In a report IBM wrote that in 2015 Healthcare was attacked more than any other industry and had over 100 million health records were comprised.

IBM X-Force® Research 2016 Cyber Security Intelligence Index outlines findings in more details.  The report can be downloaded by [clicking here].  You’ll be required to provide your name and business information before you download it.

Healthcare leaped ahead of the manufacturing, financial services, government and transportation industries.

The post Why Cyber criminals Attack Healthcare – IBM appeared first on Healthcare IT Systems.

No one questions that the era of big data is here, but Dr. Anthony Chang warns that the deluge of medical information is just beginning.

“By 2020, there will be 200 times more data than any physician can absorb,” said Chang, a practicing pediatric cardiologist. “And its doubling every two years.”

In his keynote address at the National Healthcare Innovation Summit in Chicago Wednesday morning, Chang said he worries that lives are being lost from the unrealized opportunity.

[See also: Watson has big plans for the future]

“There is nothing worse than when a child is lost because we don’t have access to the right knowledge,” he said.

The longterm solution Chang is working toward is “Intelligence-as-a-Service,” a network that could make it possible for doctors to tap into knowledge from specialists anywhere when they encounter a medical situation that is not responding to treatment.

“Why can’t we get access to that intelligence?” he asked.

Today, one of the problems is that the data being collected is unstructured; Chang estimates that about 90 percent of healthcare data being collected is not in a structured format. Until entities like IBM Watson came along, most of the bio- data being collected can’t be integrated with data in existing analytic systems.

“And in the future there will be tsunamis of data – particularly genomic data and yet another layer of behavioral data produced by wearables,” he said. “And with all that data, there’s very little intelligence coming our way. ”

The future will require a different approach, in which data is used in a BioIntelligence framework similar to deep learning, said Chang. Multiple layers of analytics are used to extract value from data.

He cited the work being done by Excel Medical Electronics with the BedMasterEx data acquisition solution working with IBM’ Watson’s InfoSphere Streams technology. He described the solution as four-stage architecture in which data is acquired in a SQL format, moves to an adaptation layer, then to an analytical layer and finally a delivery layer using HTTP. InfoSphere Streams is a sensory interface for Watson, making it possible for unstructured bio  data to be analyzed.

Chang then introduced Robert Merkel, vice president of client engagement at IBM Watson Health, who described Watson as a “cognitive system” which is taught, not programmed. It can learn, and improve its performance based on its experiences and it can work with sensory and non-traditional data.

The challenge is substantial. Merkel said the amount of data for a single individual is 0.4 terabytes of medical records, 6 terabytes of genomic data and a crushing 1,100 terabytes of exogenous data (ie., behavioral and environmental readings).

Ignoring all of that data has a price.

Merkel said estimates indicate that “20 percent of what determines a person’s health can be found in their clinical data, 20 percent can be found in clinical data and 60 percent in the exogenous data.”

Clearly, no hospital will be able to store or analyze that much data. Shared solutions will be needed.

Merkel said IBM’s Watson Health Cloud will be an open platform to aggregate the advanced analytics that the next generation of medical data will require. It will be a secure, HIPAA-compliant  platform, that is massively scalable. The goal is to enable collective intelligence, taking patient data and applying evidence-based insights in an outcomes driving learning system.

“Imagine that instead of getting a simple reminder that its time to see your physician, you received a message based on real intelligence on your own medical data,” Merkel said.

“We hear a lot about physicians being demoralized by computers,” Chang said, “but the most exciting times are coming. The best 25 years in medicine are coming up.”

Click here for the original article.

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Executives at Imprivata and HT Systems gave Fortune an exclusive preview of the deal this week, and said they would provide more details at Imprivata’s quarterly earnings call May 4.

Imprivata IMPR -0.20% will pay about $19.1 million in cash plus additional payments for meeting retention and performance standards, which could value the deal at as much as $26 million.

