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Matthew R. Fisher chairs the Health Law Group within the firm Mirick O'Connell in Worcester, Massachusetts, a fitting role given his passion for understanding the practicality of healthcare regulations in the real world. At the end of this month at HIMSS16 he'll bring this legal background to the Social Media Ambassadors program. [Also: Bill Bunting talks 2016 predictions, patient engagement] Fisher shared insights including understanding the next steps for IT security in healthcare, the microbreweries he cannot wait to visit in Las Vegas, and what he’s most looking forward to at the conference. Q: One health IT prediction for 2016? A: I think the HIPAA audits will finally occur. After the first round we'll likely find widespread noncompliance and that, in turn, will finally spur others to immediately put into place the minimum security measures of HIPAA. But HIPAA is just the ground floor: true security measures need to go above and beyond the regulation. Q: What’s something about you that even your devout followers likely don’t know? A: They don't know how much I love craft beer. I'm definitely a craft brewery fan and try to visit one wherever I go. I even have some planned out in Vegas: Hop Nuts and Camo Brewing. Q: What inspired you to apply for the Social Media Ambassador program? A: Having followed HIMSS through the social media channels and selected social media ambassadors in the past, I wanted to add my voice to that. And hopefully I can bring a different perspective on things coming from the legal side, as opposed to the health IT-side, which is already well represented. See all of our HIMSS16 previews Q: What is the untold benefit of social media in healthcare today? A: The ability to make connections with people you often wouldn’t be able to meet or otherwise interact with. We also can gain access to vast amounts of information and the ability to learn from others. I'm certainly learning from people I wouldn’t have come across in the health law field – and it helps to understand how the laws affect them rather than just stating regulations without knowing the consequences. Q: What are you most looking forward to learning about at HIMSS16? A: Learning more about the current thinking in health IT, in terms of what people are doing regarding security and how they're responding to threats. Unfortunately, healthcare has gotten a lot of bad press lately, in that payers and providers haven’t been focusing on security enough. The world has changed so quickly they haven’t been able to keep up. It will be interesting to learn about the new solutions and options out there. It's always nice to see what's really happening since the legal side only gets a small portion; it’s the tech side that drives the focus. See all of our HIMSS16 previews 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.

IT veteran Laura Young will share best practices for health information exchange among long-term post-acute care and mental and behavioral health providers  at HIMSS16.

It’s a futuristic idea to be sure: Harnessing the intelligence of IBM Watson, the Jeopardy-winning supercomputer, to support cardiac-care recovery, reduce hospital readmissions, and save healthcare costs. But that’s what the Colorado-based healthcare nonprofit Centura Health and consumer enterprise platform vendor Welltok are doing right now with CaféWell Concierge, currently in pilot with consumers who are transitioning back to everyday life after experiencing a heart condition. See all of our HIMSS16 previews “Cognitive computing mimics the way humans think by combining artificial intelligence and machine-learning algorithms,” said Jeff Margolis, CEO of Welltok. “IBM Watson understands natural language in context; it can determine the intent of a phrase or question and provide a pertinent, useful response.” Margolis, along with Pam Nicholson, senior vice president of strategy for Centura Health, will present “Applying Cognitive Computing to Population Health” at HIMSS16. Nicholson said that the technology the companies are piloting learns from interactions to provide personalized recommendations over time. For example, if a consumer has opportunities to join a team activity challenge and schedule a one-on-one coaching session, and consistently chooses the team activity, the app would recognize that this person favors social activities and recommend a support group at the local community center. [Also: IBM Watson picked to help tackle heart disease] Among the other ways that patients interact with CaféWell: Finding options for cardiac rehabilitation exercises and activities; researching new heart-healthy recipes and dishes at local restaurants, and identifying educational resources and videos on living with heart conditions. In these ways, cognitive computing is broadening the scope of healthcare delivery “so that it can happen outside what we normally think of as the healthcare setting,'” Nicholson said. “The contrast with traditional health care, where we only get to interact with the consumer when they step inside our four walls and temporarily become a patient, is profound.” As the real-world pilot users continue to train the application’s “brain,” as Margolis put it, these innovators see ample opportunities for cognitive computing to have an impact in the four areas of health: healthy behaviors, genetics, medical interventions, and environment. [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] “In five years, we believe that predictive analytics will further evolve and enable providers and consumers to make better health decisions while allowing for care to be highly personalized,” Nicholson said. “This will require us to continue to build solutions that incorporate timely and new data sources, offer reliable, consistent predictive models, deliver convenient and immediate personalized health and lifestyle recommendations, and learn intuitively and rapidly.” The session "Applying Cognitive Computing to Population Health,” is slated to take place March 3, 2016 from 1 to 2 p.m. in Rock of Ages Theater at the Sands Expo Convention Center. Twitter: @HenryPowderly 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.

