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Cerner has announced that Geisnger Health System subsidiary xG Health Solutions will use Cerner’s HealtheIntent population health management platform and, in turn, Cerner will use xG Health’s clinical content. xG Health’s care management clinical content automates the assessment of a variety of hereditary, socioeconomic, physical, behavioral and environmental risk factors, as well as warning signs and symptoms associated with specific conditions. Cerner clients will be able to use xG Health’s clinical content within HealtheCare, Cerner’s community care management solution that provides algorithms with the ability to identify, stratify and prioritize individuals for assignment to aligned care managers. [Also: 21 awesome photos from past HIMSS conferences] The HealtheCare and xG Health clinical content collaboration will provide evidence-based patient assessments for dozens of conditions, be integrated into workflows, and automate the generation of patient-specific action plans to boost personalized care, the vendors said. The agreement will also see Cerner integrate xG Health’s analytics content into Cerner’s HealtheAnalytics system. The alignment expands Cerner’s population health management suite to provide organizations with analytic discoveries that can help reduce costs and improve healthcare quality and patient outcomes, Cerner said. “What interested us in xG Health is the commercial arm of Geisinger Health System, which acts as a testbed for technology,” said Brad Carey, vice president and general manager of population health. “We’ve initially partnered with xG Health on things that revolve around care management content and population health, and are looking to xG Health’s business intelligence specially derived from claims data.” Cerner also announced that the University of Kansas Hospital will deploy the HealtheIntent population health management platform to coordinate and manage care in rural Kansas communities, according to Robert Moser, MD, director of the Kansas Heart and Stroke Collaborative. Moser said the collaborative will also use HealtheCare, Cerner’s community care management system, to engage at-risk patient and ideally provide optimal treatment resources. Cerner’s population health management platform will be featured in Cerner Booth 2032 at HIMSS16, Feb. 29-March 4 at the Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas. Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

The vendor plans to show the new SDK for portals and other apps, as well as multiway videoconferencing technologies, at HIMSS16.

(SPONSORED) Interoperability is a loaded word in the healthcare space. Mention it and people will no doubt stop to hear what is being said--but why?

Deal puts focus on mobile population health, chronic care management.

Too many healthcare organizations are focused on securing the wrong assets, leaving them vulnerable to cyberattacks and putting patients at risk, a new report from Independent Survey Evaluators claims. When healthcare leaders focus primarily on protecting patient data, they often fail to address actual cybersecurity threats that directly affect patient health, the report said. So if an active medical device or electronic work order were infiltrated by cybercriminals, the patient could be directly affected. On the other hand, an electronic health record is secondary – it requires a provider to alter the data before it could potentially harm a patient. ISE studied 12 healthcare organizations, two healthcare data facilities, two active medical devices, two Web applications and other devices found on healthcare networks over the course of two years to determine the possibility of remote attacks and the readiness of these institutions to keep data secure. "We found hospitals were antiquated in their network designs and unsure about the technologies that could effectively help them," the study's authors said. [Also: Hollywood Presbyterian gives in to hackers] "In many cases, vendor products purchased for a security purpose were inappropriate for the organization, and those systems that were appropriate were deployed incorrectly, all resulting in heavy waste while not achieving an improvement in security posture," they added. Researchers separated threat vectors into primary, secondary and tertiary "attack surfaces" that expose patient health, more than their health data. Many systems that are the focus of prevention efforts "have little value with regard to personally identifiable information or personal health information – the assets hospitals strive to protect most – yet they have direct consequences with regard to patient health," according to the report. "These attack surfaces are largely left unprotected by hospitals and are precisely the attack surfaces to be targeted by an adversary seeking to harm a patient." Among the primary surfaces: clinicians, medicine, active medical devices and surgery. Secondary (EHRs, passive medical devices, test results, work orders) and tertiary surfaces (climate controls, physical storage, barcode scanners, connected power) often get outsized attention. Actions taken by health leaders often only handled unsophisticated threats, according to study, which left plenty of openings for attackers to get into information systems. Often, protection strategies assumed the attacks weren't aimed toward garnering targeted information, and therefore ignored the specific strategies and motivations of cyberattackers. All of the hospitals in the study were failing on a range of levels to address modern security issues, largely in part, due to a lack of funding. [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] "Security vulnerabilities in healthcare are a result of systemic business failures," said Ted Harrington, executive partner at ISE and one of the study's leaders, in a statement. "We found egregious business shortcomings in every hospital, including insufficient funding, insufficient staffing, insufficient training, lack of policy, lack of network awareness and many more." According to the study, one of the greatest vulnerabilities is that patients and visitors often have physical access to networks and equipment – an issue unique to healthcare. Time, accuracy and the environment also played into sometimes adverse security circumstances. Along with the study, ISE published a blueprint to aid healthcare organizations in shifting the security focus. It outlines specific threats and the consequences of a breach, in addition to methods for healthcare institutions to better secure its systems. Twitter: @JessiefDavis

