What You Should Know:

– Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health (Wavemaker 360), the nation’s leading venture fund focused on early-stage (primarily seed) healthcare disruptors and innovators, recently announced its Fund II news, closing at $64M, surpassing its first fund nearly four times over.

– The goal for Fund II is to invest into 40-50 early-stage companies, with several investments already made into some of the most compelling healthcare start-ups in the areas of health-tech, digital health, medical device, telehealth, artificial intelligence, pharma-tech, science and marketplaces.

– Since its inception in 2018, Wavemaker 360 stands apart as one of the few venture funds in the U.S. that discovers, vets and invests solely in healthcare startups at the seed funding stage. The fund currently has $85MM+ assets under management (AUM) across two funds, and in less than four years has invested into 45 healthcare companies across the U.S., Canada, Europe and Singapore. Of those companies, 15 are Fund II investments. One Fund II exit has already taken place, at an accelerated pace, with Carbon Health acquiring Alertive in October 2021.

What You Should Know:

– Nuance Communications, Inc. launched an AI-powered patient engagement virtual assistant platform to transform omnichannel digital experiences for patients.

– Healthcare provider organizations can now deploy a single, common cloud-based platform to support their entire patient journey across engagement channels using Nuance’s market-leading Intelligent Engagement AI technology

– The launch comes as patients increasingly expect the same level of engaging experiences from healthcare organizations that they have with consumer brands.

Nuance Communications, Inc., today launched an AI-powered patient engagement virtual assistant platform to transform voice and digital experiences across the patient journey. The platform combines Nuance’s decades of healthcare expertise and its award-winning AI technology trusted by consumer brands like H&M, Rakuten and Best Buy. It works by integrating and extending Nuance’s EHR, CRM and Patient Access Center systems to enable healthcare provider organizations to modernize their “digital front door” and improve clinical care experiences.

Holistic Approach to Healthcare’s New Digital Front Door

Patients are demanding the same conveniences from healthcare organizations that they enjoy from major consumer brands. A recent survey reveals that consumers are ready for digital changes such as telemedicine options (44%), digital forms and communication (41%), and touchless check-in (37%). What’s more, 68% value a customized patient experience. In fact, a poor digital health experience caused more than a quarter of patients to change medical providers in 2020 — up 40 percent from 2019.

“Our new omnichannel Patient Engagement Virtual Assistant Platform takes a holistic approach to powering healthcare’s new digital front door, overcoming the shortcomings and inconsistencies of partial point solutions,” said Peter Durlach, Senior Vice President, Strategy and New Business Development, Nuance. “By marrying the capabilities of our healthcare experience and the proven omnichannel customer engagement technology trusted by Fortune 100 companies worldwide, we can help address the urgent need of providers and patients alike to transform access to, and delivery of, care in the modern age of digital medicine.”

– TransUnion and VisitPay announce a partnership that aims to improve the patient experience while maximizing revenue for healthcare providers.

– Together, TransUnion Healthcare and VisitPay will improve the patient’s financial journey by providing an end-to-end patient payment experience, linking estimation with back-end billing and creating a data-driven feedback loop for providers.

TransUnion announced a partnership with VisitPay, an online patient financial engagement, and revenue recovery platform. The partnership aims to redefine the revenue cycle category by bringing together technologies from two market leaders to create a comprehensive solution for healthcare providers.

Improving Patient Financial Journey Through End-to-End Patient Payment Experience

In partnership with VisitPay, TransUnion Healthcare’s leading Revenue Protection® solutions will now extend beyond government and commercial insurance into patient payments – further improving the patient experience while maximizing provider revenue. Together, TransUnion Healthcare and VisitPay will improve the patient financial journey by providing an end-to-end patient payment experience, linking estimation with back-end billing and creating a data-driven feedback loop for providers to continually improve estimate accuracy, financial performance and patient satisfaction. Patients will be empowered with better information regarding their healthcare costs and be able to select a personalized payment option that best meets their unique needs.

In addition to offering VisitPay as a standalone platform, TransUnion Healthcare will be integrating its industry-leading patient access solutions with VisitPay’s.