NewYork-Presbyterian has deployed its Patient Placement Operations Center, designed to support the hospital's existing patient teletracking systems. PPOC integrates NYP's advanced teletracking system with automated patient flow data and real-time patient information to efficiently place patients in the right departments for a smoother admission and placement process. Teletracking was in place within NYP for about five years and was built by senior leadership to combat issues with patient flow among its campuses, which include six main campuses in Manhattan, one behavioral health center in Westchester and two medical centers, among others. [Also: NewYork-Presbyterian says hospital integration not without hurdles] NYP also created the position of vice president of patient access, to focus on teletracking and patient flow, with the hiring of Holly Meisner this past year. Meisner says that although teletracking was in place, it wasn't fully utilized. Her task was to streamline patient flow in all of its campuses. But she soon realized although "the opportunities were present many different processes, we didn't know what the left hand was doing from the right hand." Back in October, NYP relaunched the teletracking initiative on the Columbia campus. It eventually will incorporate Allen, Morgan Stanley, and Cornell campuses into the teletracking system. Construction began in November and was completed in two months. PPOC is the centralized location for the project and is just the first of other projects to be implemented this year at NewYork-Presbyterian. Its Weill Cornell campus is next in line to have a PPOC constructed. [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] "Teletracking is a great tool for patient flow software," Meisner said. "I think some of the challenges in health IT is a lot of the large organizations want to create a single platform to integrate the revenue cycle, as well as EMR. That is ideal state." However, it's difficult to access all of the data. "Teletracking does a good job of pulling the data in real-time minutes," she added. "The downside is you're bringing in another system – especially in a world where we're trying to streamline. But the amount of data is worth it to drive results." Twitter: @JessiefDavis

HIMSS is pushing the National Institute of Standards and Technology to keep its Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity voluntary. HIMSS, which represents more than 52,000 health IT professionals, wrote to NIST on Monday in response to its request for information. NIST has extended the original Tuesday comment deadline to Feb. 23. NIST noted it was looking for ways in which the framework is being used to improve cybersecurity risk management; how best practices for using the framework are being shared; the relative value of different parts of the framework; the possible need for an update of the framework, and options for long-term governance of the framework. [Also: Cybersecurity strategies evolving in face of big risk] As HIMSS sees it, the framework could be used as a tool to develop a common set of consensus-based, private sector-led guidelines, best practices, methodologies, procedures and processes in relation to privacy and information security risk management. Since many healthcare organizations could benefit from improving their risk management process and better address cybersecurity risks, HIMSS supports the idea that the Framework could be useful in helping healthcare organizations improve their security posture, wrote HIMSS President and CEO H. Stephen Lieber and and HIMSS Board Chair Dana Alexander in their response. They also discussed how NIST’s Cybersecurity Framework serves to inform organizations that are in need of either creating or updating their own risk management program. Whether an organization is standing up a new cybersecurity program or has a sophisticated program already in place, the Framework has the potential to serve organizations well in advancing the capabilities of organizations in addressing cybersecurity risk. [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] NIST first released Version 1.0 of the framework in February 2014. It is among a handful of security best practices and guidance standards gaining purchase in healthcare, including HITRUST Common Security Framework, ISO/IEC 27002 and Control Objectives for Information Technology, or COBIT. Responses will contribute to shaping NIST's decision-making about how to strengthen the framework and, ideally, the nation's critical infrastructure. Twitter: @HealthITNews

