Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/610563
They are happening with terrifying frequency, and I see little evidence that our industry as a whole is getting ahead of this issue. Although HIPAA includes privacy and security provisions to protect personal health information, human error and criminal activity continue to present huge challenges for healthcare institu- tions. Our industry seems custom-made to create vulnerabilities. We have many different systems that need to interact, and these systems can be extremely complex. They also have many different access points with the potential to be easily compromised — think a lost or mis- placed laptop. To make matters worse, many vendors continue to offer products that don't even meet minimal security standards. It all adds up to big trouble. There are good reasons to digitize patient health records, but in doing so we are exposing vast amounts of person- al data to misuse, unless we find better ways to safeguard this data. Governments alone can't legislate a fix, although setting minimum stan- dards may help a bit. Patients, whenever possible, need to take their business to organizations that have committed sufficient resources — both in terms of expertise and funding — to ensuring that confidential data remains secure. Craig Richardville Senior Vice President and CIO of Carolinas HealthCare System (Charlotte, N.C.) Highs: First of all, the increased focus on healthcare becoming a digital industry and the increasing ability to be interop- erable. The increasing ability to interact with patients — our consumers — like they have done in the retail and financial industries has been huge this year. For example, the increased use of apps to engage with patients has heightened our focus and ability to connect with people. Second, I think getting ICD-10 out of the way has been a big positive. ICD-10 has been available for 25 years and delayed twice. ICD-11 is expected to be ready in 2017 or 2018. Everyone has been ready, now we have actually executed the move and joined the rest of the world. Now, we can focus on other things that will allow us to improve deliv- ery of care. Another upside is meaningful use Stage 2 and the relaxing of some re- quirements. The government listened to us, making regulations more accommo- dating and realistic for us. Even though it was late in its release, it was favorable and consistent with what people expect- ed. Lows: One of the lows is our inability to unique- ly identify our patients. We all feel the need to balance this need with privacy, but we need a method to uniquely iden- tify our patients. We use a palm-based scanner. It is cost-effective, and we are above the industry standard for duplicate records. Another downside is the MU Stage 3 timeline. It has not been delayed. We should have been able to enhance Stage 2 and prepare more for Stage 3. Some in the industry will not be able to achieve these goals and expectations. The timeline will be tight, and it may force healthcare organizations to do what will not be cost-effective. Cybertheft in healthcare is lucrative, and this threat continues to rise. We need a better way to protect our data. We need more open communication with patients and providers with more protection from external threats. The in- dustry is focusing more on cybersecurity, which is a positive. Rick Schooler CIO of Orlando (Fla.) Health Highs: ICD-10 has been the elephant in the room. From the systems side, we have experienced limited problems. Like many organizations, we put a lot of work into preparing for ICD-10 over the past few years. We are glad Oct. 1 has come as we are now well into documenting and coding in ICD-10. We, like others, have also had success with meaningful use Stage 2. Achieving Stage 2 is certainly a high point, but compliance with Stage 3 will be a challenge even for the best of orga- nizations. At any given time, we have in excess of 100 projects in flight. But when con- sidering our top-of-mind priorities, EMR and revenue cycle integration, health information exchange, clinical integra- tion, "all things mobile" and advanced business intelligence and analytics have been key areas of focus. As recent high- lights for us, we achieved valuable de- ployment of our dbMotion HIE platform along with continued progress across our various analytics and business intelli- gence endeavors. In particular, our use of VisiQuate's revenue analytics, Healthcare Dataworks' enterprise data warehouse and Phytel's population health platforms has excelled. Overall, it seems the indus- try is in a positive momentum across all of these important areas. We are also encouraged with what is happening in the cloud. There con- tinues to be more viable, cost-effective options for moving legacy systems and infrastructure out of our data centers to Internet-based services in the cloud. There is always a certain amount of risk with any cloud offering, but vendors are now effectively addressing the related challenges. Overall, adoption of cloud services and technologies continues to accelerate. Lows: As providers, we are facing the reality of continued reimbursement pressure, which as in years past is driving organi- zations to curtail IT spend. This not only chokes off investment in new or expand- ed technologies, but also reduces an organization's ability to support, maintain and refresh its installed base of systems. Consequently, tough choices are being made between buying new technology and maintaining the old. As pressure mounts to grow IT while maintaining up- to-date and reliable systems, we face a fundamental quandary that can jeopar- dize the stability and effectiveness of our IT platforms and organizations. As such, it boils down to doing more with the same (or less) with increased emphasis on IT governance and close monitoring of the IT spend. The demand for IT is not slow- ing down, and as such CIOs and their executive colleagues are challenged as never before. Recruiting and retention of good people also remains a significant chal- lenge in many markets. We must come to accept and understand the fact that we are competing for IT professionals across 30 2015 YEAR REVIEW in