of a self-radicalized extremist with modest or no ties directly to the group in which they proclaim the action to be dedicated. In order to combat the escalation of this profound domestic threat, a more comprehensive understanding of the perplexing composition of the lone wolf is urgently needed.

This report, entitled “ICIT Analysis: The Wound Collectors: Profiling the Self Radicalized Lone-Wolf Terrorist” delves into the early and late stage development of the Lone Wolf while explaining the various stages of development and contributing factors that go into breeding this new and malicious threat.  Authors James Scott (Sr. Fellow, ICIT) and Drew Spaniel (Researcher, ICIT) shed light on the telltale characteristics of the domestic, homegrown, lone wolf who carries out acts of terror in the name of extremist groups including For the full article click here 

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Cyberthreat analysis and intelligence: Innovators 2015

Securonix

Securonix is heavy on the threat analysis piece. And not just a particular threat. This is a product that really enjoys drinking from the Big Data fire hose. Lest you think that we have succumbed to marketing hype and are tossing around buzz phrases, such as “Big Data,” let us assure you that we mean it in the strictest sense. Big Data usually is defined by the four Vs: high velocity, variability, volume and veracity. That means that this Innovator can ingest lots of data that is rapidly changing and is being delivered and ingested at wire speeds all while losing none of its integrity. So, the next question is what can the tool do with this data? The answer is just about anything you want.

The reason for this very directed approach is that Securonix started out as analytics specialists and built from that basis of expertise. They believed that there was a big hole in most security programs. These programs start by looking at everything on the enterprise in terms of identity. They realized that since they were attaching the right ID to everything on the enterprise, there might be a lot more that could be done to protect the network. So they added behavioral analytics, making them the only pure-play security analytics provider.

The system creates baselines, understands what “normal” is, and picks out anomalies. It does not rely on signatures or policy-based analysis because those things, by themselves, don’t work. The Securonix platform is very heavy on anomaly detection and assessing outlier behavior. Then it correlates discovered behavior with many threat intelligence feeds and brings in contextually rich information. For the full article click here 

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Securonix: The Recognized Leader in Security Analytics

“The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.”– Jane Addams

Having great technology is useless unless it can address business objectives. From partner integrations and user interface to advanced algorithms and pre-packaged content, Securonix has been built to deliver on business objectives, not just on bits and bytes. Founded as a security analytics platform in 2008, Securonix began shipping General Availability (GA) products in 2011. By 2012, the company was profitable and its revenue continues to increase 100 to 200 percent year over year. Today, Securonix has over 200 employees.

Securonix is a purpose-built security analytics platform that is scalable and extensible; it can be rapidly deployed, showing immediate results by leveraging automation, advanced analytics and context-based data science to deliver threat detection that is powerful yet simple to use. Using signature-less anomaly detection techniques that track users, account, and system behavior, Securonix is able to automatically and accurately detect the most advanced data security, insider threats and fraud attacks. Globally, customers are using Securonix to address the most basic and complex needs around threat detection and monitoring, high privileged activity monitoring, enterprise and web fraud detection, application risk monitoring, and access risk management.

The Securonix team is known for their strong dedication to customer welfare. They stay close to customers, listen to them, stay up with them when there are issues and let their wants and needs drive much of the company’s innovation. For the full article click here 

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Securonix Wins 12 Info Security Products Guide Global Excellence Awards

The Cyber Security Innovator Sweeps the 2016 Info Security Product Awards

LOS ANGELES, CA–(Marketwired – Mar 9, 2016) – Securonix, the pioneer in user behavior and security analytics and one of the fastest growing cyber security companies, was honored with 12 awards at the 2016 Info Security Products Guide Global Excellence Awards held in San Francisco during the security industry’s annual RSA Conference.