Cerner has launched its new Cerner Open Developer Experience -- known as "code_" -- in a bid to spur wider collaboration with third-party and client developers for SMART on FHIR applications. SMART on FHIR tools run on top of electronic health records, giving physicians access to the apps from within their workflow, enabling them to more easily interact with health data. Developers who visit code.cerner.com can begin coding immediately with the SMART on FHIR tools and browse current apps that are available or in development. Cerner officials say code_ is designed with open communications and robust API documentation in mind, meant to offer access to tools that enable innovative app development. See all of our HIMSS16 previews "Cerner is committed to taking a leadership role to support third-party developers and help further health information technology," said David McCallie, MD, senior vice president, medical informatics, at Cerner, in a statement. "Encouraging innovators to develop apps that work across existing health records can help the industry advance the way care is delivered through improved interoperability capabilities," he added. [Also: Cerner adds FHIR power] Fifteen new SMART on FHIR apps are in development or in production and will be showcased in Cerner (Booth 2032) at HIMSS16, which takes place Feb. 29 to March 4, at Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas. "Fostering new ideas from the developer community enables us to reach a broader market of potential users,” said Bob Robke, Cerner's vice president of interoperability, noting that the platform "has potential to unlock the next cutting-edge solution that could benefit not only our entire client base, but the industry as well." Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN 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.

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on Tuesday passed the bipartisan Improving Health Information Technology Act with a vote of 22-0.  The bill addresses electronic health record usability and seeks to reduce burdens tied to documentation. It also calls for transparent ratings on EHR usability and security, calls out information blocking and gives the Department of Health of Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General the authority to establish deterrents. [Also: Senate panel to look into EHR usability] The legislation, which moves to the full Senate, also promises to convene existing data-sharing networks to develop a voluntary model framework and common agreement for the secure exchange of health information across existing networks. The bill also directs the Governmental Accountability Office to conduct a study of methods for securely matching patient records to the correct individual. “Our goal is to make our country's electronic health record system something that helps patients rather than something that doctors and hospitals dread so much that patients are not helped,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, in a statement. Alexander and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, led the effort. “Democrats and Republicans have been able to reach agreement on policies that will help empower patients and providers with more and better information to help drive treatment and improve health outcomes,” Murray added. Twitter: @HealthITNews

Republicans, blasting the proposal as overzealous when it comes to spending, have already shot down the 2017 budget.

(SPONSORED) For today's organization, managing risks to critical information has become a business priority, not just an IT responsibility. We all know cyberattacks damage reputations, destroy customer trust, and affect revenues.

Health IT giant Cerner Corp. has scored a $50.7 million data hosting contract from U.S. Department of Defense as part of its Defense Healthcare Management Systems Modernization, according to official documents. The DoD last year awarded Cerner and partner Leidos the $4.3 billion contract to deploy the new electronic health record for the U.S. military worldwide. Cerner won the contract over the objections of Amazon.com, Computer Sciences Corp., General Dynamics and IBM Corp., which appealed the decision and lost their case, documents showed. The DoD said that Cerner had made it clear to the government that the comapany does not allow connections to its managed services by any other commercial entity. In fact, Cerner's restrictions made it impossible for the Defense Department EHR's data to be hosted even by the DoD itself. [Also: DoD awards Cerner, Leidos, Accenture EHR contract] Cerner's EHR system also includes historical data, anonymized information from healthcare provider organizations that use the company's EHR and from the vendor's analytical models based on years of research and development. Had the DoD opted for a different company to host data, it would not have been able to use the Cerner historical data in conjunction with military EHR data and would have had to deal with a separate data setting, adding costs to the project, Pentagon officials said. [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] The competing vendors' objections weren't all specified, but according to a report from FCW, one vendor had suggested the DoD could compel Cerner to share its data/modeling functions with a third-party hosting company. Another bidder suggested replacing Cerner's analytics modules with those from another vendor. But DoD said that would lead to cost redundancies. Some of these same vendors, such as IBM and CSC, competed for the initial DHMSM contract in 2015 and didn't protest the initial award to Leidos/Cerner. Cerner's suite of healthcare information systems will replace the DoD's legacy health IT system in its 55 hospitals and more than 350 clinics, as well as in ships, submarines and other military locations. In addition to Leidos, Cerner also aligned with Accenture, Henry Schein and a number of small business partners to serve the Military Health System and its 9.6 million beneficiaries. Intermountain Healthcare is also a strategic partner providing clinical governance of solutions and workflow. Jessica Davis contributed to this report. Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT