Was a time, way back when I first got into IT, that the primary motivation for hacking was notoriety, infamy, and the occasional retribution for public flaming. That said, there were certain financial motivations and corporate espionage aspects in those days also.
And really, the prime motivation for people to do anything is always money. As they say on the innumerable crime procedural dramas, "follow the money."
What is interesting is how things are evolving, or more accurately, being exposed, these days with respect to where following the money takes you. We always assume hackers are targeting personal financial and health data for the purposes of identity theft. More recently, cyber-terrorism concerns are on the rise with SCADA attacks coming to the forefront in the US and elsewhere. And these are absolutely valid, as well as the continued and large risks of corporate information being accessed or destroyed for corporate espionage or disgruntled employee revenge.
But consider a BBC Radio 4 documentary exposing how UK private detective agencies are using hacking skills to expose potential news stories that they are bringing to certain nameless major media outlets. And if you think that activity is limited to those rascals over in the UK, I encourage you to replace your head in the sand immediately to continue your blissful ignorance.
How does this change what we do as security and privacy professionals? Again I'll go to my standard refrain of the urgency and priority of IT security and privacy policies and governance in each of our organisations. But what this "new" information gives us IT security professionals is additional support tin our budgetary discussions. If we want to do our jobs, and do them well, the reality is we are competing for each dollar (particularly this time of the year) with every other IT service related initiative and operational need. We need to make our business case concise, and tailor our plans to address the highest risk areas first. If you work somewhere with a relatively low probability for natural disaster or civil unrest, then your local media is going to be busy trying to get stories that make them money.
Can they make money off revealing information about your organisations operations or strategies? Then that is what they will be interested in doing, and don't doubt they are already looking for ways in.
Taking the "blah" out of blogging on IT Project, Service, and Operations management topics.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Social Media - It's for Everyone, But Not Everyone is for Social Media.
Recent events in the professional hockey world have me thinking about SoMe at work. Now, while I do daydream about hockey occasionally at work, this is a more direct (please hear me out) connection than you'd think.
Chicago Blackhawks winger Dave Bolland recently got caught up in the atmosphere of a live interview, and made a series of disparaging remarks about the top players on my home team. "So what?" you say, "professional athletes talk trash often." And I'll be the first to agree. What got me thinking here though, is how quickly a few comments, thrown out without forethought or apparently malice (see article about Bolland "recanting" his comments the next day) went from radio to Twitter, Facebook, and numerous other social media channels. The net result? Well, Bolland will have to play the Canucks on January 31. He also now has cemented a reputation for himself, that may be great with his fans, and for whatever reason, this kind of behaviour seems idolized in the celebrity world.
Now picture an employee at any public or private institution with access to a computer, and no corporate controls (read: policies more so than firewalls) around social media. What kind of damage could that employee unleash with a flippant comment about the organisation, a competitor, or worse, a valued partner or customer?
And how do you repair that damage once done? Once the post goes out on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, or any other popular channel? It's been clearly illustrated that companies that try to back-track and battle back against negative social media just look like Goliath, no matter how wronged they have been. Hey, they are the 1%, as the OWS gang would say.
The best defence is a plan. Like with all privacy and security matters, you need to understand the risk, and take the reasonable steps to mitigate. Are we going to have 100% prevention? Nope. But if you have social media policies drafted up (like these shared by SocialMediaGovernance.com), and a workforce educated about the use of SoMe at & about work, you have a mitigation plan.
Chicago Blackhawks winger Dave Bolland recently got caught up in the atmosphere of a live interview, and made a series of disparaging remarks about the top players on my home team. "So what?" you say, "professional athletes talk trash often." And I'll be the first to agree. What got me thinking here though, is how quickly a few comments, thrown out without forethought or apparently malice (see article about Bolland "recanting" his comments the next day) went from radio to Twitter, Facebook, and numerous other social media channels. The net result? Well, Bolland will have to play the Canucks on January 31. He also now has cemented a reputation for himself, that may be great with his fans, and for whatever reason, this kind of behaviour seems idolized in the celebrity world.
Now picture an employee at any public or private institution with access to a computer, and no corporate controls (read: policies more so than firewalls) around social media. What kind of damage could that employee unleash with a flippant comment about the organisation, a competitor, or worse, a valued partner or customer?