Why It Matters

“As we explored the patient financial experience market it became clear that VisitPay was the best partner to complement TransUnion’s comprehensive revenue protection solutions,” said Dave Wojczynski, president of TransUnion Healthcare. “They engage patients to make the billing process understandable and easy to navigate. With our commitment to create a positive patient experience, it’s a natural next step for both companies to expand our reach in order to support healthcare consumers in a new way and offer a comprehensive solution to providers. Further, TransUnion will provide tools to help hospitals convert earned revenue into cash at all stages of the revenue cycle, and from all payment sources.”

TransUnion Partners with VisitPay to Extend Leading Healthcare Revenue Protection® Solutions into Patient Payments – VisitPay

– GE Healthcare awarded Food and Drug Administration’s 510(k) clearance of Critical Care Suite, an industry-first collection of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms embedded on a mobile X-ray device.

– Algorithms help radiologists prioritize critical cases with a suspected pneumothorax – a type of collapsed lung – by immediately flagging critical cases to radiologists for triage, which could drastically cut the average review time from up to eight hours.

– Critical Care Suite offers automated AI quality check features that detect acquisition errors, flagging images for technologist review and allowing them to make corrections before they go to radiologists for review.

GE Healthcare announced the Food and Drug Administration’s 510(k) clearance of Critical Care Suite, a collection of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms embedded on a mobile X-ray device. Built-in collaboration with UC San Francisco (UCSF), using GE Healthcare’s Edison platform, the AI algorithms help to reduce the turn-around time it can take for radiologists to review a suspected pneumothorax, a type of collapsed lung. Additional partners in the development of Critical Care Suite include St. Luke’s University Health Network, Humber River Hospital, and CARING – Mahajan Imaging – India.

X-Rays Just Got Smarter: Cutting The Average Review From Up to 8 Hours

A prioritized “STAT” X-ray can sit waiting for up to eight hours for a radiologist’s review1. However, when a patient is scanned on a device with Critical Care Suite, the system automatically analyzes the images by simultaneously searching for a pneumothorax. If a pneumothorax is suspected, an alert – along with the original chest X-ray – is sent directly to the radiologist for review via picture archiving and communication systems (PACS).

The technologist also receives a subsequent on-device notification to give awareness of the prioritized cases. Quality-focused AI algorithms simultaneously analyze and flag protocol and field of view errors, as well as auto, rotate the images on-device. Critical Care Suite and the quality algorithms were developed using GE Healthcare’s Edison platform – which helps deploy AI algorithms quickly and securely – and deployed on the company’s Optima XR240amx system.

“X-ray – the world’s oldest form of medical imaging – just got a whole lot smarter, and soon, the rest of our offerings will too,” says Kieran Murphy, President & CEO, GE Healthcare. “GE Healthcare is leading the way in the creation of AI applications for diagnostic imaging and taking what was once a promise and turning it into a reality. By integrating AI into every aspect of care, we will ultimately improve patient outcomes, reduce waste and inefficiencies, and eliminate costly errors. Critical Care Suite is just the beginning.”

Benefits of Embedded Critical Care Suite for Radiologists & Technologists

Additionally, embedding Critical Care Suite on-device offers several benefits to radiologists and technologists. For critical findings, GE Healthcare’s algorithms are a fast and reliable way to ensure AI results are generated within seconds of image acquisition, without any dependency on connectivity or transfer speeds to produce the AI results.

These results are then sent to the radiologist at the same time that the device sends the original diagnostic image, ensuring no additional processing delay. Also, automatically running quality checks on-device integrates them into the technologist’s standard workflow and enables technologist actions – such as rejections or reprocessing – to occur at the patient’s bedside and before the images are sent to PACS.

“Currently, 62 percent of exams are marked ‘STAT’ or for urgent reading1, but they aren’t all critical. This creates a delay in turnaround for truly critical patients, which can be a serious issue,” adds Jie Xue, President & CEO, X-ray, GE Healthcare. “Not only does Critical Care Suite flag images with a suspected pneumothorax with impressive accuracy3 and enable radiologists to prioritize those cases immediately, but it also makes AI accessible. Our embedded AI algorithms offer hospitals an opportunity to try AI without making investments into additional IT infrastructure, security assessments or cybersecurity precautions for routing images offsite.”