Securonix was named:

• Best Security Company of the Year

 

• Fastest Growing Security Company of the Year
• Innovative Company of the Year
• Executive of the Year: CEO Sachin Nayyar

 

• Management Team of the Year

The Securonix Security Analytics Platform was recognized for:

• Best Security Product/Solution for Large Enterprise

 

• Innovation in Enterprise Security
• Best Security Software
• Best Security Solution for User Behavior Analytics (UBA)
• Innovation in Next Generation Security

 

• Most Innovative Security Software of the Year

More than 50 international judges from a broad spectrum of industry voices participated and their average scores determined the 2016 Global Excellence Awards Finalists and Winners. Winners were announced during the awards dinner and presentation in San Francisco attended by the finalists, judges and industry peers. For the full article click here 

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CylancePROTECT® vs. the SWIFT Attacks

It turns out that cybertheft isn’t just for isolated hacking groups any more. Security researchers have tied together a series of attacks on banks in Bangladesh, the Philippines and Vietnam after identifying segments of code used in the 2014 Sony Pictures breach and several 2013 attacks on South Korean companies. All three of these banking attacks are now widely believed by computer security experts to have originated from North Korea.

If the allegations are correct, this marks the first time a nation state (rogue or otherwise) has been involved in a cyberattack for purely financial gain.

To make the situation even more worrying, the attackers also gained access to SWIFT, formerly thought to be the most secure banking system in the world.

In the world of international banking and finance, this is huge (read: scary) news. For the full article click here 

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The Orlando Massacre Injured ALL of Us

Fifty people were killed and another 53 are reported injured by gunshots at the Pulse in Orlando. But the math is different for the LGBT community, as we have now directly entered the terrorism dialogue. The physical and mental health of every LGBT person, even mine as a white cisgender lesbian in NYC, is unquestionably affected by the hatred and discrimination that happens to all members of our community. The murders of the predominantly Latino gay men in Florida is in our bodies now, even if we don’t see the impact on our health immediately. The massacre injured all of us.

I am heartbroken. I am enraged. I am afraid.

Beyond my grief over my dead brothers and sisters, I am heartbroken that the massacre invaded a sacred space for our community. Pulse was not a bar. It only looked that way on the outside, to outsiders. Pulse considered itself a “gay sanctuary“ and hosted events for community groups, including breast cancer awareness. We have always gone to bars to connect, to counteract the isolation and rejection we often feel outside. It is not coincidental that the modern LGBT rights movement began in a bar, my local Stonewall Inn. Our president understands this. In his compassionate speech yesterday he confirmed that LGBT nightclubs are “a place of solidarity and empowerment where people come together to raise awareness, speak their minds, and advocate for their civil rights.” For the full article click here 

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Too little sleep linked to health problems in children, teens

(Reuters Health) – Updated sleep recommendations for children and teens point to the benefits of getting enough sleep and the dangers of getting too little.

“At least 25 percent of 12-year-olds get less than the recommended nine hours of sleep per night and there is increasing evidence that this impacts learning and memory,” said Dr. Stuart F. Chan of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, a coauthor of the new American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) guidelines.

The new recommendations, online now on the AASM website and scheduled for publication in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, “use a more rigorous evaluation of the scientific literature than was used previously,” Chan told Reuters Health by email. “The range of recommended hours of sleep for each age grouping is wider than before,” but the guideline still stresses that children and teenagers “need substantial amounts of sleep.”

For optimal health, children and teens should get the following hours of sleep (per 24 hours) on a regular basis For the full article click here 

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Maryland health co-op sues over ‘flawed’ Obamacare requirement

A nonprofit health-care cooperative in Maryland is suing the federal government to avoid paying tens of millions of dollars to a larger insurer under what the group described as a “dangerously flawed” program of the Affordable Care Act.