And how do you repair that damage once done? Once the post goes out on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, or any other popular channel? It's been clearly illustrated that companies that try to back-track and battle back against negative social media just look like Goliath, no matter how wronged they have been. Hey, they are the 1%, as the OWS gang would say.
The best defence is a plan. Like with all privacy and security matters, you need to understand the risk, and take the reasonable steps to mitigate. Are we going to have 100% prevention? Nope. But if you have social media policies drafted up (like these shared by SocialMediaGovernance.com), and a workforce educated about the use of SoMe at & about work, you have a mitigation plan.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Medical Education Networks Must Be Good Neighbours
This story makes an understated point for us managing medical education and research networks.
While we may not operate or support the systems on the clinical networks, we operate immediately adjacent to them.
As our educators and researchers bring devices closer between these networks, we need to illustrate leadership, good faith, and act as responsible neighbours and ensure systems under our management are as protected as possible, and users as educated as possible. This in turn lightens the load for our colleagues managing the clinical networks immediately responsible for patient care.
Malware shuts down hospital near Atlanta, Georgia
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/12/13/malware-shuts-down-hospital-near-atlanta-georgia/
While we may not operate or support the systems on the clinical networks, we operate immediately adjacent to them.
As our educators and researchers bring devices closer between these networks, we need to illustrate leadership, good faith, and act as responsible neighbours and ensure systems under our management are as protected as possible, and users as educated as possible. This in turn lightens the load for our colleagues managing the clinical networks immediately responsible for patient care.
Malware shuts down hospital near Atlanta, Georgia
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/12/13/malware-shuts-down-hospital-near-atlanta-georgia/
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
ItManageCast - Vivit Worldwide
ItManageCast - Vivit Worldwide
Good morning from Vienna!
While I drink my Latte Machiatto and eat my croissant and wait for delegate access to HP Discover 2011 EMEA to open to delegates, I will update any who are following this on our presentation last night of the Vivit Worldwide Champion and Leader of the Year, 2011.
What seemed like the largest number of chapter and SIG leaders to gather for dinner yet converged on the upper floor of the 1516 restaurant in downtown Vienna last night. The dinner was for Vivit to have an opportunity to recognise our leaders who keep the machinery of Vivit moving - without them there would be no Vivit Worldwide. At the dinner we recognised both our EMEA Leader of the Year, and Champion of the Year.
The Champion of the Year is a new recognition category this year, decided to begin this fall by your Vivit Directors. We find that as we are an organisation that is accountable to our members, we have always held the policy that HP employees cannot be leaders in our organisation. That long standing and popularly supported by-law has led us to a conundrum however; what happens when an HP employee goes above and beyond in their support for the Vivit Worldwide community and goals? In order to rectify this oversight, we created the category of Vivit Champion of the Year.
This year, while receiving a couple of strong nominations, we did eventually make the decision to award this honour to Paolo Cattacolio from HP in France. Paolo has been instrumental this past year in bringing the European user community of the TRIM product into the Vivit family. TRIM was acquired by HP, as a great asset to their software portfolio, but the well-established local user groups of the product were left without a global connecting community to HP Software. This is where Paolo, and Vivit Director Richard Bishop identified a need and worked tirelessly to support these users. So in recognition of his support of the Vivit user community worldwide, and the TRIM software users need to interconnect globally for advocacy, education, and community, Vivit President Michael Collins and myself (Director of SIGs & Chapters, and co-leader of the BSM SIG) presented the beautiful trophy for EMEA 2011 Vivit Champion of the Year to Paolo.
After a rousing round of applause, Michael called attention to the awarding of the Vivit EMEA Leader of the Year. I believe this is the third year for this reward, which has gone to the passionate and thorough work of our German leaders in years past. This time we moved the trophy north in recognition of the efforts this past year, and years previous, of Martijn Stuiver. Martijn is a co-leader of the SM SIG, and has recently integrated existing customer and partner communities in Holland into a Dutch local user group.
Michael extended a sincere thanks, and warnings to carry the trophy carefully! Martijn shared with the rout his secret passion for 5-pin bowling, but we aren't sure when he would possibly have the time! We just hope he doesn't use the globe from the trophy!
Thank you to both Paolo & Martijn, all the leaders who were present last night, and all our leaders around the world who couldn't join us in Vienna, but whose passionate work for Vivit is noted year round. If you know a great Vivit leader in your local chapter or special interest group, or an HP employee who goes above and beyond to support the HP Software user community, please make sure you let myself or Stephanie know about them, and be certain to nominate them for the next Champion and Leader of the Year.