GE Healthcare’s Edison Offering

GE Healthcare’s Edison offering comprises applications and smart devices built using the Edison platform. The platform uses an extensive catalog of healthcare-specific developer services to enable both GE developers and select strategic partners to design, develop, manage, secure and distribute advanced applications, services, and AI algorithms quickly. Edison integrates and assimilates data from multiple sources, applying analytics and AI to not only transform data but provide actionable insights that can be deployed on medical devices, via the cloud or at the edge of the device.

Cerner announced today that Julie Wilson, Chief People Officer, is retiring effective June 30, 2019. Julie has spent the past 24 years with Cerner and the last 16 in this executive role. Julie initially joined Cerner in 1990 working in line with sales teams to create client contracts.

After a brief departure to help launch a startup company, she returned to hold a variety of roles within human resources, including direct management of recruiting, human resources consulting services, associate services, and Cerner’s properties and facilities group.

In 2003, she assumed the role of chief people officer and was promoted to executive vice president in 2013.  Since becoming chief people officer in 2003, Cerner’s workforce has grown over 600 percent.

“It has been a privilege working for Cerner these past 24 years,” said Wilson. “More than two decades have flown by and it’s been an incredible journey. I will always cherish the learnings, experiences, and relationships.

 “Julie has done a great job as chief people officer and been a key contributor to the company’s growth for more than two decades,” said Brent Shafer, chairman, and CEO, Cerner. “Under Julie’s direction the past 16 years, our team of associates has grown by more than 600%. Among her many accomplishments was Julie’s key role in leading our hiring efforts through phases of intense competition for talent, particularly during Cerner’s hyper-growth phase.”

“Julie has been a visible leader, champion of our internal culture and Cerner ambassador,” said Shafer. “On behalf of all Cerner associates, I wish her the best in her future endeavors.”

Cerner has started an executive search process for a successor.

Stanford University announced it is opening the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) with the mission to advance artificial intelligence (AI) research, education, policy, and practice to improve the human condition. The institute will work closely with companies across sectors, including technology, financial services, health care, and manufacturing, to create a community of advocates and partners at the highest level. 

Formally launched at a symposium on Monday, Stanford HAI opening featured speakers such as Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates and California Governor Gavin Newsom, as well as leading experts Kate Crawford of NYU, Jeff Dean of Google, Demis Hassabis of DeepMind, Alison Gopnik of UC Berkeley, Reid Hoffman of Greylock Partners and Eric Horvitz of Microsoft Research. 

HAI Faculty Team

The institute will be led by John Etchemendy, professor of philosophy and former Stanford University provost, and Fei-Fei Li, professor of computer science and former director of the Stanford AI Lab. More than 200 participating faculties from all seven schools at the university with plans to
 to hire at least 20 new faculties, including 10 junior fellows, from across fields spanning humanities, engineering, medicine, the arts or the basic sciences, with a particular interest in those working at the intersection of disciplines. It will also house research fellows, convene groups of professionals to solve critical issues to humanity and distribute funding to spur novel research directions.

In addition, the institute will partner with organizations including AI4All, AI100, AI Index, Center for AI Safety and the Center for the Study of Language and Information. HAI, along with a new Data Science Institute, will anchor a planned 200,000-square-foot building that is intended to serve as a rallying point and catalyst for interdisciplinary collaboration.

Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI Areas of Focus

HAI will have three areas of focus:

Human Impact: focuses on how AI performs in practice, and guide and shape the way AI interacts with humans, their vital social structures and institutions, and the international order.

Scholarly research is needed to measure and manage a host of critical issues, including the extent to which algorithms introduce, compound, or mitigate business risk or bias; a “responsibility gap” between decisions made by machines and people; the use of AI for surveillance, population control, and waging war; and the impact of AI on industry structure, labor markets, economic growth, and trade across nations.  Sample research projects include Correcting Gender and Ethnic Biases in AI Algorithms and The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Perceptions on Humanhood.

