Network Infrastructure

The Committee of Inquiry, which was convened on 24 July 2018, identified five key findings and a total of 16 recommendations for SingHealth and IHiS to improve its cybersecurity defences.

The company will be showing an open scalable platform for managing devices, centralizing storage and providing on-demand analytics, among other capabilities at HIMSS19.

Verizon’s Nancy Green says that with many M&As and joint ventures happening, IT infrastructure leaders must be ready to expand tech capabilities on short notice.

Mobile data is about to get a lot faster at the Rush System for Health in Chicago. The hospital system has partnered with AT&T to become what it says is the first in the nation to use a standards-based 5G network in a healthcare setting. Rush is also implementing AT&T's Multi-Access Edge Computing, a cloud-based service that will help the hospital system "manage its cellular traffic over both its local network and its wide area network." "We strongly believe 5G is a game-changing technology that when fully implemented will help us support better hospital operations as well as provide the highest quality patient and staff experience," said Dr. Shafiq Rab, senior vice president and chief information officer at Rush. WHY IT MATTERS A faster and more-responsive mobile network is critical in maintaining a large clinically integrated health system of hospitals and other care providers. Rab imagines a scenario where a doctor can perform a remote video consult or download a large lab file in seconds. Healthcare systems that are looking to futureproof or implement cutting-edge technologies rely on high speed and low latency IT networks to facilitate the rapid exchange of data or to allow clinicians to perform more detailed work from greater distances. "The technology will enhance access to care, even from long distances, while also helping to decrease costs and improve efficiency. The cutting-edge applications we're implementing need a fast, reliable network to support them," said Rab. THE LARGER TREND 5G is more than just an upgrade of 3 or 4G. It encompasses a multitude of communications technologies including cellular, Wi-Fi and intelligent edge services. It promises a massive boost in transfer speeds that things like distributed computing or IoT devices in healthcare need to reach their full potential. Remote medicine, while hardly a new phenomenon, is growing at leaps and bounds both in terms of the quality of data that can be captured, sent and computed, as well as the speed at which it can be transferred. Greater network speeds mean that the trend of "anytime, anywhere" medicine will continue to grow. ON THE RECORD "AT&T believes ultimately 5G's fast speeds and ultra-low latency will transform all businesses – and Rush is leading the way in healthcare," said Mo Katibeh, chief marketing officer, AT&T Business. "Imagine a hospital where rooms are intelligently scheduled, patient care is enhanced with artificial intelligence and augmented reality is used in training medical students. It sounds like the future, but it's not that far off." Benjamin Harris is a Maine-based freelance writer and and former new media producer for HIMSS Media. Twitter: @BenzoHarris.

Companies said the resulting product will enable a network of technology equipped research clinicians.

Secondary care providers in England are expected to be “fully digitised” by 2024, according to the 10-year NHS plan released today. NHS leaders were asked to develop the blueprint following an announcement in the summer of 2018 that the NHS would receive increased funding of £20.5bn per year in real terms by 2023/24, which applies to NHS England’s budget and not the overall health budget. The new plan outlines a series of “practical priorities” to ensure that digital services become a “mainstream” part of the NHS, and the new secondary care digitisation “milestone” covers “clinical and operational processes across all settings, locations and departments". It includes a focus on ensuring that clinicians can access and interact with patient records and care plans “wherever they are”, protecting patients’ privacy and putting them in control of their records, while encouraging a “world leading health IT industry in England with a supportive environment for software developers and innovators”.  Technology standards will be mandated and enforced, as mentioned in the digital, data and technology strategy published by the Department of Health and Social Care towards the end of last year, to ensure that “data is interoperable and accessible”, and the plan also pledges investment in expanding the NHS Digital Academy programme and increasing the training of health and care staff in digital capabilities. Improvements to require "staged action" The NHS App will offer a “standard online way” for people to access services, with an open environment to be created for developers to “build enhancements”, and patients with long-term conditions will reportedly be able to access their Summary Care Record through the app by 2020. Separately, it is expected that 100,000 women will be able to digitally access their maternity records in 2019/20, with plans for the coverage to be extended to the whole country by 2023/24, while a new wave of Global Digital Exemplars (GDEs) is also reportedly on the way, along with seven other Fast Followers.  “The continued roll-out of GDE blueprints to more Fast Followers will ensure the NHS achieves maximum value by reducing duplication and sharing systems between organisations where possible based on open standards and interoperability. Central funding will be made available to trusts (subject to an upper limit) to help them meet mandated standards and technical requirements,” it is added. In a speech today marking the publication of the plan at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens said some improvements would require "staged action over the next 10 years", while others would "happen quite quickly".  "The ability to share and access high quality data driven insights - led by patients - is key to improving patient care in the NHS," said Dan Vahdat, CEO and founder of UK health tech company Medopad. "Helping patients understand their own conditions and sharing ongoing updates with their clinicians can enable clinical teams to drive earlier interventions and ultimately, use that data to predict issues before they arise." Commenting on the publication of the long-term plan, Professor Carrie MacEwen, chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, added: “It’s good to have a plan which sets a clear direction for the NHS and tackles many of the issues the Academy has long been saying need to be addressed if we are to improve patient care. Our challenge now is to make sure it’s properly implemented and in this regard we, that is everyone who works in the NHS and patients who use the service, must all play our part if we are to make it a success.” Charles Alessi, Chief Clinical Officer for HIMSS, parent company of Healthcare IT News, said: “The announcements around the evolution of the health and care system in England are welcome and encouraging. The extra resources promise to accelerate the journey around digital transformation that is long overdue. They will assist England in improving outcomes for patients by ensuring that services are digitally enabled and patients get more involved in their care. "This approach will assist the NHS in its quest for quality, and enable it to be compared with its peers globally, not only in terms of financial efficiency, but also in terms of outcomes for patients.  We look forward to seeing the detail of these plans and working with the NHS around this transformation.” Editor's note, 10 January 2019: This article has been updated to include a statement from Dan Vahdat, CEO and founder of Medopad, and Charles Alessi, HIMSS Chief Clinical Officer. Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication. Twitter: @1Leontina Contact the author: lpostelnicu@himss.org