The deal gives the Massachusetts-based Imprivata the technology it needs to develop a patient-facing security segment by expanding the reach of HT Systems’ PatientSecure platform. The biometrics system connects patients to their electronic medical records when they first show up at a hospital or clinic, and then accurately identifies them when they return, helping to prevent expensive insurance fraud and to avoid medical errors related to mismatched records.

Imprivata, which had $97 million in revenues last year, currently sells one-sign secure access solutions and medical messaging platforms for doctors. With the HT Systems purchase, Imprivata will have a new tool for interacting directly with patients.

“The next step in the digital health story is patient engagement, and we can’t engage without great identification systems,” said Omar Hussain, president and CEO of Imprivata. “If medical records go to the wrong place there’s a problem.”

HT Systems’ PatientSecure uses infrared lights to scan a patient’s palm to distinguish his unique vein pattern, which is then linked to the correct medical file. This type of technology is used around the world within a range of industries, in the U.S. as well as in places like Brazil and Japan.

The technology was originally developed by Japanese company Fujitsu and was initially rolled out by the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi via its ATMs almost a decade ago. It served as an accurate and minimally intrusive form of two-step authentication, which helps prevent fraud by adding another layer of security. HT Systems has the exclusive rights to the technology within the U.S.

“When we started the journey down positive patient identification route, our biggest competitor was the status quo,” said David Wiener, CEO of HT Systems, who will join Imprivata as part of the deal. “No one else was doing it at the time.” Today, other larger biometrics companies compete in the space, including the likes of Gemalto and M2SY.

The patient identification market, driven by the rise of electronic medical records, is estimated to be worth about $2 billion globally, according to Imprivata. The company is going after a slice of that market with HT System’s technology; it plans to use its own wider-reaching sales force to grow the reach of the PatientSecure system beyond the 65 health systems it serves today.

Imprivata still has a challenge ahead of it. The No. 1 concern is patient adoption: No matter how good the technology, if a patient sees it as weird or intrusive they won’t use it, said Wiener.

Biometrics security expert Heidi Shey of Forrester Research echoed those concerns, which are true for the whole biometrics business regardless of industry. While people are getting more familiar with biometrics (see the fingerprint scan on the iPhone), there’s still a need for consumer education and ensuring these products work seamlessly.

“It’s one of those things where you only have one shot to get the consumers to buy into this, and if it doesn’t work as expected or there’s any difficulty, then it’s something they’re unlikely to use,” said Shey. “It has to be easy, and it has to be reliable.”

Read the original article here

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The Watson Health Cloud will be an open source but secure platform on which care providers and researchers can share and analyze health data for greater insights into trends to improve individual and overall patient outcomes.

IBM, which made the announcement at the Healthcare Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in Chicago, also said it has acquired big data healthcare analytics providers Phytel and Explorys, whose software will be used in concert with Watson Health.

The Explorys platform enables healthcare systems to collect, link and combine data from hundreds of disparate sources across their enterprise and clinically integrated networks. This data will be derived from clinical, claims, billing, accounting, devices, community and patient information.

Phytel develops and sells cloud-based services that help healthcare providers coordinate care in order to meet new healthcare quality requirements and reimbursement models.

“Their data sets represent 90 million lives, primarily in this country,” said Mike Rhodin, senior vice president of IBM’s Watson Business Group.

Additionally, IBM announced three new partnerships with Apple, Johnson & Johnson, and Medtronic to optimize consumer and medical devices.

BM will apply Watson Health cloud services and analytics to Apple’s HealthKit and ResearchKit, two features announced with last month’s release of Apple Watch. HealthKit enables the collection of data from the Apple Watch, and ResearchKit enables Apple Watch wearers to take part in massive health data studies by sharing the baseline vital signs and activity data.

Apple engineers have been working with dozens of research institutes, such as the Mayo Clinic, in developing apps that will help in research on Parkinson’s Disease, diabetes, cardiovascular problems, asthma and breast cancer.

IBM will provide a secure research capability on the Watson Health Cloud platform, de-identifying personal data to allow researchers to easily store, aggregate and model information collected from iOS users who opt-in to contribute personal data to medical research.

