February 2019 - Healthcare IT

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Clearwater CyberIntelligence Institute Study Finds Laptops Still a Significant Data Security Risk for Hospitals and Health Systems
NASHVILLE, TN- February 27, 2019 – Endpoint data loss, excessive user permissions, and dormant accounts make up 70 percent of all high and critical risk scenarios for laptop vulnerabilities at hospitals and health systems across the country, according to new findings released by the Clearwater CyberIntelligence Institute (CCI), which leverages insights from Clearwater’s proprietary database—the industry’s largest and most complete database focused exclusively on the unique cybersecurity risk profiles of hospitals, Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs) and business associates.
Despite efforts to make laptops more secure, the CCI study found they remain a Top 10 cybersecurity risk for hospitals and health systems. Upon further study, CCI found that the No. 1 vulnerability among laptops — endpoint data loss — remains so high because of continued deficiencies in these important controls:
- 98.9 percent of laptops have deficiencies in locked down external ports (USB, CD, DVD, Firewire, etc.), which prevent users from exporting sensitive data to external storage media.
- 63.3 percent of laptops have deficiencies of users storing data locally rather than accessing the organization’s programs and data via secure, virtual desktop software (such as Citrix Virtual Apps, Desktop or VMWare Horizon).
- 52.7 percent have deficiencies in data loss prevention tools, which are designed to scan all communications traffic to keep sensitive data from being sent to unauthorized users.
“It may seem like a given, but the questions that hospitals and health systems need to be constantly considering are, do we know for certain that the security measures we have adopted for these things have been properly implemented,” said Clearwater’s Jon Stone, who leads CCI and serves as senior vice president for Product Innovation. “Further, do the risk ratings associated with these controls bring the right level of attention to these major risks?”

See the complete the findings and learn how to address these high-risk factors here.

About Clearwater CyberIntelligence™ Institute (CCI)

CCI harnesses the power of a database populated by healthcare organizations that contain millions of risk records from hospitals, Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs) and business associates to safeguard patient safety and private organizations against cyber threats. Launched in 2018, CCI was established as a response to the exponentially growing threat surface from the Internet of Things and the proliferation of attackers in healthcare. The data mining and informatics team at the CCI institute uses advanced analytics techniques to provide useful publications to identify common security weaknesses found in hospitals, health systems and other healthcare organizations. Hospital executives can direct their immediate attention to threats, vulnerabilities and control deficiencies identified by CCI and perhaps take immediate action to reduce their organization’s risk profile.

About Clearwater

Clearwater provides the most complete and trusted, enterprise-class cyber risk management solution available. Designed for healthcare providers and their partners, Clearwater’s IRM|Pro™ platform and experienced professional services team provide insights and actions to address compliance, cyber and patient safety risks. Clearwater is a 2017 Inc. 5000 fastest-growing company, the 2018 Best in KLAS winner in Cybersecurity Advisory Services, the 2017 and 2018 Black Book Marketing Research winner in Compliance and Risk Management Solutions, and exclusively endorsed by the American Hospital Association as well as numerous state hospital associations. Clearwater solutions have been deployed within hundreds of hospitals and health systems, Fortune 100 organizations, and federal government institutions. More information about Clearwater is at clearwatercompliance.com.
Contacts

Dan MacDonald | [email protected]
(615) 681-5387
Posted 2.27.2019
First Vocera Smartbadge Delivered to Long-time Healthcare Customer

Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital receives first shipment of new wearable devices

SAN JOSE, CA – February 27, 2019 – Vocera Communications, Inc. (NYSE:VCRA), a recognized leader in clinical communication and workflow solutions, announced today that Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, Ga., received the first shipment of Vocera Smartbadges to improve clinician agility and accelerate patient care. Vocera recently announced the new mobile device, which launched a new category of wearable communication. The Smartbadge combines smartphone usability with the hands-free freedom of the Vocera Badge, which is used in nearly 1,600 healthcare facilities around the world.

“We have been using Vocera technology for more than 10 years and are thrilled to be the first hospital to receive the Smartbadge,” said Evelyn M. Olenick, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital. “Our clinicians are looking forward to having more contextual patient information at their fingertips with the new, larger touchscreen while still being able to communicate hands-free.”

Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital is one of the busiest and most advanced hospitals in the Southeast. The 691-bed teaching hospital is nationally recognized for clinical excellence and innovative community health programs focused on providing the best possible patient care for more than 107 years. In conjunction with hands-free communication, the hospital uses Vocera technology for secure text messaging and clinical alert and alarm management. Phoebe will start by piloting the Smartbadge across clinical areas and with nurse managers in nursing units, and then will evaluate alerts and alarms on the new device over time.

