LIVI telemedicine app expands availability to 1.85 million patients with GPs in Birmingham, Shropshire, Northamptonshire, Southeast

August 14, 2019 | by

The LIVI telemedicine app, which made news last year with UK partnerships in Surrey and Northwest England last year, has expanded to GP practices in Birmingham, Shropshire, Northamptonshire, and locations in the Southeast, as well as additional practices in Surrey. The Northampton General Practice Alliance and the Alliance for Better Care are among the federations partnering with LIVI.

LIVI offers NHS and private services for video consults with a GP. Patients can also access medical advice, referrals, and prescriptions. Unlike Babylon Health, the patient can use LIVI without having to register with a new, Babylon Health-linked practice and deregistering from the former GP practice. It is now available to 1.85 million UK patients. Known as Kry in the Nordic countries, LIVI also has a presence in France. 

In January, LIVI also acquired some notoriety when their current VP of product, Juliet Bauer, departed her chief digital officer spot with NHS England after an all-too-glowing article about LIVI’s Surrey pilot in The Times–without disclosing that she was joining the company in April [TTA 24 Jan] leading to charges of the ‘brazenly revolving door’ et al.

‘Ask Alexa’ if you’re sick, says the NHS

July 18, 2019 | by

The latest in the NHS’ ‘digital first’ effort in the Long Term Plan is to add Amazon Alexa’s voice search capability to the NHS’ online advice service. Using Amazon’s search algorithm, UK users will be able to ask Alexa about their scratchy throat, sneezing, flu symptoms, or headache with information sourced from the NHS website. In the announcement, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock said that “We want to empower every patient to take better control of their healthcare and technology like this is a great example of how people can access reliable, world-leading NHS advice from the comfort of their home, reducing the pressure on our hardworking GPs and pharmacists.” 50 million GP consultations each year are estimated to be unnecessary; the NHS is actively campaigning for patient awareness on self-care to reduce the patient load on practices (GP). NHSX is also planning of making more NHS services available to all patients through digital technology. 

Physicians have expressed concern that what seems to be a minor symptom could be the start of something big, like an underlying illness. For instance, heart rate monitors which are present in smartwatches and gym equipment have driven many to their doctor because of normal heart rate fluctuations, but that visit could be also picking up the early symptoms of atrial fibrillation.

The Alexa voice assistant adoption by the NHS makes search information more accessible for those with limited mobility or sight, which can help them feel more connected and enhance safety. It also assumes that internet is both available, affordable, and understandable by these users.

This Editor wonders if Alexa will have an emergency feature which calls for assistance or to a GP if the user indicates a worsening condition or is in distress. Voice recognition, as Readers know, is imperfect; Alexa may be puzzled by regional accents, phrasing, or speech impediments.

Current estimates on voice search fluctuate. The oft-repeated ’50 percent by 2020′ assumes an accuracy in digital voice recognition and Alexa/Echo/Android/Siri usage and sales that at this stage are simply not there. An excellent discussion of the voice search market that cuts through the hyped-up predictions is by Rebecca Sentance on the eConsultancy website.

More on NHS and Alexa: Telegraph, Wired UK

First they came for the fax machines….now NHS is coming for the pagers

February 27, 2019 | by

Bloop, Bleep. The NHS has officially announced the phasing out of pagers in hospitals by the end of 2021, with all hospitals required to have their plans and infrastructure in place by September 2020. Replacing pagers will be mobile phones, and smartphones with health communication apps, which facilitate two-way communications and coverage.

According to Digital Health, the pager-less pilot was at West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust (WSFT), which is one of the Global Digital Exemplar (GDE) sites. The 2017 test resulted in junior doctors saving 48 minutes per shift and nurses 21 minutes on average. The platform  used was Medic Bleep, which integrates audio, text, image and file sharing on web, iOS, and Android. 

NHS is estimated to use about 10 percent of all pagers in use worldwide. The cost, according to this report in Bloomberg, is also stunning. Its 130,000 pagers cost £6.6 million ($8.6 million). A single device can cost as much as £400 pounds, which came as a great surprise to this Editor. Only one UK company, Capita Plc’s PageOne, even supports pagers. So this ‘War On Pagers’ as Digital Health dubs it, has some rationale. Supposedly, the NHS can keep some pagers for emergencies, when Wi-Fi fails or when other forms of communication are unavailable, but even that is doubtful as PageOne will likely go out of the pager business by then.