Johnson & Johnson will collaborate with IBM to create intelligent health coaching systems centered on preoperative and postoperative patient care, including joint replacement and spinal surgery.

“There’s so much we have to learn with this sea of data,” said Len Greer, president of Health and Wellness Solutions at Johnson & Johnson. “We’re going to start this collaboration [with IBM’s Watson Health] with joint replacement surgery… joints, knees and hips.”

Johnson & Johnson recently launched Patient Athlete, a pre and post operative video health coaching program, but Watson’s analytics and “cognitive” capability will enable the program to grow into a virtual patient coach, working with patient data to tailor a post-operative recovery coaching program.

Johnson & Johnson also plans to launch new health apps targeting chronic conditions, such as diabetes and obesity, which take up as much as 80% of $7 trillion global healthcare spending, according to Greer.

Medtronic will leverage the Watson Health Cloud insights platform to collaborate with IBM around delivery of new highly personalized care management services for people with diabetes. The system will receive and analyze patient information and data from various devices including insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors, and use this information to provide dynamic, personalized diabetes management strategies to patients and their providers.

Rhoden said Watson Health will include the open source sharing of code, so that any company can become a partner and develop applications for the platform.

“They’ll be solutions we bring to market, solutions we work with others to bring to market, and startups can even take advantage of the analytics to build future solutions,” Rhoden said.

Read the original article here.

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MRI’s can easily be turned into 3D models now, allowing doctors to pre-plan difficult or dangerous surgeries using 3D printed replicas of the areas being targeted by surgeons. They can also 3D print surgical guides, making tricky procedures like bone setting or reconstructive surgery faster and more accurate. And metal 3D printed medical appliances tailored to a specific patient’s body are becoming more and more common. Researchers are even looking into the possibility of 3D printing human tissue and organs. And now, we may be on the cusp of actually replacing human bones with 3D printed replicas.

A group of students developing a 3D printer that is capable of replicating human bone structures has been awarded as the Cal State Long Beach Innovation Challenge winners. The LuxNova OsBot 3D printer was developed by a group of students who say that it can replicate the unique and complex structure of human bones, even down to the micro and nanostructures.

As winners of the Innovation Challenge, LuxNova President/CEO Trevor Wagner and Lead Engineer Miguel Vintimilla will receive seed funds of $10,000 to launch their startup. The award also includes office space, assistance with developing a marketing strategy and assistance with negotiating the tricky legal intricacies of launching this type of business.

Click here for the entire article.

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DICOM Grid today announced the release of “medical selfie”, a new feature available through its mobile optimized medical image management platform. Using the feature, patients and care providers can upload medical pictures taken on an iOs device and securely share them with physicians.

“The ability to quickly send a picture is especially critical in trauma situations or frankly just to monitor ongoing care, “

Morris Panner, CEO of DICOM Grid said. “For example, patients or referring physicians can snap a shot of a burn, wound, or other injury and share it with a specialty provider in minutes.  A physician can view the picture through our secure portal to determine a treatment plan and advise whether or not the issue requires an in-person visit.”

DICOM Grid is a pioneer in the rapidly evolving telehealth space, providing web-based tools that facilitate remote consultations involving imaging. On-line features for 24/7 access, real-time image sharing, mobile viewing, and secure messaging are made possible through its award winning product line, DG Suite.

The medical selfie feature facilities real-time sharing of “visible light” imagery in a HIPAA secure environment.  Commonly used in dermatology and wound care, visible light imagery can be assessed without special equipment. In addition to still pictures, patients are also able to share diagnostic imaging and related data. By creating a DICOM Grid account, all information that is uploaded and shared can be accessed and viewed by patients online.

“As a physician who performs online patient consultations, tools like medical selfies help to streamline the telemedicine process,”

comments Dr. Rourke Stay, user of DICOM Grid and Founder of Lightbulb Radiology, an online destination for patients seeking second opinion services.  “From a workflow standpoint, having images and pictures sent directly to my worklist is great. These tools empower patients by enabling them to seamlessly transfer imaging data from their own iphones into the hands of an expert consultant.”