Good morning from Vienna!
While I drink my Latte Machiatto and eat my croissant and wait for delegate access to HP Discover 2011 EMEA to open to delegates, I will update any who are following this on our presentation last night of the Vivit Worldwide Champion and Leader of the Year, 2011.
What seemed like the largest number of chapter and SIG leaders to gather for dinner yet converged on the upper floor of the 1516 restaurant in downtown Vienna last night. The dinner was for Vivit to have an opportunity to recognise our leaders who keep the machinery of Vivit moving - without them there would be no Vivit Worldwide. At the dinner we recognised both our EMEA Leader of the Year, and Champion of the Year.
The Champion of the Year is a new recognition category this year, decided to begin this fall by your Vivit Directors. We find that as we are an organisation that is accountable to our members, we have always held the policy that HP employees cannot be leaders in our organisation. That long standing and popularly supported by-law has led us to a conundrum however; what happens when an HP employee goes above and beyond in their support for the Vivit Worldwide community and goals? In order to rectify this oversight, we created the category of Vivit Champion of the Year.
This year, while receiving a couple of strong nominations, we did eventually make the decision to award this honour to Paolo Cattacolio from HP in France. Paolo has been instrumental this past year in bringing the European user community of the TRIM product into the Vivit family. TRIM was acquired by HP, as a great asset to their software portfolio, but the well-established local user groups of the product were left without a global connecting community to HP Software. This is where Paolo, and Vivit Director Richard Bishop identified a need and worked tirelessly to support these users. So in recognition of his support of the Vivit user community worldwide, and the TRIM software users need to interconnect globally for advocacy, education, and community, Vivit President Michael Collins and myself (Director of SIGs & Chapters, and co-leader of the BSM SIG) presented the beautiful trophy for EMEA 2011 Vivit Champion of the Year to Paolo.
After a rousing round of applause, Michael called attention to the awarding of the Vivit EMEA Leader of the Year. I believe this is the third year for this reward, which has gone to the passionate and thorough work of our German leaders in years past. This time we moved the trophy north in recognition of the efforts this past year, and years previous, of Martijn Stuiver. Martijn is a co-leader of the SM SIG, and has recently integrated existing customer and partner communities in Holland into a Dutch local user group.
Michael extended a sincere thanks, and warnings to carry the trophy carefully! Martijn shared with the rout his secret passion for 5-pin bowling, but we aren't sure when he would possibly have the time! We just hope he doesn't use the globe from the trophy!
Thank you to both Paolo & Martijn, all the leaders who were present last night, and all our leaders around the world who couldn't join us in Vienna, but whose passionate work for Vivit is noted year round. If you know a great Vivit leader in your local chapter or special interest group, or an HP employee who goes above and beyond to support the HP Software user community, please make sure you let myself or Stephanie know about them, and be certain to nominate them for the next Champion and Leader of the Year.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Original Podcast Back Online!
The original itManageCast podcast is back online!
This interview was recorded a few years ago when one of Vivit's "best & brightest" members, Mike Peckar, was deploying HP network management software at Camp Victory in Iraq. If you use (or used) HP Software Network Node Manager (OK, I'm dating myself here, but you know the application family I'm talking about) you should know (or know about) Mike. He literally wrote the book on the use of that software. Seriously. Literally.
Interestingly enough, while this interview took place a few years ago, the root issues around NMS really haven't changed and most players in the market space haven't shifted significantly.
I'm about to get back in the game of analysing enterprise NMS solutions (which takes me back to my early career in some ways) so I found this "classic" itManageCast interview helpful, and thought many of you might as well.
Stay tuned for updates on my explorations into the current world of NMS. in the meantime, listen to the interview with Mike Peckar about his book "the Fognet Fieldguide to Network Node Manager."
http://itmanagecast.podbean.com/
This interview was recorded a few years ago when one of Vivit's "best & brightest" members, Mike Peckar, was deploying HP network management software at Camp Victory in Iraq. If you use (or used) HP Software Network Node Manager (OK, I'm dating myself here, but you know the application family I'm talking about) you should know (or know about) Mike. He literally wrote the book on the use of that software. Seriously. Literally.