New device brings a larger screen, integration with more clinical systems, a panic button and do not disturb features.

Turkey has made tremendous strides in digitizing healthcare and touts more than 160 hospitals validated at Stage 6 of EMRAM. HIMSS TV spoke with Aniventi co-founder Nejat Unsal about how his company is supporting the country’s ongoing mission.

Amazon, Change Healthcare and Walmart all made moves worth watching as we head into 2019.

From Google hiring Geisinger Health CEO David Feinberg to drive its health care initiatives, then moving DeepMind’s Streams team under his supervision, to Apple getting its first FDA clearance for an atrial fibrillation-detecting algorithm and an ECG built into its Watch, it seems that big tech companies have been making significant strides during the past year in paving the way toward disrupting health care. In Europe, findings from an annual HIMSS Analytics survey, included in a recent report, indicate that patient empowerment will become the "key focus" in eHealth, with "patient-generated data" - through wearables and other gadgets aimed at consumers - and "patient/ consumer-owned health records" seen as some of the core trends changing the delivery of care as we currently know it. Based on the responses of nearly 600 professionals in the field, the results show, however, that a European country's priorities shift to patient empowerment only after a "certain level of EMR maturity" is reached. "EMR implementation continues to be the top priority among respondents in Europe, although its relative importance has declined compared to last year," it is stated in the report. "Initiatives to integrate and use patient-generated data as well as improve patients’ access to their information made it to second and third rank. "These patient-related activities are of the highest importance for governmental health authorities, whereas healthcare providers put less emphasis on them. We expect those topics to become even more important over the coming years as the shift to consumer-driven health(care) is likely to accelerate." Key challenges: securing talent, boosting cybersecurity capabilities amid strained budgets The Nordic countries, especially Denmark and Sweden, and the Netherlands are leading the pack when looking at the adoption of digital technology and innovation, according to the analysis, and trends uncovered indicate that the European C-suite digital leadership is "likely to grow" even further and include more Chief Nursing Information Officers, Chief Digital Officers and Chief Innovation Officers. “If you only have some of them in your health institution, you might not (yet) be in trouble. However, should you have none of these positions (established and funded), you may want to think twice,” it is explained in the analysis. And while the main eHealth hurdle remains IT security, a lack of funding is perceived as the “major challenge” for providers, with 59 per cent of employees arguing that their institution’s IT budget for the next 12 months is “too low”. What should we expect from 2019? Comparing the results with those of last year's survey, researchers wrote in the report that the "outlook for the coming few years has not changed much in 2018 compared to 2017's vision". “This suggests that progress in the key areas identified last year has been slow and that a lot still remains to be done. “Hence, the next two to three years will see more of the same: patient (owned) medical records, health information exchange with external providers, patient self-monitoring initiatives and EMR implementations. Contrary to the hype, and in line with last year’s results, few blockchain-based solutions will be implemented.” Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication. Twitter: @1Leontina Contact the author: lpostelnicu@himss.org