Cloud Computing

IBM and the American Cancer Society are putting IBM Watson’s cognitive computing skills to work to advise people with cancer, as well as to counsel caregivers and survivors, officials said on Tuesday. Watson will filter countless health websites to draw insights from relevant, accurate and trustworthy information to enhance ACS resources and guidance targeted for each individual. In what the organizations are calling an advisory role, the supercomputer will use cancer.org’s 14,000 pages of information on more than 70 cancer topics. Watson will also take part in the ACS National Cancer Information Center’s de-identified and aggregated data about self-management, support groups, health and wellness activities, and cancer education. Eventually, ACS and IBM plan to integrate the advisor with IBM’s existing Watson for Oncology offering for doctors, a clinical decision support tool. Sixteen cancer institutes are working with Watson today to help doctors translate DNA insights into personalized treatment options for patients. Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine are using Watson to develop solutions for automated hypothesis generation. At Mayo Clinic, Watson is helping doctors match patients to relevant clinical trials. Once developed, the advisor will anticipate the needs of people with different types of cancers, at different stages of disease and at various points in treatment. It will become increasingly personalized as individuals engage with it, getting “smarter” each time, say IBM executives. ACS and IBM also envision incorporating Watson’s voice recognition and natural language processing technology to enable users to ask questions and receive audible responses. More than 1.6 million Americans are diagnosed with cancer each year, according to ACS. Memorial Sloan Kettering and MD Anderson are also conducting pilot programs to harness Watson’s supercomputing for evidence based treatment options and individualized care for patients with cancer.  Twitter: @Bernie_HITN Email the writer: bernie.monegain@himssmedia.com Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook and LinkedIn

Some experts are predicting a spike in denials beginning on Oct. 1, 2016 when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will require claims to be more specific. Forward-looking providers are assembling teams to prepare now. 

Family Medical Specialists in Florida is using care management technology to get paid under CPT code 99490, and the practice has already gotten buy-in from almost every eligible patient.

The Genome Analysis Toolkit, dubbed GATK, will be available as a hosted service and a fistful of leading cloud vendors will also contribute to future generations of genome analysis technology.

The Venture Fund challenge will award winners money, mentorship and the opportunity to pilot emerging technologies.   

With the recent surge in ransomware attacks, cybersecurity is a top priority for healthcare organizations across the nation. But even if providers have top security measures in place, there's another component to consider: the vulnerabilities of third- and fourth-party vendors. Almost three-quarters of businesses said cybersecurity incidents related to vendors are increasing, according to a recent Ponemon Institute survey, requested by BuckleySander and Treliant Risk Advisors. About half of the respondents said their organization experienced a data breach caused by a vendor, but 16 percent of respondents were unsure if a breach had occurred. And another 65 percent said managing cybersecurity incidents involving vendors is difficult. "The type of risk we're seeing now is changing in response to our evolving data-driven economy," Rena Mears, managing director of BuckleySandler, said in a statement. "The risk to strategic data assets extends beyond any single third-party, but rather to the web of relationships that comprise the data ecosystem." [Also: Lack of business associate agreement, risk analysis to cost Minnesota health system $1.55 M in HIPAA fines] More than a third of businesses don't believe their third-party vendors would notify them if a data breach occurred. And a staggering 73 percent of respondents don't believe a fourth-party vendor would contact them regarding a data breach. A fourth-party vendor is often hired by the third-party vendor. Survey respondents admitted their organizations shared sensitive data with third-parties that may have poor security policies in place. More than half said they weren't able to determine the safeguards in place by their vendors to prevent a data breach and 60 percent of respondents said their organizations don’t monitor their vendors’ security and privacy practices. Only 41 percent said their vendors' safeguards were sufficient. "The inability of so many companies to confirm whether third-parties have had a data breach or cyberattack involving sensitive and confidential information should be a wake-up call for businesses across all industries," said Susanna Tisa, chief business officer of Treliant Risk Advisors, in a statement. "To mitigate this risk, companies should compile a comprehensive inventory of and conduct data and privacy risk assessments for all third-party vendors," Tisa added. "However, we found few companies represented in this research, in particular those outside the regulated banking sector, have done so." Twitter: @JessieFDavis Email the writer: jessica.davis@himssmedia.com Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook and LinkedIn

The hospital partnered with Techstars to create a three-month program to help startups working on technologies ranging from analytics of unstructured data to create artificial intelligence apps to virtual reality for improving inpatient experience.

In application programming interface deals with Health Gorilla, Inuvio, Medisafe and Wink Health, drchrono enables users to tap new functionalities with its EHR, revenue cycle and practice management platform.

Watson, IBM's supercomputing brainchild, will soon have its own pied-à-terre across the pond. Big Blue announced Thursday it would launch its first Watson Health European Center of Excellence in Milan near the Human Technopole Italy 2040 research campus. Watson will become part of Italy's initiative to establish an international hub for the advancement of genomics, big data, aging, and nutrition, officials said. IBM plans to invest up to $150 million over the next several years in the project that will bring together Watson Health data scientists, engineers, researchers and designers to develop new data-driven healthcare applications and solutions. IBM data scientists, engineers and programmers will collaborate with organizations across Europe to create a new class of cloud-based connected solutions to help speed research of new treatments, personalized medicine, and discoveries to boost public health management while advancing sustainable health systems. Watson, of course, is all about data. Just this past February, IBM Watson announced it would buy data giant Truven Health for $2.6 billion, adding a huge repository of health data to the Watson Health Cloud. [Also: IBM Watson buying Truven Health Analytics for $2.6 billion] "Italy is important to IBM not only because of the creativity, skills and talent of the country's workforce, but also because of the government's efforts to digitize Italy's economy," said Erich Clementi, senior vice president, IBM Europe, in a news release. "This new era in health will not be achieved through solitary efforts," added Deborah DiSanzo, general manager for IBM Watson Health. "It will require the work of countless experts together in an ecosystem where ideas are easily shared to improve and save lives around the world." The Watson Health European Center of Excellence builds on IBM's recent investments in Italy and across Europe, including a new IBM Cloud data center in Milan, and the opening of the Watson IoT Global Headquarters in Munich, Germany. IBM has been operating in Italy since 1927, with multiple business divisions in various technology sectors, from energy to transport and healthcare. IBM Italy headquarters are in Segrate, R&D Software center and its Fondazione IBM Italia in Rome. Twitter: @Bernie_HITN Email the writer: bernie.monegain@himssmedia.com Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook and LinkedIn

Researchers say that pilot program demonstrates how readily available technologies can be used along with an EHR to improve communication between doctors and patients with type 1 diabetes.