Interestingly enough, while this interview took place a few years ago, the root issues around NMS really haven't changed and most players in the market space haven't shifted significantly.
I'm about to get back in the game of analysing enterprise NMS solutions (which takes me back to my early career in some ways) so I found this "classic" itManageCast interview helpful, and thought many of you might as well.
Stay tuned for updates on my explorations into the current world of NMS. in the meantime, listen to the interview with Mike Peckar about his book "the Fognet Fieldguide to Network Node Manager."
http://itmanagecast.podbean.com/
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Visions for 2012 in Healthcare
Elaine McKnight, ADM, Planning and Innovation, BC Ministry of Health
Neil Gardner, CIO Saskatchewan Health
Barry Rivelis, CIO BCPHSA and VCH
Bill Trafford, SVP Alberta Health Services
Bill was presented via video. I originally thought they meant via VC, but it was in fact a pre-recorded video of Bill doing his presentation in a boardroom.
Bill stated some of the key issues today being treatment based on episodic rather than continuous methods, a more patient centric and accessible world of data and knowledge, and shrinking workforce in health services.
What Bill claims is needed is to move to model that meets these demands in a two pronged approach with a focus on health systems improvements and leveraging of information technology to provide contiguous, secure, realtime access to patient and practitioner information and the enabling of personal health plans.
Bill tells us that Alberta has all the components to enable this today, and the solution is a connected provider community that empowers patients.
Neil Gardner agreed with Dan about some of the drivers for change in health systems, focussing on an aging population that is driving the need for major change to ensure sustainability. Neil noted that the healthcare workplace needs to see changes to ensure professionals are attracted and retained to enhance care, teamwork, and a culture of patient centric wholistic care. Better information empowering transparent and accountable decision making at all levels in healthcare is cited as a strong case for BI.
Care processes, quality, and patient safety are noted as important aspects of healthcare that we are on the cusp of being able to deliver though LEAN, MedRec, and use of care teams.
Current investments in info structure are making a difference today, and will continue tomorrow. Neil stated that greater integration of back end data for health system use to support health system planning and evaluation is an important area to focus.
Neil noted that taking our IT governance and support processes to the next level around system availability, integrity, data quality, business engagement, and identity management are key future initiatives to be architecting in the next year.
Increasing costs, limited budgets, and importance of increasing value create an environment where western provincial alignment and engagement of partners is vital to succeed in these initiatives.
Barry has the honor of being the last person speaking at the conference and everyone's rapt attention before lunch. Barry titled his presentation "Moving to Health 2.0"
Barry shared that 46 is the mean age of social media users in Canada, which should give us pause for thought on who we are delivering healthcare to and how.
Health 2.0 is a digital environment that drives bedside to bench, I.e.: Tightening up how we align research and health care delivery, via a dynamic value chain that pulls together infrastructure, distribution, and applications and information exchange.
Barry feels that investments will need to be focussed in always on devices, device integration, patient/provider information gateway, digital patient ecosystem, business intelligence, information exchange, enterprise wide integrated systems, always on infrastructure, and patient driven consent. The concept is health care available any place, any time, providing anything the patient needs.
A dynamic learning health system that is always on is Barry's vision that we have elements of in place today, but we need to start to architect.
The first question went to Barry, and was how do we get to a turbocharged environment where we manage health information efficiently. Barry replied that we have to focus on the stuff that isn't sexy, the plumbing behind the system. A transparent and governed method of information exchange that includes patient focussed consent models. Barry foresees the next 18 months as a focus on identity management for the vast amount of information growing daily. Neil added that our innovation for information capture and structure needs to happen so that the information can be used intelligently.
Barry cited the video of the recent Vancouver riot and asked us the question of whether the next demographic really cares about privacy as much as the current governing generation.
When asked how risk around information management is handled, Neil noted that more education needs to be provided to clinicians on how they can contribute to the process. They can help better identify where the risks lie as we provide more access to patients of their own health information, and ask those patients to increase their ownership. Barry added that case law tends to lag the trends, but that we are not being creative enough about how we deal with risk and how we engage learnings from partner organizations such as ICBC and WorkSafe BC. This will require a culture shift that won't happen overnight but is dependent on today and tomorrow's clinicians to help establish leadership.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Neil Gardner, CIO Saskatchewan Health
Barry Rivelis, CIO BCPHSA and VCH
Bill Trafford, SVP Alberta Health Services
Bill was presented via video. I originally thought they meant via VC, but it was in fact a pre-recorded video of Bill doing his presentation in a boardroom.