“It is an honor to celebrate this milestone with a long-time, innovative customer like Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital,” said Brent Lang, president and CEO of Vocera. “We look forward to hearing how the Smartbadge enhances clinical communication, workflows and patient care.”

About Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital

Located in Albany, Ga., Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital is a 691-bed teaching hospital and regional center for cancer treatment, cardiac medicine/surgery, gastrointestinal disease and neuro-science. Phoebe is one of only six designated perinatal centers in Georgia and is the region’s only provider of many services including neonatal intensive care, cardiovascular surgery and radiation oncology. As a true not-for-profit community hospital, Phoebe is operated by a volunteer board drawn from the community it serves and is constantly reinvesting in the health of southwest Georgia through programs in prevention, education and research that go beyond the bounds of traditional medicine. For more information, visit www.phoebehealth.com.

About Vocera

The mission of Vocera Communications, Inc. is to simplify and improve the lives of healthcare professionals and patients, while enabling hospitals to enhance quality of care and operational efficiency. In 2000, when the company was founded, we began to forever change the way care teams communicate. Today, Vocera continues to offer the leading platform for clinical communication and workflow. More than 1,850 facilities worldwide, including nearly 1,600 hospitals and healthcare facilities, have selected our solutions for team members to text securely using smartphones or make calls with our hands-free, wearable Vocera Badge. Interoperability between Vocera and more than 140 clinical and operational systems helps reduce alarm fatigue, speed up staff response times, and improve patient care, safety and experience. In addition to healthcare, Vocera is at home in luxury hotels, aged care facilities, nuclear facilities, libraries, retail stores and more. Vocera makes a difference in any industry where workers are on the move and need to connect instantly with team members and access resources or information quickly. In 2017, Vocera made the list of Forbes 100 Most Trustworthy Companies in America. Learn more at www.vocera.com, and follow @VoceraComm on Twitter.

Vocera® and the Vocera logo are trademarks of Vocera Communications, Inc. registered in the United States and other jurisdictions. All other trademarks appearing in this release are the property of their respective owners.

Media Contact
Shanna Hearon
Vocera Communications, Inc.
[email protected]
669-999-3368

Posted 2.27.2019
CynergisTek Executives Named As Women In Health IT To Know 2019 By Becker’s Hospital Review

Two of the Cybersecurity Firms Leadership Team Members Included on List of Top Women in Healthcare

Austin, TX – February 27, 2019 – CynergisTek, Inc. (NYSE AMERICAN: CTEK), a leader in healthcare cybersecurity, privacy, and information assurance, today announced that two members of its executive leadership team, Marti Arvin, Executive Advisor, and Angela Rivera, Executive Vice President of Operations, have been recognized by Becker’s Hospital Review “102 Women In Health IT To Know 2019,” list for their involvement in and contributions to health IT.

Technology is an important part of patient care delivery today and healthcare organizations and clinicians across the country depend on health IT leaders and vendors to achieve optimal outcomes and deliver a seamless patient experience. Becker’s Hospital Review “Women In Health IT To Know 2019” list recognizes women who make significant contributions to health IT advancements, leading large teams, initiatives, and companies focused on improving patient care.

Marti Arvin brings more than 30 years of extensive operational and executive leadership experience in the fields of compliance, research, and regulatory oversight in academic medical and traditional hospital care settings. She is responsible for leading strategic business development surrounding compliance services and utilizes her industry-recognized expertise in health research to inform the development of privacy and security services to meet communities underserved needs. Angela Rivera leads CynergisTek’s cybersecurity and information management consulting services, sales development, marketing, and professional services teams. She works to elevate other women in health IT, serving on the board for Women in Healthcare IT and forming the first regional HIMSS Women’s IT Leadership Conference.

“I am excited to see two of my senior staff here at CynergisTek be recognized by Becker’s Hospital Review for their noteworthy contributions to health IT and to be included among the ranks of such other influential female leaders,” said Mac McMillan, CEO of CynergisTek. “Marti and Angela’s expertise and knowledge is highly respected and has allowed them to make invaluable contributions to the people and customers they touch. Additionally, both have taken an active role addressing the significant shortage of women in the healthcare IT industry by providing advice and guidance to help empower other women to develop and expand their careers in healthcare IT, compliance, privacy, and cybersecurity. We are very proud of their career accomplishments and look forward to their continued leadership.”

About CynergisTek, Inc.
CynergisTek is a top-ranked cybersecurity firm dedicated to serving the information assurance needs of the healthcare industry. CynergisTek offers specialized services and solutions to help organizations achieve security, privacy, compliance, and document output goals. Since 2004, the company has served as a partner to hundreds of healthcare organizations and is dedicated to supporting and educating the industry by contributing to relevant industry associations. The company has been recognized by KLAS in the 2016 and 2018 Cybersecurity reports as a top performing firm in healthcare cybersecurity as well as the 2017 Best in KLAS winner for Cybersecurity Advisory Services.

Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains certain forward-looking statements relating to the business of CynergisTek that can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as “believes,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “may” or similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including uncertainties relating to product/service development, long and uncertain sales cycles, the ability to obtain or maintain patent or other proprietary intellectual property protection, market acceptance, future capital requirements, competition from other providers, the ability of our vendors to continue supplying the company with equipment, parts, supplies and services at comparable terms and prices and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from those described herein as anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Some of these risks and uncertainties are or will be described in greater detail in our Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available at http://www.sec.gov. CynergisTek is under no obligation (and expressly disclaims any such obligation) to update or alter its forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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CynergisTek Investor Relations Contact:
CynergisTek, Inc.
Bryan Flynn
(512) 402-8550 x8
[email protected]

CynergisTek Media Contact:
Aria Marketing
Danielle Johns
(617) 332-9999 x241
[email protected]

Posted 2.27.2019
PDS Named to the Elite 150 of CRN’s 2019 MSP 500 List

Milwaukee, WI – February 26, 2019 – Every year, managed service providers (MSPs) around the world submit their organizations to be recognized as top ranked providers. Today we are proud to announce that PDS was recognized in the Elite top 150 of this year’s CRN MSP 500 list.

CRN’s MSP 500 list recognizes the channel’s leading managed service providers. These organizations offer exceptional managed services that help customers improve operational efficiencies, maximize IT investments, and continuously help them navigate the complexities of IT solutions.

This annual list is divided into three categories: the MSP Pioneer 250, the MSP Elite 150, and the Managed Security 100. The Elite 150 recognizes large, data center-focused MSPs with a strong mix of on-premises and off-premises services.

“Capable MSPs enable companies to take their cloud computing to the next level, streamline spending, effectively allocate limited resources and navigate the vast field of available technologies,” said Bob Skelley, CEO of The Channel Company. “The companies on CRN’s 2019 MSP 500 list stand out for their innovative services, excellence in adapting to customers’ changing needs and demonstrated ability to help businesses get the most out of their IT investments.”

“We’re thrilled to be recognized among this group of international companies as a top provider in the Managed Services business,” said PDS Principal Consultant, Greg Fliearman. “We strive to provide best-in-class managed services, and this recognition is great encouragement and a sign that we’re on the right track.”

The complete list is available for review at https://www.crn.com/news/managed-services/the-2019-managed-service-provider-500-complete-listing.

About PDS

PDS is a Midwest based Information Technology Solution Provider that supports healthcare, government, education, manufacturing, and corporate organizations with Digital Workspace, Security, and Digital Infrastructure solutions. PDS is a strategic partner that helps organizations reduce risk and total cost of ownership, and to move closer to the vision of fully Connected IT.

About the Channel Company

The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers and end users. Backed by more than 30 years of unequaled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. www.thechannelco.com

Media Contact

Steven Hartl
Digital Marketing Manager
(262) 641-3045
[email protected]

Posted 2.26.2019
CHIME Opioid Task Force Welcomes 2 New Co-chairs, Releases Playbook Chapters

ANN ARBOR, MI, Feb. 26, 2019 – The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) named two new co-chairs to help lead the CHIME Opioid Task Force in 2019, marking the task force’s transition from its launch phase to long-term sustainability. The task force also announced the availability of the first three chapters of an opioid playbook for CIOs.

Patricia Lavely, senior vice president and CIO at Gwinnett Medical Center, and Dave Lehr, vice president and CIO at Anne Arundel Medical Center, will serve as the 2019 co-chairs of the task force. They join founding co-chair Ed Kopetsky, CIO at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and Stanford Children’s Health. Jim Turnbull, CIO at University of Utah Health Care, stepped down as founding co-chair earlier this month.

“Ed and Jim have done an amazing job in just one year,” said Russell Branzell, president and CEO of CHIME. “Their vision and leadership helped us build the task force from the ground up into a resource that is now used around the world. There are people alive today because of this task force, and because of the commitment of Ed, Jim, Patty, Dave and all of the other task force members.”

The Opioid Task Force was launched in early 2018 to leverage the healthcare IT expertise of members in CHIME and the CHIME Foundation to combat the nation’s opioid epidemic. The Kopetsky family’s loss of son Tim from an accidental opioid overdose served as a catalyst for forming the task force. Building off CHIME’s strengths as an educational and policy leader, the task force focused on hosting free and open educational webinars and advocating for federal policies to reduce the risk of opioid exposure, addiction and overdose death. To date, CHIME has hosted six educational webinars, submitted 12 opioid-related letters and statements to federal policy makers and worked closely with congressional and federal agency staff to help shape opioid policies.