To learn more visit:http://www.dicomgrid.com/medical-selfies.

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In simple terms Nursing Informatics refers to an individual who is a nurse with specialized knowledge in Information Technology as it applies to healthcare.

A nurse’s training, clinical knowledge and experience is leveraged along with IT training to help treat and support patients and other healthcare providers.

A definition of Nursing Informatics can also be found at the HIMSS Web Site under ‘What is Nursing Informatics‘.

Nursing Informatics Certification Process

I’ve outlined some general steps below regarding the process for registering for the Nursing Informatics Certification process.  These steps aren’t ‘absolute’, but you’ll have an idea of what to expect.

Step 1

Obtain the Informatics Nurse Certification Catalog from the ANCC by calling 1.800.284.2378.  That’s the number as of this writing.

Step 2

In approx. 6 weeks or so you should receive a welcome packet with an application form and what you need to do to provide proof of education and credit hours.  You’ll need your College or University transcript.

The booklet includes instruction and information regarding test scheduling.  As well it will outline instructions for the test day, how scoring is done along with a practice test.  Expect the practice test to be much easier than the real test.

There will be a detailed test content outline included to ensure you have all of the topics covered.

Step 3

Once ANCC receives and reviews your application you will receive a Proctor Enrollment form, which allows you to register for the exam.

Any Protor testing site is acceptable to schedule an appointment, however it must be done with 90 days of confirmation.

Your enrollment form will have an ANCC identification number along with the exam code, which is Exam 27-ANCC Informatics Nurse.

Step 4

Do final study preparation and show up for the exam!

About the exam…

The testing format is computer based and uses multiple choice answers.  Anyone that’s ever taken a Microsoft or Cisco certification exam would be familiar with this format.

The exam consists of 175 questions, in which you will have 3.5 hours to write the exam. Of the 175 questions there are 25 pre-tests questions that are not scored.  These questions are used for evaluation before the are applied to the scored portion of the examination.

The percentage and number of questions in each of the major categories of the scored portion of the examination are also shown.

Nursing Informatics Certification Exam 27-NCAA Test Content and Categories

Some topics will include System analysis, design, information systems implementation, application support, testing and evaluation.  The questions and the weighting of the question are subject to change.

Here are a few sample questions to give you an idea.

Nursing Informatics Certification Training

You’ll want to prepare for the Nursing Informatics Certification Exam using multiple sources. If you feel you are weak in any one area, you should consider purchasing a book dedicated to that topic.

Anyway here are a few books you’ll want to take a look at to get you started.

               

Nursing Informatics training consists of a large portion of Information Technology related topics. Nurses don’t have to be dedicated Information Technology experts, however they do need to be aware of a broad range of topics. , Usually during the course of working within Healthcare IT, some nurses will in fact become experts in their respective technical field or responsibility.

Some of the topics  in no particular order may include:

1. Introduction to Nursing Informatics
2. Introduction to the computer and computer concepts
3. Software and Information management
4. Computer Networking
5. Word Processing
6. Presentation Software
7. Spread Sheets and Databases – Pulling out and crunching data
8. The internet and searching for information
9. mHealth and Mobile Healthcare
10. Healthcare Informations – EMRs, EHRs
11. Project Management

Nursing Informatics Online Training Programs

A search online will reveal many online degree/certificate programs for Nursing Informatics.  We’ve compiled a list of 10 of the best schools below.

A Degree in Nursing Informatics requires a longer time commitment and a greater financial obligation.  A certificate program in nursing informatics, will be shorter in during, but will give you enough knowledge to enter the field.

1. Duke University Informatics Specialty Degree

2. Vanderbilt Nursing Informatics Program

3. New York University Nursing Informatics Degree

4. Maryland University Nursing Informatics Degree

5. University of Pittsburgh Informatics Degree

6. Rutgers Nursing Informatics Degree

7. University of Phoenix Nursing Informatics Degree

8. The University of Minnesota Nursing Informatics Degree

9. University of South Alabama Nursing Informatics Degree

10. University of Illinois Nursing Informatics Degree

We have these schools listed in more detail on another Post Called Top 10 Nursing Informatics Online Degree Programs.

