National Health IT Week was founded by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society and the Institute for e-Health Policy in 2006 as a way to raise awareness for the necessity of health IT in hospitals across the nation. This year, health IT week falls Oct. 2-6 and seeks to celebrate the evolution of and advancements in health IT for providing better care and promoting health and wellness.
With a number of events hosted across the country, healthcare professionals have many opportunities to join in the festivities. If they can't make any national events, here are 10 ways HIMSS recommends healthcare professionals partake in health IT week from their hometown.
To participate in National Health IT Week, Becker's Hospital Review spoke with executives at Plano, Texas-based NTT DATA Services Healthcare & Life Sciences on data mining and cloud usage in healthcare.
Here are five thoughts to prepare for the week ahead.
Question: What is data mining and how can it improve patient care outcomes?
Saurabh Swarup, global solution leader, analytics: Data mining includes capabilities such as predictive analytics, machine learning and, increasingly, artificial intelligence. In the clinical context, the objective is to derive insights from data and apply those to clinical decision-making to improve patient care and outcomes. Data mining can help identify patterns from data that are often not obvious to the clinician. Some of the key applications of data mining are early identification of patients in the intensive care unit who are at high risk of sepsis or septic shock, or patients at high risk of hospital-acquired infections and high likelihood of readmission.
Q: What is the best approach to analytics for healthcare executives?
SS: Often healthcare executives think they need to bring all data together in an integrated and standardized system before applying analytics. This can lead to long implementation cycles, diminished return on investment, and, ultimately, disillusionment. A better approach is to start small with a few high value use cases, build a groundswell of support and address data standardization challenges in manageable chunks. Building a strong framework for data governance and clinical performance improvement is key to the success of the program
Q: What is beneficial about cloud storage?
Carrick Carpenter, vice president of provider solutions: The general benefits of cloud are well-documented, with the evidence backing those benefits increasing each day. The business agility cloud provides is often cited, in particular the rapid implementation times that allow technology teams to nimbly respond to changing business needs. Credible cloud vendors have simplified the use of cloud storage for analytics, collaboration, AI or machine learning, big data, data bunkering and other use cases. Vendors have also developed specific tools that can be overlaid on cloud storage to help businesses meet new or changing business objectives.
Q: What steps do you recommend hospitals take when transitioning to cloud storage?
CC: Cloud vendors usually offer a range of storage tiers, from lightning-fast response times to slower response times. From a pure "steps" perspective here are a few suggestions: First, understand your cloud storage options by vendor. In general, faster response is more expensive, while slower response is less expensive. Second, understand the performance requirements of your applications and use cases for cloud storage. Third, put a plan together that matches the application characteristics with the correct storage performance.
Q: How can they ensure patient privacy?
SS: Patient privacy continues to be a concern. Hospital executives have to think innovatively about leveraging the value of their data assets while maintaining patient privacy. De-identification can help reduce risk, but may also reduce the analytic value of data. Ultimately patient privacy has to be addressed through proper governance and procedures.
CC: Cybersecurity is a consideration for any IT infrastructure, whether it is for storage or [computers], and whether it is on-premise or in the cloud. This is a fundamental reality of our environment. Having said this, for storage specifically, you (or your cloud vendor) must understand exactly how to configure cloud storage for regulatory adherence and protection. As an example, data encryption of protected health information must be factored into storage design. You should be aware of all costs, whether those costs are monetary or in performance. You need to address separation of customer data, where required, through cloud technologies such as virtual private clouds. Last, ensure there is a "cloud ready" business continuity and backup plan. Cloud vendors allow for replication across zones/regions, but application-specific continuity, as well as point-in-time copies, are important as well. Ultimately, the considerations for cloud storage are not materially different from on-premise storage. The good news is credible cloud vendors and their associated partners have well-funded, proven solutions for addressing cybersecurity and regulatory requirements. Ultimately, security in the cloud is often better than security on-premise because cloud vendors recognize security is a core business competency and their investments in technology and people reflect this.
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October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month: Top 15 cybersecurity stories so far in 2017
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