The task force also posted the first three chapters of the Opioid Task Force Playbook, which provides a framework to build IT-based supports for launching and maintaining systemwide initiatives to reduce unnecessary opiate prescriptions that can lead to addiction. It is based on the knowledge, experience and insights from CHIME members and CHIME Foundation partners, with real-world examples, best practices and links to resources. Members are working on the final chapters now.

The CHIME Opioid Task Force will continue its educational and policy initiatives while also setting the foundation for the CHIME Opioid Health IT Action Center. The Health IT Action Center will serve as a repository to house resources for healthcare organizations seeking tools and information to implement systems and practices to address the opioid crisis. The task force recently kicked off a fundraising campaign to support the CHIME Opioid Health IT Action Center and is nearly halfway to its goal of raising $750,000 through donations and pledges.

“The Opioid Task Force has achieved far more than we dreamed it could in a year but we still have much more we must do to stem the tide in the opioid crisis,” Kopetsky said. “With financial support and Patty and Dave now joining me as co-chairs, the task force will accelerate our initiatives to make a difference. We won’t let up.”

About CHIME

The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is an executive organization dedicated to serving chief information officers (CIOs), chief medical information officers (CMIOs), chief nursing information officers (CNIOs) and other senior healthcare IT leaders. With more than 2,800 members in 51 countries and over 150 healthcare IT business partners and professional services firms, CHIME provides a highly interactive, trusted environment enabling senior professional and industry leaders to collaborate; exchange best practices; address professional development needs; and advocate the effective use of information management to improve the health and healthcare in the communities they serve. For more information, please visit chimecentral.org.

Contact

Candace Stuart

Director of Communications and Public Relations, CHIME

734.665.0000

[email protected]

Posted 2.26.2019
Impact Advisors Expands ERP Services to Healthcare Industry

Enhanced services help organizations maximize the value of their ERP systems

CHICAGO, IL – February 25, 2019 – Impact Advisors, the leader in providing clinical, revenue cycle and information technology services to the healthcare industry, has expanded its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) service offering. The firm has offered ERP current state assessments, new system roadmaps, and selections and cost modeling since 2012. Today, Impact Advisors offers program assurance services to help clients fully realize the benefits of their new ERP solutions, positively impact cost and business processes, enhance talent management, and modernize their ERP technology platforms.

Today’s healthcare organizations face increased pressure to reduce costs, attract and retain qualified professionals and capture actionable data. At the same time, many healthcare organizations are in growth mode. As they pursue new markets and services, existing legacy systems struggle to supply the real-time, organization-wide information needed for future success, as a more highly, integrated care delivery network.

New Enterprise Resource Planning technology platforms help organizations achieve greater levels of performance in many areas, including financial, human capital and supply chain management as well as IT. By more tightly integrating ERP systems with other applications – such as electronic health records (EHR), business analytics and external data sources – organizations can more effectively align their processes and optimize capacity.

“ERP systems are reemerging as more capable, transformation investments for our healthcare clients who are facing margin pressure, talent leakage, M&A disruptions and IT modernization,” said Lydon Neumann, Vice President at Impact Advisors. “However, when assessing and determining the right ERP strategy and solution, the tasks can be challenging. We offer keen and current insight into the financial and operational implications for implementing a fully integrated ERP that will maximize the impact of these investments.”

Impact Advisors’ associates are experts in ERP selections, strategic assessments and roadmap development. The firm offers a two-phase approach to achieve healthcare clients’ ERP objectives, including ensuring the selected solution is flexible, scalable and interoperable with existing investments and will be delivered on time and on budget.

The firm recently helped one of the country’s largest, not-for-profit, integrated health systems by providing ERP vendor selection services. Impact Advisors helped ensure the organization’s decision was collaborative, fact-based and objective, and also helped create much greater organizational “systemness” and enterprise standardization.

About Impact Advisors
Impact Advisors is a nationally recognized healthcare consulting firm and trusted partner of industry leaders focused on delivering clinical, revenue cycle, and information technology services to solve some of healthcare’s toughest challenges. Our comprehensive suite of patient access, clinical and revenue cycle services spans the lifecycle of our clients’ needs. Our experienced team has a powerful combination of clinical, revenue, operations, consulting and IT experience. The firm has earned a number of prestigious industry and workplace awards: Best in KLAS® for 12 consecutive years (including, in 2018, Leader in Revenue Cycle Optimization and Clinical Optimization Categories and Best in KLAS HIT Enterprise Implementation Leadership), CRN Solution Provider and CRN Fast Growth 150, Modern Healthcare’s Largest Revenue Cycle Management Firms, Healthcare Informatics HCI 100, as well as “best place to work” awards from: Modern Healthcare, Consulting Magazine, Becker’s Hospital Review and Achievers. For more information about Impact Advisors, visit www.impact-advisors.com.