Evergreen Health on Monday filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Maryland claiming that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has unfairly required it to fork over $22 million to CareFirst, a Blue Cross and Blue Shield affiliate operating in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Peter Beilenson, chief executive of the 40,000-member co-op, said in a statement Monday that the system is providing “a financial boon for the country’s largest and most established health insurers, at the expense of new, innovative insurers.” He added that the cost would eat up 26 percent of Evergreen’s 2015 revenue from premiums. For the full article click here 

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Here’s how long children should sleep every day

(CNN)Every parent knows that children need sufficient sleep to stay healthy and do well in school. But exactly how many hours of sleep do children of different ages need per day?

The latest recommendations from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine:

• Babies 4 months to 12 months: 12 to 16 hours
• Children 1 to 2 years old: 11 to 14 hours
• Children 3 to 5 years old: 10 to 13 hours
• Children 6 to 12 years old: nine to 12 hours
• Teenagers 13 to 18 years old: eight to 10 hours

“Sleep is essential to good health, and it starts in childhood,” said Dr. Shalini Paruthi, moderator of the Pediatric Consensus Panel of 13 sleep experts and a fellow of the academy. “These recommendations [are] kind of a first step to help people to understand that they need to prioritize sleep.”

The consensus is the result of a 10-month effort by the panel. The researchers reviewed 864 studies and looked at how sleep duration is related to seven categories: general health, cardiovascular health, metabolic health, mental health, immunologic function, developmental health and human performance.

“This is the first time we went through such a scientifically rigorous method to arrive to those recommendations,” Paruthi said. For the full article click here 

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Diet expert calls for scrapping of government guide to healthy eating that ‘promotes wealth over health’

A HEALTHY eating guide used by government bodies should be scrapped because it promotes food industry wealth over public health, it is claimed.

Revised in March, the Eatwell Guide by Public Health England (PHE) is also used by agencies in Scotland and Wales to advise consumers on following a balanced diet.

But in a new article for the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Dr Zoe Harcombe a diet expert at the University of the West of Scotland said the guide is a recipe for poor health because it has been informed by industry interests, not scientific research. Harcombe, who hit out at the high carbohydrate, low fat approach, said: “The Eatwell Guide was formulated by a group appointed by Public Health England, consisting primarily of members of the food and drink industry rather than independent experts.

“It is not evidence-based. There has been no randomised controlled trial of a diet based on the Eatwell Plate or Guide, let alone one large enough, long enough and with whole population generalisability.”

Launched in 1994 as the Balance of Good Health – a segmented plate of the daily proportions of food groups needed for a healthy diet – issued by the Department of Health, the Eatwell Guide was renamed as the Eatwell Plate in 2007 and re-titled again this year under the stewardship of PHE. For the full article click here 

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American ISIS: Analysis of the Orlando Jihadist & Lone-wolf Attacks

ISIS lone wolves are being activated in towns and cities globally for the most potent cyber-physical combination of guerrilla attack ever to be introduced in modern warfare. This new enemy, fueled by extremist ideology, defies traditional profiling attributes such as race, sex, age, education, and nationality and can more easily evade detection by law enforcement.

This report, entitled “American ISIS: Analysis of the Orlando Jihadist & Lone-wolf Attacks,” is an analysis of the June 12, 2016 lone-wolf attack in Orlando, Florida, the largest terrorist attack on American soil since the September 11, 2001 attacks and the largest attack against the LGBTQ+ community in American history.  Authors James Scott (Sr. Fellow, ICIT) and Drew Spaniel (Researcher, ICIT) also discuss how groups like ISIS are targeting and radicalizing susceptible individuals and what, if anything, can be done to curb this disturbing trend.

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Parsons Joins Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology

PASADENA, CA (June 9, 2016) – Parsons is pleased to announce that the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT) has formally welcomed the corporation to the ICIT Fellows Program. Parsons—a technology-driven engineering services firm with deep knowledge of infrastructure and cybersecurity—expands the Institute’s expertise in both these areas. The firm will be represented by Fellows Biff Lyons, Executive Vice President and Manager of the Federal Defense and Security Division; Josh Salmanson, Senior Business Development Director within the Defense and Security Division; and Juan Espinosa, Senior Project Manager.