Mr. Hancock is quoted extensively in both reports. “We have to get the basics right, like having computers that work and getting rid of archaic technology like pagers and fax machines. Email and mobile phones are a more secure, quicker and cheaper way to communicate which allow doctors and nurses to spend more time caring for patients rather than having to work round outdated kit.”

In the US, pagers have largely been replaced by smartphones with advanced communication and file sharing/monitoring except in one specialty–psychiatry. Many psychiatrists in private practice retain their pagers and answering services as a needed triage between themselves and patients. (Over 55 percent of psychiatrists are also aged 55+.)

Roy Lilley’s tart-to-the-max view of The Topol Review on the digital future of the NHS

February 14, 2019 | by

Well, it’s a blockbuster–at least in length. Over 100 pages long, and in the PDF form double-paged, which will be a tough slog for laptop and tablet readers. It’s Eric Topol’s view of the digital future of the NHS and it’s…expansive. In fact, you may not recognize it as the healthcare world you deal with every day.

Our UK readers may not be so familiar with Dr. Topol, but here you can get a good strong dose of his vision for the NHS’ future as delivered (electronic thunk) to Secretary Hancock. I haven’t read this, but Roy Lilley has. You should read his 12 February e-letter if you haven’t already.

Here is a choice quote: It’s a mixture of science faction, future-now-ism and away-with-the fairies.

Here’s some background. The Vision’s been around for awhile. Dr. Topol thinks and talks Big Picture, in Meta and MegaTrends. His view is patient-driven, self-managed, with their genomic sequenced and at their fingertips, with the doctor empowered by their records, his/her own digital tools for physical examination, with AI to scan the records and empower a partnership model of decision-making.

Topol In Person is quite compelling. This Editor’s in-person take from the 2014 NY eHealth Collaborative meeting is a review of vintage Topol. His expansive, hopeful view was in contrast to the almost totalitarian view (and it is fully meant) of Ezekiel Emanuel, with his vision of the perfectly compliant, low choice patient, and squeezed like a lemon medical system. At that time, I concluded:

One must be wary of presenters and ‘big thinkers’–and these doctors define the latter, especially Dr Emanuel who looks in the mirror and sees an iconoclast staring back. Fitting evidence selectively into a Weltanschauung is an occupational hazard and we in the field are often taken with ‘big pictures’ at the expense of what can and needs to be done now. Both Drs Topol and Emanuel, in this Editor’s view, have gaps in vision.

A year later, I reviewed his article The Future of Medicine Is in Your Smartphone which came out at the time of ‘The Patient Is In.’ which was quite the succès d’estime among us health tech types. “The article is at once optimistic–yes, we love the picture–yet somewhat unreal.” It seemed to fly in the face of the 2015 reality of accelerating government control of medicine (Obamacare), of payments, outcomes-based medicine which is gated and can be formulaic, and in the Editor’s view, a complete miss on the complexities of mental health and psychiatry.

Back to Roy Lilley:

There is an etherial quality to this report, spiritual, dainty. The advisory panel is 70 strong.

Studies and citations galore, from the world’s top research organizations. The advisory board–I believe well over 70–there’s not a soul down in the trenches running a hospital. Government, academics, and a few vendors (Babylon Health, natch). A lot of emphasis on AI, genomics, and training for ‘collective intelligence’. After reading but a few dizzying, dense pages, I admire the vision as before, but wonder again how we get from here to there.

Roy’s essay is a must read to bring you back to reality. 

Is Babylon Health the next Theranos? Or just being made out to be by the press? (Soapbox)

January 2, 2019 | by | 3 Comments

There, it’s said. A recent investigative article by a Forbes staff writer, European-based Parmy Olson (as opposed to their innumerable guest writers), that dropped a week before Christmas Eve raised some uncomfortable questions about Babylon Health, certainly the star health tech company on the UK scene. These uncomfortable bits are not unknown to our Readers from these pages and for those in the UK independently following the company in their engagement with the NHS.

