WOMEN IN HEALTH IT

Philips Wellcentive’s Business Leader Niki Buchanan also gives tips for women working in the health IT industry.

Innovation Factory’s Alaa Chalabi talks using wearables to detect sleep disorders and snoring habits at WISH in Doha, Qatar last week.

Both the clinician and the patient hold an important piece to the care puzzle, according to Kristina Sheridan, head of the enterprise strategy and transformation department at the nonprofit MITRE Corporation.  The physician has expertise in treating illness, whereas the patient is the authority on living with the condition, she explained at the Society for Participatory Medicine in Boston this morning. But transferring the patient’s life experience into a useable dataset can pose challenges.  “We hear about patient-generated data all the time,” Sheridan said. “But when you hear about the context of that data, most of the time right now it is around wearable devices and monitoring devices. … People aren’t talking about the other type of patient-generated data, what we call active patient generated data — the patient voice.” Webinar: Big Data, Big Insight: A Conversation with Healthcare Analytics Leaders Sheridan knows about the patient perspective from her own life experiences caring for her two children, both of whom contracted Lyme disease when they were in grammar school. This condition led to major complications for her daughter. The symptoms of her condition became so overwhelming that her daughter started to think of them as the new normal and stopped mentioning them to doctors. That was when Sheridan put together an Excel spreadsheet to help keep track of her daughter’s symptoms.  “I finally had something to back up that gut feeling that something was off. When progress was slow and my treatment was plateauing, the data helped encourage me that things were still getting better,” Kate Sheridan, Kristina’s daughter who videoed into the session remotely, said. “But when things declined it was still beneficial to see. Sometimes between my myriad of symptoms it could be hard for me to identify and communicate exactly what was getting worse. Small changes in my condition could mean an infection or a bad reaction to meds and catching those symptoms prevented a trip to the emergency room. The data helped legitimize what I was feeling and gave me confidence in evaluating and communicating my own state of health. Data has power.” This experience prompted Sheridan, a trained engineer in astronautics and space, to change careers. She now works with the research nonprofit MITRE to develop a digital Patient Toolkit, which lets patients digitally record symptoms, treatments and medications. It also lets patients communicate with their providers.  While she was inspired to get involved with patient data because of her personal journey, the Patient Toolkit comes from a slew of additional research. MITRE worked with the University of Virginia to listen to what patients wanted from a tool like this. The team found patients were mostly managing their own condition without digital tools, that patients wanted to be heard by providers and felt positively towards e-health tools.  The team also worked with Carnegie Mellon to listen to what providers wanted from patient generated data. The answer was longitudinal severity and compliance data.  Sheridan pointed out that most of the patient experience happens away from provider’s office. The toolkit was developed to remedy this gap.  “I don’t know any other experts who have no tool to support them in the 99 percent of time they are applying their expertise,” Sheridan said. “Patients are at home managing their own chronic condition the majority of the time, and they are in the clinic for [a small] amount of time.” The toolkit was designed to help facilitate that patient input and let patients see their symptoms over the course of time.   “The best care is when patients are included and acting together,” Sheridan said.   

MIT's Cynthia Breazeal is developing "social robots" that could help care for patient's emotional wellbeing.

Epic’s CEO encouraged women to forget the glass ceiling and use the fact that they are not men to their advantage.

To Health2047’s Lúcia Soares, the political climate has increased awareness around challenges and highlighted work that remains due to unconscious bias.

To Wolters Kluwer executive Cathy Wolfe, the shift into value-based care requires lifelong learning bolstered by new technologies that will prepare them for the evolving tech landscape.

