Author: Attune Technologies

The healthcare landscape has undergone tremendous transformation, thanks to the technology-driven giant strides it has taken over the years. From innovations enabling treatment and diagnosis, technology has now moved into a data-centric era that has created a wide network of doctors, specialists, lab technicians, pharmacists, insurance providers, and many other stakeholders. At the center of all these initiatives are the patients – and patients are certainly experiencing an exemplary care experience. However, alongside such encouraging stories is the equally disquieting threat to data security.

Yes, threats to healthcare data security are a troublesome reality today – with shocking incidents of data loss, ransomware, network infiltration, and patient safety.

Data Security Breach: The Threat Is Real

The year 2015 was termed the “year of healthcare hack,” with more than 50% of data breaches recorded in the industry. This was when healthcare stakeholders woke up to the threat of data loss. However, despite increasing awareness, the bone-chilling WannaCry ransomware attack that spelled disaster for the National Health Service and thousands of other incidents are grim reminders of the continuing menace of data threat.

Why is healthcare attractive bait for data security breaches? Just consider the power of the data hidden among medical records! Personal details (identity, location, contact numbers), insurance information, Finance-related data (credit or debit card identity), and medical history are fodder for identity thefts, healthcare insurance abuse, ransomware attacks, and other means of creating havoc on a large scale.

Despite the growing proof of the vulnerability of data in healthcare, why are the stakeholders still lagging behind in data security than other industries?

The reasons for this relatively lethargic approach are many:

• The explosion of technological innovations in the landscape that has extensively distributed healthcare data across the network
• The increasingly popular BYOD culture and the need to deliver 24*7 connected care has led to a disproportionate swarming of devices with no control for data threats
• The lack of focus on data security by healthcare stakeholders who prioritize patient care to data security compliance while delivering care or procuring care-driven technology solutions

So as a healthcare stakeholder, how can you ensure that there is no loss of data?

7 Ways to Secure Your Data in the Healthcare Landscape

Having realized the dangers of data breach, you, as healthcare stakeholders, can contribute immensely to securing your data:

1. Prioritize data security when planning your healthcare investments. Include prevention of data threats when planning your technology adoption strategies
2. Ensure that your organization complies with all the required data-related regulations (HIPAA, EPCS, HITECH, etc.)
3. Evaluate the option of adopting data encryption even across your routine operations so you can safeguard your data within your organization
4. Invest in backing up critical data – so you can be prepared even in case of a ransom-ware attack
5. Ensure that you have access to data experts with the right skill sets who can protect healthcare data within your organization
6. Provide role-based authentication and permission-based access to data, and generate visibility across the data network to monitor the person accessing the information, the device used, and the information accessed in real time
7. Ensure complete compliance from care stakeholders by delivering training on the relevance of data security and the dos and don’ts (e.g., risk of ransom-ware attacks through emails)

Healthcare organizations are certainly becoming increasingly aware of the dangers of data loss, data breach, ransomware attacks, and other threats to data security. The last two years have highlighted many examples of the repercussions of ignoring data security. But there’s still a long way to go. Our stakeholders need to realize that to secure your data and to create a “no loss of data” environment, we need to learn from the other industries that have made data security their priority. As a healthcare stakeholder, you will need help to implement stringent data protection solutions in your organization. Look for the experts delivering healthcare data security without compromising on care delivery standards. But remember to get started today.

Welcome to the Era of Pocket-Sized Smart Care – Mobile technology applications in healthcare

We live in a perennially mobile world, managing almost every life activity (from work to shopping) “on the go” – thanks to the “smart” phones that have become such an integral part of lives. The healthcare ecosystem is certainly not lagging behind in embracing mobile technology.

The very term “mhealth” is proof of mobile technology’s relevance in healthcare. Mobile healthcare applications have exploded the care landscape because of their ability to simplify access to care and deliver a superior care experience from both the care providers’ and the patients’ point of view.

Here are 7 key focus areas of mobile healthcare applications that are gaining tremendous attention in today’s care landscape.