Most of the skepticism is around their chatbot symptom checker, which has been improved over time and tested, but even the testing has been doubted. The Royal College of Physicians, Stanford University and Yale New Haven Health subjected Babylon and seven primary care physicians to 100 independently-devised symptom sets in the MRCGP, with Babylon achieving a much-publicized 80 test score. A letter published in the Lancet (correspondence) questioned the study’s methodology and the results: the data was entered by doctors, not by the typical user of Babylon Health; there was no statistical significance testing and the letter claims that the poor performance of one doctor in the sample skewed results in Babylon’s favor.  [TTA 8 Nov]. 

The real questions raised by the Lancet correspondence and the article are around establishing standards, testing the app around existing standards, and accurate follow up–in other words, if Babylon were a drug or a medical device, close to a clinical trial:

  • Real-world evaluation is not being done, following a gradual escalation of steps testing usability, effectiveness, and safety.
  • How does the checker balance the probability of a disease with the risk of missing a critical diagnosis?
  • How do users interact with these symptom checkers? What do they do afterwards? What are the outcomes?

Former Babylon staffers, according to the Forbes article, claim there is no follow up. The article also states that “Babylon says its GP at Hand app sends a message to its users 24 hours after they engage with its chatbot. The notification asks about further symptoms, according to one user.” Where is the research on that followup?

Rectifying this is where Babylon gets sketchy and less than transparent. None of their testing or results have been published in peer-reviewed journals. Moreover, they are not helped by, in this Editor’s view, their chief medical officer stating that they will publish in journals when “when Babylon produces medical research.” This is a sad statement, given the crying need for triaging symptoms within the UK medical system to lessen wait times at GPs and hospitals. But even then, Babylon is referring patients to the ED 30 percent of the time, compared to NHS’ 111 line at 20 percent. Is no one there or at the NHS curious about the difference?

And the chatbot is evidently still missing things. (more…)

Just the Fax. Or Matt Hancock versus the Fax Machines (UK) (Updated)

December 12, 2018 | by

Updated. Add fax machines to the Endangered Device list. The news that Health Secretary Matt Hancock has banned the NHS from purchasing new fax machines starting in January 2019, with a full phaseout of use by 31 March 2020, was this past weekend’s Big News in the UK health sector. This is to help force adoption of paperless methods such as apps and email, which is a noble intention indeed.

The remaining prevalence of fax machines in the NHS became a cause célèbre after the Royal College of Surgeons in July estimated that over 8,000 fax machines were still in use. The RCS takes credit for nudging trusts to ‘Ax The Fax’. Guardian

This Editor presumes that Secretary Hancock does not possess a printer, or find the need to print his records even for convenience–or posterity. (One wonders what he’s carrying in that folder or brief…) I also presume that he has never heard of electrical outages, data breaches, malware or ransomware which may make print records suddenly quite needed.

The Road to Perdition is Paved With Good Intentions. A wonderfully tart take on Mr. Hancock’s Fax Obsession is contained in Monday’s NHSManagers.net newsletter from Roy Lilley. He looks at why NHS offices and practices have stayed with fax machines–and the absurdity of such a ban when trusts and practices are attempting to squeeze every penny in a cash-strapped, failing environment:

  • It’s point to point and legally binding not only in medicine, but in law and finance–even in the US
  • They are on the desk, easy to use–requiring only plug in to power and a phone line, fax toner, and paper
  • They don’t need IT support
  • Compared to computers, printers, and internet service, they are wonderfully cheap

And paper-free isn’t a reality even in the US with EHR, tablets and smartphones widely used. Even HHS and CMS in the US require some paper records. Confidentiality and hacking–especially when tied to computer networks–are problems with fax, but the same can be said for computer networks. Oh, and if your systems are attacked by ransomware, it’s awfully handy to refer back to printed records and to be able to communicate outside of computer networks.

Mr. Lilley also points out that ‘No 18’, as he dubs the Secretary of State for Health, actually has no power to enforce his edict with trusts or GPs.