Spanning a long and varied three decade career in military medicine with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and Australian Defence Force (ADF), Air Vice-Marshal (AVM) Tracy Smart demonstrated her versatility and capabilities in both local and overseas appointments in places such as the United States, Timor Leste and the Middle East. Ahead of the HIMSS Asia Pacific conference in November, AVM Smart talks about her role as Surgeon General ADF and Commander Joint Health, the ongoing digital health developments at the organisation and some of the most rewarding moments in her distinguished military career. Could you share with us briefly about your role as Commander Joint Health and Surgeon General ADF? Essentially, my Surgeon General ADF and Commander Joint Health roles are quite distinct, with different responsibilities. As the Commander Joint Health, I am responsible for health support to the Australian Defence Force in the National Support environment to ensure the health preparedness of our members. This means that all military members not deployed on operations are receiving their health support health centres around the country under my command, and are accessing specialist civilian services through our ADF Health Services Contract. It’s my aim to ensure that our people are fit to deploy and that those who become wounded, ill or injured receive timely, high quality health care, when required. As Surgeon General ADF I am the senior doctor, and the authoritative source of strategic health advice to Defence and the Government. I also exercise technical authority across all Defence health services, where ever they are delivered. This includes those health services delivered by our single Services - Navy, Army and Air Force – in the operational space. Some of the key functions that are executed through Joint Health Command headquarters in Canberra in support of both these roles are: •             The provision of health advice to Commanders at all levels •             Developing health policy and programs •             Delivery of health services to the ADF through a network of facilities in Australia and overseas •             Coordination of the joint health capability domain •             Coordination of health research •             Capability coordination of health material The roll out of ADF’s own e-Health information system throughout Australia was completed in December 2014. Could you give us some key updates/developments on the e-Health information system since its launch almost 4 years ago? Defence electronic Health System (DeHS) is the first and only nation-wide digitally connected primary healthcare system in Australia. Since its roll out in December 2014, there have been significant improvements in patient episode data entry and reporting to enable the comprehensive health care system delivered by the ADF within Australia, on exercises and on operations. We have seen major improvements in patient care, due to the availability of a holistic eHealth record that is accessible by all clinical craft groups, when they need it, regardless of geographic location. Patient privacy and confidentiality have also improved due to role based access. Clinical governance has been improved due to the implementation of patient recall and follow-up workflows and system diary entries. Additionally, we now have superior health intelligence and reporting, supporting both clinical decision making and health administration as well as driving workplace efficiencies and rates of effort. Over the past 12-18 months, DeHS functionality has enabled Joint Health Command to pursue a number of initiatives such as enhanced mental health screening via the Patient Portal, and inter-agency information sharing agreements with Department of Veterans’ Affairs and the Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation to enable prompt processing of member claims for compensation and entitlements when they are transitioning from service. As well as being implemented across our Australian-based health centres, DeHS is now in use on overseas deployments at some of our fixed based locations. What do you think are the key challenges and opportunities in the Digital Health Strategy of the ADF? Digital health systems will enhance the ADF’s capability through a prevention focused, and rehabilitation oriented approach to Defence health care. As with the implementation of any major strategy, the ADF Digital Health Strategy will present some challenges along the way. Some of the challenges include financial constraints on health care delivery and adoption of technologies, and the rising demand for health care services within the ADF and in the Australian community. Despite the challenges, I see some fantastic opportunities in the ADF Digital Health Strategy including enabling patients and providers to make informed treatment decisions, whilst also improving clinical outcomes, health business efficiencies, and human performance through disease prevention and injury rehabilitation. Overall, these opportunities contribute directly to ADF capability through health readiness, and ensure members are receiving care that is command responsive and member centric. How is the ADF working with the Australian Digital Health Agency with regards to the recently launched National Digital Health Strategy & Framework for Action? Defence has been working very closely with the Australian Digital Health Agency for many years, and particularly as we plan for the implementation of our future system. Our recently developed ADF Digital Health Strategy complements the National agenda led by the Australian Digital Health Agency and is consistent with both the Agency’s Strategy and Framework. It also builds upon Joint Health Command’s existing leadership in digital healthcare, recognising the Defence electronic Health System (DeHS) as the first and only nation-wide digitally connected primary healthcare system. The Strategy has been developed in alignment with the My Health Record initiative and will assist in the development of digital health systems that enable improved and more transparent access to and personal control of Defence health information and records. It will inform our future system to ensure that it provides secure, instant access to a patient’s information – whether it is within our health care centres, on board our ships and aircraft, or on exercises and deployments. For our health care providers, digital health systems will provide the necessary technology to reduce their administrative burden so that they can spend more time with patients. You have a vast experience and long service record both within the ADF and also in international peacekeeping duties such as in Timor Leste. What would you say are the most rewarding experiences in your distinguished career with the military? I have had many rewarding experiences during my career. It is an honour and a privilege to serve my country and I reflect on this every day when I put on my uniform. It is particularly satisfying to be in the top job and drive strategic and cultural change across our health system and the broader ADF. A particular highlight for me was serving as part of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda. My role was Officer Commanding Clinical Services and Aeromedical Evacuation Operations Officer, and as a Squadron Leader I was also the senior RAAF Officer in what was primarily an Army mission. Although our main job was to provide health care to the UN troops, most of our work was humanitarian – caring for the local population. This included people who we rescued from around the country by aeromedical evacuation or by road, and those we chose to treat who had presented to the Kigali General Hospital but who were too sick to be managed there. This was an incredibly difficult deployment. We saw many clinical problems that were beyond our previous experience – from the effects of war, such as machete wounds, grenade and mine injuries, to all number of tropical diseases. We also saw lots of kids, many of them orphaned and suffering from malnutrition and diseases, and some of whom died on our watch. We sometimes had to “play God” – allowing people including children to die due to our limited capacity, many of whom would have lived in a first world country. This was very hard on our people, particularly those with kids back home. The toll this mission has taken has been extreme. A 2014 Department of Veterans’ Affairs study found that over 32% of those who served now had an accepted claim for a mental health condition. However, there were many positive aspects and it was an incredibly rich experience for me. A personal highlight was caring for the children of Rwanda, including those from the Mother Teresa orphanage in Kigali. As I saw it, each child we saved or left a positive imprint upon had the potential to grow up and make a positive difference in their country, and so represented a small victory. I feel very proud of the work myself and others did over there, how we contributed to stabilising what has become a successful nation, and of how courageous our people were. I don't think I'd be where I am now, Surgeon General ADF and Commander Joint Health, without my experience in Rwanda. I may not even still be in the ADF. I learned a lot about myself, about leadership, and about resilience, embracing the view that “whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger”. In other words, while some tragically have developed PTSD, I believe that I have experienced “post traumatic growth”. It has given me confidence that I can challenge myself in extreme situations and survive. Air Vice-Marshal Tracy Smart is a speaker at the inaugural International Military Health IT (IMHIT) track on Day 2 of HIMSS AsiaPac 18 in Brisbane this November.

Emerging CNIO position increases the number of women in healthcare IT roles but there are fewer CIOs and the pay gap persists.

Former ONC Privacy Chief and Omada Health Chief Privacy and Regulatory Officer Lucia Savage shares both her concerns and her hope for the industry when it comes to the dreaded data sharing.