Don’t let the indestructible demeanor of nurses fool you: Like other members of the healthcare team, they too have technological difficulties. “The public and nurses who are not informaticians may have the impression that the quieter stance from nurses means usability issues don’t exist for them – in fact, user experience issues for nurses are severe,” said Nancy Staggers, a professor at the University of Maryland and an expert on clinical informatics whose experience includes serving as an IT executive on an electronic health records implementation at the U.S. Department of Defense. [Also: 21 awesome photos from past HIMSS conferences] Staggers will discuss the top healthcare IT user experience challenges for nurses at HIMSS16 during a roundtable session titled “Conversations on Nursing’s Health IT User Experiences,” at HIMSS16. Current usability problems include specifics like technology designed to fir nurses’ workflow and cognitive support, as well as broader issues such as needing a vision for health IT and strengthening the voice of nurses within provider organizations. Because of their role in the care process, nurses have unique IT user experience needs. “Nurses need a framework for thinking about UX and speaking about their health IT pain points so they can move toward solutions,” Staggers said. “UX is deeper than a simple focus on the computer interface; it is about designing technology to support workflow and the way nurses think and do work.” [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] How important are the issues nurses have with healthcare IT? Extremely, considering the sheer number of nurses and the crucial role nurses play in achieving successful health outcomes. “The U.S. alone has 3.4 million nurses; in fact, nurses are the largest group of health IT users globally, and they act as information hubs for patients in myriad settings beyond acute care, including long-term care, home health, community-based care, and telehealth,” Staggers said. “UX issues span all settings and are critical in the care of consumers, including special groups such as our aging population. Both the volume and the significance of current UX issues make addressing them an imperative to address in supporting nurses as knowledge workers.” Impractical IT user experiences for nurses can result in errors, patient safety issues, delayed decision making and huge inefficiencies, Staggers added. “Fixing UX issues is important to patients, nurses and the healthcare profession as a whole to improve safety and outcomes, enhance productivity, support critical thinking, and reduce inefficiencies,” Staggers said. The session, “Conversations on Nursing’s Health IT User Experiences,” is slated for Tuesday March 1, 2016 from 4-5 p.m. in the Sands Expo Convention Center Galileo 1004. Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

