As technology continues to improve, using virtual connections in place of face-to-face meetings has surged in popularity. The healthcare industry is no different – the telehealth industry is predicted to be worth more than $130 billion by 2025. While telehealth offers many benefits to patients, particularly those who are unable to leave their homes, the technology raises several serious security concerns.
These problems primarily stem from the lack of security controls when it comes to the collection and sharing of data. During a conversation between a patient and doctor, for example, sensitive, personal patient data is often shared. When the connection between patient and doctor is virtual, it is possible that an unsecured connection could be interrupted, and patient data leaked. Home telehealth devices and sensors may also collect data that a patient would prefer to keep private, including times that the home is unoccupied. If devices are storing and transmitting this data, it is possible that it could be accessed by third parties.
These concerns have left a lingering question: how can patients still reap the benefits of telehealth while ensuring their connections and data remain secure? The answer may lie in another technology that healthcare providers have only started to adopt – blockchain.
Enabling Secure Data
Blockchain at its most basic level simply enables secure, immutable and anonymous transactions, allowing cross-network communications to take place through mutually agreed upon interactions between parties. For healthcare providers, this opens up an efficient means of transferring data and communicating between different organizations that handle patient data. Medical records can also be stored using blockchain, allowing providers to create a more complete patient history by keeping larger amounts of data and information securely encrypted in fragmented systems.
The ability to securely share data and control who has access to it will surely help to increase consumer confidence when it comes to telehealth. Blockchain requires that data is approved by both the patient and doctor before it is entered into a computer. The data must also be verified against a previous ledger, so no single party ever has total control. This ensures multiple checks are in place and reduces the chance that an unauthorized party could access sensitive patient data, which is one of the main concerns when it comes to using telehealth.
Regulating Sensitive Communications
While it offers many solutions, federal organizations have not officially decided how regulations would apply to blockchain, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). HIPAA outlines rules for ensuring the privacy and security of patient data, as well as the secure transfer of data, but it does not apply to patients; ensuring blockchain users remain compliant will be the responsibility of healthcare providers.
HIPPA guidelines for telehealth require that healthcare organizations communicate electronically protected health information (ePHI) through regulated channels to ensure security. This means that tools like Skype or unencrypted email cannot be used to communicate ePHI, limiting what could be used for cost-effective telehealth.
By Kevin von Keyserling, chief strategy officer, Keyfactor.
Kevin von Keyserling
As value-based care becomes more prevalent, healthcare delivery organizations (HDOs) are continuously looking to transform the patient care model with goals of reducing costs, optimizing patient outcomes and driving better financial performance. As new channels, delivery agencies, and patients taking greater responsibility in managing their care in the continued shift to telemedicine or virtual healthcare, digital security has become an even more important component of this evolving ecosystem.
Given the growth of connected medical devices, the potential for security lapses from release through use is considerable. While implanted devices draw the most attention, the broader universe of medical care gadgets can also warrant concern. In the U.S. alone, hospitals can average anywhere between 10 to 15 connected devices per-bed. With this kind of scale, the number of security gaps can be significant.
Medical devices that feature wireless connectivity, remote monitoring, and near-field communication technology allow health professionals to adjust and fine tune implanted devices remotely and in real-time. Devices capture and transmit data across many channels and receiving parties, but many fail to incorporate data security protocols and standards. Older devices that remain in the field may be using outdated security software. There is also significant ambiguity on who owns the data, which can result in nobody taking the lead on managing current security practices. Put these factors together and it’s easy to understand why healthcare data is highly susceptible to security failures.
Optimizing Data and Device Security
Healthcare has the highest breach-related costs of any industry at $408 per-stolen record. As patients willingly share personally identifiable information (PII) reliable controls must be in place to protect patient privacy. Every identity within an organization must be covered by layers of digital security, and the process can be broken down into smaller bites to ensure you’re setting the stage for optimized data and device security without taking everything on all at once.
Establish necessary barriers: Improve the strength of targeted devices between devices and outside threats and be aware of your device inventory always – no device should ever be left unattended! Don’t leave cell phones or laptops out in open spaces, but if you do, utilize features such as auto-lock. Ensure that all devices are locked in a restricted and secure area when not in use.
