Digital Health Technology Trends from SXSW

Great graphic that HITConsultant posted in this update SXSW Health Tech Trends

Health and fitness apps, smart devices and connected products are making us more aware of our own health—and more active participants in our efforts to stay healthy. At the same time, health providers are looking to technology for smarter ways to deliver quality care, whether we are in the hospital or at home.

• Wearable technology - 80% of consumers would benefit from the use of wearable technology
• Connected devices - Using remote monitoring to reduces readmissions
• EHRs - 71% of physicians now use EHRs and 85% meeting current meaningful standards
• Telehealth 70% patients comfortable communicating with their doctor using digital technology vs hauling themselves in to the officer
• Predictive analytics - More than 80% of standard tasks (BP, glucose etc) and even complex testing (e.g. genomics) will change the way we deliver care as described by Eric Topol​ in "The Patient Will See You Now"
• Population health management - 70% of providers reporting patient care benefits from population health initiatives
• mHealth apps - 71% of want providers to use mobile apps not least of because they do...going where everyone else is
• Data security - rightly ranked as a major issue among consumers given the ongoing debacle of healthcare related security breaches (Premera and Anthem Blue Cross, the HHS wall of shame)
• Partnerships - increasing healthcare companies entering new healthcare partnership - Tenet seem to be the latest
• Cloud-based technology - importantly seen in conjunction with "Data Security" expect this to grow at a staggering 20% rate and heading to $5.4 billion in annual revenue.

Security, Security, #Security.....Encrypt your Drives by Default #HIT #hcsm #privacy

I was reminded of there Jerry Maguire movie clip when I read the latest in a long line of security breach stories - this one emanating from Canada where this group is in hot water over a massive 620,000 patient data breach…taking 4 months to notify authorities. Apparently Canada does not have a national Breach notification rule like the US and the public “Wall of Shame"

Canada does not have a federal health data breach notification requirement. But the Canadian provinces have their own rules, including some that mandate notification. Under Alberta's Health Information Act, which was enacted in 2001, the reporting of health data breaches is voluntary, privacy experts say.

 They might want to change that...


In this latest release Medicentres Family Health Care Clinics, a 27-clinic medical group in Western Canada had an unencrypted clinic laptop stolen from one of the clinic's IT consultants.

The laptop contained 620,000 patient names, dates of birth, health card numbers, medical diagnoses and billing codes, officials said.

Here in the US the chart of complaints is depressing


How many more data breaches will we see before everyone understands the need to pay close attention to security.
Encrypting your hard drives for all machines that contain patient information and demanding all staff and consultants and anyone that has access to patient data encrypts their drive and data would have prevented this.