Media Contact:
Karli Smith
Chartwell Agency
815-977-5343
[email protected]

Posted 2.25.2019
Health Catalyst Congratulates Thibodaux Regional Medical Center on Winning National Patient Safety Innovation Award
Louisiana health system recognized for achieving 76+ percent reduction in complications for patients undergoing certain surgeries, and more than $815,000 in cost savings

SALT LAKE CITY, UT – February 21, 2019 – Health Catalyst, Inc. a leader in next-generation data, analytics, and decision support, today congratulated Louisiana’s Thibodaux Regional Medical Center on being named the Top Innovation winner in the first annual Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare (PSQH) Innovation Award. The new awards program recognizes healthcare organizations that overcome quality improvement challenges related to patient safety.

Thibodaux Regional, a 180-bed regional medical center with more than 1,200 employees and 250 physicians on its medical staff, was given the top honors for its work in transforming its orthopedic care processes, especially around total hip (THA) and total knee (TKA) arthroplasty. THA and TKA are the most prevalent surgeries for Medicare patients in the United States, with more than 400,000 cases in 2014 at a cost of more than $7 billion annually for hospitalization.

The first annual PSQH Innovation Awards recognize healthcare organizations who have overcome quality improvement challenges. Organizations receiving honorable mentions in the awards program were Intermountain Healthcare, in Salt Lake City; University of Kansas Health System, in Kansas City; Jersey Community Hospital, in Jerseyville, IL; and Seattle Children’s Hospital, in Seattle.

In recognizing Thibodaux Regional, judges from PSQH cited the organization’s use of its previously implemented enterprise data warehouse and broad suite of analytics applications to identify opportunities for improvement, resulting in a 76.5 percent relative reduction in the complication rate for total hip and knee replacements while achieving more than $815,000 in cost savings in less than two years. Additional results lauded by PSQH included:
- 5 percent relative reduction in length of stay (LOS) for patients with total hip replacements
- 3 percent relative reduction in LOS for patients with total knee replacements, due to improved patient education, early mobilization, and decreased use of opioids
- Consistently high levels of patient satisfaction
“As the population continues to age overall and more individuals reach retirement age, total hip and knee replacement surgeries are expected to grow rapidly,” said Dan Burton, CEO of Health Catalyst. “The significant, measurable improvements, both clinically and financially, that Thibodaux Regional achieved shows how data and analytics can be used to rework processes and workflows to drive consistency, reduce variation and waste, and ultimately create a better patient experience from beginning to end.”

A Care Transformation Orthopedic Team was formed at Thibodaux Regional to research evidence-based best practices across multiple disciplines and evaluated various strategies to improve patient safety, reduce complication rates and strengthen patient education. Once its transformation adjustments were in place, the team used its analytics application to provide near-real-time data, creating valuable insights into complication rates, average variable cost, LOS, compliance with its newly defined pre- and post-operative processes, and patient satisfaction. The surgical team could immediately see the impact of their work on outcomes, which increased stakeholder commitment and willingness to change.

The Care Transformation Orthopedic Team is now exploring additional opportunities to decrease costs in the operating room, including development of a new initiative called WellFit that integrates medical care with wellness to give participants the highest-quality, most-active lifestyle possible to optimize the participant’s strengths while lowering medical risks.

About Health Catalyst

Health Catalyst is a next-generation data, analytics, and decision-support company, committed to being a catalyst for massive, sustained improvements in healthcare outcomes. We are the leaders in a new era of advanced predictive analytics for population health and value-based care with a suite of machine learning-driven solutions, decades of outcomes improvement expertise, and an unparalleled ability to unleash and integrate data from across the healthcare ecosystem. Our Health Catalyst Data Operating System (DOS™)—a next-generation data warehouse and application development platform powered by data from more than 100 million patients, and encompassing over 1 trillion facts—helps improve quality, add efficiency and lower costs for organizations ranging from the largest US health system to forward-thinking physician practices. Our technology and professional services can help you keep patients engaged and healthy in their homes, communities, and workplaces, and we can help you optimize care delivery to those patients when it becomes necessary. We are grateful to be recognized by Fortune, Gallup, Glassdoor, Modern Healthcare and a host of others as a Best Place to Work in technology and healthcare. Visit www.healthcatalyst.com and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

For more information contact:
Todd Stein
Amendola Communications
510-417-0612
[email protected]
Posted 2.21.2019
Study Evaluates Impact of Vocera Solution on Clinical Collaboration Across Multiple Locations

Secure communication tools make clinicians feel more comfortable sharing patient information

SAN JOSE, CA – February 21, 2019 – Vocera Communications, Inc. (NYSE:VCRA), a recognized leader in clinical communication and workflow solutions, today announced findings from a secure mobile communication study conducted by Island Health in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The research evaluated Vocera Collaboration Suite across acute care and community practice settings on Vancouver Island. The study, which included feedback from more than 100 clinicians, evaluated the mobile application to understand the impact of secure texting on care team communication, clinical workflows, technology adoption, and user experience.

