News

The American Medical Informatics Association said that being a CCIO will require lifelong learning to master all the clinical, technological, and management skills the job demands. 

The hospital said it did not pay the ransom and is now working with the FBI as part of an ongoing investigation.

Indiana University Health appointed Mark Lantzy to be its new chief information officer. Lantzy, who has built his health IT career in several leadership roles over 20 years, comes to IU after serving as chief operations officer and CIO for Gateway Health, a Pittsburgh-based managed care organization for Medicaid and Medicare members. Before Gateway, Lantzy held leadership positions for WellCare Health Plans, Aetna and Accenture. In his new role, Lantzy will have overall responsibility for information services – including strategic planning, operations and project delivery – for IU Health’s 16-hospital system, health plans and physicians network. "There is a rapidly growing technology sector in Indianapolis and the opportunity to bring innovation and new approaches to our health information technology capability is exciting," Lantzy said in a statement. Ryan Kitchell, IU executive vice president and chief administrative officer, called Lantzy "a dynamic and accomplished leader," who would help recruit top talent to IU’s 600-member IT team. Lantzy’s predecessor, Bill McConnell, led statewide IS integration projects, built IU Health’s data warehouse and decision support and analytics capabilities, stabilized IS infrastructure and systems performance, and worked to expand research systems capabilities with IU School of Medicine and associated institutes. McConnell plans to retire but will stay on the job at IU for several months to ease the transition.  Twitter: @HealthITNews

Methodist Hospital in Henderson, Kentucky, said that it has regained control of its computer systems and effectively fended off a ransomware attack without paying the cybercriminals. The attack started last Friday, March 18, and lasted five days, during which Methodist officials declared an internal state of emergency and posted this to their website: “Methodist Hospital is currently working in an Internal State of Emergency due to a Computer Virus that has limited our use of electronic web based services.  We are currently working to resolve this issue, until then we will have limited access to web based services and electronic communications.” As of this morning that message remained live and a local TV station is reporting that the FBI is investigating the attack. [Also: Hollywood Presbyterian hack signals more ransomware to come.] In reports last week, Methodist Hospital COO David Park said  that "Depending upon the number of records that were locked, depends upon whether we're going to consider looking into whether we pay anything or not." Methodist Hospital officials also noted the hospital would depend on its back-up system while the main network is locked. A similar attack was levied against Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles just last month. In that case, hospital executives paid $17,000 in bitcoin to hackers. And just last week attackers locked down four computers at Ottawa Hospital, after which officials said they had the data backed-up and thus did not need to pay the ransom.   The Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, meanwhile, published new research predicting that “in 2016 ransomware will wreak havoc on America’s critical infrastructure community,” and that ransomware is now so prevalent it's creating an economy all its own. Criminals operating in the so-called Ransomware economy, in fact,  savvy criminals are using social engineering and price calculations to target low-risk high-reward victims. [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] Ransomware is responsible for 406,887 attempted infections and accounts for a total of approximately $325 million in damages, according to a November, 2015 according to the Cyber Threat Alliance. “In most instances the majority of security and law enforcement professionals would advise against paying the hackers, because, 1) there is no guarantee you will get the decryption key, and 2) there is the fear that it will encourage others to follow suit,” Mac McMillan, cofounder and CEO of security firm CynergisTek, wrote in a commentary published on Healthcare IT News on Feb. 23, after Hollywood Presbyterian was attacked. “I would argue that is easy advice to give if you are not the one looking down the barrel of the ransom note. Until you have walked in those shoes you don't really know what you will do.” Twitter: @Bernie_HITN  

The National Quality Forum has published its guidance for the new Merit-Based Incentive Payment System. NQF's Measure Applications Partnership examined some five-dozen MIPS performance measures, proposed for implementation in 2017, from which data would be collected to track eligible providers' performance in 2019. "As the U.S. healthcare system increasingly shifts to a performance-based payment system, MAP’s role (is to serve) as an impartial advisor bringing stakeholders together from across the healthcare spectrum," NQF’s chief scientific officer Helen Burstin said in a statement. To that end, MAP offered some suggestions to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for better aligning with multiple federal healthcare programs, namely the Medicare Shared Savings Program. [Also: Meaningful use will still be part of MIPS reimbursement, CMS official says] Chief among those was that aligning of measures should be a top priority, and not just for MIPS programs and alternative payment models, but across all federal programs and with states and the private sector where possible. Indeed, NQF found that gaps still exist across clinician-level programs – most notably in patient-centered areas such as patient-reported outcomes, functional status and care coordination. These measures should go beyond patients' experience with the healthcare system to the impact of healthcare on patients' health and well-being. Meanwhile, MAP urged continued exploration of the impact of socioeconomic status and other demographic factors on measure results, noting that the program should be taking into account when providers are caring for high-risk populations. NQF also weighed in on measures for public reporting on CMS' Physician Compare website. With regard to those most useful for consumers and patients, MAP expressed a preference for those focused on care coordination, population health, appropriate care and on outcomes – especially those that are patient-reported. Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN

At the same time that it revealed CareKit, Apple announced that ResearchKit would be updated to more easily make use of genetic data, via a module designed by consumer genetics company 23andMe. Apple also added other modules for common medical tests to ResearchKit. “The response to ResearchKit has been fantastic. Virtually overnight, many ResearchKit studies became the largest in history and researchers are gaining insights and making discoveries that weren’t possible before,” Apple COO Jeff Williams said in a statement. “Medical researchers around the world continue to use iPhone to transform what we know about complex diseases, and with continued support from the open source community, the opportunities for iPhone in medical research are endless.” [Also: Apple unveils CareKit health tracking framework, first app to focus on Parkinson's] "This new technology gives researchers a turnkey way to integrate genetics into their studies,” 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki added in another statement. “This will enable research on a much broader scale. Incorporating genetics into a platform with the reach of ResearchKit will accelerate insights into illness and disease even further.” Apple announced three ResearchKit apps that will begin incorporating genetic data, one new app and two existing ones. PPD Act will use genetic data to explore the question of why postpartum depression affects some women and not others. The study will be led by the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and the international Postpartum Depression: Action Towards Causes and Treatment Consortium. The National Institute of Mental Health will provide spit kits to facilitate genetic testing. “There’s so much we still need to learn about postpartum depression and it may be DNA that provides the key to better understanding why some women experience symptoms and others do not,” Dr. Samantha Meltzer-Brody, director of the Perinatal Psychiatry Program at the UNC Center for Women’s Mood Disorders, said in a statement. “With ResearchKit, and now the ability to incorporate genetic data, we’re able to engage women with postpartum depression from a wide geographic and demographic range and can analyze the genomic signature of postpartum depression to help us find more effective treatments.” Stanford's MyHeartCounts app will incorporate data from 23andMe users who are already using the app. The data will help them to study genetic predisposition toward heart conditions and how they interrelate to lifestyle and activity factors. Mount Sinai's Asthma Health app will "use genetic data from 23andMe customers to help researchers better understand ways to personalize asthma treatment," according to Apple. “Collecting this type of information will help researchers determine genomic indicators for specific diseases and conditions,” Mount Sinai Genomics Professor Eric Schadt said in a statement. “Take asthma, for example. ResearchKit is allowing us to study this population more broadly than ever before and through the large amounts of data we’re able to gather from iPhone, we’re understanding how factors like environment, geography and genes influence one’s disease and response to treatment.” [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] In addition to genetics, new modules that have been contributed to ResearchKit include a test for tone audiometry; the ability to measure reaction time through delivery of a known stimulus to a known response; an assessment tool for the speed of information processing and working memory; a means to use the mathematical puzzle Tower of Hanoi for cognition studies; and a timed walk test.  The brand new CareKit framework, meanwhile, is designed to enable patients to track their care and to share that health data with physicians and family members. The first two apps focus on Parkinson's Disease and helping patients adhere to pust-surgery care plans.  Twitter: @JonahComstock

COO Jeff Williams said the framework will empower patients and care teams to have more formalized discussions with physicians, beginning with programs for Parkinson’s and post-surgical plans.

(SPONSORED) Hacktivists, ransomware, nation state attacks and espionage, the motivations of cyber security attackers today on healthcare are entirely new and never before imagined.

The American Health Information Management Association launched an effort to collect 100,000 signatures on a petition to ask the White House to address the need for a unique patient ID. While other groups, such as HIMSS and CHIME, have both supported a national patient ID – CHIME notably with a million dollar contest – AHIMA is taking a new approach. “As a patient, you know there’s only one you. But sometimes a name or some personal information is so similar to someone else’s that doctors’ offices or hospitals can have a hard time identifying records correctly,” AHIMA CEO Lynne Thomas Gordon said in a statement. “It’s a dangerous and costly problem that can lead to missed diagnoses, inappropriate treatments or unnecessary tests, as well as making it difficult for providers to exchange health information.” [Also: Epic CEO Judy Faulkner on the need for a national patient ID] Thomas Gordon suggested that the government could turn to experts in other sectors, such as banking and finance, as well as security experts, for help in making healthcare safer and more effective. “The voluntary patient safety identifier – created and controlled by patients – will be a complete and positive game-changer in healthcare in terms of patient safety, quality of care and financial consequences,” Thomas Gordon added. The petition asks for the removal of the federal legislative ban that has prohibited the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from participating in efforts to find a patient identification solution. The challenge of accurate patient identification is illustrated by a study conducted by the Harris County Hospital District in Houston, which found that, among 3.5 million patients, there were nearly 70,000 instances where two or more patients shared the same last name, first name and date of birth. Among these were 2,488 different patients named Maria Garcia and 231 of those shared the same birth date. AHIMA’s petition is available on petitions.whitehouse.gov. Officials said they have to collect the 100,000 signatures by April 19 to ensure a response from the Obama administration. Twitter: @HealthITNews  

With estimates that such programs can reduce costs by $3.27 for every dollar spent and building wellness centers can bring a 10 percent return, more and more providers and payers are getting into the wellness game.