Dr. Lyons participated as a panelist at Parsons’ inaugural ICIT event, the Critical Infrastructure Forum: Resiliency and Enablement, held April 25, 2016, in Arlington, VA. The discussion focused on the topic “Security in a Connected World: SmartCities, Transportation & Internet Enabled Devices” and featured other industry thought leaders including Artlette Hart (CISO, FBI) and Jerry Davis (CIO, NASA Ames Research Center).

Parsons also supported a recent ICIT/National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) briefing on the draft revisions of NIST Special Publication 800-160: Systems Security Engineering. Dr. Lyons helped introduce Dr. Ron Ross, a NIST Fellow and one of the primary authors of 800-160. For the full article click here 

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Swallow the security engineering pill: Why resilience is the best Rx

Our pursuit of security is a lot like our efforts to remain healthy.

While it’s not something I desire, I know that I’m going to get sick again. I take steps to avoid illness, including washing my hands, exercising regularly, avoiding unhealthy activities such as smoking, and even participating in my company’s wellness program. But I can’t mitigate all the threats to my health. For example, I travel all too frequently on airplanes, exposing myself to germs others are infected with. Fortunately, over the years my body has built up resistance and I’m usually unaffected. When I do get sick, and I will, I’ll see a doctor and persevere until I’m back to full health.

Keep the security doctor away

Similarly, we need to recognize that in today’s evolving threat landscape we face a constant risk of attacksand need to build up our resilience against them. Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s security research report, The Business of Hacking, reports that in 2015, losses due to cybercrime were estimated to be more than $300 billion. So while we may have layers of defenses to thwart attacks, some of these attack vectors are succeeding in bypassing our security controls. When we do succumb to an attack, our business functions will need to continue to operate.

Download 93-Page ReportHPE Cyber Risk Report 2016

Good systems security engineering practices are required to build more trustworthy and resilient systems. The latest guidance for this domain is captured in the second draft of National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Special Publication (SP) 800-160, Systems Security Engineering: Considerations for a Multidisciplinary Approach in the Engineering of Trustworthy Secure Systems. The SP details the engineering-driven processes necessary to develop more defensible, resilient, and survivable systems. The recommended security design principles are captured in the figure below.

As stated by NIST senior fellow Ron Ross in the forward:

“The ultimate objective is to obtain trustworthy secure systems that are fully capable of supporting critical missions and business operations while protecting stakeholder assets, and to do so with a level of assurance that is consistent with the risk tolerance of those stakeholders.”  Download 93-Page Report HPE Cyber Risk Report 2016 : To read more, Click here

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ICIT Brief – The Anatomy of Cyber-Jihad: Cyberspace is the New Great Equalizer

Until now it has been fairly easy to categorize malicious cyber-actors as State Sponsored APT, Hacktivist, Mercenary and Script Kiddie. However, a new threat actor has emerged who uses technological means to bring terror and chaos to our nation and its allies: the Cyber-Jihadist.

Cyber-Jihad has quickly arrived on the scene and will only continue to grow and hyper-evolve. As a well-funded adversary, Cyber-Jihadists can easily outsource the more sophisticated attacks, purchase potent zero days, infiltrate and map networks and exfiltrate and manipulate data from America’s virtually unprotected Internet of Things.

In this brief, entitled “The Anatomy of Cyber-Jihad: Cyberspace is the New Great Equalizer”, ICIT provides a comprehensive analysis on the following:

• Organizations Covered
  • Al Qaeda
  • Al Shabaab
  • Boko Harem
  • ISIS
• Analysis of ISIS as a Cyber-threat
  • Motives, Means
  • Resources, Recruitment
  • Cyber Caliphate
  • Publications
  • The ISIS “Help Desk”
  • Applications
  • Capabilities
• Vulnerabilities
  • Insider Threat
  • Media
  • ICS and SCADA Systems
  • Financial Sector

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Institute For Patient Safety Takes Aim At Reducing Medical Error

Collaborative institute to focus on patient safety issues and preventable medical errors

A recent study found medical error is the third leading cause of death in the United States, underscoring the need for closer attention to patient vitals as Health IT Outcomes reported. Patient safety issues and preventable medical errors contribute to some 251,000 deaths and an estimated $50 billion in direct healthcare costs annually in the United States alone.