Bill stated some of the key issues today being treatment based on episodic rather than continuous methods, a more patient centric and accessible world of data and knowledge, and shrinking workforce in health services.
What Bill claims is needed is to move to model that meets these demands in a two pronged approach with a focus on health systems improvements and leveraging of information technology to provide contiguous, secure, realtime access to patient and practitioner information and the enabling of personal health plans.
Bill tells us that Alberta has all the components to enable this today, and the solution is a connected provider community that empowers patients.
Neil Gardner agreed with Dan about some of the drivers for change in health systems, focussing on an aging population that is driving the need for major change to ensure sustainability. Neil noted that the healthcare workplace needs to see changes to ensure professionals are attracted and retained to enhance care, teamwork, and a culture of patient centric wholistic care. Better information empowering transparent and accountable decision making at all levels in healthcare is cited as a strong case for BI.
Care processes, quality, and patient safety are noted as important aspects of healthcare that we are on the cusp of being able to deliver though LEAN, MedRec, and use of care teams.
Current investments in info structure are making a difference today, and will continue tomorrow. Neil stated that greater integration of back end data for health system use to support health system planning and evaluation is an important area to focus.
Neil noted that taking our IT governance and support processes to the next level around system availability, integrity, data quality, business engagement, and identity management are key future initiatives to be architecting in the next year.
Increasing costs, limited budgets, and importance of increasing value create an environment where western provincial alignment and engagement of partners is vital to succeed in these initiatives.
Barry has the honor of being the last person speaking at the conference and everyone's rapt attention before lunch. Barry titled his presentation "Moving to Health 2.0"
Barry shared that 46 is the mean age of social media users in Canada, which should give us pause for thought on who we are delivering healthcare to and how.
Health 2.0 is a digital environment that drives bedside to bench, I.e.: Tightening up how we align research and health care delivery, via a dynamic value chain that pulls together infrastructure, distribution, and applications and information exchange.
Barry feels that investments will need to be focussed in always on devices, device integration, patient/provider information gateway, digital patient ecosystem, business intelligence, information exchange, enterprise wide integrated systems, always on infrastructure, and patient driven consent. The concept is health care available any place, any time, providing anything the patient needs.
A dynamic learning health system that is always on is Barry's vision that we have elements of in place today, but we need to start to architect.
The first question went to Barry, and was how do we get to a turbocharged environment where we manage health information efficiently. Barry replied that we have to focus on the stuff that isn't sexy, the plumbing behind the system. A transparent and governed method of information exchange that includes patient focussed consent models. Barry foresees the next 18 months as a focus on identity management for the vast amount of information growing daily. Neil added that our innovation for information capture and structure needs to happen so that the information can be used intelligently.
Barry cited the video of the recent Vancouver riot and asked us the question of whether the next demographic really cares about privacy as much as the current governing generation.
When asked how risk around information management is handled, Neil noted that more education needs to be provided to clinicians on how they can contribute to the process. They can help better identify where the risks lie as we provide more access to patients of their own health information, and ask those patients to increase their ownership. Barry added that case law tends to lag the trends, but that we are not being creative enough about how we deal with risk and how we engage learnings from partner organizations such as ICBC and WorkSafe BC. This will require a culture shift that won't happen overnight but is dependent on today and tomorrow's clinicians to help establish leadership.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Kelowna, BC
Achievements and Future Visions for Healthcare
Moderator is Mal Griffin, CIO of the Interior Health Authority
Panelists are:
Lisa Gordon, Program Manager, MicroStrategy
Philip Barker, VP of Information Managemnt, FHA
Colleen Hart, Project Director, myHEALTHPlan
Dan Gonos, Chief Technologist, HP Enterprise Services
Lisa was representing MicroStrategy and their Business Intelligence perspective on healthcare transformation. The point made that we have a lot of data in disparate places, and without consolidating and comprehending it, we don't know,what information we might be missing when it comes to measuring patient outcomes and healthcare optimizations.
