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 Welcome to this Weekend in Health IT News, where we look at as many stories as we can in 20 minutes or less that will impact health. It. It's Tuesday News Day, and here's what we have on tap. Actually, it's Monday, it's Labor Day. I'm recording this and, uh, I have grill duty, so I'm gonna have to leave here in 20 to 25 minutes.

I'm gonna record this straight through. I'm gonna go out and start cooking the, uh, brats and hotdogs for the, uh. Friends who are coming over this afternoon. Uh, let's take a look at some of the news stories before I do that. So, uh, we're gonna talk about UGM because it's news. You should know what's going on.

We had two episodes, uh, with, uh, one with Dr. David sma and one with Dr. David Butler. Uh, a new guest with, uh, CA's Partners. And, uh, uh, you're gonna wanna check those out. This is gonna be just a brief rundown of some of the things that went on there. Uh, let's see. We have a couple of, uh, security stories.

That's never good. Hardly ever. Good. No, these aren't good . These are, but we're gonna talk about some security stories that have come up. Even an Apple story that's not good, uh, that you're gonna wanna know about for your iPads, iPhones and whatnot. Um, we're gonna talk about consumerism, talk about medical records.

Hey, Google wants to replace the lifespan of your, uh, SSL certificates. That's, uh, interesting. They wanna reduce it to one year. That's probably all I'm gonna say about that, but just something to keep in your back of your head. If you're in charge of SSL certificates, you might wanna . Uh, make a note of that.

Uh, let's see, wide. Let's get to the show. Uh, my name is Bill Russell, recovering healthcare, CIO, and creator of this week in Health. It a set of podcasts and videos dedicated to developing the next generation of health IT leaders. This podcast is sponsored by health lyrics. Professional athletes have coaches for every aspect of their life.

To improve performance, yet many CIOs and health executives choose to go it alone. Technology is taking center stage for healthcare. Get a coach in your corner. Visit health lyrics.com to schedule your free consultation. Finally, check out the two new services on the website this week, health.com. Insights and Staff Meeting Insights is for individuals looking to propel their health it career forward.

Uh, you get two emails a week with insights from industry leaders, and then I provide some commentary so that you can apply that in your daily life. And, uh, staff meetings for managers looking to introduce a team to new thinking and get the conversation started in the right direction. If either of these jump off the page at you, hit the website, sign up today.

They were both there shared in detail. They were kind enough to stop, uh, stopped by on their travels home. Um, David was in the airport and Dr. David, or David SMA was in the airport, Dr. David Butler. . Was at a Starbucks being highly caffeinated as he told me. Uh, and, uh, he talked very fast about the things that were exciting about the EGM conference.

I'm just gonna hit the, the highlights here and talk about a couple things that I think are news and we'll just go from there. So, Judy Faulkner reflects on the long strange trip. It's been for Epic Systems. As you would imagine 40th birthday, they reflected on their start in the basement of an office building at Old University Avenue.

Uh, systems really around the world. So, uh, incredible, incredible, incredible. Nothing but, uh, um, respect for what Judy Faulkner and the team have been able to do, uh, really from nothing until, uh, today. Uh. Faulkner lingered on PI pivotal points, uh, such as, uh, inter introducing the graphical user interface in 94, uh, which she says is the start of the EMR industry.

Uh, might be a little hyperbole there, but, um, it's definitely the start of a different, uh, chapter in the EMR industry for sure. Um, and, uh, also about, around their, uh, efforts to share patient data across different health systems. In the mid two thousands, she reflected on a conversation with her husband, a physician who complained that her, uh, to her that the patients were dying due to a lack of exchange between providers.

And, uh, and they have built out a really robust, uh, data sharing platform. They have, uh, care quality, they have, uh, care Everywhere, share everywhere. Um, they have, um, gosh, community connect. They, they have a whole host of things, uh, that they built out to share the data, uh, across their, um, . Uh, uh, across the Epic ecosystem, if you will.

I think the other thing they really did there, which I'm really impressed with, is they, they really led their clients, um, around the importance of sharing that data and helping them to see the, the need to share that data, uh, across at least all the epic, uh, uh, users, uh, within that community. So, let's see.