As part of a new initiative to shed more light on this serious issue, The University of North Texas’ Health Science Center has announced the launch of its Institute for Patient Safety with the goal of reducing medical errors through education, research, and quality improvement programs.

Founding members of the new Institute include Texas Christian University, JPS Health Network, and Cook Children’s Medical Center, and the collaboration represents a community-wide effort that unites experts from medicine, science, engineering, public health, nursing, and patient experience to combat these issues. For the full article click here 

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ONC sets standards, specifications for API challenge

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has issued a challenge to industry seeking application programming interface (API) solutions that will enable consumers to securely and electronically authorize the movement of their health data to destinations they choose.

According to Caroline Coy, a HIT program analyst in ONC’s Office of Standards and Technology, one of the goals of the Move Health Data Forward Challenge is to help fill significant gaps in health information exchange that are having a negative impact on patients.

“One in three individuals who’ve seen a healthcare provider in the last year experience gaps in information exchange,” Coy said during a June 7 webinar on the challenge. “These include: having to bring an X-ray, MRI, or other type of test result with them to their appointment; waiting for test results longer than they thought was reasonable; having to redo a test or procedure because the earlier test results were not available electronically; having to provide their medical history again because their chart cannot be found; and having to tell their healthcare provider about their medical history because they had not received their records from another healthcare provider.” For the full article click here 

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How to Fix a Broken Mental-Health System

Every day, when I am walking to work, or just walking through the streets of downtown Washington, I encounter homeless people on the street. The homeless cover many categories, but prominent among them are those with serious mental illnesses. They know no boundaries of race or education; there was a prominent story last year in the Washington Post of a homeless man with schizophrenia who told a judge that he didn’t need a lawyer, that he was a lawyer. When the judge reacted with bemused skepticism, the man informed the judge—accurately—that they had been in the same class at Harvard Law School (which also included Chief Justice Roberts!) I used to pass most of the people on the streets by studiously looking the other way, sometimes reacting with annoyance if someone was talking to himself or shouting. But after a difficult, 10-year journey of serious mental illness with my brilliant and talented son, which ended in tragedy, I have a different attitude. My son had, as an integral part of his illness, a phenomenon called anosygnosia, the inability to recognize you are ill. And given the laws and approaches in the country, since he was over 18 when he became ill, my wife and I were powerless to do anything to help. He did not end up homeless, or tased or shot by police, or abused or killed in jail or prison, which is the fate of many with serious mental illness. But he died at 34 from an accident shaped by his lack of judgment from his illness. I encountered in the worst possible way the tragic nature of these terrible brain diseases and the tragic failure of our policies to find ways to help reduce the pain and the costs, in money and heartache, that come with them. For the full article click here 

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Nokia Technologies Introduces The Withings Body Cardio, The First Connected Scale With Cardiovascular Health Assessment

“Body Cardio is the most advanced device we have ever made. Body Cardio redefines how people use connected scales, providing them with a tool to manage their weight as well as heart health. It is like getting information from your annual physical every day,” said Cedric Hutchings, VP of Digital Health, Nokia Technologies.

Introducing Pulse Wave Velocity to the Daily Routine

Cardiovascular diseases are the number one cause of death worldwide — yet 90 percent are preventable. Since 2013, the Withings Smart Body Analyzer has provided consumers with data on their standing heart rate and fat mass. With the release of Body Cardio, users now have an incredible tool to get a daily snapshot of cardiovascular health and take action.