Define your security protocol: Make sure to have a regular cadence in which passwords need to be updated and utilize multi-factor authentication when possible.
For the second straight year, ransomware attacks accounted for over 70 percent of all malware incidents in the healthcare sector, according to the recently issued 2019 Verizon Breach Investigations Report. Beazley reported that almost half of the ransomware incidents reported in 2018 involved healthcare companies, while CSO Online estimates that healthcare-related malware attacks will likely quadruple by 2020.
Adding salt to the wounds, a private practice in Battle Creek, Michigan, was forced to close its doors in the aftermath of a devastating healthcare ransomware attack in 2019—the first public report of a ransomware-related business failure. Every day we read about another headline breach in healthcare.
Being in the ransomware hot seat is a lot to swallow for an industry responsible for the security of our most sensitive data. And therein lies part of the problem. Cybercriminals are always after the most lucrative targets and they have learned that healthcare providers are more likely to pay the ransom to get their patients’ data back.
CEO of A1care, Percy Syddall, a 25-year healthcare veteran who helps grow and manage businesses in the Home Care field is sharing his story to help others avoid the business disruption and financial woes caused by cybercriminals. Syddall said, “I always strive to do what is best for my clients, which includes leveraging innovative technologies and maintaining the privacy of their personal data. Still, our company was attacked by ransomware, which almost forced us out of business. The cybercriminals threatened to expose private client data if we did not pay the ransom.”
“The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do was call each client and explain that the personal information they trusted my business to protect, may have been compromised. At that time, very little was known about ransomware and I ended up paying the ransom to get my client data back,” continued Syddall.
Even though medical records contain rich personal health information (PHI) that can be sold for high value, cybercriminals are discovering they can get faster payment through ransomware. Unlike stolen medical records that take time to acquire and commoditize, ransomware locks healthcare professionals out of critical systems and demands payment or immediate action.
In healthcare, it seems that nothing is easy — technology, regulation, privacy, and security. And now, pricing. Efforts are underway to make prices more transparent; this is a tentpole issue for the Trump administration, which wants hospitals to begin posting “shoppable” prices online in 2020.
According to reports, some hospitals are facing some challenges for doing so and are trying to figure out how they’ll be able to meet the requirement.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Servics (CMS) offered the proposed rule, which mandates that hospitals publish their payer-negotiated rates for “shoppable services” starting on the first of the year. This is part of CMS’ outpatient payment rule. The proposed rule is expected to be finalized by November 2019.
To read my full report on this pricing transparency battle, check out my article on MultiBriefs here.
Childhood is a funny age. If we ask you to peak in the rear view mirror of your life, what would be the first memory that you’d reminisce? There must be loads of things to look back to, and why not—it is a golden phase in a small, tiny movie of life, but this little fragment of it is unusual.
It frames the rest of our life for these experiences mold us as a human being. Now the nature experiences (both good and bad) might vary from one person to another, but it all sums up our lifestyle—there’s no hiding that.
One very crucial aspect of our lifestyle, known as oral health, is something that shapes up our health and routine. We don’t just walk into adulthood with perfectly straight teeth and immediately start brushing them, flossing the slits, and rinsing our mouth. Our parents had to put us in Invisalign and create these habits through months of routine that was bred into our veins and whisked into our daily grind.
Dental health is no joke, and it has been seen that many kids with improper dental hygiene land into a sticky pool of trouble for long times to come. This problem needs to be prevented before the time comes that it has to be cured. Kids have huge issues with their teeth, and the reason is simple—it’s not a cakewalk to stop them from gluttonous food and sticky, gooey, and sugary stuff. That’s not the only problem, however, as it goes beyond that.
Taking kids to the dentist’s is crucial. They have to be comfortable about the fact that they’ll be coming to these visits now and then and anything else shouldn’t stop them—even if it is nervousness and fear of getting things inside one’s mouth.
It is essential to take kids to the dentists. It keeps the teeth shining and wise, and these values become the cornerstone of splendid dental and oral hygiene. But that’s not the case for a child, for whom a dentist’s visit is nothing short of a nightmare. Think of it this way—a kid lying on a cold, cushiony chair, in a room full of extraordinary people wearing masks and poking, whizzing and smoking out weird instruments that look like tools for torture. These vibes are exceptional and why not—funny people, strange noises, and unusually cold sensation between the teeth.