Other industries are ahead of healthcare when it comes to BI, and we can leverage it better. A case in point is CIHI, where Lisa worked until recently coming to work for MicroStrategy. Lisa shared with us the 5 styles of BI, which matures to a utopia of ad-hoc self-service information delivery via dashboards that are tailored to the needs of the customer. CIHI has achieved this goal, but skipped a number of steps to get there so it is still evolutionary. Cancer Care Ontario is cited as another case study who did follow the maturity process for BI. Monitoring and wait times and improving access to care is provided with iPort and iPort Access tools made publicly available. this has been expanded across other Provincial health bodies to provide all wait times including Emergency.
Mobile devices and BI availability is creating the consumerization of health care in Canada. Individual delivery of key outcomes for health care are available to mobile devices and web portals. This is maturing rapidly in the US, and starting to see adoption in Canada as cited in the above examples.
Lisa proposed the concept of leveraging cloud computing options for healthcare BI. The standard arguments around elasticity and cost reductions are leveraged. She raised the point of security, but it wasn't addressed much further than it normally is in that, it's important.
MyHEALTHPlan Pilot Project at FHA
Colleen and Philip discussed the shareable care plan initiative that FHA is initiating, called MyHEALTHPlan.
It is a demonstration project aimed at improving patient access to quality care for those living with chronic illness. A key point was the involvement of GPs and improving access to resource libraries and active care plans between GPs and patients.
The pilot area was White Rock South Surrey to keep a manageable but realistic scope. 675 individual care plans were created, 550 patients registered online, which exceeded the project goal of 100.
The purpose is to leverage and enhance the chronic care provided at GPs offices, and ensure that the information that is relevant to the patients is accessible easily to the patients.
The results showed increased involvement of the care providers, and increased personal responsibility of patients. Provider capacity was also improved by leveraging efficiencies of self service and remote health. Integrations into the EMR provide wholistic, timely, and thorough information to the patient and medical practitioners anywhere the patient goes within the FHA. The patient is provided with one complete care plan to enable better self care.
Physicians are provided with evidenced based care tools and plans. Philip shared some patient and physician testimonials attributing the success to the shared engagement between the patients and their family physicians as a model that is based on an existing foundation of trust. Having the physicians enroll the patients in the program adds the personal touch that enables success by helping patients feel empowered. The reality that 500 65+ year old patients are actively accessing data from their EMR and contributing to their own health care online is astounding to me personally. While the system today in pilot is developed around chronic illness, I would be happy to leverage this for my own non-chronic health care management.
I see a strong alignment between this initiative and the St. Joseph model discussed earlier today.
An annonimized data repository to determine analytics of patient outcomes and other data for governance decisions is invaluable, and an intelligent use of the data collected. Making this data available to researchers would be a valuable extension in research on chronic care in my eyes. Hopefully this is being considered.
Next steps are introduction into ambulatory care, integrating home health case managers, and working with family practice to increase their involvement.
The project is currently on the cusp of being moved from project to sustainment (operations), confirming the hosting arrangement, and expansion.
Dan Gonos and HPs Vision of Healthcare Futures
Dan gave us a story about poor patient care based on a lack of connected and shared information between various aspects of health services, that don't show a continuum of health care to the patient.
Key take aways were based on ease of data entry for practitioners, bridging the information gap between primary and acute care, and establishing continuity of access to EMRs between all your health services areas.
Health consumers, or patients, want to drive the progress to better information more accessible to themselves and their health care providers which should result in better quality health care.
Change in health care is being driven by evolving business models, a changing workforce, and technology advancements. Intimacy with the customer is being created through rewards plans in the business sectors outside of health. Remote medicine advances enable contiguous and equal health care access regardless of geography.
We are encouraged to find and read his white paper on Enterprise 3.0 and how that is the highest elevation of cloud computing.
Dan suggests the next trends in healthcare convergence is facilities, medical, and communications convergence ensuring that patient care is optimized as the health journey moves throughout various locations and practitioners. This is the same message I received in Vegas a couple of weeks ago. Dan claims that a coordinated care mode of patient care can save $10k per patient per annum. The motto is pitched as the right care at the right place at the right time and the right cost.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Panelists are:
Lisa Gordon, Program Manager, MicroStrategy
Philip Barker, VP of Information Managemnt, FHA
Colleen Hart, Project Director, myHEALTHPlan
Dan Gonos, Chief Technologist, HP Enterprise Services
Lisa was representing MicroStrategy and their Business Intelligence perspective on healthcare transformation. The point made that we have a lot of data in disparate places, and without consolidating and comprehending it, we don't know,what information we might be missing when it comes to measuring patient outcomes and healthcare optimizations.