Widely recognized by the medical community as the best standalone assessments of cardiac health, PWV is defined as the speed at which heartbeat-generated vibrations spread out along the arterial wall, high PWV indicates stiff arteries or high blood pressure. For the full article click here 

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ONC releases patient, provider resources for patient engagement

Last week the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT launched two new online tools to connect patients to their data, a series of consumer-facing videos to educate patients about their data access rights and a provider-facing “Patient Engagement Playbook” to walk hospitals through the steps to patient engagement.

“Many people are not fully aware of their right to access their own medical records under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), including the right to access a copy when their health information is stored electronically,” Lucia Savage, ONC’s chief privacy officer, said in a statement. “The videos we released today highlight the basics for individuals to get access to their electronic health information and direct it where they wish, including to third party applications.”

The three videos for patients each tackle a different aspect of HIPAA. The first video describes what medical records are, when a patient has access to them, and when a provider can withhold information. The second video goes into more detail, educating consumers on what’s acceptable for providers to charge for access to records and the length of an acceptable wait time. Finally, the third video shows what rights patients have to share their information with third parties, like family members. For the full article click here 

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Health Briefs: Living with Diabetes, strokes

Christiana Care’s Living with Diabetes seminar 

Christiana Care Health System will host a Living with Diabetes seminar from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday at 4755 Ogletown-Stanton Road, Newark.

This program will teach people about target blood-sugar levels, testing blood, diabetes medications, meal planning, exercise, stress management, foot care and standards of diabetes care. It is appropriate for anyone with diabetes or pre-diabetes, including those who have been newly diagnosed and those who have had diabetes for many years.

There is a fee for the program, but it varies depending on insurance. Many insurance plans, including Medicare, cover the cost of the program. Call your insurance carrier to determine eligibility or coverage for this service. Please call if you need financial assistance and you may bring a family member or support person at no additional cost. To register call (302)661-3050. For the full article click here

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Mexican Consulate provides funds for health services program

A San Luis, Ariz.-based nonprofit organization has received $46,500 from the Mexican Consulate in Yuma to provide health care services in Yuma and south Yuma County.

Campesinos sin Fronteras will use the funds in the Ventanilla de Salud program, which provides free physical exams, counseling and referrals for health services.

Ventanilla de Salud – or Health Window – was established by the Mexican government to serve people of Mexican nationality or descendants living in the United States. Mexico’s consulates in Yuma and other U.S. cities enlist health care organizations in those cities to provide the program’s service.

Campesinos will provide exams, counseling and other services at its offices in San Luis and Somerton and at the Mexican Consulate at 298 S. Main St. in Yuma. For the full article click here

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Health officials warn public of mosquito bites

With the recent rains that have caused some water safety issues, the City of Laredo Health Department said it wants to remind the public to obey all water safety rules, advisories and traffic barriers, and never go around any placed barriers in low-water areas.

“As to mosquito abatement and prevention, we do not have any cases of mosquito borne diseases; however, the City of Laredo Health Department wants to remind the public to avoid mosquito bites to prevent illnesses such as: Dengue, Chikungunya, West Nile Virus and Zika infections,” a news release states.

In Texas, all cases except one have been linked to travel to the areas where there are outbreaks (Brazil, Central and South America, Puerto Rico, Central and Southern México and Pacific Islands). Zika virus is primarily spread to people through mosquito bites and in some cases from mother to child during pregnancy.

Although the majority of persons infected with the virus do not become ill, those who develop symptoms report having a mild illness (fever, rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis). Zika virus can be spread from a pregnant woman to her unborn baby and birth defects (microcephaly) have been reported. Until more information is available, the city’ For the full article click here

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Life expectancy varies widely among Kentucky counties; poverty, health access among reasons

A baby born today to parents in Wolfe County can expect to live eight years less than a baby born in Fayette County.

The reason is that while Campton and Lexington are just an hour apart, they differ significantly in ways that have an impact on health and how long people live, such as education levels, poverty level, opportunities to be physically active and access to health care, according to a researcher who mapped life expectancy in the state.