Do you know that once your child’s baby teeth start to grow and eventually fall out, you’ll have to take them for at least 10 trips to the dentist (yes, 10!). All of these trips can get expensive, so it’s a good idea to take out health insurance that covers dentistry to help cover the cost. Of course, you’ll want to choose the best insurance plan for your whole family, so take a look online and learn more here. But the question is, how do we take care of kid’s dental health in the first place?
Here are a few ways which ensure that your kid isn’t scared of dentists anymore and that whenever the dentist’s date comes in, s/he is ready for the appointment with all smiles and no tears. Continue Reading
By Steve Simmons, marketing and business analysis manager, eCare Vault.
Care coordination by definition is a strategy that is focused on bringing together the multiple parties of a patient’s care team to knock down barriers of communication in order to enable the best outcomes for your patients.
However, by doing so, your healthcare organization stands to see significant savings on your bottom line. Here are a few ways we’ve seen care coordination can nurture the financial health of your organization:
Reducing Unnecessary Additional Treatments
When providers aren’t on the same page the result is additional tests and treatment for patients that could have been avoided otherwise. Gaps of information in patient care are common since providers across separate organizations rarely communicate with each other on what types of care they are providing for their patients.
As a patient, very rarely will you go against the advice of a physician or specialist, as their job is to provide you with the care to live as healthy of a life as possible.
This drives up costs exponentially across the entire continuum of care, and subsequently, providers and patients end up spending more for treatment that could be avoided in the first place. Proper coordination across multiple organizations can help patient care team members collaborate on the exact types of care and testing that is being administered to patients, helping to streamline the care that patients receive and reduce costs across altogether.
Reducing Physician Burnout To Preventing Costly Staff Turnover
With less communication and collaboration, physicians, nurses, practitioners, caregivers, and allied health professionals are forced to work and operate in silos, the consequences of which can affect not only the financial health of the clinic but the type of care patients receive.
The added stress and decrease in personal achievement for all roles mean less motivation and more cognitive impairment, which leads to a lesser quality of care, mistakes in care, and worse outcomes for patients. For organizations, burnout eventually results in staff either quitting or being fired for inadequate performance, which means recruiting, hiring and training new staff.
The costs associated with this can range from $2,500 or even more than $100,000 for higher-level positions within the clinic, hospital, home healthcare agency and every place in between.
Care coordination helps prevent this, as it empowers meaningful working relationships both internally and across organizations, helping multiple care team members strive toward the goal of providing the best care for the patient or client.
It allows your staff to break free from redundant work that can be accomplished in a fraction of the time, streamlines workflow management, and reduces operational inefficiencies across the board – giving your employees the power to operate at the top of their license, saving your organization thousands to millions of dollars of budget in the process.
There is much hype with regards to the use of blockchain technology in the field of healthcare due to its distributed ledgers. Many organizations have disappointed with the use of blockchain because of incomplete or partial knowledge. According to the experts, the blockchain development solutions are the future of the global healthcare industry. Many experts are involved in the experiment to implement the technology in the various healthcare departments. The following are the various predictions offered by the blockchain according to the experts in future.
The wait is over. Let’s jump into the interesting predictions for the growth of blockchain from expert’s perspective
Consent management
Blockchain will become an important part of the management in the healthcare industry to enable the sharing of information. Data is currently stored in the electronic health record system based on various individuals. Blockchain technology will enable the storage of the patient’s data which will enable the data exchange and treatments and privacy preferences on the blockchain. This will allow data to be accessed by the various stakeholders and officials.
Tokenization of the non-cash assets
A token can represent anything like real estate information, a physical object and also an outcome. Ruban Selvanayagam of UK real estate company Property Solvers comments: “many industries with huge asset bases are exploring blockchain technology and smart contracts to create broader efficiencies whilst keeping things completely secure.” The tokens will be able to help the officials manage the various results of the healthcare industry from the end of the institutions as well as patients. Tokens are used to reduce the burden of the experts and also help enhance the patients care as well as medications.