Advanced data analytics may hold the power to help predict likely prescription drug abuse in patients, a needed breakthrough as an opioid epidemic sweeps the country.  The problem is "no longer just heroin and cocaine; it's prescription drugs,” said Jaya Tripathi, principal investigator at the MITRE Corp. “If you look at the trends, despite the overwhelming focus and funds, more needs to be done." [Poll: What topics will define HIMSS16?] Her team at MITRE researched public and private stakeholders and interviewed board members and law enforcement officials and others over the course of 18 months. The interviews revealed ways to carry out implementation with a broad approach. In a Wednesday morning session at HIMSS16, “Data Analytics Takes the Pain out of Pain Pill Management,” Tripathi plans to discuss advanced analytics and the ways it can predict drug abusers. She'll also talk about some Big Data challenges and how to overcome them. MITRE operates multiple, federally funded research and development centers and a robust research program. Tripathi's prescription drug project began three years ago, while she's been in the analytics field for a decade. [Also: 21 awesome photos from past HIMSS conferences] Tripathi said the study demonstrated provider challenges, especially in the emergency room, to differentiate the symptoms of similar patients, when prescribing medications. "They do a lot of subjective interpretation," Tripathi said. "There are vital disagreements on how to handle it." "I wanted to solve this problem and look at all current solutions, identify gaps and what we need," Tripathi added, saying a better predictive approach would provide the necessary empirical data. "Data is everything, but you can do better if you know the right techniques," Tripathi said. "If your data is poor, your models will only go so far." Tripathi noted that each pharmacy must report every controlled-drug prescription to the state, as much as once every 24 hours. Her project has found access to analytics data of this resource at the point-of-sale can make sure the drugs are making it into the right hands and in the right amount. [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] "We had a lot of information, like drug interaction — so when you outline that you get a much bigger picture," Tripathi said.  "People have done a lot of work out there and sometimes one technique will inform the other. But it also needs to be usable." Tripathi’s session, “Data Analytics Takes the Pain out of Pain Management,” is scheduled for March 2, 2016 from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. at the Sands Expo Convention Center Palazzo D. Twitter: @JessiefDavis This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

Healthcare organizations are recognizing that clinical decision support technology that integrates with electronic health records can be utilized to improve quality of care and better utilize staff and resources. Community Medical Centers, for instance, had already embarked on adoption of an EHRs system when in 2014 it added clinical decision support technology to develop an evidence-based approach to care. Such a system promised to help nurses and doctors save valuable time by integrating CDS tools into their care plan and, in turn, improving their communication with patients. [Poll: What topics will define HIMSS16?] “The goal was to enhance quality of care and efficiency,” said Lauren Garrick, Corporate Informatics Nurse and Plan of Care Coordinator at Community Medical Centers in Fresno, California. The hospital group selected ZynxCare, a plan of care solution from ZynxHealth, which provided templates to allow nurses and doctors to recommend and provide relevant services by providing access to medical research libraries, comprising hundreds of diagnoses and procedures. With this evidence-based information at their fingertips, the clinicians could  focus on their individual patients. The CDS tools also easily integrated with Community Medical Centers’ digital Epic EHR system. Garrick said a benefit for Community Medical Centers was the ability of the ZynxCare system to be customized according to the needs of the hospital group. “They have software you build and an integration process you use to integrate it into your system,” Garrick said. “You can pull up these templates for plan of care and support changes and create templates in Excel files, and our tech team can migrate the files into EHRs.” Garrick, along with Judi Binderman, VP and chief medical informatics officer for Community Medical Centers, will outline how CDS technology program was conceived, developed and implemented across the four hospitals in a presentation at HIMSS16.    [Also: 21 awesome photos from past HIMSS conferences] Their talk, “Taking Plans of Care from Clinician to Patient-Centric” will examine how Community Medical Centers replaced its homegrown, generic plans of care with the evidence-based, CDS system specific to the patient’s condition and adjustable to special requirements the patient may have. Garrick said that with the CDS program in place, nurses can now easily access information on generic conditions for patients while examining and communicating with the patient closely. “A nurse would have access to relevant information, and be able to instantly go through medical journals and web links for a patient,” she said. “For example, if they are advising someone about Sudden Infant Death prevention, a staff member can click on links and read research right at the patient’s bedside.” “Taking Plans of Care from Clinician to Patient-Centric,” is scheduled for Wednesday March 2, 2016 from 10-11 AM in the Sands Expo Convention Center Palazzo G. Twitter: @HealthITNews This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the HIMSS16 conference. Follow our live blog for real-time updates, and visit Destination HIMSS16 for a full rundown of our reporting from the show. For a selection of some of the best social media posts of the show, visit our Trending at #HIMSS16 hub.

The company will also tout a new data recovery partnership with Amazon Web Services, the CEO said.

More than 30 interviews with thought leaders will be broadcast over two days.