The research showed variations in life expectancy from county to county across Kentucky. Places where people can expect to live the fewest years are clustered in Eastern Kentucky, however.

Many places in the region were relatively poor even before the economy was battered by a sharp decline in coal jobs the last four years, and the prevalence of health problems such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes has long been among the worst in the nation.

All the counties where data showed the lowest life expectancy are in Eastern Kentucky. The life expectancy at birth in Perry, Breathitt and Wolfe counties is 70 years, with Floyd, Harlan and Owsley at 71.For the full article click here

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Guilford County offers teens-only health clinic

GREENSBORO — During most of their teenage years, young adults tend to see less of their pediatricians than they did as children.

“Teenagers are busy, they’re generally healthy, and so their parents don’t schedule as many doctor’s appointments for them,” said Judy Southern, a nurse and the director for clinical services at the Guilford County Department of Health and Human Services.

“They still have health needs but are not using the health care system as well as they could be.”

A teen-centric health clinic aims to fill that gap. Known as the JustTEENS program, the clinic offers kids between the ages of 13 and 20 their own waiting room, check-in counter and dedicated medical providers. For the full article click here

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Navarro health fair offers new options

Navarro ISD is doing what it can to show its student that healthy food can still taste delicious.

A recent health fair held at the high school last Thursday featured plenty of food vendors, who tried their best to impress the taste buds of all of the students in attendance.

And it sounds like they were successful.

“It was a great day to try new foods,” Navarro Intermediate fifth-grader Ryan Hepp said. “My favorite was the banana pancakes.”

In fact, the event was such a hit that the district is now considering making a few changes.

“From just getting feedback from our vendors, there’s quite a few changes we’re going to propose for our menus next year,” Child Nutrition Director Carlette Drabek said. For the full article click here 

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A Business Case For Funding Your Federal Insider Threat Program

WHITEPAPER

The insider threat is a dangerous risk to government agencies and its most sensitive data. Monitoring the behaviors internally and identifying when bad is bad based on access, roles and actions is not a luxury government agencies can afford to go without.

Read our detailed whitepaper on building a case for funding your federal insider threat program and the necessary steps to establishing a successful security posture against such threats.

Get your copy of the report today! 

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ICIT Forum 2016: The Gryphon-X Project – NASA Unleashes the New Standard in Cybersecurity

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Parsons to Provide R&D, Engineering Support Under Naval Research Lab IDIQ Contract; Mary Ann Hopkins Comments

Parsons will provide engineering services as well as research and development support to the Naval Research Laboratory’s information technology division under a potential five-year, $245 million contract awarded by the U.S. Navy in May.

The company said Tuesday it will work to support NRL-ITD across seven research areas that include artificial intelligence, data storage and computing, communications, security, networking, operational information technology and man-machine interfaces.

Mary Ann Hopkins, Parsons federal group president and an inductee into Executive Mosaic‘s Wash100 for 2016, said the company will leverage its experience in the field of cybersecurity, information assurance and communications in order to support NRL through the contract.

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Senators Urge CMS to Reconsider Hospital Compare Quality Ratings

Unpaid, stressed, and confused: patients are the health care system’s free labor

I have spent the past year of my life managing a chronic foot injury. My left foot started hurting after a run last May, and, well, it never really stopped.

At best, the injury lies dormant for a few weeks, barely bothering me. At worst, it can cause intense pain to walk my dog down the block. So I’ve spent the past year in doctors’ offices, in MRI scanners, and in late-night Google search sessions trying to understand what went wrong and how to fix it.

I write a lot about health care for my job here at Vox, and have spent the past seven years covering and explaining the American health care system. But there was something I didn’t understand about American health care until this experience.

It is the considerable burden our fragmented system puts on patients to coordinate their own care. For the full article click here 

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3 Key Steps to Achieve Scalable Population Health Management

A thriving and scalable population health management strategy relies on patient risk stratification, care coordination, and data-driven approaches to care, says the recent PwC report, Population Health: Scaling Up.