Augment Human Capabilities: Seeks to develop new human-centered design methods and tools so that AI agents and applications are designed and created with the ability to communicate with, collaborate with, and augment people more effectively, and to make their work better and more enjoyable.  Sample research projects include Dynamic Artificial Intelligence-Therapy for Autism on Google and Learning Hepatic Feedback for Motion Feedback.

Intelligence: Current AI systems lack flexibility and contextual understanding, and resist explanation in human-comprehensible terms. To create a machine-assisted — yet human-centered — world, we must develop the next generation of AI techniques that overcome the limitations of current algorithms, expands the class of problems that can be addressed, and complements human cognitive and analytic styles. Tackling these challenges on both the theoretical and practical levels requires substantial fundamental research.  Sample research projects include Adversarial Example for Humans and Free Exploration in Human-Centered AI Systems.

Milestones to Date

The institute has already provided support to roughly 55 interdisciplinary research teams across all seven schools at Stanford, including a project to assist the resettlement of refugees; a system to improve healthcare delivery in hospital intensive care units; and a study of the impact of autonomous vehicles on social governance and infrastructure. A diverse class of fellows from fields such as engineering, journalism, philosophy and security will begin later this year, and faculty searches are underway.

“AI is no longer just a technical field,” she said. “If we’re going to make the best decisions for our collective future, we need technologists, business leaders, educators, policy makers, journalists and other parts of society to be versed in AI, and to contribute their perspectives. Stanford’s depth of expertise across academic disciplines combined with a rich history of collaboration with experts and stakeholders from around the world make it an ideal platform for this institute,” said Fei-Fei Li, professor of computer science and former director of the Stanford AI Lab.

Artemis Health, a Utah-based benefits data analytics company has raised $25 million in Series C funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners with Maverick Ventures, F-Prime, Hearst Health Ventures, and Rose Park Advisors. The company plans to use the latest round of funding to further expand and scale its platform and services to help employers get the most from their healthcare spending.

Artemis Health: Actionable Insights from Benefits Data

The cost of healthcare is skyrocketing, but few in the industry have the tools they need to address it. Since nearly 60% of Americans get their healthcare benefits through their jobs, employers need a solution to reduce wasteful spending and improve the quality of care.

To resolve this, Artemis Health was founded in 2013 with the mission of  providing self-insured employers with insights into employee benefits data to help them reduce wasteful spending and provide effective, affordable health and wellness coverage for employees. Artemis Platform gives human resources professionals the insights, data, and analytic support they need to make data-driven decisions about employee benefits. Artemis clients use their benefits data to help employees lead healthier lives; for example, they’re eliminating wasted prescription spending, tracking the success of wellness programs, and finding gaps in care or coverage.

Artemis Health for Employers

Artemis Health includes proprietary data models and clinical experts to help employers identify the dollars left on the table including comparing data feeds like medical, prescription, eligibility, wellness, biometrics, dental, and more. Users can keep an eye on utilization and member trends that lead to inefficient spending and allow Artemis to communicate insights to vendors help them better plan messages and improve outcomes.

Artemis Health for Advisors

Artemis Health gives benefits professionals the tools they need to find insights and propose innovative solutions to their clients. The Artemis Platform saves advisors time and headaches, giving them easy access to the data they need to answer their clients’ toughest benefits questions. Advisors can utilize benchmarking data, plus filters and tools to help them segment member groups, find out how they compare, and track their progress over time.

Recent Traction/Milestones

2018 saw tremendous growth for Artemis Health, including doubling the employee count, adding new functionality to the platform, and creating a next-generation data management system. The Artemis Platform now improves the lives of over 4 million employees and their families who receive benefits through our employer and broker customers.