These are all great programs and no matter where you take your training you will be in a better position to succeed in Nursing Informatics.

Careers in Nursing Informatics

Currently the outlook for a jobs in Nursing Informatics Look good.  According to Payscale.com the salary range for Nursing Informatics roles pay from $48,700 to $96,500.  Of course this number will vary depending on region, advanced degree and experience.

Nurses with Informatics education will typically try to find roles within their clinical experience.  This would be the ideal way to leverage their informatics training.

If there aren’t any current roles in your organization, getting that first opportunity may be a challenge.  A great way to start would be to see what’s available where you are.  Education is great, however experience is really what is needed.  If smaller technical roles present themselves, or if there is a new technical related project as work, get involved.

As a nurse you know that training and education are one thing and experience is another.  That’s were the real learning begins and I believe this is true with any job.  Once you’ve gone through a technical implementation or an upgrade you learn a TON!

If you are newly graduated with a Nursing Informatics Degree or Certificate does not mean you are equipped to  handle all things technical.  However it should be able to help you leverage an opportunity.  If you already have technical skills learned from a position your in, the Informatics training will make you that more marketable.  An Informatics Degree/Certificate plus real experience is very valuable.

If you don’t have that technical experience, but you have the Informatics training, work at getting ‘an opportunity’ to work.  You may have to take something at the beginning that is less than desirable, but remember that it’s another step forward. Once you’ve learned on the job and proven yourself you will be able to move forward.

A good way to create your own technical experience is to start a web site and load it with WordPress or some other blogging software.  If you want to get in to a technical field this is a good little project.  It’s really cheap to get start, just a few dollars a month.  You can also buy a few Networking and Computer based books from the ‘Dummies’ series.  They are really well written and easy to understand.  I’ve read a few in the past just to understand the concepts before getting in to anything deeper.  Definitely worth the few dollars. They are all on Amazon and have great reviews.

I pay under $10 a month for Hostgator and I can have unlimited domains and up to 5 databases.  This will give you an opportunity to work with html, css, database, practice database queries. I think there are monthly deals for under $4 a month.  Less than a latte at Starbucks.

If you don’t know what any of that stuff means, it’s ok.  That’s what learning is for. Buy some computer books and start getting your hands dirty.  It’s the only way. You can work at things without any fear of breaking anything. You’ll also have to buy a domain.  For example HealthcareITsystems.com.  The name doesn’t matter really, since you just want to to get something up and practice.

Once it’s up and running installing WordPress (blogging software) is basically automated through the Hostgator Control Panel.  A couple of mouse clicks and you’re done.

Running your own web site is a great way to get started and gain experience with Informatics.  You’ll have something to talk about during an interview as well because it will give you experience in a lot of different areas…potentially.

Also most of us have used Microsoft Office products like Excel, Word and Power Point.  If you have the suite of products you may even have MS Access, which is a database.  You will want to get familiar with these applications in more detail as well.  Microsoft Project is another application that is used in a lot of organizations.  As the name suggests it’s used for managing projects.

Who hires Nurses with Informatics training?

I’m sure a lot of nurses think of working in their current organizations or other hospital type environments.  However there are lots of other positions in the private sector that are really interesting.

When I worked at Kodak Health Imaging we used to hire X-ray Technicians to teach customers on our applications.  When I worked in oncology, our company hired Oncology Nurses to teach customers and other nurses on how to use our electronic medical record.

There are lots of opportunities to leverage your training and knowledge.  You just have to look.

Here is a list of Interview Question from Allnurses to give you some more insight in to the position and what is expected.  Here’s another article from the HIMSS web site with feedback on how to approach job searching.

Take a look on Monster.com for a quick look at what’s available for Nursing Informatics jobs available now.

You’ll also want to tweaking your resume as well to highlight your IT experience.  A Nursing Informatics Resume will have a combination of your clinical experience and technical experience.

As I mentioned above, if you had your own web site you could feel in a lot of blanks.  You’ll have to learn somewhere and it’s better to do it on your time and where you have the luxury of making as many mistakes as you want.

