Morphisec released findings from the 2019 Morphisec Consumer Healthcare: Cybersecurity Threat Index. The report surveyed more than 1,000 consumers, weighted for the U.S. population, to get their perspective and understanding of the threatscape surrounding the healthcare industry, and how attackers are targeting their personal health information.
While the $36 billion shift to electronic health records (EHRs) and the adoption of new enabling technologies has improved the quality of healthcare over the last decade, cybersecurity vulnerabilities have emerged as a byproduct that has made the industry vulnerable to a growing number of highly advanced threats. In February, Morphisec Labs identified an ongoing cyberattack in which hacker group FIN6 expanded into the healthcare field targeting a diagnostic image processing firm.
Sophisticated cyberattackers are now attuned to the vulnerabilities that exist within the industry and are targeting it more than double the rate seen across other sectors. This attack frequency poses considerable risk to healthcare organizations and more importantly to the patients’ data they are securing. As Morphisec continues to assist healthcare providers with improving their cyber defenses and protecting patient data, it examined how the increasing amount of healthcare cyberattacks are impacting the mindset of consumers.
Highlights from the Morphisec 2019 Consumer Healthcare: Cybersecurity Threat Index include:
Fifty-four percent of consumers say “they don’t know if a cyberattack has hit their healthcare providers,” despite HIPAA laws requiring providers to notify patients when their information has been compromised.
Healthcare portal use by consumers has increased to 42 percent this year from 28 percent in 2018, increasing the need for providers to protect internet-facing websites, which hackers are actively targeting.
Forty-five percent of consumers say they believe that their health information is more secure on their personal electronic devices (iPhone, laptop, etc.) than on the electronic devices within their healthcare provider.
More than 50 percent of consumers say they play a role alongside their provider in protecting shared health information, but nearly 80 percent of consumers admit they are not prepared to handle threats to health data on their own.
Consumers are more fearful of a health data breach (59 percent) than hackers gaining access to an internet-connected medical device (41 percent).
Consumers believe web (24 percent) and endpoint defenses (21 percent) are providers’ weakest links in protecting their data.
Ever since you were a tween, you have wanted to work in the health industry. Now that you are an adult, you still dream of being part of the medical industry in some capacity, but you would prefer to be your own boss instead of working in a hospital or starting up your own practice.
Fortunately, there are a number of jobs that relate to medicine and health that you can do from home and/or on your own time. For example, consider the following trio of ideas:
Home-based medical billing business
In order for the medical industry to function, payments must come in on a regular basis. If the idea of learning medical codes and working on a computer in a home office sounds appealing, you can pursue a health industry job in medical billing. There are a number of options in the medical billing industry, including working with family practitioners, psychologists and/or nursing homes. If you have previous experience in one area of healthcare, you might find it easier to focus on that industry when setting up your medical billing business; you might also be able to network with physicians from that field. To set up this type of home-based business, you will need a clearinghouse, which is a company that electronically receives and sends medical billing claims, a computer, medical billing software, insurance forms and reference materials including coding books.
Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare (TMH) has selected Atlanta-based Gozio Health to develop a mobile wayfinding platform for patients and visitors. The experiential wayfinding app will provide users with interactive maps and step-by-step navigation to doctor’s offices, cafeterias, pharmacies, nearby restrooms, parking decks and other points of interest within the TMH health system.
“Serving a 17-county region in north Florida and southern Georgia, TMH chose mobile wayfinding to improve the overall patient experience of our extensive network and guide patients directly to their point of care,” said Stephanie Derzypolski, vice president and chief communications officer at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare.
TMH patients will have physician directories at their fingertips and the ability to customize their app by creating favorites. TMH plans to expand app features such as appointment scheduling, emergency department and urgent care wait times, and access to medical records, to help with all their medical care needs.
Joshua Titus
“As we continue to expand Gozio’s services to hospitals across the country, we are pleased to partner with Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, the first healthcare system in North Florida to adopt experiential mobile wayfinding,” remarked Joshua Titus, CEO and founder Gozio Health. “Gozio’s partnership with TMH will assist them with providing patient and family-centered, quality healthcare to the communities that they serve.”
TMH’s wayfinding platform will provide turn-by-turn directions from home to the closest parking spot and on to patients’ point of care and include Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, Tallahassee Memorial Hospital’s Women’s Pavilion, three off-site clinic/urgent care offices, and three parking decks.