“Employers are uniquely positioned to fix healthcare in the United States by optimizing their health benefits in the best interest of their employees. Artemis Health’s mission is to make it easy for them to leverage the data created by their benefits programs to do exactly that. Some of the most forward-thinking employers in the country trust us as their partner, and we’re thrilled that Bessemer Venture Partners, one of the most savvy investors in the world, is throwing their weight behind our mission as well,” said Grant Gordon, CEO and co-founder of Artemis Health. “Bessemer has a long track record of funding companies that succeed in solving on huge challenges, and their investment in Artemis Health is great validation of not only our mission, but also the progress we’ve made in accomplishing it. This new capital and Bessemer’s expertise will help us push the boundaries of what’s possible with data and accelerate our growth and positive impact on healthcare.”

Hackensack Meridian Health, today announced it has invested in Pillo, an AI-powered home care robot companion that empowers patients to better manage their health at home, connecting them to caregivers and family members. The investment marks the first product funded through Hackensack Meridian Health’s $25 million innovation program to support the improvement of health care delivery. The health network’s novel incubator has vetted many products and strategies to streamline care delivery, reduce infections, lower hospital readmissions and help patients partner in their care with physicians.

Together, the Pillo Health team and experts from Hackensack Meridian Health will now look to identify novel use cases for the technology within the hospital system and develop a pilot and commercialization roadmap to bring Pillo to market.

Boston-based Pillo Health, a leading in-home digital care management company, created Pillo to serve as a medical hub in the home. Sitting on a table or countertop, Pillo’s AI-powered capabilities are built on the Orbita platform reminds people to take medication at the appropriate time, dispenses their medications, digitally coordinates prescription refills and connects individuals in their homes with physicians, caregivers and loved ones.

One of Pillo Health’s primary goals is to support improvements in medication compliance. Prescription noncompliance adds a huge financial burden to the U.S. healthcare system, costing billions of dollars per year, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hospital admission rates increase for non-adherent patients with chronic illness by up to 69 percent, according to the CDC.

For example, Pillo can alert a family member if an elderly relative misses a medication dose. Pillo can also connect a patient or family member with a physician via videoconference and provide an on-screen display of essential medical data as obtained from the patient’s electronic medical record.

“Innovation is in our DNA at Hackensack Meridian Health,’’ said Andrew Pecora, M.D., president of physician enterprise and chief innovation officer. “This first project funded less than a year after launching our ideation center is a major achievement to improve health care.’’

Innovation Center Background

Hackensack Meridian Health joined with the New Jersey Innovation Institute, an affiliate of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, bringing together engineers, scientists, health care experts and others to launch innovations to improve health care delivery. Hackensack Meridian created an Innovation Center where aspiring companies present their concepts to the center’s ideation group. Those deemed ready are presented to the “Bear’s Den” group of Hackensack Meridian’s  Innovation Center to decide on investment.

The best ideas have reached the Bear’s Den, a panel of experts headed by Dr. Pecora and including venture capitalists, a patent attorney, medical and financial experts, and Hackensack Meridian Health Co-CEOs Robert C. Garrett and John K. Lloyd. Through investments from the $25 million fund, the network will help bring exceptional innovations to market.

Risalto Health, a digital health startup delivering concierge service for musculoskeletal care  with cutting-edge care pathways for patients, has raised $1.5M in seed stage capital from Health Catalyst Capital Management (HCCM). The seed round also included participation from Oxeon Partners. Risalto plans to use the funding to expands its care concierge program to enable superior outcomes and cost savings for patients experiencing back, neck, knee, and hip pain.

Musculoskeletal ailments affect millions of Americans and cause billions in unnecessary spend from employers and health plans. Founded in 2016 with Oxeon’s Venture Studio, Risalto’s care concierge program combines expert algorithm with white glove service and tools for patients entering their musculoskeletal care journey.

“Musculoskeletal care creates a huge burden for patients, payers, and employers alike,” said Daniel Pizzarello, MD, Founder and CEO of Risalto. “Partnering with Health Catalyst Capital will help us move faster in our mission of getting every patient the evidence-based care they deserve. Risalto will do more than just save money — we will help patients heal, resume active lives, and minimize exposure to dangerous pain medication.”

