On Wednesday, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker joined members of the Massachusetts Digital Health Council to announce a new program to drive the growth of innovative startups in the state, helping them access unique R&D facilities in the state. The announcement was made at Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s PracticePoint research, development and commercialization alliance, the first R&D ‘sandbox’ selected to host startups as part of the program. That facility was the recipient of a
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Healthcare Cybersecurity | Healthcare Data Security | Ransomware | Hospital Security Breaches
Security Vulnerabilities Detected in ICDs: Addressing Ransomware Risk in Medical Devices
Medical device usage is on the rise, and that reality potentially puts people at risk if those gadgets have security flaws. It's crucial for device manufacturers, industry regulators and health practitioners to work together to ensure safety are paramount as adoption rises.Internal health devices are particularly at risk, especially since patients and providers may not immediately notice issues. The people who use or prescribe them assume they'll work as expected and typically don't have ways to
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4 Digital Health Adoption Barriers for Hospitals & Health Systems
Nearly two-thirds of healthcare providers rate themselves as being behind the curve on their digital health adoption initiatives, according to new research from Unisys Corporation. On behalf of Unisys, HIMSS surveyed 220 health IT decision makers/influencers at U.S. hospitals and health systems and asked them to rank their organization based on how they are leveraging digital and mobile technologies to improve the patient experience, lower the cost of care delivery and improve clinician/staff
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EHR Fax Server Error Exposes Thousands of Physician Notes, Medical Records
Thousands of physicians’ notes and medical records were left exposed by a fax server error within Meditab, an all-in-one multi-specialty EHR, Practice Management and Billing software solution, TechCrunch first reports. Dubai-based cybersecurity firm SpiderSilk discovered the unsecured exposed fax server was running an Elasticsearch database with over 6 million records since its creation in March 2018. It is unknown if anyone else discovered the exposed fax server or how long the data was
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Hackers in Healthcare: What Damage Could They Do With Your Medical Data?
Conversa Health’s Scott Anderson provides a brief take on the state of data security in healthcare.The wave that is big-data doesn’t appear to be cresting in healthcare anytime soon, and unfortunately, neither are the threats waged against it. Hijacking and hacking into personal health information (PHI) has become a growing trend that’s here to stay. So, the question remains: what should be done about it?The last couple of years have unveiled a fair share of data breaches in healthcare: in 2017,
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Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) Startup Cynerio Raises $7M to Expand Fraud Platform in U.S.
Cynerio, a New York-based provider of medical device and Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) security selections, today announced it has raised $7 million in funding from investors Accelmed, RDC; and MTIP. The company will use the funding to help fuel growth in North America for its 100% healthcare focused cybersecurity platform.Founded in 2017, Cynerio’s IoMT fraud detection platform analyzes the medical workflows in the IoMT ecosystem, to automatically discover all the entities on the network,
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BlackBerry Named HIMSS Analytics Certified Consultant to Guides Organizations Through Stages of INFRAM
Today, BlackBerry announced it has become a HIMSS Analytics Certified Consultant to guide healthcare organizations through the stages of the Infrastructure Adoption Model (INFRAM), as well as ERAM. Professionally trained on the INFRAM, BlackBerry’s cybersecurity experts can assess a healthcare organization’s infrastructure architecture and help them achieve their desired INFRAM score.Understanding Infrastructure Adoption Model (INFRAM)Similar to the HIMSS Analytics Electronic Medical Record
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Top 10 Challenges, Issues and Opportunities for Healthcare Executives in 2019
After 2.5 days of thought leadership discussions during its 30th Anniversary Annual Forum, executive participants of the HealthCare Executive Group (HCEG) voted on and ranked the 2019 HCEG Top 10 critical challenges, issues and opportunities they expect to face in their organizations in the coming year. Background/MethodologyThe rankings were developed in partnership with Change Healthcare and have been published for the last seven years. Executives from the payer, provider, and technology
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How Blockchain Technology Could Help Prevent Medical Fraud
Most people know blockchain as the transaction ledger associated with cryptocurrency transactions. However, evidence suggests a specific use for it that applies to health professionals — reducing medical fraud. Blockchain’s Innate Characteristics May Cut Down on FraudIndividuals think blockchain shows promise for minimizing fraud in medicine because of some of the features it offers. For example, many fraudulent practices in the health industry and elsewhere begin when people manipulate or
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Protecting Medical Device Security in the Age of Ransomware
From medication pumps to pacemakers, people depend on lifesaving devices to live their healthiest possible lives and manage chronic ailments. Many of those patients likely hear about cybercriminals orchestrating massive data breaches, and might get concerned about one of those incidents compromising their information.However, they probably haven’t considered the hackers might target the devices in their bodies or the ones they otherwise use for better well-being.Hospitals Must Pay Attention to
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