By Abhinav Shashank, CEO and co-founder, Innovaccer.
Abhinav Shashank
Once while I was scrolling through the news feed on my phone, there was one specific line that really made me wonder: “There’s a 40 percent chance of gusty and blustery winds today.” Statements such as this one strongly influence people’s behavior, as they are based on evidence or data findings from years of surveying, studying, and analyzing past trends and occurrences. However, my question is “Why are we not able to make such claims in healthcare- even today?”
Can we predict the vulnerabilities a patient might face in the future or the current health risks a population segment faces?
Is risk scoring the answer we have been looking for?
Almost all kinds of care organizations have some risk scoring methodology to target care interventions. With quality, costs, and patient experience taking the center stage in healthcare, care organizations need to stratify patients based on their need for immediate intervention.
The need of the hour is to address high-risk issues that impact large groups of patients and ensure that these needs are met in a timely fashion. Often, frequent fliers among high-risk patients come into the emergency department as if it’s their second home.
What if we take the method of risk scoring to a whole new level?
Traditionally, providers and health systems have relied on claims-based risk models, such as CMS-HCC, ACG and DxCG, which were built to forecast the risk of populations/sub-populations but not for individual patients. Hence, these models give an accurate prediction of the average risk of the population but exhibit very poor accuracy if used to predict risk for individual patients.
Although risk scoring has turned out to be a key factor in addressing the needs of the patient population, this method cannot provide all the important insights that are needed to drive necessary interventions. Since healthcare already has the right data from sources such as EHRs, claims, labs, pharmacy, social determinants of health (SDoH) and others, can we predict the future cost of care instead of just stating the risk score of the patient?
The right machine learning-driven approach to predict the future cost of care for patients
It all starts with the right data. The first step is to integrate the data from multiple sources- whether it is clinical or non-clinical data, such as SDoH. The data from these sources can allow us to use the comprehensive patient’s data for multiple predictive models to predict future health cost with greater accuracy.
Partners HealthCare announced its selections for the fifth annual “Disruptive Dozen,” the 12 emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technologies with the greatest potential to impact healthcare in the next year. The technologies were featured as part of the World Medical Innovation Forum held in Boston to examine AI in clinical care including a range of diseases and health system opportunities.
Gregg Meyer, MD
“Understanding state-of-the-art medical technologies enables us to anticipate the future of clinical care,” said Gregg Meyer, MD, chief clinical officer, Partners HealthCare and 2019 World Forum co-chair. “The Disruptive Dozen technologies can offer physicians and patients a renewed sense of optimism about Artificial Intelligence and its impact on diagnosis and treatment.”
The 2019 Partners HealthCare Disruptive Dozen are:
1 Reimagining medical imaging – AI is transforming radiology and imaging, including mammography and ultrasound, to bring improvements in clinical care and diagnoses to patients worldwide. Researchers envision AI transforming mammography from one-size-fits-all to a more targeted tool for assessing breast cancer risk, and further increasing utility for ultrasound for disease detection and rapid acquisition of clinical-grade images.
2 Better prediction of suicide risk – Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S. and the second leading cause of death among young people. AI is proving powerful in helping identify patients at risk of suicide (based on EHR data,) and also examining social media content with the goal of detecting early warning signs of suicide. These efforts toward an early warning system could help alert physicians, mental health professionals and family members when someone in their care needs help. These technologies are under development and not cleared for clinical use.
3 Streamlining diagnosis – The application of AI in clinical workflows such as imaging and pathology is ushering in a new era of AI-enabled disease diagnosis. From identifying abnormal and potentially life-threatening findings in medical imaging, to screening pathology cases according to the presence of urgent findings such as cancer cells, AI is poised to aid the diagnostic, prognostic, and treatment decisions that clinicians make while caring for patients.
4 Automated malaria detection — Nearly half a million people succumbed to malaria in 2017, with the majority being children under five. Deep learning technologies are helping automate malaria diagnosis, with software to detect and quantify malaria parasites with 90 percent accuracy and specificity. Such an automated approach to malaria detection and diagnosis could benefit millions of people worldwide by helping to deliver more accurate and timely diagnoses and could enable better monitoring of treatment efficacy.