CareCloud, a Miami-based provider of cloud-based practice management and EHR solution for physician practices, today announced the launch of their new eCommerce platform, Breeze Shop. Breeze Shop makes it easier than ever for physician practices to make the products they recommend convenient for their patients to buy. This powerful eCommerce and over-the-counter retail solution enables practices to offer non-prescription products online and at the point of care, and is available at no additional cost as part of the company’s patient experience management solution, Breeze.

Breeze Shop Key Features

As retail giants are making stronger inroads into healthcare, CareCloud is putting that same eCommerce technology into the hands of independent physician practices. Breeze Shop is a fully featured, enterprise-class retail solution that is now part of the company’s Breeze patient experience platform alongside scheduling, check-in, check-out and patient payment workflows. Practices with Breeze are able to set up their online store in a few minutes with a wizard-like store configurator.

CareCloud’s open platform enables consumer purchasing data from Breeze Shop to be integrated in real-time with the core practice management system. Because the shop is available in the same experience and apps that patients are using to schedule appointments, complete their intake, pay balances, or message providers, the convenience, visibility and usage of this new revenue source is unparalleled.

Pricing

The core retail feature set is available at no additional cost to Breeze clients and includes everything a practice needs to sell up to 10 products.  Practices with more than 10 products may purchase Breeze Shop Pro or Breeze Shop Unlimited packages with higher product limits and additional functionalities such as shipment tracking, automatic tax calculations, promotions, inventory tracking, Facebook integration, and automatic abandoned cart recovery.

Patients are able to browse the practice store from the web at home, the Breeze Patient App on their mobile device, or in the office on a tablet or on a Clover point-of-sale device. As with payments for their office services, transactions for products purchased through Breeze Shop are handled through First Data, a global leader in commerce-enabling technology, and integrated in real-time with their practice management system.

On Thursday evening, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced an agreement with Cerner for the VA to use off-the-shelf Cerner solutions, replacing the legacy VistA EHR. The migration to Cerner will provide veterans, transitioning service members and their care providers access to their medical history through a single electronic health record (EHR) system. The deal is expected to cost $10 billion dollars over 10 years years.

Using technology that has been deployed successfully at Department of Defense (DoD) medical facilities and thousands of provider sites globally, Cerner plans to provide seamless care across the VA’s high-performing integrated network, including VA facilities, community providers and DoD facilities. The system is designed to provide veterans with consistently high-quality health care outcomes, no matter the location or provider.

“We’re honored to have the opportunity to improve the health care experience for our nation’s veterans. The VA has a long history of pioneering health care technology innovation, and we look forward to helping deliver high-quality outcomes across the continuum of care,” said CernerPresident Zane Burke. “My thanks to the administration for selecting Cerner to collaborate in creating seamless care as service members transition from active duty to VA medical centers and community providers. We expect this program to be a positive catalyst for interoperability across the public and private health care sectors, and we look forward to moving quickly with organizations across the industry to deliver on the promise of this mission.”

CipherHealth helps healthcare organizations achieve Quadruple Aim goals through meaningful patient engagement and care team coordination. As healthcare transitions to value-based reimbursement models, effective communication with patients becomes increasingly important to optimize outcomes and improve operational efficiencies across the care continuum. Health systems that partner with CipherHealth in quality of care initiatives have seen a rate of improvement in patient satisfaction (HCAHPS) that is twice the national average.

“We’re excited to partner with JMI and leverage their expertise and industry network to continue to grow and expand,” said Randy Cheung, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CipherHealth. “JMI has a successful track record of supporting high-growth SaaS companies, and we are thrilled that they are joining us on our journey as we accelerate our growth and deliver the most comprehensive and integrated engagement platform available in healthcare.”

The Department of Health and Human Service’s Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), today announced that 1UpHealth is the Stage 2 winner of the “Secure API Server Showdown” Challenge.

Application programming interfaces (APIs) are technology that allow one software program to access the services provided by another software program. The 21st Century Cures Act calls for the development of APIs that do not require “special effort” for developers to access and exchange health information. 1UpHealth builds products for the future of healthcare where value based care, along with patient and provider applications.