Let's go on here. This year, Faulkner spent more time focused not just on the past, but also on the present. A portion of her speech focused on ongoing issues around medical software from the changing regulatory landscape to the growth of third party applications to Dr. Burnout and productivity. All important issues will come back to that.

She also stressed the importance of utilizing Epic's, vast array of features and applications, many of which. Are automated and artificial intelligence driven to improve outcomes for patients. She said that Epic would soon launch an initiative to have its customers save 100,000 lives through improved use.

Of the company's technology. So, uh, again, uh, fantastic. If you hadn't listened to it, Seth Hane, VP of RD for Epic, uh, AI was on the show probably about four weeks ago. We talked about a lot of these things and, uh, I think one of the things that's most impressive about it, to be honest with you is, um, you know, there is advancements being done in places like LA Seattle.

Um, uh, you know, New York, uh, Chicago where you, where you would think there would be advances, but one of the things that Seth really pointed out in that episode was the advances that are going on in. Uh, these rural locations because Epic has been able to build the, uh, AI intelligence into the workflow and into the platform that you're seeing health systems that wouldn't normally do that kind of advanced work, uh, do that kind of advanced work, which is exceptional.

I. And then finally, cosmos. Massive database of patient biomedical data that Epic claims could change. Clinical decision making and medical records and a bunch of other things. Uh, voice recognition and some other things. I'm gonna go back to again, those two episodes I did. Thursday and Friday much deeper than what I'm gonna go into.

Uh, but I'm gonna talk about two things here. One is the changing regulatory LA landscape growth of third party applications. Uh, changing regulatory landscape could be one area where Judy and I disagree, which I've, I've, uh, really touched on a little bit on on previous episodes. And, um, . You know, secretary Azar, SEMA Verma are really focused in on how do we share data across the entire health landscape.

Uh, I think if you were to really push Judy on it, she would say, we have developed a way to do this. And if everyone were to go to Epic, I'm not sure she would be this overt, but I think it's what she thinks. If everyone were to go to Epic, if a hundred percent of health systems were to go to Epic, we would have the best data sharing platform across the entire country.

And you know what? She is absolutely right, better than any other platform that's out there. If every health system was on Epic, we'd have a great, uh, data sharing platform, uh, across the board. The problem is that will never happen. So we have to deal in reality. And the reason that'll never happen is 'cause once it gets to a certain percentage, the federal government will step in and they'll break up Epic.

Uh, it'll just happen. So you can't get to a hundred percent of a market and expect to still be around. So we have to explore other, uh, options. And since you know, you have these competing platforms and there's really no . Um, there's no financial incentive. There's only, uh, sort of an altruistic incentive to share that patient data across competing platforms.

That's why the federal government has to step in, and I'm not a huge fan of it. I'm just saying that's this, this is the quintessential, uh, use case for the federal government stepping in where you have to get . Epic data into a Cerner platform and Cerner data into an Epic platform and so forth and so on or across the entire ecosystem or a new, uh, set of data brokers to emerge that everyone has to share data with.

Uh, that's the, that's the work of the federal government is to make sure that markets don't get so constricted, that there's only one or two ways. For, uh, something to happen effectively. So, uh, I actually like the work that Secretary Azar and Sima Verma are doing. Uh, it's, it's gonna push Epic a little bit out of their comfort, comfort zone and, uh, and probably to do some things that aren't necessarily in the best interest of Epic.

Or, and same on the Cerner side, or in the best interest of Cerner, Cerner's gonna have to be able to, you know, provide access to that data, which makes it easier to move into Epic, which in theory makes it easier for a health system to make a, an epic decision and move away from Cerner or to make a Cerner decision to move away from Epic.

So, I, I understand why, why, as a business you wouldn't want to do this. Um, but in the interest of patients, in the interest of sharing that data for the same reason, uh, that conversation all, all the way back in the two thousands, uh, I think we, I, I think Epic can be a leader here, by the way. I think there's a, a, a, a better path than fighting CMSI think it's partnering with CMS.

