Becker's Hospital Review

48 CIO / HEALTH IT Almost half of physicians 'aren't aware' of what blockchain is By Jessica Kim Cohen D espite recent buzz about blockchain's potential to improve healthcare, a sur- vey by SERMO found almost half of physicians aren't aware of the technology. Industry and government stakeholders have supported efforts to use blockchain, a perma- nent and shared ledger of online transactions or exchanges, to streamline healthcare operations. Unlike a traditional database that is centrally located and maintained by one party, a block- chain record is shared among a network of us- ers. In January, the National Institute of Standards and Technology suggested blockchain may support healthcare record-keeping processes by centralizing patient data across the care con- tinuum. Audit and consulting firm Deloitte re- leased a report in 2017 on blockchain's potential to improve data interoperability, supply chain operations and revenue cycle management in hospitals. Still, some industry experts have accused block- chain developers of promoting a technology that's yet to identify a successful use case. When asked to select the most overhyped IT trends — those unlikely to make a "tangible, positive" impact on healthcare within the next two years — 48 percent of hospital CIOs cited blockchain, according to a recent Impact Advisors survey. To assess healthcare providers' attitudes toward the technology, SERMO, a global social net- work for physicians, asked 3,700 of its mem- bers: "Is blockchain technology ready to enter the healthcare world?" However, rather than providing an answer, 49 percent of U.S. respondents and 47 percent of respondents worldwide reported they were "not aware of this technology." Of the 1,653 U.S. physicians who were famil- iar with the technology, 19 percent indicated blockchain was ready to enter healthcare, com- pared to 25 percent of physicians worldwide. irty-two percent of U.S. physicians and 28 percent of worldwide physicians said block- chain was not ready to enter healthcare. n IBM releases cloud platform for data science, machine learning By Jessica Kim Cohen I BM launched a data science and machine learning platform, dubbed Cloud Private for Data, March 16. Cloud Private for Data is an information architecture platform for collecting, managing and analyzing large amounts of data from sources such as internet of things sensors or mobile devices. With the platform, IBM officials said companies will be able to more quickly prepare data for artificial intelligence and machine learning. The platform's in-memory database is able to ingest and analyze one million events per sec- ond, according to internal company testing conducted in February. IBM officials said Cloud Private for Data is "designed to help companies un- cover previously unobtainable insights from their data," according to a March 16 statement. In particular, the platform is targeted toward companies work- ing on data science and data engineering projects. Cloud Private for Data will initially launch on the IBM Cloud Private platform. IBM plans to roll out Cloud Private for Data to run on all clouds in the future, according to the company statement. n Banner Health under investigation for 2016 cyberattack By Julie Spitzer T he HHS Office for Civil Rights is investigating Phoenix-based Banner Health for its responses to past security assessment activities stemming from a 2016 cyberattack, according to a statement contained in its fis- cal year 2017 financial statement. Banner said it is cooperating with the investigation and expects it could result in negative findings against its information technology security program as well as a fine. However, the health system added it is not possible to estimate how much that fine may be. In late June 2016, Banner learned an attacker infected its computer network with malware, and the authorized user copied nearly 21,000 credit card num- bers stored on its food and beverage outlets at some of its locations. Addi- tionally, attackers potentially accessed Banner servers that stored 3.7 million patients' and providers' personal information. In response to the attack, Banner said it removed the malware, addressed the issues in its network and enhanced its network security. It also notified affect- ed individuals and offered ongoing monitoring to help protect their identi- ties. However, in its financial statement, Banner wrote the OCR determined its initial response to its security assessment was "inadequate." "Although Banner has supplemented its initial responses, Banner anticipates that it may receive negative findings with respect to its information technol- ogy security program, and that a fine may be assessed against Banner," the health system wrote. Nine putative class action lawsuits seeking damages and other remedies for the affected individuals have been filed again Banner and consolidated into one suit that Banner plans to defend "vigorously," according to its financial statement. n

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