The challenge sought to engage the health IT industry to identify Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) servers that reinforce the value of following technical security best practices on an industry-wide scale. These best practices ensure the most widely-accepted and effective measures are taken resulting in a high quality, secure FHIR server, further helping to protect the health information it contains.

To win stage 2, participants were tasked with finding weaknesses in the FHIR server developed by Asymmetrik. 1UpHealth identified ways to strengthen the open source FHIR server, improving the overall security of the server and supporting the sensitive patient data being stored or transmitted.

As a result of this challenge, a unique open source FHIR implementation using JavaScript, Node.js and MongoDB is now available for industry developers to build upon. This implementation meets the security technical requirements as specified in the Argonaut Data Query Implementation Guide Version 1.0.0. The source code is available for public use on GitHub.

Global healthcare cybersecurity spending is expected to exceed over $65 billion dollars over the next five years, according to Black Book’s annual healthcare cybersecurity survey. According to 88 percent of hospital representatives surveyed, IT security budgets have remained level since 2016. As a percentage of IT organizational budgets, cybersecurity has decreased to about three percent of the total annual IT spend.

Budget constraints have encumbered the practice of replacing legacy software and devices, leaving enterprises more susceptible to an attack. “It is becoming increasingly difficult for hospitals to find the dollars to invest in an area that does not produce revenue,” said Doug Brown, founder of Black Book.

Survey Background

The annual cybersecurity survey gathered insights from over 2,464 security professionals from 680 provider organizations to identify gaps, vulnerabilities and deficiencies that persist in keeping hospitals and physicians proverbial sitting ducks for data breaches and cyber attacks.  It also includes fragmented mix of 410 vendors offering data security services, core products and solutions, software, consulting and outsourcing received user feedback including large IT companies, mid and small security vendors and start-ups in the polling period Q3 2017 to Q2 2018.

Rise in Data Breaches

Over 90 percent of healthcare organizations have experienced a data breach since Q3 2016 and nearly 50 percent have had more than five data breaches during the same time-frame.  Not only has the number of attacks increased, more than 180 million records have been stolen since 2015, affecting about one in every 12 healthcare consumers.

The dramatic rise in successful attacks by both criminal and nation-state-backed hackers illustrates how attractive and vulnerable these healthcare enterprises are to exploitation. Despite these wake-up calls, the provider sector remains exceedingly susceptible to ongoing breaches. The survey reveals ninety-six percent of IT professionals agreed with the sentiments that data attackers are outpacing their medical enterprises, holding providers at a disadvantage in responding to vulnerabilities.

Key findings of the report include:

– A third of hospital executives that purchased cybersecurity solutions between 2016 and 2018 report they did so blindly without much vision or discernment.  

– Ninety-two percent of the data security product or service decisions since 2016 were made at the C level and failed to include any users or affected department managers in the cybersecurity purchasing decision.

– Only four percent of organizations had a steering committee to evaluate the impact of the cybersecurity investment.

– Last year’s Black Book cybersecurity survey revealed 84 percent of hospitals were operating without a dedicated security executive.

– As a solution to unsuccessfully recruiting a qualified healthcare chief information security officer, 21 percent of organizations opted for security outsourcing to partners and consultants or selected security-as-a-service options as a stop-gap measure. That shortage of healthcare cybersecurity professionals is forcing a rush to acquire services and outsourcing at a pace five times more than cybersecurity products and software solutions.

– Cybersecurity companies are responding to the labor crunch by offering healthcare providers and hospitals with a growing portfolio of services.

– Fifty-seven percent of IT management respondents report their operations are not aware of the full variety of cybersecurity solution sets that exist, particularly mobile security environments, intrusion detection, attack prevention, forensics and testing.

– Fifty-eight percent of hospitals did not select their current security vendor in advance of a cybersecurity incident.

– Thirty-two percent of healthcare organizations did not scan for vulnerabilities before an attack.

– Sixteen percent of healthcare organizations reported they felt intimidated by a vendor to retain services when the vendor identified a vulnerability or security flaw. “While the intrinsic nature of cybersecurity radiates pressures and urgency, hospitals shouldn’t let this dictate the vendor selection process,” said Brown.

