IBM Watson Health adds 5 partners, 2 solutions

September 10, 2015 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/pillar.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Breaking News  IBM Watson Health not only cut the ribbon on their new global HQ on Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts (and on their new General Manager Deborah DeSanzo), they also announced two more data crunching power platforms and five new partners.

  • The IBM Watson Health Cloud for Life Sciences is designed to help life science companies fast track the deployment of a GxP compliant infrastructure and applications while adhering to stringent requirements for hosting, accessing and sharing regulated data.
  • The IBM Watson Care Manager is a population health solution that integrates Watson Health, Apple ResearchKit and Apple HealthKit into a personalized patient engagement program to improve individual health outcomes.

The five new partners are Boston Children’s Hospital (pediatrics), Columbia University (Pathology & Cell Biology and Systems Biology), ICON plc (pharma clinical trial matching–Ireland), Sage Bionetworks (Open Biomedical Research Platform) and Teva Pharmaceuticals (treatments for chronic conditions–Israel). They join CVS Health, Medtronic and Yale University. On opening day, the new headquarters also hosted demonstrations by health ecosystem partners Best Doctors, Modernizing Medicine, Pathway Genomics, Socrates and Welltok. Release (PDF)

Previously in TTA on IBM Watson Health: their big announcement at HIMSS 15 and we do wonder about their work with the VA on clinical reasoning and mental health.

Fitbit accurate in measuring energy expenditure: AHA presentation

March 5, 2015 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/acitivity-trackers_wellocracy_chealth-blog-kvedar.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]The current judgment on commercial fitness monitors is that they are worthwhile directionally, but accurate–not so much [TTA 10 May 14]. This may be changing, albeit on a specific, non-clinical measurement. A Columbia University Medical Center (New York, NY) team tested the Fitbit One and Fitbit Flex for tracking energy expenditure during treadmill walking and running exercise, versus energy expenditure assessed by indirect calorimetry, and found themto be valid and reliable devices. Correlation between measurements was 0.95 – 0.97. These devices were interestingly placed on wrists and hips; perhaps a user can enlighten me.  Poster presentation/Abstract MP11 published in the American Heart Association’s journal, Circulation.

Risky hospital business: happy device hacking, insider data breaches

May 10, 2014 | by

A heap of ‘insanely easy’ hospital hacking–but no harm done: Essentia Health’s head of information security, Scott Erven, set his team to work–with management approval–on hacking practically every internal device and system over two years, and found that most were ‘insanely easy’ to hack. They successfully hacked drug infusion pumps, EHRs, Bluetooth-enabled defibrillators, surgery robots, CT scanners, networked refrigerator temperature settings and X-ray machines with potentially disastrous results. Where the common security holes are in networked equipment: lack of authentication, weak passwords, embedded web services and the list goes on. Mr Erven presented this at an industry meeting in April, without naming brands or devices as he’s still trying to fix them. Essentia Health operates about 100 facilities, including clinics, hospitals and pharmacies, in Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Idaho–and should receive much credit for facilitating this study. This is the environment into which we will be plonking tons of patient information in PHRs and telehealth monitoring. Pass the painkillers. Summary in HealthIT Outcomes, much more essential detail in Wired worth the read.

The ‘Maybe No One Will Notice’ Data Breach:  The recent incident at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center in Worcester illustrates the difficulty that even academic medical centers have with detecting data security breaches, particularly when they are small, sneaky, over time and by an insider. UMass uncovered a series of low-profile breaches by a former employee who helped himself to patient information such as name, address, date of birth and Social Security number–and may have used it to open up credit card and mobile phone accounts. Only four records appear to have been misused in this way, but at least 2,400 records were estimated to be improperly accessed–over 12 years, which made it even more difficult to find. Perhaps the employee was funding retirement? HealthcareInfoSecurity

The ‘Ambulance Chaser’ Data Breach: What better way for lawyers and shady outpatient clinics to get accident patients fresh from the ER (ED), than to have someone on the inside feeding them patient information? (more…)