This Editor predicts a thriving market in used and bootleg fax machines–“check it out”, as the street hustlers say!

Other articles on this: Fortune, Forbes

UK’s DeepMind loses Streams, health projects to Google Health

November 15, 2018 | by

DeepMind loses its Health to Google. DeepMind, the London-based AI developer acquired by Alphabet (Google) in 2014, no longer has a Health division. This group will be absorbed by Google Health, now headed by ex-Geisinger CEO David Feinberg. The former DeepMind health team will continue to be headed by former NHS surgeon Dr Dominic King, who will remain in London along with about 100 reported staffers, at least for now.

DeepMind’s major health initiative is Streams, an AI-powered mobile app that analyzes potential deterioration in patients and alerts nurses and doctors, saving time. It also monitors vital signs and integrates different types of data and test results from existing hospital IT systems. Streams is currently deployed at Royal Free NHS Foundation Trust Hospital in north London for acute kidney injury. The rollout is expected to be made at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust and Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. It is expected that test partners will be found outside of the UK.

DeepMind’s other health initatives and research include fast eye disease detection, planning cancer radiotherapy treatment in seconds rather than hours; and detecting patient deterioration from electronic records.

Google Health is now expanding into products and research into digital technologies which was to be expected with Dr Feinberg on board. Currently, its revenue stream consists of advertising and search.

The remainder of DeepMind not engaged with health will remain independent. CNBC, DeepMind blog

Rounding up mid-August: PCORI funds 16 projects with $85 million, InTouch’s Rite Aid deal, Suennen leaves GE Ventures, NHS lost 10K patient records last year

August 23, 2018 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Lasso.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Rounding up August as we wind down our last weeks of summer holidays. 

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) announced earlier this week that they are funding 16 studies which compare two or more approaches to improve care and outcomes for a range of conditions. Included in the $85 million funding are studies incorporating technology. One is a $13.3 million grant for a West Virginia University study utilizing telehealth to monitor patients with major depressive disorders comparing medication, cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), and medication plus remote CBT. PCORI Release

InTouch Health, an enterprise telehealth provider which most recently partnered with RPM developer Vivify Health [TTA 19 Dec] to move into in-home and post-acute settings, is now moving into retail with Rite Aid. The letter of intent is to help Rite Aid build up the technology in their existing health kiosks in pharmacies and ‘alternative care sites’. Rite Aid has had a long standing interest in kiosks, including as one of the last customers of HealthSpot. With their Albertsons merger scuttled, Rite Aid is seeking other business and interest. One of InTouch’s executives is EVP of Marketing and Consumer Solutions Steve Cashman, who founded and headed HealthSpot. InTouch is also participating in the World Telehealth Initiative, a nonprofit organization which seeks to bring telehealth expertise into worldwide communities in need. InTouch will donate devices, access to its virtual network, and access to doctors donating their time. Mobihealthnews.

Lisa Suennen, a fixture at many health tech conferences and one of the few women with both presence and clout in the funding sphere, has departed GE Ventures, GE’s VC arm. She was senior managing director focusing on healthcare companies, successfully exiting several in her portfolio to UnitedHealth and Aetna. No reason was given for her exit after a stint of under two years, other than the anodyne “find a new adventure.” GE is planning to spin off its healthcare businesses as part of its restructuring. CNBC. 

And the week would not be complete without a report about NHS losing nearly 10,000 patient records–paper and electronic–last year, according to information released under UK freedom of information laws. Without this information, doctors have trouble finding patient history sources and prior diagnostic records. There is also abundant opportunity for fraud, as Everything Winds Up Somewhere, and that somewhere could be criminal. Last year, Members of Parliament said the NHS had “badly failed patients” after a scandal in which at least 708,000 pieces of correspondence–including blood tests, cancer screening appointments, medication changes, and child protection notes–piled up in storerooms. Sunday Times. If paywalled, see the attached PDF.

Despite recruiting, Babylon Health’s GP at hand still on hold in Birmingham (UK); CEO steps down at rival Push Doctor

August 23, 2018 | by

GP at hand, Babylon Health’s NHS app and service for scheduling patients with local GPs, was expected to roll out in Birmingham, but the Hammersmith and Fulham CCG, from which Babylon operates, continues to halt its the expansion since the beginning of this month on patient safety concerns.