– Sixty percent of healthcare enterprises have not formally identified specific security objectives and requirements in a strategic and tactical plan. Without a clear set of security goals, providers are operating in the dark and it’s impossible to measure results.

– Eighty-three percent of healthcare organization have not had a cybersecurity drill with an incident response process, despite the skyrocketing cases of data breaches in the healthcare industry.

– Only 12 percent of hospitals and nine percent of physician organizations believe that a Q2 2019 assessment of their cybersecurity will show improvement. Twenty-three percent of provider organizations believe their cybersecurity position will worsen, as compared to three percent in other industries.

– In 2018, 24 percent of providers still do not carry out measurable assessments of their cybersecurity status. Of those that did, seven percent used an objective third-party service to benchmark their cybersecurity status, six percent used an objective software solution to benchmark their cybersecurity status and 78 percent self-assessed with their own criteria.

– Twenty-nine percent of respondents currently report they do not have an adequate solution to instantly detect and respond to an organizational attack.

– Seventy-four percent of surveyed CIOs did not evaluate the total cost of ownership (TCO) before making a commitment to sign their current cybersecurity solution or service contract. Eighty-nine percent reported they bought their cybersecurity solution to be compliant, not necessarily to reduce risk when the IT decision was made.

Healthcare organizations are hyper-focused on patient care and reimbursement. “Cybersecurity risks are not on the forefront of executives’ minds,” said Brown. “Medical and financial leaders also wield more influence over organizational budgets making it difficult for IT management to implement needed cybersecurity practices despite the existing environment.”

Electronic patient record interoperability in NHS England is benefiting patient care but facing substantial barriers, according to a new KLAS report. NHS England’s Five-Year Forward View and the National Information Board’s response have thrust interoperable systems into the national spotlight in England, including the development of a Local Health and Care Record Exemplar program. This report represents KLAS’ first look at interoperability within the NHS.

The report, NHS Interoperability 2018: Data-Sharing Efforts, Obstacles, and Progress in England focuses on measuring the ability of care records and case management systems to receive outside patient data and present it to clinicians,  not their ability to transmit such information.

KLAS notes in its research that while the transmission of data is vital to interoperability, it does not guarantee that the data is being used on the other end (this is one of the major challenges with the “meaningful use” program in the United States—it focuses on the outbound transmission of data rather than the ability to ingest and make sense of incoming data).

NHS Data Sharing

The KLAS report reveals that a substantial amount of patient data is being shared within the NHS, mostly via 61 local shared records across England. However, much of this sharing is limited in breadth and cumbersome in nature since it falls outside of the clinician workflow. These factors prevent ideal interoperability—defined as consistent access to needed outside patient information in an easily located and viewable place within the care record/EPR.

Barriers to NHS Interoperability in England

The report identifies 3 core types of barriers to NHS interoperability in England (market, supplier and internal barriers):

1. Market barriers include insufficient technical and clinical standards, lack of patient education or willingness to share, lack of clarity on information governance, and lack of understanding of disparate care settings among care.

2. Supplier barriers include unwillingness to enable data sharing, lack of supplier resources and/or expertise, poor quality or missing interoperability tools (e.g., inability to share structured data), pricing model, and inability to accurately match patient records.

3. Internal barriers include lack of strategy or interoperability roadmap, lack of resources/expertise, internal data-sharing difficulties, clinician unwillingness to adopt tools, and unwillingness to share data.

“While people may be happy with the solutions [for interoperability] today, consulting the solution road map will allow them to see if their vendors are moving towards the interoperability standards needed to support future requirements,” said Rachel Dunscombe, CIO at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust in the report.   

Background/Methodology

The data in this report comes exclusively from a supplemental evaluation developed in conjunction with CIOs, CCIOs, and other health and care leaders within the NHS in England and was collected over the latter half of 2017 and the beginning of 2018. The data in this report reflects the insights into care records and interoperability of 141 individuals from different organizations/roles within the NHS across 149 unique care settings and numerous care records/EPRs.