Information Security

Health cares IT, just as other sectors, faces increased pressure from hackers and intruders. In a recent survey, 56 per cent of respondents cited cybersecurity as the most critical issue facing health care organizations. It is estimated that health care organizations face twice as many intrusion attacks as other industries. With more organizations implementing connected medical devices and enabling mobile device usage, there are more possible access points for intruders. Health care data is considered even more valuable to criminals than financial information. Ransomware attacks have the potential to cripple care delivery. Compounding the problem is the fact that health care lags behind other industries in adopting cybersecurity standards.

Health care organizations in the coming years will need to adopt sophisticated security solutions to combat threats and adequately protect sensitive patient information. This will ideally be a mix of secure technology, employee training and comprehensive incident response and disaster recovery planning.

Artificial Intelligence

Health care organizations have long been sitting on vast amounts of patient data.

Providers are now seeing the potential of applying AI to this information, for a variety of purposes – internal performance improvement, decision support for clinicians, chronic care management, population health initiatives, financial risk reduction and more. AI can improve predictive analytics by mining patient, claims, genomics and population health data. It can also generate risk scores for chronic diseases and aid in avoiding 30-day readmissions and getting ahead of condition deterioration.

Innovations in robotic process automation (RPA) will help automate and simplify rule-based tasks that are time-consuming when done manually. Examples include appointment scheduling, claims management, remote monitoring and managing workflows like case and utilization management.

Optimization of EHRs and Interoperability

The “Meaningful Use” initiative encouraged and incentivized the adoption of EHRs, and as a result, EHRs are now widely used. However, clinician dissatisfaction with EHRs is widespread. It is essential to optimize EHR to make it more interactive, responsive, smart and simple for end-users. IT needs to look at ways to reduce information overload for clinicians and help automate tedious functions like documentation, billing and repetitive tasks related to clinical care. EHR functions and information should be accessible on mobile devices. Workflows should be configured and streamlined to help users navigate the system more efficiently.

There is broad consensus that seamless, real-time sharing of health care data is needed across systems and platforms. While interoperability has been a focus for the industry for several years, the desired results have not yet been achieved. Using application programming interfaces (APIs) could help in this as well as the continued adoption of HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR). Adopting a “cloud-first” approach and leveraging capabilities like microservices will also help create an environment for interoperability.