The app, which schedules patients with GPs and requires registration that effectively changes what we in the US call ‘attribution’, was set to add GP surgeries in Birmingham starting this month and was setting up an HQ at Badger House, an out-of-hours GP services provider based in Birmingham’s inner city. GP recruitment had started, according to Pulse, in late July. Patients would register in Babylon’s host practice Dr. Jefferies and Partner in southwest London through NHS’ out-of-area registration scheme.

The objections to Babylon’s expansion came initially from Paul Jennings, the chief executive of Birmingham and Solihull CCG. According to Digital Health, “he wrote to Hammersmith and Fulham to lodge a formal objection to the expansion. He argued the digital service was “not yet robust or tested for a national service to be delivered from a single practice outside of Birmingham”. Hammersmith and Fulham then stated that “further information is required to provide assurance on the safety of patients” before the Birmingham roll-out could be approved. 

This is despite the release of a equality impact assessment by Verve Communications on behalf of Hammersmith and Fulham finding mainly positive results, such as GP at hand “more likely to address most barriers than traditional GP services” in 10 out of 11 protected groups” and that “carers may benefit from [the] use of GP at Hand as this will allow them to consult a primary care practitioner whilst continuing with their care responsibilities.” The new Health Secretary Matt Hancock, a major advocate of technology in care, is himself registered with Babylon. Mobihealthnews

(If you are in the UK, you can hear it straight from Babylon’s CEO Ali Parsa, interviewed by Roy Lilley of nhsmanagers.net, on 10 September at the RSM.)

Rival telemedicine service Push Doctor is also undergoing changes with CEO and co-founder Eren Ozagir’s departure. It appears that he and the board had a difference around company direction, with the board recommending a cut of 40 jobs (Sunday Times). Their COO, Wais Shaifta, became acting CEO in July. In June 2017, a report by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found the service to be delivering unsafe care via antidepressant and blood thinner prescriptions being given without requisite blood tests and monitoring. Digital Health

Will Matt Hancock be a refreshing change for NHS? Or another promise unfulfilled? (updated)

July 26, 2018 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/matt-in-a-binder.jpg” thumb_width=”200″ /]Matt In A Binder? With the sudden departure of Jeremy Hunt from the Department of Health and Social Care in the Cabinet’s ‘change partners and dance’, the new Secretary of State Matt Hancock comes over from heading Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. A couple of weeks in, it can be determined that he is a big advocate of technology and looking forward, not back (which Mr. Hunt spent a great deal of time doing):

Technology has a proven ability to radically change the world for the better – be it in finance, in education and in transport. But nowhere does technology have greater potential to improve lives than in healthcare. (Statement on Gov.UK/Health Service Journal 12 July )

And he glows again about increasing the use of apps within the NHS, though Digital Health goes a little overboard in calling the Rt Hon Mr. Hancock ‘app-happy’ even though he’s built his own this year so that his West Suffolk constituents can keep track of his activities. 

In his maiden speech, Mr. Hancock promoted a drive to replace pagers with smartphone apps as part of a £487 million funding package and connecting Amazon Echo with the NHS Choices website. It was overshadowed by a seeming walking back of the 95 percent four-hour A&E treatment target. Telegraph

Much of the criticism comes from those who see his appointment as yet another step in the privatization and regional devolution of the NHS due to campaign donations from the chair of pro-market group the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). However, Mr. Hunt faced the realization that NHS trusts are $1.2bn in debt and sought workarounds such as adoption of an ACO-type model (which in the US has a strong element of public incentive) and increased use of private health insurance to cost-shift. He wasn’t a technophobe, having inked a deal with the UK Space Agency to repurpose space tech for health tech and funding innovators in this conversion up to £4 million–which can be said to be ‘out there’.

Mr. Hancock also announced this week the £37.5 million funding of three and five ‘Digital Innovation Hubs’ over the next three years. These will connect regional healthcare data with genetic and biomedical information for R&D purposes.

Will he last? Will there be positive changed fueled by technology? Will the May Government last? Only time will tell.

