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The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society and the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine are making progress tackling the issues associated with incomplete data in patients' digital health records. Founded a year ago, the HIMSS-SIIM Enterprise Imaging Workgroup is focused on unmanaged – and sometimes missing – imaging data in patients' electronic health history. “Despite widespread electronic health record implementations, many patients and doctors find the majority of their clinical data lies in poorly integrated diagnostic image, documentation image and clinical scanned document silos,” Christopher Roth, MD, vice chair of radiology and director of imaging informatics strategy at Duke Health, said in a statement. [Also: 21 awesome photos from past HIMSS conferences] This is where the workgroup comes in, HIMSS and SIMM members point out. The group offers a platform for sharing enterprise imaging strategies, creating awareness that images are an essential part of the electronic health record, inclusive of, yet broader than the more pervasive radiology or cardiology domains. “This joint effort between HIMSS and SIIM highlights the importance of this topic and provides timely resources that offer organizations insights on how to manage and share imaging data across the enterprise,” Joyce Sensmeier, HIMSS vice president, informatics, HIMSS North America, said in a statement. In its first year, the workgroup has addressed critical topics resulting in the publication of several whitepapers. Among them: Enterprise Imaging Governance: Needs, Models, and Intents to Consider; The Current State and Path Forward for Enterprise Image Viewing; A Foundation for Enterprise Imaging; Orders Versus Encounters Based Image Capture: Implications Pre- and Post-Procedure Workflow, Technical and Build Capabilities, Resulting, Analytics and Revenue Capture; Workflow Challenges of Enterprise Imaging; Technical Challenges of Enterprise Imaging, and Considerations for Exchanging and Sharing Medical Images for Improved Collaboration and Patient Care. Twitter: @HealthITNews This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

Los Angeles-based Complete P.T. Pool & Land Physical Therapy will pay $25,000 to settle HIPAA violations for allegedly posting patient testimonials, including full names and photos, on its website without obtaining authorization. The Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights announced the settlement terms on its website on Feb. 16. The settlement also requires Complete P.T. to adopt and implement a corrective action plan, and annual reporting of compliance efforts for one year. [Also: 8 out of 10 mobile health apps open to HIPAA violations] The complaint filed with the OCR on Aug. 8, 2012 said Complete P.T. was required by HIPAA to seek authorization for the testimonials. OCR’s investigation revealed that Complete P.T failed to reasonably safeguard protected health information, disclosed PHI without authorization,and failed to implement policies and procedures with respect to PHI that were designed to comply with HIPAA’s requirements. "The HIPAA Privacy Rule gives individuals important controls over whether and how their protected health information is used and disclosed for marketing purposes," said OCR Director Jocelyn Samuels in a statement posted on the OCR website. "With limited exceptions, the Rule requires an individual’s written authorization before a use or disclosure of his or her protected health information can be made for marketing." Twitter: @HealthITNews

The Healthcare Leadership Council has identified six healthcare reforms that should be implemented by the White House, Congress and the healthcare industry to reform healthcare; it was announced last week at a Capitol Hill briefing and in a report highlighting the changes. For starters, nationwide health information interoperability in the private sector should be achieved by December 31, 2018, the group said. The group also targeted the Food and Drug Administration, saying reforms that focus on reducing administrative burdens placed on the organization should be enacted so the FDA can better bring innovative treatments and technology to patients. [Also: Hollywood Presbyterian gives in to hackers] “These steps aren’t revolutionary, but they're transformative,” said HLC President Mary R. Grealy, in a statement. “Innovation is too often put on the backburner when we discuss healthcare policy, but it’s critical to elevating health system value and to address quality and cost challenges." The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also needs to improve the Enhanced Medication Therapy Management Model to reach its goal of improving patient health and should implement best practices for Medicare, insurers and healthcare providers to improve care for the chronically ill, the group said. The federal government should reform outdated physician self-referral and anti-kickback statutes and expand Medicare payment waiver policies to protect against fraud and abuse, while improving care coordination. Cybersecurity also needs focus, the group said, pointing to Congress and the states to standardize privacy laws and increase access to patient data. The recommendations are compiled from the HLC's National Dialogue for Healthcare Innovation initiative – a collaboration of patient advocacy leaders, drug company representatives, patient advocacy leaders, patient groups and other industry experts that convened over the course of a few months. David Barrett, CEO of Lahey Clinic and Bill Hawkins, chairman and CEO of Medtronic, co-chaired the group. [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] “There's a widespread understanding that, for all of our healthcare system’s considerable strengths, we need to make strides in providing high-quality care at sustainable costs," Susan DeVore, president and CEO of Premier, Inc. and HLC chair, said in a statement. "The six steps on which we have reached agreement will move us significantly in that direction." HLC has begun meetings with congressional leaders about the recommendations and will continue the conversations in the coming weeks. The compiled recommendations were produced by a partnership with NORC, the independent public policy research organization at the University of Chicago. Twitter: @JessiefDavis