And, uh, uh, and identifying a handful of players or a handful of ways, uh, that we are going to share information in a way that is secure and is a way that is effective and in a way that benefits the patients and does not, uh, jeopardize the intellectual property of anyone. I. Who has done a ton of work over 40 years to up build this out.

So that's one. Uh, you know, the regulatory landscape, the, the second is closely tied, and that's the growth of third party applications. The reality is Epic can't do everything. Cerner can't do everything. The EHR was never designed to do everything. There is not gonna be one killer app in healthcare.

There's going to be, uh, that is gonna be the core system. Which is gonna house the legal, medical record, but then you're gonna have all these ancillary systems and applications that reside around it. It's why, you know, applications like Zel exist so that, uh, so that providers can, uh, prescribe applications.

I. Right. 'cause there's not gonna be one application that wins. There's gonna be a ton of 'em. There's gonna be something around orthopedics, there's gonna be something around oncology. There's gonna be something around. And we need that innovative community to be able to develop. In order to do that, they need to be able to get access to the data.

And I'm a huge proponent of the fact that Epic shouldn't be making any money on access to that data. I don't think me as a, a developer of an application should have to pay Epic anything but a, a very small fee to cover their costs. Um, I also don't think that Epic needs to worry about the fact that they have to protect that data, um, more than anyone else has to protect that data.

If, if they're, if the federal government is gonna force them in this direction, then we have to . Require the federal government to define what that, uh, security mechanism is going to be to make sure that once Epic says, okay, fine. You want us to share the data with them, we're gonna share it with them.

Well, this is highly sensitive data about my health. I wanna make sure it doesn't get used improperly. And I think as Judy clearly articulated. In her talk, she doesn't want it to get used, uh, improperly either. And so until that mechanism is clearly defined and articulated by either the federal government or someone, someone has to define it and someone has to clearly articulate it, I don't think Epic or any health system should be required to share that data.

So from that standpoint, we are in complete agreement. Let's make sure that that gets defined. Some way, some, some way, shape or form. Um, and the other, in terms of sharing the data. Across health systems. I think, uh, quite frankly, um, I, I think the federal government does need to step in here. And I think in healthcare we need to think differently about APIs.

We, we, we see it as a mechanism for moving data from one system to another, where my health data is gonna be stored in 75 different health systems, makes no sense whatsoever. Uh, the way APIs work or should work is, uh, uh. Sort of a request and retrieve kind of platform. The one we're most, uh, familiar with is, is UPS, right?

I wanna know where my package is. I request the data, I retrieve the data. When you go to Amazon today, it's not, Amazon isn't downloading all that data and putting it into their system. They have a link to the API and UPS that tells you where you're. Your packages. That's how that data should work. We should be able to make a request for the data, for the health data, get the health data, not even move it into our system unless we need it for care, and then, you know, process some things and then, uh, allow that data to reside wherever.

Uh, I've already talked about this too much onto the next story. Healthcare finance news reports close to one third of healthcare employees have never received cybersecurity training. The report shows, and he goes in to talk about this report. And actually, all I really need to re read is that headline to say to you, the number one thing you need to get outta this story is a hundred percent.

The attack vector that is the easiest to breach is your users. A hundred percent of them need to be trained on cybersecurity and it needs to be . Constant ongoing, uh, training on how to use systems. And, uh, that's, uh, that just is the way it is. So let's go into some of the breaches for this past week. Uh, I thought one of the things that was interesting to me is I hit a story.

Which story was that? So that's the, uh, they've never been trained. There's another story.

And then you had 10,000 patient records at, um, mass General had been breached. And these are all within the last 30 days. And, uh, it's, uh, you know, again, this continues to be a little disconcerting that, uh, this many patient records are being breached. Uh, when we do this, when we allow this to happen, and everyone knows this, I'm not saying it, when we allow this to happen, it is a, uh, significant, um,

Uh, violation of our trust with the community and the people that we serve. Uh, you know, this is a, uh, one of those areas where we need to be vigilant. We need to double down. We need to be training people. We need to be putting the right tools in. We need to be looking at innovations that are happening, uh, around, uh, uh, air artificial intelligence across the wire, uh, looking for these things, shutting them down quickly.