5 Real-time monitoring and analysis of brain health – a window on the brain – A new world of real-time monitoring of the brain promises to dramatically improve patient care. By automating the manual and painstaking analysis of EEGs and other high-frequency wave forms, clinicians can rapidly detect electrical abnormalities that signal trouble. Deep learning algorithms based on terabytes of EEG data are helping to automatically detect seizures in the critically ill, regardless of the underlying cause of illness.
6 “A-Eye”: Artificial intelligence for eye health and disease – Not only is AI is helping advance new approaches in ophthalmology, it’s demonstrating the ability of AI-enabled technologies to enhance primary care with specialty level diagnostics. In 2018, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new AI-based system for the detection of diabetic retinopathy, marking the first fully automated, AI-based diagnostic tool approved for market in the U.S. that does not require additional expert review. The technology could also play a role in low-resource settings, where access to ophthalmologic care may be limited.
7 Lighting a “FHIR” under health information exchange — A new data standard, known as the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) has become the de facto standard for sharing medical and other health-related information. With its modern, web-based approach to health information exchange, FHIR promises to enable a new world of possibilities rooted in patient-centered care. While this new world is just emerging, it promises to give patients unfettered access to their own health information — allowing them to decide what they want to share and with whom and demanding careful consideration of data privacy and security.
8 Reducing the burden of healthcare administration — use of AI to automate routine and highly repetitious administrative functions. In the U.S., more than 25 percent of healthcare expenditures are due to administrative costs, far surpassing all other developed nations. One important area where AI could have a sizeable impact is medical coding and billing, where AI can develop automated approaches. The goal is to help reduce the complexity of the coding and billing process thereby reducing the number of mistakes and minimize the need for intense regulatory oversight.
9 A revolution in acute stroke care — Stroke is a major cause of death and disability across the world and a significant source of healthcare spending. Each year in the U.S., nearly 800,000 people suffer from a stroke, with a cost of roughly $34 billion. AI tools to help automate the diagnostic journey of ischemic stroke can help determine whether there is bleeding within the brain — a crucial early insight that helps doctors select the proper treatment. These algorithms can automatically review a patient’s head CT scan to identify a cerebral hemorrhage as well as help localize its source and determine the volume of brain tissue affected.
10 The hidden signs of intimate partner violence – Researchers are working to develop AI-enabled tools that can help alert clinicians if a patient’s injuries likely stem from intimate partner violence (IPV). Through an AI-enabled system, they hope to help break the silence that surrounds IPV by empowering clinicians with powerful, data-driven tools. While screening for intimate partner violence (IPV) can help detect and prevent future violence, less than 30 percent of IPV cases seen in the ER are appropriately flagged as abuse-related. Healthcare providers are optimistic that AI tools will further complement their role as a trusted source for divulging abuse.
InTouch Health, ranked 2019 Best in KLAS for Virtual Care Platforms, announced the release of the industry’s first fully integrated, end-to-end virtual care platform. Solo by InTouch delivers enterprise solutions to provide scalable, patient-centric telehealth for any use case in any setting – with packages enabling compelling price points for every situation.
Joseph M. DeVivo
“We’ve spent a lot of time listening to our customers and we heard their need for a truly integrated solution that allows a physician to have a virtual, everyday interaction with patients whether they are in the home, clinic, emergency room, inpatient in a hospital – anywhere on the care continuum locally or anywhere in the world with one platform,” said Joseph M. DeVivo, InTouch Health CEO. “Coming off the heels of winning Best in KLAS for Virtual Care Platforms, we want to continue solving our customer’s problems by delivering the most comprehensive capability on the market. The latest KLAS analysis further proved that there was an industry-wide need for EHR and third-party software integrations across platforms. In order to fill that gap, we created the next generation of our software platform to provide clinicians with an intuitive, web-based interaction that allows access to all of the tools they need through a single interface.”
With prominent healthcare leaders projecting that upwards of 50 percent of care can be delivered virtually, Solo by InTouch powers the first of its kind platform that healthcare providers can leverage for every type of user and use case, including direct-to-consumer, direct-to-patient, provider-to-provider, clinics, worksites, EDs, and more.
“Healthcare providers are facing an immense amount of pressure to retain and attract new patients from both inside the system and the external, new market entrants,” said Steve Cashman, chief commercial officer at InTouch Health. “Virtualizing their practices as appropriate creates an opportunity for providers and patients to connect in ways that can meaningfully improve quality, access, and cost. Solo by InTouch is the first of its kind integrated platform that considers health systems’ large investments in EMR systems and can offer capabilities to every user from simple follow ups, to ambulatory clinics, to emergent care.”