Other industries are ahead of healthcare when it comes to BI, and we can leverage it better. A case in point is CIHI, where Lisa worked until recently coming to work for MicroStrategy. Lisa shared with us the 5 styles of BI, which matures to a utopia of ad-hoc self-service information delivery via dashboards that are tailored to the needs of the customer. CIHI has achieved this goal, but skipped a number of steps to get there so it is still evolutionary. Cancer Care Ontario is cited as another case study who did follow the maturity process for BI. Monitoring and wait times and improving access to care is provided with iPort and iPort Access tools made publicly available. this has been expanded across other Provincial health bodies to provide all wait times including Emergency.
Mobile devices and BI availability is creating the consumerization of health care in Canada. Individual delivery of key outcomes for health care are available to mobile devices and web portals. This is maturing rapidly in the US, and starting to see adoption in Canada as cited in the above examples.
Lisa proposed the concept of leveraging cloud computing options for healthcare BI. The standard arguments around elasticity and cost reductions are leveraged. She raised the point of security, but it wasn't addressed much further than it normally is in that, it's important.
MyHEALTHPlan Pilot Project at FHA
Colleen and Philip discussed the shareable care plan initiative that FHA is initiating, called MyHEALTHPlan.
It is a demonstration project aimed at improving patient access to quality care for those living with chronic illness. A key point was the involvement of GPs and improving access to resource libraries and active care plans between GPs and patients.
The pilot area was White Rock South Surrey to keep a manageable but realistic scope. 675 individual care plans were created, 550 patients registered online, which exceeded the project goal of 100.
The purpose is to leverage and enhance the chronic care provided at GPs offices, and ensure that the information that is relevant to the patients is accessible easily to the patients.
The results showed increased involvement of the care providers, and increased personal responsibility of patients. Provider capacity was also improved by leveraging efficiencies of self service and remote health. Integrations into the EMR provide wholistic, timely, and thorough information to the patient and medical practitioners anywhere the patient goes within the FHA. The patient is provided with one complete care plan to enable better self care.
Physicians are provided with evidenced based care tools and plans. Philip shared some patient and physician testimonials attributing the success to the shared engagement between the patients and their family physicians as a model that is based on an existing foundation of trust. Having the physicians enroll the patients in the program adds the personal touch that enables success by helping patients feel empowered. The reality that 500 65+ year old patients are actively accessing data from their EMR and contributing to their own health care online is astounding to me personally. While the system today in pilot is developed around chronic illness, I would be happy to leverage this for my own non-chronic health care management.
I see a strong alignment between this initiative and the St. Joseph model discussed earlier today.
An annonimized data repository to determine analytics of patient outcomes and other data for governance decisions is invaluable, and an intelligent use of the data collected. Making this data available to researchers would be a valuable extension in research on chronic care in my eyes. Hopefully this is being considered.
Next steps are introduction into ambulatory care, integrating home health case managers, and working with family practice to increase their involvement.
The project is currently on the cusp of being moved from project to sustainment (operations), confirming the hosting arrangement, and expansion.
Dan Gonos and HPs Vision of Healthcare Futures
Dan gave us a story about poor patient care based on a lack of connected and shared information between various aspects of health services, that don't show a continuum of health care to the patient.
Key take aways were based on ease of data entry for practitioners, bridging the information gap between primary and acute care, and establishing continuity of access to EMRs between all your health services areas.
Health consumers, or patients, want to drive the progress to better information more accessible to themselves and their health care providers which should result in better quality health care.
Change in health care is being driven by evolving business models, a changing workforce, and technology advancements. Intimacy with the customer is being created through rewards plans in the business sectors outside of health. Remote medicine advances enable contiguous and equal health care access regardless of geography.
We are encouraged to find and read his white paper on Enterprise 3.0 and how that is the highest elevation of cloud computing.
Dan suggests the next trends in healthcare convergence is facilities, medical, and communications convergence ensuring that patient care is optimized as the health journey moves throughout various locations and practitioners. This is the same message I received in Vegas a couple of weeks ago. Dan claims that a coordinated care mode of patient care can save $10k per patient per annum. The motto is pitched as the right care at the right place at the right time and the right cost.
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Location:Kelowna, BC
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