According to the report, population health management strategies have so far been successful, but haven’t been implemented at large scale across the country. If they continue to expand across more healthcare facilities, the authors predict, the nation could see notable cost reductions.

By overhauling population health management strategies, healthcare organizations can begin that scaling-up process, helping to bring patient-centered and cost-efficient care to more individuals.  For the full article click here 

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ONC Shares Updates on Health IT Certification Transparency

New DataMotion Health Solution Enables Healthcare Industry to Extend Direct Messaging Service to Patients at Scale

FLORHAM PARK, N.J., June 1, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — DataMotion Health™, a provider of clinical data delivery services and solutions, today announced the DataMotion Direct Provisioning Portal (DPP), a new resource aimed at extending Direct Secure Messaging (Direct) to patients nationwide. The DPP web-based tools are part of the company’s plan to enable healthcare organizations and health IT solution providers to integrate and deliver Direct addresses to entire clinician and patient communities efficiently and at scale. Direct is a powerful communications protocol for secure health information exchange, which requires a time-consuming multi-step process to ensure the security and identity of its user base. The new DPP streamlines and automates provisioning to successfully and cost-effectively achieve scale. The DPP includes APIs for programmatic provisioning by applications such as EHRs and mobile health apps.

“The way to improve health outcomes is to improve access to clinical information across care teams and patients and their families alike,” said David C. Kibbe, M.D., president and CEO of DirectTrust, an independent non-profit trade association created by and for participants in the Direct Secure Messaging community. “There are now more than 1.2 million Direct addresses that allow professionals in more than 58,000 healthcare organizations to securely communicate with each other. It’s time that community is extended to include consumers and patients, which is the primary goal of our new Partnership for Patients Project. Millions of Direct addresses are required to bring patients into the fold, and through DataMotion Health’s innovation in the provisioning process, along with similar efforts by other members of DirectTrust, it can finally occur at a scale and cost that will make this a reality.” For the full article click here 

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As Healthcare Changes, So Must its CEOs, CFOs, COOs…

To keep up with big changes in how healthcare is administered, financed, and organized, top leaders are finding a need for new talents and organizational structures.

Healthcare reform as a term has become so ubiquitous that it is almost indefinable. At first, and broadly, it meant removing the waste in an excessively expensive healthcare system that too often added to the problems of the people whose health it aimed to improve. Then it became legislative and regulatory, in the form of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and its incentives aimed at improving the continuum of care and expanding the pool of those covered by health insurance.

Now, for many in the industry, healthcare reform has matured into a business imperative: the process of ingraining tactics, strategies, and reimbursement changes so that health systems improve quality and efficiency with the parallel goal of weaning us all off a system in which incentives have been so misaligned that neither quality nor efficiency was rewarded.

That leaders finally are able to translate healthcare reform into action is welcome, but to many health systems trying to survive and thrive in a rapidly changing business environment, the old maxim that all healthcare is local is being proved true. Making sense of healthcare reform is up to individual organizations and their unique local circumstances. Fortunately, there are some broad themes and organizational principles that are helpful for all that are trying to make this transition. What works in one place won’t necessarily work in another, but the innovation level is off the charts as healthcare organization leaders reshape what being a leading healthcare organization means as well as what it requires.

No blueprint to follow

In some ways, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare in Memphis is fortunate. As a health system with 2013 total revenue of $1.66 billion, it holds a dominant position in its market. But because that market remains “99% fee-for-service,” says Michael Ugwueke, MPH, DHA, FACHE, its president and chief operating officer, Methodist’s long-term position dominating its market may be in doubt.

Without value-based contracts, the benefit of the work Methodist does to reorganize care and improve outcomes currently accrues to the payer; yet without the work to reorient to risk-based contracts that are likely in the future, Methodist will be woefully underprepared, he says. For the full article click here 

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