What are your thoughts? (If you’d like to post anonymously, write Editor Donna in confidence)

Here’s select opinion from across the spectrum:

Don’t be fooled, Matt Hancock will be no better for the NHS than Jeremy Hunt was (The Independent)

New health secretary Matt Hancock received £32,000 in donations from chair of think tank that wants NHS ‘abolished’ (The Independent)

Roy Lilley’s always tart take on things NHS extends to the new Secretary dubbed ‘No18’. A deft wielding of Occam’s Razor and a saber on reflexive phraseology such as ‘driving culture change’ (it can be cultivated not driven–this Editor agrees but the tone and structure need to be set from the top), dealing with suppliers, and the danger of creating an electronic Tower of Babel due to lack of interoperability. (Does this resonate in the US? You bet!) (See NHSManagers.net if the link does not work.)

Margaret McCartney: Health technology and the modern inverse care law (BMJ) — to paraphrase, that the greatest need for healthcare is by those least likely to have the right care at the right time available. She points to Babylon Health, which counts Mr. Hancock as a member, as not only unproven, but also not needed by those able to afford other options. (But didn’t we know that already?)

The King’s Fund Digital Health & Care Congress next week on 10-11 July

July 2, 2018 | by

Time has flown by since this Editor first mentioned this event and now it’s next week. This year’s meeting features case studies in creating the right culture for large scale digital change, using digital technology to improve quality of care, prevention and changing behaviors, population health informatics, tools for self-management, reducing clinical variation, mobile working in community services, and much more. Featured speakers include Matthew Swindells of NHS England, the Rt Hon Paul Burstow of TSA, Ruth Rankine of the Care Quality Commission, and more. See the agenda here for Day 1 and Day 2. (TTA’s own Charles Lowe will be chairing Breakout T2B: Quality improvement 11:45am on Tuesday 10 July.) Two very full days 10-11 July, Tuesday and Wednesday, at The King’s Fund’s London location. For more information, click the advert in the right sidebar or here. 

Instant GP, don’t even add water; Babylon Health taps into the corporate market via insurer Bupa (UK)

June 21, 2018 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/instant-gp-300×300.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Is digital health gaining some traction in the UK? One insurer is making the bet. Earlier this week, Babylon Health announced a UK partnership with Bupa’s corporate insurance area to open Babylon’s digital health services to corporate employees insured by Bupa.  Bupa’s Instant GP app offers these employees Babylon services, such as the ability to book virtual appointments with GPs, be transferred to specialists, and receive prescriptions. The app is free to download through the Apple App Store or Google Play for Bupa-covered employees.

Bupa and Babylon have been working together in a limited way since 2015–see this Bupa press release.

Some extras for employees in the program: unlimited 24/7 online GP consultations; Babylon’s clinical triage service, and access to the Babylon’s new “digital twin” service. This medical assessment method works with a smartphone tapping key parts of their body. It’s being previewed by Bupa and is scheduled to be released nationwide later this year.

Reportedly Bupa is seeking to provide Babylon services to their UK SME business (micro, small and medium-sized enterprises) later this year. Telegraph (paid access for full article), Digital Health News

For Babylon, it’s been an extraordinarily busy time. They have a new agreement with Samsung to be included in Samsung Health on smartphones [TTA 14 June], and China’s Tencent offering of Babylon through their WeChat platform. Babylon also recently announced passing the 26,500 patient mark with London NHS GP at Hand.

Building Better Healthcare Awards 2018 open for entries (UK)

May 24, 2018 | by

Our former Eye on Tenders, Susanne Woodman of BRE, has informed us that this year’s BBH Awards is seeking organizations which are implementing healthcare technologies and software. These can be either process-centered (e.g. information or workflow systems) or patient-centered (e.g. medication compliance, smoking cessation). The organizer, HPCI Media, is accepting entries until 30 June. 

There will be 27 awards across five classes: Building Design, Technology, Estates and Facilities, Staff and Patient Experience, and Special Awards. Last year’s awardees are here. Another theme is the 70th Anniversary of the NHS. 

This year’s awards will be on 31 October at The Brewery in Chiswell Street, London.