The new software platform runs through the proactively monitored InTouch Network and will provide the same clinical reliability InTouch customers know and trust. It will include an updated user interface for seamless virtual visits, IT integration capabilities designed for interoperability, and end-to-end care coordination, with newly-scaled pricing. Additional capabilities will also allow for the basic audio/video connections clinicians need to facilitate telehealth for low-acuity interactions, such as post-op follow-up with a patient and getting a second opinion from a colleague during a virtual visit. These new capabilities are designed to deliver the flexibility for all healthcare providers — from small practices to large health systems — to scale their telehealth services across basic, low-acuity interactions to life-saving, emergent consultations.
Cambia Health Solutions and Pager announced a strategic partnership to improve care coordination and delivery for millions of consumers. Pager’s proprietary care navigation platform combines advanced chat-technology with real human clinical services to enable a trusted, personalized and convenient experience for people throughout their care journeys.
Laurent Rotival
“A complex array of care delivery options is available today and consumers are struggling to understand and navigate these fragmented services,” said Laurent Rotival, senior vice president strategic technology solutions and chief information officer, Cambia. “Partnering with Pager allows us to innovate with a like-minded, consumer obsessed, team to deliver best-in-class end-to-end experiences.”
Through a combination of human touch and technology, Cambia is transforming the industry and the way people engage with the health care system. The company is a national leader for innovation, technology and digital experience for consumers.
“Cambia and Pager have a shared vision to deliver a seamless consumer experience for how people access their health care,” said Walter Jin, CEO, Pager. “As our collaboration grows, we are confident that people are going to have an experience that will transform the way they engage with their health care. This is a significant milestone in Pager’s history and I can’t wait to share more as we progress.”
Syapse announces that the Syapse Oncology platform has achieved certified status for information security by HITRUST. This certification audits healthcare-specific security, privacy and regulatory requirements including HIPAA, NIST, ISO and COBIT, as well as industry best practices and provides a single evaluation framework that is designed for the unique needs of Syapse’s health system customers.
“Syapse is scaling one of the largest global networks of health systems and we are committed to building secure and resilient infrastructure for powering precision medicine solutions in cancer care. Our health system partners are under immense pressure to meet complex compliance requirements and through certifications like HITRUST CSF we are helping them solve the technical and process elements of best practices in information security,” said Vinod Subramanian, senior vice president, cloud operations at Syapse. “Syapse is proud to demonstrate its deep commitment to security by achieving the high bar set through HITRUST CSF certification. It’s a validation of our team’s threat awareness and our growing investment in protecting customer data.”
The precision medicine solutions that Syapse provides to its health system customers are developed with a comprehensive understanding of the risk environment and the corresponding needs they identify. For example, every health system working with Syapse retains all access and usage rights to their organization’s data. In addition to the HITRUST CSF certification, Syapse has instituted safeguards, policies, and procedures to protect health system data in compliance with federal health laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), as well as various state data privacy laws across the country.
“The HITRUST CSF has become the information protection framework for the healthcare industry, and the CSF Assurance program is bringing a new level of effectiveness and efficiency to third-party assurance,” said Ken Vander Wal, Chief Compliance Officer, HITRUST. “The HITRUST CSF Certification is now the benchmark that organizations required to safeguard protected health information are measured against with regards to information protection.”
Morphisec released findings from the 2019 Morphisec Consumer Healthcare: Cybersecurity Threat Index. The report surveyed more than 1,000 consumers, weighted for the U.S. population, to get their perspective and understanding of the threatscape surrounding the healthcare industry, and how attackers are targeting their personal health information.
Ever since you were a tween, you have wanted to work in the health industry. Now that you are an adult, you still dream of being part of the medical industry in some capacity, but you would prefer to be your own boss instead of working in a hospital or starting up your own practice.
Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare (TMH) has selected Atlanta-based Gozio Health to develop a mobile wayfinding platform for patients and visitors. The experiential wayfinding app will provide users with interactive maps and step-by-step navigation to doctor’s offices, cafeterias, pharmacies, nearby restrooms, parking decks and other points of interest within the TMH health system.
Syapse