“Clinical communication with pagers, faxes and landlines complicates workflows and requires laborious and timely manual processes, which do not meet the contemporary needs of clinicians,” said Dr. Sean Spina, researcher and pharmacy clinical coordinator at Island Health. “Providing patient-centered care requires clinicians to communicate quickly and collaborate seamlessly across care settings and organizational boundaries.”

During the study, 80 percent of research participants agreed that using a secure communication tool makes them feel comfortable sharing patient information. Participants included clinical managers, family physicians, hospitalists, microbiologists, nurses, pharmacists, and specialists in emergency medicine, geriatrics, internal medicine, oncology, orthopedic surgery, radiology, respiratory medicine, rehabilitation, pediatrics, and plastic surgery. Among these care team members, a majority agreed or strongly agreed Vocera Collaboration Suite makes it easier to send and receive important information about patient care, and many indicated the mobile app allowed them to provide better care to their patients.

Dr. Spina will share detailed results of the multi-disciplinary study at the Quality Forum, Feb. 26-28 in Vancouver, and at the eHealth Annual Conference, May 26-29 in Toronto.

“Clinicians value a reliable way to communicate regardless of device or location,” said Brent Lang, president and CEO of Vocera. “We are proud to provide a secure, trusted communication and collaboration platform that connects healthcare providers across the care continuum in acute care hospitals, community physician practices, and other healthcare settings.”

About Vocera

The mission of Vocera Communications, Inc. is to simplify and improve the lives of healthcare professionals and patients, while enabling hospitals to enhance quality of care and operational efficiency. In 2000, when the company was founded, we began to forever change the way care teams communicate. Today, Vocera continues to offer the leading platform for clinical communication and workflow. More than 1,700 facilities worldwide, including nearly 1,500 hospitals and healthcare facilities, have selected our solutions for team members to text securely using smartphones or make calls with our hands-free, wearable Vocera Badge. Interoperability between Vocera and more than 140 clinical and operational systems helps reduce alarm fatigue, speed up staff response times, and improve patient care, safety and experience. In addition to healthcare, Vocera is at home in luxury hotels, aged care facilities, nuclear facilities, libraries, retail stores and more. Vocera makes a difference in any industry where workers are on the move and need to connect instantly with team members and access resources or information quickly. In 2017, Vocera made the list of Forbes 100 Most Trustworthy Companies in America. Learn more at http://www.vocera.com and follow @VoceraComm on Twitter.

Vocera® and the Vocera logo are trademarks of Vocera Communications, Inc. registered in the United States and other jurisdictions. All other trademarks appearing in this release are the property of their respective owners.

Media Contact
Shanna Hearon
Vocera Communications, Inc.
[email protected]
669-999-3368

Posted 2.21.2019
Speakers Encourage Health IT Leaders to Look Beyond Traditional Approaches to Improve Care
2.21.2019
Candace Stuart – Director, Communications & Public Relations

What should healthcare IT leaders really focus on to improve the health and care of their communities, and of the world overall? Five speakers at the CHIME HIMSS CIO Forum each offered answers informed by their personal experiences and passions.

Vivek H. Murthy, MD, who served as the 19th surgeon general of the United States from December 2014 to April 2017, opened the forum in Orlando, Fla., with a keynote address on emotional well-being and its foil, loneliness. Loneliness puts the body in a chronic state of stress that may be as detrimental to a person’s health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, he said.

“Loneliness is not a sign that we’re broken,” Murthy said. “In fact, it’s a biological warning sign like hunger or thirst that tells us that an ingredient critical to our safety and survival – social connection – is missing.”

Murthy encouraged CHIME members and CHIME Foundation members in the audience to use their IT expertise to gather and assess data that can help the healthcare community better understand drivers and solutions for loneliness. “If loneliness is about fundamentally not feeling known and valued, we can ask ourselves whether the information we are gathering about our patients really tells us who they are,” he said.

He offered three pointers for members to help improve their emotional well-being and the emotional well-being of those around them: Focus on being present with those you love, help others (and accept help yourself) and recognize your gifts. “That’s what allows us to bring the best of ourselves to the world around us,” Murthy concluded. “We must help each other in this endeavor because we are all going to forget who we really are from time to time.”