Making micropayments
Under the value-based care system, the providers will reimburse the wellness of the patients not for the quality but the care of the patients. So, it will become easy to use the process to make universal payment interfaces that will help patients make micropayments. This will also help organizations achieve the desired goals or outcomes and enhance innovations. Similarly, the tracking of the co-operative pays and the share of the medical expenses could be able to simplify the blockchain payment interface. It provides the opportunity to the organizations to buy the outcomes from the service providers.
Provider credentialing
To store and maintain the directories of the healthcare industry is a very critical task. The organizations have to keep the data up to date and also have to face the complex issues related to the patient’s data. To handle and manage the paperwork, the personnel need proper training and should possess the ability to understand the various aspects and important features. But blockchain provides a user-friendly environment that can simplify the usage of the system.
Electrical usage reductions
The blockchain technology will help you to reduce the electricity requirements, and it also helps enhance the speed and scalability of the system in the big concerns. It increases the transaction speed to enhance efficiency and reduce the cost of the transactions. Blockchain provides proof of work approaches to lessen the consumption of the electricity in data collection, storage, processing and other tasks.
If you want to know about the use cases that blockchain revolutionized healthcare industry, stay tuned until the end.
In many cases, it becomes difficult to track the various activities of the medical suppliers like pharmacies. The Blockchain approach will help healthcare track the products from the suppliers to the specific receivers whether they are healthcare institutions or the patients. This helps the healthcare institutions to ensure the integrity of the various products as well as different pharmacies.
The healthcare circles in the United States are reeled up by debates around the need for price transparency.
The federal agencies are coming up with regulations.
Healthcare associations are weighing in their concerns.
Physicians, patients, and economists – everyone is articulating the pros and cons in a rather plausible manner.
Wait. What has triggered this rush towards transparency?
To begin with, the healthcare costs across the country have gone from “extreme” to “unreal” in the last two to three decades. A regular MRI scan, for instance, costs twice as much as it does in Switzerland, another country where healthcare is considered “notably expensive.”
Worse still, one simply cannot tell how much money they might end up paying at a healthcare facility at any given point. A broken bone can take thousands of dollars to get fixed or at no cost at all – depending on a dozen factors that can vary drastically with each patient.
Frankly, there is no single moment that burst the bubble around the soaring healthcare costs. In many cases, what hurt patients more than the total cost of a procedure is the out-of-pocket expense that they are made to pay. The focus today has shifted to one fundamental question – how much money is justified for a given care procedure; and are we entitled to know it or not?
Cut to 2019, a movement to make care prices transparent is shaking the establishments across the US.
What is the government saying?
The government has taken the onus of ensuring transparency in healthcare prices. Last month, the White House issued an executive order aimed at making payers and providers publish the cost of each procedure available at their facility. The government believes that this step can get a long way in making patients take more informed decisions regarding their health and eliminate the opacity regarding the cost associated with such processes beforehand.
The intent here is to provide patients “access to useful price and quality information and the incentives to find low-cost, high-quality care,” something that can be a giant leap forward in the direction of enabling cost-effective care.
In healthcare, it seems that nothing is easy — technology, regulation, privacy, and security. And now, pricing. Efforts are underway to make prices more transparent; this is a tentpole issue for the Trump administration, which wants hospitals to begin posting “shoppable” prices online in 2020.
Childhood is a funny age. If we ask you to peak in the rear view mirror of your life, what would be the first memory that you’d reminisce? There must be loads of things to look back to, and why not—it is a golden phase in a small, tiny movie of life, but this little fragment of it is unusual.
Care coordination by definition is a strategy that is focused on bringing together the multiple parties of a patient’s care team to knock down barriers of communication in order to enable the best outcomes for your patients.
There is much hype with regards to the use of blockchain technology in the field of healthcare due to its distributed ledgers. Many organizations have disappointed with the use of blockchain because of incomplete or partial knowledge. According to the experts, the blockchain development solutions are the future of the global healthcare industry. Many experts are involved in the experiment to implement the technology in the various healthcare departments. The following are the various predictions offered by the blockchain according to the experts in future.