Health Care Is ‘New Frontier’ For Hackers. Meet The Team That Might Be Protecting Your Data From Them.
“I haven’t slept since 1979,” said Kevin Charest the chief information security officer for the Health Care Service Corp., which is responsible for protecting the records of the nearly 15 million participants in Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in Texas and four other states. “If you knew what I knew, you wouldn’t sleep either."
Dallas Morning News:
Cybersecurity Team Will 'Lie, Cheat And Steal' To Protect Blue Cross Patients' Data
While electronic health records, clinical data-sharing tools and connected devices such as blood pressure and heart rate monitors benefit patients and make the industry more efficient, they also can leave valuable health information exposed. Every technology that connects to the internet comes with a security risk, since it is a potential doorway into a network. The tech-heavy health care industry has multiple entryways — from electronic health records to medical devices and laptops — where patient data is stored. (Rice, 3/27)
In other health IT news —
The Associated Press:
Selfie Medicine: Phone Apps Push People To Take Their Pills
Take two tablets and a selfie? Your doctor's orders may one day include a smartphone video to make sure you took your medicine. Smartphone apps that monitor pill-taking are now available, and researchers are testing how well they work when medication matters. Experts praise the efficiency, but some say the technology raises privacy and data security concerns. (Johnson, 3/28)
WBUR:
Design Flaws In Electronic Health Records Can Harm Patients, Study Finds
The federally-funded study looked at more than 1.7 million reports of safety issues mainly in Pennsylvania, and found 1,956, or .11 percent, that mentioned a top-five health record system as a cause of patient harm. Some 557 (0.03 percent) reports had "language explicitly suggesting EHR usability contributed to possible patient harm," and among those, 80 caused temporary harm, seven may have caused permanent harm and two may have been fatal. (Goldberg, 3/27)