Healthcare organizations are making big investments in population health and patient engagement platforms as they prepare to move past meaningful use and toward value-based reimbursement, according to "The Big Mega HIT Purchasing Report" released Monday by market research firm peer60. Electronic health records remain core to healthcare IT, according to the report, which gathered 567 responses from CEOs, CIOs, nursing and financial leaders and others with purchasing authority at hospitals and medical practices. However,many customers are still dissatisfied with their products. Projected EHR replacement rates for 2016 show 23 percent of health providers (inpatient and outpatient combined) planning to look for new vendors, according to peer60. [Also: Hospitals keeping close eye on revenue cycle vendors] Still, "population health and patient engagement are the hottest areas by a wide margin," wrote peer60 executive vice president Chris Jensen in the report. "It’s really no surprise these two segments continue to lead the way among hospital IT upgrades considering their impact on successful migration to value-based care and value-based purchasing." As for pop health, peer60s sees some stabilization in contracting plans. In 2015, roughly 25 percent of providers were certain they'd keep their population health vendor; in 2016, that amount has doubled. "The pressure is on for vendors that have not already made their mark in this market because they’re about to be squeezed by increasing renewal rates and a declining pool of hospitals that have not already adopted," said Jensen. [Also: New trends ahead for imaging informatics] But when it comes to patient engagement, authors see the opposite. "More enterprise vendors are capturing more of the minds of providers, while interest in the best of breed crowd is beginning to dwindle," Jensen said. Other big purchasing trends are also unsurprising. Data security, enterprise analytics and revenue cycle management are all in play. Security technology, especially, has seen a big jump in provider interest. "In 2015 it was at the bottom of the list of top IT priorities and placed third this year," said Jensen. "Since this is not a growth market with 90 percent of hospitals already employing a true data security solution, the jump in interest in this area likely means the replacement market for more robust solutions in this very critical segment is heating up. Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN

The digital tool makes it easy for people to add a new device to their home – or clinic – Wi-Fi network.

The hospital’s director of biomedical engineering will discuss at HIMSS16 securely bringing biomedical devices into the network, including mitigating existing gaps.

Receiving a life-threatening health diagnosis can be frightening, confusing, and overwhelming. Unfortunately, how hospitals deliver subsequent medical information to patients and families can contribute to those feelings, rather than ease them. At St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, for example, families used to receive a large notebook of information during their initial hospital admission -- just hours or days after they had been informed of their child’s cancer diagnosis. “Receipt of this notebook did not ensure education,” said Dana McLure, Nursing Administration and Patient Care Services Project Manager, at St. Jude. “As a matter of fact, at times nurses would find the ‘education notebook’ had not been reviewed by the patient or family days after admission.” [Also: 21 awesome photos from past HIMSS conferences] Through the facility’s Shared Decision Making model of leadership, clinical nurses reported that indeed, patients and their families often “had little or no retention of the information that had been presented.” By incorporating what McLure called the “bedside caregiver perspective,” information overload and timing of patient education were identified as obstructions to both the patient experience and caregivers’ satisfaction. In a HIMSS16 session, “Watch and Learn: Transforming Patient Education,” on March 3, McLure and her colleague and Neely James, Systems Analyst for Patient Care Services Informatics at St. Jude, will focus on key ways to improve the transmission of such vital information. Migration from verbal or paper education to digital delivery makes sense in today’s world, in which patients and families are accustomed to learning and communicating via technology such as email, text message, websites, and more. A major discovery, they report, was that use of video education, whether live action or animation, provides a broader and more effective platform for information transfer. “Because we are a pediatric hospital many of our parents are millennials and more likely to be comfortable with information being delivered in a video format,” McLure said. “Our patients are definitely of the YouTube generation.” See all of our HIMSS16 previews Video presentations can provide demonstrations of procedures, proper use of devices, or even visual examples of symptoms, “which can lead to enhanced comprehension,” they continue. What’s more, they add, placing education into an on-demand video format “allows the patient or family to watch the education when it is convenient for them, as opposed to when the clinician provider has time to provide it.” And such videos can also be viewed more than one time based on the individual patient and family learning needs. “Determining when a patient or family is ready to learn is as important as determining what they need to know,” McLure said. The session "Watch and Learn: Transforming Patient Education," will take place from 1-2 p.m. on Thursday, March 3, in Lando 4201. Twitter: @HealthITNews This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

(SPONSORED) Millions of people are struggling with conditions caused by neurological damage or disease. The future of treatment for many may not lie not in new and different drugs but in smart devices that can monitor, interpret and generate neurological signals. Data analytics is making these treatments possible.

Protenus, a health data protection startup co-founded when the owners were medical students at Johns Hopkins University, has raised $4 million in Series A funding. Arthur Ventures led the investment, joined by LionBird Venture Capital, DreamIt Ventures, Cognosante, TEDCO and the Baltimore Angels. [Also: Snooping employees sacked, disciplined after HIPAA breach] Protenus founders Robert Lord and Nick Culberson said they started the company to address the privacy concerns raised by the use of EHRs, particularly from insider threats and employee snooping. “Essentially, we’ve built an immune system for patient data that identifies when medical records are accessed inappropriately,“ Culbertson said in a press statement, announcing the funding. “Our product gives health systems the ability to deeply understand how and why medical records are accessed and whether or not there is a legitimate reason to look at a given patient’s medical or financial information.” As Culbertson explains it, Baltimore-based Protenus’ holistic approach to anomaly detection prioritizes the most suspicious events, so healthcare systems focus on actual threats, rather than noise and false positives. The easy-to-use visualizations and automated reporting take what can be a tedious and long investigation to down to resolution in a just a few minutes. Today, Protenus protects data throughout Johns Hopkins Health System. The company is in pilot stage with Inova Health System in Virginia and Maryland’s regional HIE, CRISP, which covers interchanges of data between nearly all health systems in the Maryland/DC area. Sage Growth Partners, a Baltimore-based Health IT consulting firm and adviser to Protenus, was instrumental in establishing the CRISP pilot. Johns Hopkins has been a partner to Protenus since the company’s inception, with the university’s dedication to protecting patient privacy serving as an a catalyst to the development of the product, the founders said. Twitter: @HealthITNews

The hacktivist group launched multiple distributed denial-of-service attacks against the hospital's servers in protest of the controversial custody case of Justina Pelletier.