Claire Pomeroy, MD, MBA, president and CEO of the Lasker Foundation, followed with a presentation about the social determinants of health. Her talk started on a personal note as she described herself as a 17-year-old girl, just aged out of foster care, who is forced to seek emergency care for asthma – and then could not afford the inhaler that she was prescribed.

“Those nurses and doctors were not bad clinicians,” she explained. “They followed all of the right clinical protocols. But they didn’t have the information they would have needed to truly make me better. They needed an understanding of my world and the world they were sending me back to.”

She called on the audience to help fill this information void by giving clinicians data about the social determinants of health. She defined these factors as race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, education, occupation and job security, safe housing, transportation, food access, safe neighborhoods “and as you heard this morning, one of the most important: social cohesion and community support. …If we want to move that needle, we have to talk about changing the social determinants of health.”

To succeed, health systems will need to collaborate with each other and with organizations like schools, social services and grocery stores to support patients appropriately. She cited lack of data, siloed data and an unwillingness to share data as key obstacles. “This is the thing that you can address – siloed data in different sectors that impact social determinants,” Pomeroy said. “If we are going to do this, if we are going give people what they truly need to get better, we will have to have intersectoral collaboration.”

Neil Jacobstein, chair of the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Track at Singularity University and a distinguished visiting scholar at Stanford University Media X Program, shifted the dialog to technologies that will facilitate improvements in health and care. He noted that the pace of technical change has increased dramatically and urged the audience to grasp these developments before they whiz by. Artificial intelligence, which he described as a subset of computer science and the umbrella for many other advanced technologies, is a powerful tool that healthcare IT executives can use to make healthcare more personal, higher quality and more compassionate.

“Artificial intelligence is the hottest area of technology today, and the hottest area of artificial intelligence is healthcare,” he said. The FDA, for instance, has approved more than 70 AI-based products, according to Jacobstein, with many more innovations likely in the pipeline. Key among AI’s attributes in health IT is “expanding the range of the possible.”

He pointed to 5G as a technology that will allow networks to be a thousand times faster and enable the use of many more devices than systems can support today. 5G can open the door for sensor-based wireless networks, wearables, more advanced imaging capabilities and much more.

“Should you upgrade?” he asked. “Absolutely. When? Yesterday!”

The forum closed with a mother-daughter presentation by Kristina and Kate Sheridan. Kristina Sheridan is a department head for MITRE’s Center for Veterans Enterprise Transformation and Kate Sheridan is pursuing a master’s degree in Comparative Social Policy at the University of Oxford in the UK. They shared their personal journey managing Kate’s complex chronic conditions, triggered by an infected tick bite when she was a fifth grader, and how that led them to careers helping others who face similar challenges.

Kate Sheridan provided a patient story that included five hospitalizations and reams of medical records. Over the years she learned how to be her own patient advocate, helping her physicians understand her goals and needs. “We felt like equal partners in my care,” she said.

By meticulously tracking her 26 symptoms and their severity over time, they were able to tease out causes. “This system completely transformed the way we approached care,” she said. “I was prepared for visits because I had notes for what happened over the last two months. I did not have to rely on my scattered brain in the moment. At home, I could set goals, track my progress toward them, identify trends and finally I had hard data to what previously was just a gut feeling that something was off.”

In this way, they could spot problems like an infection or adverse reaction to medications and intervene early, avoiding a trip to the emergency room. It also made her an active participant in her healthcare and “an expert in what I was experiencing.”

Kristina Sheridan combined her expertise as a systems engineer and experience charting Kate’s illnesses and responses to treatments to build tools for others. “The realization that the patient’s voice is critical in getting them well came home to me,” she said. “I started in the space industry, and I realized that launching a satellite was easier for me than taking care of Kate (and their son) and advocating for them. That’s because patients are the only experts I know who don’t have any tools to help them.”

Kristina Sheridan switched careers to join MITRE, where she is developing tools that help complex patients manage their care, track symptoms and holistically capture data for clinicians. The tools serve as a communication mechanism as well, for instance, by allowing a patient to explain why he or she deliberately skips a medication. They tested the tool in a rural clinic.

She made a final request before ending the keynote. “When you go back home from this conference, please recognize that patients and caregivers are experts and please give them a seat at your table because once we work together, it will give the opportunity to every family to have the outcomes that we were lucky to have.”

More Inside CHIME
Posted 2.21.2019
Health IT Proposed Rules Abound: We Need Your Help
2.21.2019
Leslie Krigstein – VP, Congressional Affairs

Mari Savickis – VP, Federal Affairs

As many of you are aware, last week the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released more than 800 pages of rules aimed at improving nationwide interoperability.

