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Because a new class of devices is emerging, WannaCry is very aggressive and a variety of other factors, the healthcare industry is still at risk from the ransomware.

THE ROAD TO HELSINKI: At the HIMSS & Health 2.0 European Conference, experts from Philips will showcase AI-powered health information management solutions.

Technology is helping to bring healthcare to the homes of the ageing population in Finland and nursing is at the forefront of this community-based care.

NSW Health, the University of Sydney and the Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) have partnered to deliver a new Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) which shows how clinical health data can be harnessed for better patient care. Members of the existing and future health workforce can now access this new foundational curriculum, which the state’s digital health agency eHealth NSW developed in collaboration with the University of Sydney and NSW Health’s Health Education and Training Institute (HETI). What’s it about To complete the course, learners will use more than 30 videos and associated learning resources in 12 to 25 hours of self-directed learning, over an estimated four to five weeks. Access to the MOOC via the online learning platform Coursera is free, with learners having the option to purchase a certificate of completion. Around the end of June, staff of NSW Health will have free access and certification through its state-wide learning platform My Health Learning. In development for the past 18 months and featuring input from Monash Health Partners in Melbourne, the MOOC is being launched as international reports predict that clinical staff will need the skills to navigate an increasingly data-rich healthcare environment. For instance, by 2039, 90 percent of all jobs in England’s National Health Service (NHS) will require some element of digital skills, according to the Topol Review, a recently released independent report delivered on behalf of the UK’s Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. The MOOC is guided by the eHealth Capability Framework, which outlines foundation-level expectations for health graduates and workforce, as well as the workforce expectations for clinical and non-clinical staff, as outlined in the NSW Health Analytics Framework. On the record The ‘Using clinical health data, information and knowledge for better healthcare’ MOOC provides a rich and context-relevant experience for all students undertaking health and medical degrees, the NSW Health workforce, as well as teaching staff who seek quality curriculum resources, said Adjunct Professor Annette Solman, Chief Executive of HETI in a statement. The MOOC explores how digital health is transforming health service delivery in clinical practice “and the tremendous potential offered by growing pools of data being captured in our digital systems,” said Dr Tim Shaw, Professor of eHealth at the University of Sydney and Director of Capacity Building at the Digital Health CRC. Dr Zoran Bolevich, eHealth NSW Chief Executive and NSW Health Chief Information Officer said, “NSW Health alone creates over 100 terabytes of clinical and corporate data each month. Increasingly, skills and knowledge in basic data analysis are required of our workforce to inform practice, and this MOOC will help to demystify an area that is growing in importance.”

Livio AI, along with the Thrive Hearing Control mobile app, which measures the brain benefits of wearing hearing aids by tracking the user's hours of daily use, became available this week.

In New Zealand, fourteen percent of general practicioners with a portal are offering patients online access to their medical notes. Latest figures from the Ministry of Health show that 610 practices out of 970 across the country offer a patient portal. Of those, 86 practices offer Open Notes, up from just 50 in the first quarter of 2017–2018. Ministry of Health chief medical officer Andrew Simpson says the Ministry encourages general practices to give patients access to their clinical notes. “Having access to their health information empowers people to be more involved in their healthcare,” he said. “On a practical level portals can help them understand their health condition better, and remind them of their care plan and their medications.” The Ministry figures show that four PHOs have all practices offering a portal and around 800,000 people are registered with a patient portal across the country. Twenty-one practices now also offer video-conference consults. “Primary health organisations are starting to see that patient portals are enabling practices to remain sustainable by doing more consultations online, leaving face-to-face consultations for those people who really needed them,” said Simpson. Bryan MacLeod is GP owner of a rural practice, the Coromandel Family Health Centre, and has been offering patients online access to their medical notes for about five years. MacLeod believes that by giving patients access to their medical notes, they are more informed about their care and can share this information with family members or other health professionals if they wish. “The more open we are about what we do and share information that belongs to the patient the better,” he said. “I haven’t seen a downside to it.” MacLeod is keen to start offering video consults and is considering having a separate room set up at the practice for this purpose, but believes the greatest value will be in connecting patients from his practice with tertiary care services. Broadcaster Toni Street has used a patient portal for the past three years and finds it hugely helpful in managing her autoimmune disease. She has also a different portal page for each of her three children. “I noticed about six months ago that I could read the [medical] notes and thought that’s really great because it means you have got a lot of accountability on the doctor’s part as well,” she said. This article appeared on eHealthNews.nz.

The informatics group says the feds should do more to protect against bad data and algorithm bias, and keep cybersecurity top of mind in its software-as-a-medical-device rules.

UVM gains access to clinical and business solutions for improving the level of care they deliver to patients.

Healthcare leaders are concerned about security and data breaches and meeting GDPR requirements when leveraging the cloud for clinical decision support. At the HIMSS & Health 2.0 European Conference, experts from Roche will discuss the latest advancements in cloud security.