Data Warehousing
Disaster recovery traditionally hasn't had a very high priority in healthcare IT. Everyone knew it was important, but it came far down the list of spending priorities. That's changed significantly in the past five years.
When even the Department of Homeland Security is warning against using Internet Explorer, it's a safe bet its security flaws are serious. But for many healthcare providers -- notably those still running on Windows XP -- IE's recently-exposed vulnerabilities won't be fixed by Microsoft.
Healthcare security is a multifaceted, ever-shifting challenge -- and all it takes is one missed cue for a costly breach to ensue, says Heather Roszkowski, chief information security officer of Fletcher Allen Healthcare. Technology can give a broader view of where data is, and who's doing what with it.
As the volume and variety of medical images increases, providers are looking for better ways to store and access them. Vendor neutral archives are fast finding favor -- but in many respects the jury is still out on just what a VNA is and what it should offer.
Effective use of analytics is "not something you can buy from a vendor; it's an organizational and cultural value that has to grow and mature," said James E. Gaston, speaking Thursday at the Healthcare IT News/HIMSS Media Healthcare Business Intelligence Forum in Washington.
Geisinger Health System, the pioneering integrated care network, is "perfectly designed to do a huge number of experiments in both the provider and payer sides," said its Chief Executive Officer Glenn Steele Jr., MD, on Thursday.
ONC chief Karen DeSalvo said in an April keynote on Capitol Hill it's time for ONC to drive healthcare beyond the meaningful use of electronic health records toward the use of big data.
With apologies to Internet meme-makers everywhere, analytics experts have a message for healthcare providers trying to get their heads around business and clinical intelligence: "Big data, you're doing it wrong."
Smart use of clinical and business intelligence has helped earn 21 University of Iowa Health Care clinics a spot among an elite few, as they've been awarded a Stage 7 Ambulatory Award from HIMSS Analytics.
Hospital executives are faced with numerous challenges related to healthcare reform. Strategic decisions about how to address these challenges will significantly impact not only the financial and clinical performance of hospitals, but also the perception of executive leadership itself.