The ONC proposed rule implements certain provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act. Those provisions include conditions and maintenance of certification requirements for health IT developers under the ONC Health IT Certification Program, the voluntary certification of health IT for use by pediatric healthcare providers and reasonable and necessary activities that do not constitute information blocking. The rule would also modify the 2015 Edition health IT certification criteria.

This CMS rule is aimed at increasing the interoperability of the healthcare system and speeding patient access to their data. The rule proposes requiring Medicare-participating hospitals, psychiatric hospitals and critical access hospitals to send electronic notifications when a patient is admitted, discharged or transferred. Further, CMS has proposed to require Medicare Advantage plan issuers, Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) programs, Medicaid and CHIP managed care organizations, and qualified health plan issuers to develop and maintain an application programming interface (API) to make patient data available via third-party products.

Imbedded in the proposed rules were a few requests for information (RFIs) addressing topics including long-term care, and of particular interest to CHIME, patient matching. On patient matching, ONC asked for feedback on questions concerning complete and accurate patient data collection, empowering patients to improve matching and patient matching indicators. CMS asked if they should require plan participants to leverage a patient matching algorithm with a certain level of efficacy, expand the Medicare Beneficiary ID program or connect with EHRs to provide source data to verify patient identities.

The comment periods for the rules is 60 days and CHIME will request an extension, given the far-reaching implications on our membership and the nation’s healthcare system.

CHIME will be hosting work group calls throughout the month of March and we welcome your participation. We have provided some helpful links at the end of the article to learn more about the proposed rules and the accompanying RFIs. Please contact [email protected] to share your initial thoughts or to join our work groups.

Stay tuned; we are still combing through the rules and will release additional resources in the coming days and weeks.

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS):
- Proposed rule: “Interoperability and Patient Access.
- Press release
- Fact sheet
Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC):
More Inside CHIME
Posted 2.21.2019
News of Note
2.21.2019
Candace Stuart – Director, Communications & Public Relations

Here is a roundup from CHIME of recent news and upcoming events:

CHIME releases timeline for the 2019 Most Wired survey, recognition program: The CHIME HealthCare’s Most Wired survey will be open to participants in early April and remain open for two months. CHIME will make a preview PDF of the 2019 survey questions available online in March. CHIME will also release a high-level change document that maps differences between the 2018 and 2019 versions of the survey. Learn more here.

CHIME members dominate Becker’s “100 hospital and health system CIOs to know” list: Becker’s Hospital review released their 2019 list of health CIOs to know. Of the 100 selected CIOs, at least 87 belong to CHIME. You can access the list here.

Hear CHIME members Will Smart and Sri Bharadwaj on safeguarding patient privacy: Will Smart, CIO of NHS England and a CHIME Board member, and Sri Bharadwaj, director of information services and CISO at UC Irvine Health, an AEHIS Board member and a member of CHIME, will participate in a webinar titled “Safeguarding Patient Privacy in an Era of Ever-Increasing Digitization & Connectivity.” The webinar, which is hosted by healthsystemCIO.com, is at noon ET on March 5. You can register here.

More Inside CHIME
Posted 2.21.2019
Organizations in the UK and Canada Agree to Open International CHIME Chapters
2.21.2019
Candace Stuart – Director, Communications & Public Relations

CHIME’s international footprint is expanding with the signing of two letters of intent to establish chapters in the UK and in Canada. To date, CHIME has one international chapter fully launched and five in formative stages.

On Feb. 11, CHIME and BCS The Chartered Institute for IT announced that they will work together to provide health IT leaders in the UK with CHIME’s online and in-person educational and networking opportunities as well as accreditation through the international CHIME Certified Healthcare CIO (CHCIO) program. BCS is a membership organization that aims to promote and advance the education and practice of computing for the benefit of society.

Chair of BCS Health & Care Executive Andy Kinnear, in an announcement from the stage during the CHIME HIMSS CIO Forum, described the agreement as a milestone and a sign that more and more healthcare IT leaders are collaborating to advance digital health globally.

The same week CHIME and Digital Health Canada also announced that Digital Health Canada will operate the CHIME International – Canada Chapter through Canada’s Health Informatics Executive Forum (CHIEF). CHIEF brings together more than 150 CIOs and senior healthcare leaders from healthcare delivery, government and private sector organizations across Canada.

CHIEF leaders exchange best practices and share their expertise with government and system stakeholders in setting the agenda for the effective use of digital to improve health and healthcare in Canada. Mark Casselman, CEO of Digital Health Canada, said in a statement that the “partnership strengthens the digital health leadership network between Canada and the U.S.”

CHIME launched the first international chapter in India in 2017. Since then, organizations in Italy, Ireland, the German-speaking communities in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Switzerland, and now the UK and Canada have signed letters of intent to form international chapters.

More Inside CHIME
Posted 2.21.2019