Um, addressing, uh, exfiltration based on patterns. Uh, you name it. We, we need to be doing this. We need to be getting the budget dollars. The so what on this is we need to be get, we need to be training people. We need to be getting the budget dollars. We need to secure the data. Um, because if you can't secure the data, you shouldn't be, you should figure out some other way of, of housing the information you need for the, uh, for the

Uh, to, to, to run your health system. I thought one of the more interesting stories though, uh, it's kind of sad that those stories have become sort of old hat. I'm sort of like, Hey, a hundred thousand patients here, 120,000 patients here. Uh, but 32 million patients in the first half of the year. That's, uh, startling.

But if you think, well, Maine, Silicon Valley knows what they're doing. They really have this thing down. I read this story. Apple just gave 1.4 billion users a reason to quit their iPads and iPhones, according to Forbes. That's not gonna happen, but I'll read some of the story for you. Google's project zero security team broke the news revealing that hackers.

Quietly developed a system which enables disparate iOS vulnerabilities to be daisy chained together to gain complete control of your iPhone and iPad. All owners had to do to be exposed was visit a certain website and Google estimates that thousands of visitors per week did just that once in hackers had full access to your photos, your contacts, your private messages, and even encrypted data such as passwords held in your iOS key chain.

So, um, you know, it goes on. But, uh, I, I mean, you, I, I would, it's a Forbes article. I'd recommend you look it up. It's worth looking at, and for those of us who have, uh, physicians and clinicians who use iPhones and, uh, there's a better than average chance, they reuse the passwords they use in the hospital on their, uh, phone, and they save it in their key chain.

There's a chance if they've, uh, been breached this way, that their passwords have been breached. So again, and one of the hardest ways to, uh. . One of the hardest things to do is when people are coming in, coming in with the right credentials is to identify, uh, you know, when it's, when the systems are being misused and they're exfil trading the wrong data.

So, um, you know, this is just something I wanted people to be aware of and, uh, to be planning for. It's something that should be a part of the conversation that's going on. Alright, that's enough about security. Uh, bar is rising for consumerism in healthcare, but providers are still playing Catch up, Jeff Leg Healthcare Finance Weekly.

Face in trying to, trying to grasp firm handhold on the ever rising bar of consumer needs and expectations, the index provides a lens into the industry performance related to consumerism based on survey responses from hospitals and health systems nationwide. So the index placed organizations and four main tiers.

An organ organization in tier one is defined as best in class. Through tier four, you get the picture. Hospitals and health systems continue to emphasize building facilities over creating convenience. The report found while more than half, the respondents offer urgent. Uh, urgent and ambul care. Ambulatory care centers only a third offer.

Widespread basic online scheduling for existing patients. So we're building out new urgent care centers, name Atory Care centers, but we're not investing enough money. To do more than a third are, do or less than a third are doing, uh, online scheduling for patients, which we know is one of the highest, uh, desired things within, uh, the, uh, digital platforms that we provide.

But few offer this service for new patients same day appointments and extended uh, and walk-in hours are common access strategies and 38% of respondents offer widespread Save a spot urgent care. Uh, while nearly 60% offer it on a limited basis. This is a, a great survey by the way. It just maps out, uh, some of the things that, uh, patients are looking for, uh, from their, uh, digital tools and from their health systems in, in general, that digital can really support and, uh, streamline in terms of, uh, really driving down the friction, increasing the access, uh, and increasing the, the convenience factor of working with your health system.

And, uh. You know, for those of us who have been in healthcare for any period of time, all you have to do, all I will have to do this afternoon at our Labor Day party is bring up that I am in healthcare and the people who are here who know that will, uh, tell me their latest healthcare story. And they'll say, um, let me think.

My most recent one, let you know, first of all, calling to . It's gonna be one of my hot buttons. Uh, this year is, um, . Calling into schedule. Okay. So first of all, having, having to call into schedule. So they call, they call into schedule, they get to the place where they need to schedule, and they say, oh no, you're in the wrong place.