1. Easy access to care

Mobile apps have simplified the burdensome task of choosing a care provider, booking appointments, and follow-up sessions with the clinic or hospital. This has drastically reduced waiting times at the doctor’s office and increased the efficiency of the entire care process. With SMS reminders, prepaid options, and 24/7 call options, these apps also provide patients with options of rating care providers, thereby delivering a transparent care ecosystem.

2. Easy interaction between care providers

One of the primary source of delays in the care process is the long waiting period and the never-ending back and forth between multiple care points – doctors, labs, imaging system, second opinions, insurance companies, and pharmacies, for example. Mobile apps create a strong network of care providers who interact productively through apps, guaranteeing a secure and professional platform that enables informed and timely decision-making.

3. Medical record maintenance

Trusted app that effortlessly maintain medical records and patient history have always been on top of the care landscape’s list of priorities. These apps are simple interfaces that facilitate easy recording of diagnosis, examination, medication, and treatment regimens with zero need for multiple sources of data entry and minimal version issues.

4. Remote patient engagement

Delivering a positive patient experience is no longer restricted to focusing just on treatment and diagnostic modalities. It involves providing the patient with complete support – right from easy access to care even from remote. There are many examples of remote patient engagement:

• Video-call options with patients
• Engaging in healthcare awareness drives
• e-Prescription and remote monitoring of medication compliance
• Remote treatment of patients in remote locations and elderly patients by mapping their vital body parameters and alerting care providers in case of deviations

5. Chronic condition care support

Smartphone apps have become critical support systems in delivering care for chronic conditions such as diabetes. Many apps help patients to efficiently manage their blood sugar levels, maintain a nutrition diary, and transform their lifestyle to avoid the complications of diabetes.

6. Wellness support

Care is no longer associated with the absence of any disease or disorder – it’s also about the wellness of the body and mind. Hence, wellness-related apps are exponentially increasing in popularity, from simple apps that measure the number of steps walked over a specified period and heart rate to apps that track exercise, diet, and sleep. Customized dashboards deliver a clear overview of the health condition of the patient.

7. Continued learning for care providers

Staying up-to-date in today’s care ecosystem requires that the care providers stay on top of every innovation, new disease and condition, novel medical device, ongoing research, and pharmaceutical discovery. Apps that consolidate specialty-specific data and references from across the medical world are hugely popular. Given the nature of the care providers, this service too needs to deliver a 24/7 access to any location – and mobility perfectly fits this bill.
Conclusion – anytime, anywhere care
mHealth is fast becoming synonymous with delivering smart care anytime from anywhere – a super-efficient means of enabling health and wellness. The challenge is to cut through the excessive clutter of mhealth apps and find your right fit and to ensure that your healthcare solution includes mobility-first features. Today’s care world is certainly on its way to fit right in your pocket! So how ready are you to go the mhealth way?

Behold the Magic of Intelligent Care Healthcare with Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) – the smart, cognitive devices of today’s era – has penetrated extensively across all possible verticals – from financial services to manufacturing – and healthcare is no exception. With interest in AI booming exponentially, its scope of application in care-based applications has widened beyond imagination.

Reports indicate that the AI-driven healthcare market will see a tremendous growth of almost 40% by the end of this decade. From delivering advanced care-related information to physicians to make informed decisions to personalized real-time treatment, advanced applications of AI in healthcare are indeed revolutionizing care.

Let’s check out some of the outstanding applications of AI in today’s care ecosystem.

1. Diagnosis

One of the most advanced applications of AI in healthcare is in disease diagnosis. With AI, machines are supercharged with the ability to analyze voluminous data from medical images, prompting early diagnosis of many disorders. AI provides an easy solution through intelligent diagnostic imaging. This approach has multiple applications in proactive diagnosis of the possibility of stroke, tumor growth, and certain types of cancer, giving the physician the chance to derive a comprehensive treatment plans for patients well ahead of time.

2. Biomarkers

Biomarkers automatically provide accurate visual and audio data of patients’ vital health parameters that indicate the presence of specific medical conditions, help choose the ideal medications, or assess treatment sensitivity. Biomarkers accurately capture symptoms, as against the guesswork of symptoms perceived by patients. The accuracy and speed of biomarkers have made them the preferred tools of diagnosis, promptly highlighting possibilities of any disorders.