You may be able to find a few examples of Nursing Informatics Resumes here.

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The new offering enables healthcare organizations to leverage the affordability and convenience of AWS’ highly secure framework to safeguard patient health information.

The ClearDATA Healthcare Managed Cloud can now provide one of the most flexible and comprehensive cloud data management environments available for “Big Health Data” analytics. The announcement coincides with the HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition to be held April 12-16 in Chicago, IL.

“We are excited to combine our healthcare-exclusive approach to information security, compliance and managed services with the scale and diversity of AWS,” stated Matt Ferrari, Chief Technology Officer, ClearDATA. “This combination makes it easier for healthcare organizations to securely move their data to the cloud using a service that fuses ClearDATA’s deep knowledge of healthcare requirements with AWS’ cloud infrastructure in a variety of important healthcare use cases.”

“The digital revolution is in full swing with healthcare organizations adopting cloud computing to create tangible impacts on patient lives, saving time, simplifying processes, enabling faster access to data, and enabling global collaboration in completely new ways,” said Steve Halliwell, GM, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Amazon Web Services, Inc. “We are pleased ClearDATA is introducing its new Healthcare Managed Cloud offering on AWS to aid healthcare organizations eager to harness the cost and agility benefits of cloud computing without compromising on data security.”

Meaningful Use, Advanced Imaging and EHRs are driving massive growth in data volume, which brings new challenges and opportunities for healthcare analytics applications to generate meaningful insights. Many organizations are finding it difficult to house these analytics solutions within a traditional IT infrastructure, which requires considerable capital outlay in servers and other equipment, plus continuous security and performance monitoring.

With the ClearDATA Healthcare Managed Cloud, organizations can cost-effectively store, manage and securely share their data from a single location. This offers unprecedented benefits for solving Big Health Data challenges:

• Protected health information resides in a HIPAA-compliant, HITRUST-certified environment on the AWS Cloud
• New capability to store and analyze large datasets to glean meaningful insights into patient care, population health and healthcare administration
• Centralize, normalize and analyze data within the same location it is managed and stored

ClearDATA will leverage the advanced features of AWS’ infrastructure, including multi-Region failovers, log analysis, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) permissions and a dedicated DevOps practice. ClearDATA has committed a dedicated engineering team to focus on adapting the latest and greatest cloud technologies for the healthcare market.

ClearDATA will exhibit at the HIMSS15 show at booth #5334. Company representatives will be available to demo Object Storage and Archival for secure long-term storage of critical data. Visitors may qualify for a free 90-day proof of concept to evaluate whether the ClearDATA Healthcare Managed Cloud built on AWS can help remove the barriers to affordable and efficient healthcare IT management.

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[See also: Key takeaways from ONC’s interoperability roadmap]

In an April 3 letter sent to National Coordinator Karen DeSalvo, MD, HIMSS submited its comments on ONC’s “Connecting Health Care for the Nation: A Shared Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap.”

While HIMSS overall supports the strategy for for an interoperable IT infrastructure, it offers a handful of recommendations for ONC. Among them:

• The roadmap will require “well-coordinated governance processes that include involvement from federal partners, the private sector, payers, and the patient community, with robust incentives for each domain to buy-in to the process.”
• Many of the three-, six- and ten-year timelines put forth in the document “are too aggressive and need to be reevaluated, with the exception of the privacy and security provisions.”
• HIMSS cheered ONC’s “person-centric vision” of interoperability, and its focus on empowering patients to “demand that their providers and relevant health IT systems be interoperable.”
• On the other hand, it “does not support the idea that individual consent should be required for use and disclosure of information if individual consent is not required under applicable law.”
• With regard to patient privacy, HIMSS makes the case that, “as a critical U.S. infrastructure,” the healthcare system “needs support at many levels to keep data secure and to be positioned to address cyber threats.”

HIMSS made note that it is “committed to being a thought leader on interoperability and spurring the community and stakeholder groups forward.” Read its full comment letter here.

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