Our very best to Susanne as she sets out on new horizons!

WannaCry’s anniversary: have we learned our malware and cybersecurity lessons?

May 16, 2018 | by

Hard to believe that WannaCry, and the damage this malware wreaked worldwide, was but a year ago. Two months later, there was Petya/NotPetya. We’ve had hacking and ransomware eruptions regularly, the latest being the slo-mo malware devised by the Orangeworm hackers. What WannaCry and Petya/NotPetya had in common, besides cyberdamage, was they were developed by state actors or hackers with state support (North Korea and–suspected–Russia and/or Ukraine).

The NHS managed to evade Petya, which was fortunate as they were still repairing damage from WannaCry, which initially was reported to affect 20 percent of NHS England trusts. The final count was 34 percent of trusts–at least 80 out of 236 hospital trusts in England, as well as 603 primary care practices and affiliates. 

Has the NHS learned its lesson, or is it still vulnerable? A National Audit Office report concluded in late October that the Department of Health and the NHS were warned at least a year in advance of the risk.  “It was a relatively unsophisticated attack and could have been prevented by the NHS following basic IT security best practice.” There was no mechanism in place for ensuring migration of Windows XP systems and old software, requested by April 2015, actually happened. Another basic–firewalls facing the internet–weren’t actively managed. Worse, there was no test or rehearsal for a cyberdisruption. “As the NHS had not rehearsed for a national cyber attack it was not immediately clear who should lead the response and there were problems with communications.” NHS Digital was especially sluggish in response, receiving first reports around noon but not issuing an alert till 5pm. It was fortunate that WannaCry had a kill switch, and it was found as quickly as it was by a British security specialist with the handle Malware Tech. 

Tests run since WannaCry have proven uneven at best. While there has been reported improvement, even head of IT audit and security services at West Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust and a penetration tester for NHS trusts, said that they were “still finding some real shockers out there still.” NHS Digital deputy CEO Rob Shaw told a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in February that 200 NHS trusts tested against cyber security standards had failed. MPs criticized the NHS and the Department of Health for not implementing 22 recommendations laid out by NHS England’s CIO, Will Smart. Digital Health News

Think ‘cyber-resilience’. It’s not a matter of ‘if’, but ‘when’. Healthcare organizations are never going to fix all the legacy systems that run their world. Medical devices and IoT add-ons will continue to run on outdated or never-updated platforms. Passwords are shared, initial passwords not changed in EHRs. Add to firewalls, prevention measures, emphasizing compliance and best practices, security cyber-resilience–more than a recovery plan, planning to keep operations running with warm backups ready to go, contingency plans, a way to make quick decisions on the main functions that keep the business going. Are healthcare organizations–and the NHS–capable of thinking and acting this way? WannaBet? CSO, Healthcare IT News. Hat tip to Joseph Tomaino of Grassi Healthcare Advisors via LinkedIn.

UK roundup: CCIO Simon Eccles warns against ‘shiny objects’, NHS Liverpool CCG award to Docobo, 87% concerned with NHS info security

February 23, 2018 | by

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Lasso.jpg” thumb_width=”100″ /]NHS Digital CCIO doesn’t like ‘shiny objects’. Dr. Simon Eccles used his first NHS Digital board meeting as national CCIO to encourage delivering the current agenda first and not getting distracted by the ‘shiny objects’ of new innovations which also divert funding. “It is our collective challenge to make sure that doesn’t happen to things that are valued by the NHS – to do what we said we’d do and not be too distracted by new and shiny things.” This seems to be at odds with non-executive director Daniel Benton, who “suggested that NHS Digital needed to become more flexible as an organisation so that it was in a better position to roll with the punches in future.” Digital Health News

Docobo announced their win of the NHS Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group‘s scale up of telehealth as part of the Healthy Liverpool program. The three to five-year contract has a maximum value of £11.5 million. The current Mi Programme (More Independent) partly funded by the Innovate UK dallas initiative and using Philips equipment is at 900 patients with 5,300 total patients since 2013. The plan is to scale up the program to 4-5,000 patients a year and support new clinical pathways and conditions including lung conditions, heart failure, and diabetes. Docobo’s platform is Doc@Home which uses patient information from the CarePortal device or their own digital devices. Docobo release. NHS Innovation Accelerator, Digital Health News

A survey of 500 British adults conducted by UK IT VAR Proband found that perceptions of public sector information security are poor. 87 percent were concerned about the security of their information with the NHS. Of that 87 percent, 34 percent were ‘very concerned’ about their cybersecurity. Taking this with a grain of salt, 80 percent distrusted security at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and 78 percent on data held by the police. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) can’t come too soon [TTA 17 Feb] — but are you ready? More in Proband’s Online Security Audit (PDF).