3. Virtual nursing assistance

AI -based applications and chat bots support care providers in delivering nursing assistance after discharge from hospital. This feature helps simplify provision of outpatient services and increases the accuracy of monitoring patient compliance post discharge. Available even as simple wearable’s and on smart phones, these AI-enabled devices also act as virtual health assistants that remind patients about their medications, encourage them to follow their exercise routines, answer simple medical clarifications sought by patients, and warn care providers about any untoward incidents such as sudden increase in blood pressure or a fall.

4. Remote monitoring of patients

This involves round-the-clock remote monitoring of patients, constant evaluation of their vital signs, and real-time alerts to caretakers and care providers. This remote assessment of vital health parameters helps physicians identify core symptoms of diseases and disorders in patients and respond accordingly. This approach clearly prevents unnecessary visits to the physician to a great extent.

5. AI and drug discovery

AI-driven computing can accurately and promptly study structures of multiple drug molecules and predict their pharmacological activity, potency, and adverse effects. This possibility opens up a rapid and cost-efficient route of drug discovery. It also has the chance of drastically reducing the cost of medications. Used across pharmaceutical companies, AI-based drug discovery has contributed to supporting the treatment of cancer and neurodegenerative disorders.

6. AI-enabled hospital care

AI simplifies care delivery in hospitals through a wide range of solutions including smart monitoring of IV solutions, patient medication tracking, patient alert systems, nursing staff performance assessment systems, and patient movement tracking within hospitals. Robot-assisted surgeries and AI applications in routine phlebotomy procedures are other potentially useful applications. AI has been found to considerably decrease dosage errors and increase nursing staff productivity in hospitals.

Conclusion – the era of AI has arrived in style
With voluminous investments pouring in for AI applications in healthcare, this technology still has a long way to go, despite its presence in healthcare for quite many years now. The main reasons for its slow adoption are the cost of research, the security concerns involved in opening up extensive databases, and misconceptions or errors in coming to quick conclusions. But the quest for ideal AI solutions looks quite promising indeed, with AI supplementing healthcare and improving the quality of care from diagnosis to prognosis.
So, where are you in your journey towards an AI-driven care ecosystem?

What can we achieve with seamless interoperability in healthcare?

The era of digital healthcare is indeed revolutionizing the care landscape. Data- and technology-driven solutions are enabling every member of the care network to deliver a patient-centric experience. However, despite this tremendous leap, the care landscape is still facing challenges in simplifying care for both the patient and the provider.

Innumerable tools and solutions are facilitating multiple aspects of the care process – right from access to care and diagnostics to continued treatment. But these brilliant innovations often remain in silos, with almost zero scope for exchange of data across the various healthcare systems. This lack of interaction nullifies all the potential of these innovations.
This ability to communicate between systems, exchange precious data, and interpret them accurately is an essential enabler to complete the transition into digital healthcare, and is called interoperability.

What can we achieve with seamless interoperability in healthcare?
When devices, systems, and tools effortlessly share information across an interoperable interface, every care partner – from the patient, care and provider to the lab technician and pharmacist – receives the same version of the shared data regardless of the disparate technological environment of each stakeholder.

This capability delivers immense advantages:

1. Easy, secure, and real-time access to in-depth patient data

A critical enabler of delivering timely and efficient care across the healthcare system, interoperability eliminates duplication of work.

2. Supporting patient safety

Many reports have indicated that more than 50% of medication errors arise during care transition; hence, effective interoperability between all the care points ensures continuity of care and zero scope for error.

3. Effortless collaboration

Interoperability facilitates delivering a well-coordinated care, with increased clinical and business collaboration across the entire care network.

4. Efficient adoption of best practices across the landscape

extensive data insights from a well-connected and interoperable ecosystem help care partners to assess the process and derive optimal strategies and best practices.

5. Cost efficiency and high quality

With interoperability removing many administrative and data validation burdens, providers and other care partners can focus on delivering technology-enabled values to patients at a lower cost and high quality.

Thus, interoperability between every element of the healthcare ecosystem brings together three core pillars of the landscape – people, process, and technology. It enables seamless information capture, exchange, interpretation, and application of data across the landscape.