Let me transfer you. So they, they transfer 'em. Once they get to another person and they say, oh, no, no, no, they were wrong. You need to go back to the other thing. They said, well, can you transfer me back? And the answer is no, we can't transfer you back. Our phone system does not have that capability. You're gonna have to call back in.

So they end up having to call back in. Um. And you know, the fact that first of all, we should have the ability to do online scheduling for something as simple as it was a mammography, by the way, for something as simple as a, a mammogram, we should be able to, uh, sell, we should be able to have online scheduling.

But the second thing is these phone systems through, uh, m and a and things that have happened, we've gotten to these phone systems that are so convoluted that we can't . Uh, for whatever reason, we can't transfer people effectively across those phone systems. So the consolidation of call centers, the ability to, uh, route calls.

Uh, and my, my guess is if your phone system is that antiquated, you probably don't have some of the, uh, advanced tools that are available on some of these. Uh, I'm not recommending this, but I'm just saying some of these cloud-based phone systems, I have talked to . Especially, uh, retail-based health health practices that are using cloud-based, uh, phone systems and have phenomenal capabilities in terms of routing and um, and, uh, reports and metrics and all sorts of other things.

It's, it's it exceptional. So we should, we should have some of those things, and a lot of us haven't been able to implement them, uh, just because the, uh, the, the cost is so high. I can't believe that's 20 minutes already. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'll, I'll hit. So, um, 'cause I probably won't cover these stories.

IBM's Dr. Watson may have have been misguided from the start. I think that's an interesting story. Um. But, uh, pretty, pretty hard to go into that online here today. That is from, uh, AI in healthcare, uh, innovation to transform Healthcare. IBM Dr. Watson, uh, Dave Pearson ar uh, article from, uh, August 12th. I think that's, uh, interesting article worth, uh, reading.

It's really about what people have been saying for a while, which, uh, Watson bit off more than it could chew, uh, from the get go and really should have been, uh, a lot more narrow, uh, a lot more . Focused a lot more narrowly , a much more narrow focus would've helped them significantly rather than, uh, trying to market and advertise, um, uh, where they were, uh, trying to go or where they thought they could go.

Uh, let's see. Two thirds of consumers say they're interested in telehealth. But, uh, far fewer have actually used it or given it a try. This is from, uh, mobile Health News. Dave, uh, M-U-O-I-O is his last name, August 28th. Um, again, interesting read worth looking at. Uh, I think it speaks to the fact that we're, there's still a cultural shift and we need to educate the consumers on the value of telehealth and the value of using it and, uh, get them to use it for the first time.

Much like we did with Mu with the portal, uh, the first time around. I we're gonna have to do the same thing with telehealth. It, it feels like to me. Um. HIT infrastructure.com. There's a, uh, story. CDSS could, or, uh, clinical decision support systems could replace EHRs as clinical interface says Frost Sullivan.

And, uh, that is from, again, h Hi, uh, HIT infrastructure.com. Fred Donovan. Doesn't have a date, but, uh, interesting read worth looking at. Um, anything that gets that sort of can set itself in the middle, uh, between a user and the, uh, backend system, uh, has a disruptive quality to it. Uh, so it's something to always keep an eye on.

I already told you about Google's, uh, plan to reduce the lifespan of SSL certificates, and I think that's important to, uh, keep an eye on. I'm gonna come back probably next week to this story. It's your right to see your medical records. Uh, and it shouldn't be hard to do this. It's an NPR. Uh, story that I, uh, got online worth, uh, taking a look at.

That's all for this week. Every Friday, check out our interviews with industry influencers, our two from last week, uh, the two Davids, uh, on the, uh, UGM conference. If you want more detail on that, uh, keep the comments coming. Bill it this week in health it.com. Good, bad, or indifferent. It all helps. Really appreciate it.

This show is a production of this week in Health It. For more great content, check out the website this week, health.com, uh, or the YouTube channel this week, health.com. At the top, there's the, uh, uh, you can click on YouTube, you can click on our, uh, two resources, insights, and staff meeting, and, uh, any one of our archive show.

Thanks for listening. That's all for now.