Updated–Rounding up this week’s news: VA budget, Shulkin’s troubles, ATA’s new CEO, Allscripts’ wheeling-dealing, Roche buys Flatiron, Nokia out of health?, NHS Carillioning?

February 17, 2018 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Lasso.jpg” thumb_width=”100″ /]Here’s our roundup for the week of 12 February:

VA wins on the budget, but the Secretary’s in a spot of bother. Updated. Last week started off as a good week for Secretary Shulkin with a White House budget proposal that increased their $83.1 billion budget by 11.7 percent, including $1.2 billion for Year 1 of the Cerner EHR implementation in addition to the agency’s $4.2 billion IT budget which includes $204 million to modernize VistA and other VA legacy IT systems in the interim. While the Cerner contract went on hold in December while record-sharing is clarified, the freeze is expected to be lifted within a month. POLITICO  Where the trouble started for Dr. Shulkin was in the findings of a spending audit by the VA’s Inspector General’s Office of an official European trip to Copenhagen and London which included unreimbursed travel by Mrs. Shulkin and free tickets to Wimbledon, at least partly justified by a doctored email. This has led to the early retirement of the VA Chief of Staff Vivieca Wright Simpson and also an investigation of hacking into Wright Simpson’s email. It also appears that some political appointees in the VA are being investigated for misconduct. CNBC, FierceHealthcare.

Updated: POLITICO doesn’t feel the love for Dr. Shulkin in today’s Morning eHealth, linking to articles about the supposed ‘internal war’ at the VA, with veterans’ groups, with the Trump Administration, and within the VA. It’s the usual governmental infighting which within the 16 Feb article is being whipped by POLITICO and co-author ProPublica to a fevered pitch. Dr. Shulkin comes across as doctor/tech geek who underestimated the politicization of and challenges within an agency with the mission to care for our veterans. It’s also an agency having a hard time facing the current demands of a dispersed, younger and demanding veteran group plus aging, bureaucratic infrastructure. As usual the ‘privatization’ issue is being flogged as an either/or choice whereas a blend may serve veterans so much better.

Digital health entrepreneur named CEO of the American Telemedicine Association. A first for ATA is a chief from the health tech area who is also one of the all-too-rare executive women in the field. Ann Mond Johnson, who will be starting on 5 March, was previously head of Zest Health, board chair and advisor to Chicago start-up ConnectedHealth (now part of Connecture), and had sold her first start-up company Subimo to WebMD in 2006. She began her career in healthcare data and information with The Sachs Group (now part of Truven/IBM Watson). Ms. Johnson replaces founding CEO Jonathan Linkous, who remained for 24 years before resigning last August and is now a consultant. ATA release, mHealth Intelligence. ATA relocated in January from Washington DC to nearby Arlington Virginia. And a reminder that ATA2018 is 29 April – 1 May in Chicago and open for registration.

Allscripts’ ‘Such a Deal’! Following up on Allscripts’ acquisitions of Practice Fusion for $100 million (a loss to investors) and earlier McKesson’s HIT business for $185 million [TTA 9 Jan], it hasn’t quite paid for itself, but came very close with the sale of McKesson’s OneContent, a healthcare document-management system, for a tidy $260 million. Net price: $25 million. Their CEO is some horse trader! Some of the savings will undoubtedly go to remedying the cyberattack in January that affected two data centers in North Carolina, shutting down EHR and billing applications for approximately 1,500 physician practices, which have launched a class action lawsuit. FierceHealthcare 

Flatiron Health acquired by Roche. (more…)