Singapore - Singapore offers guidance on cloud use for the private healthcare sector

The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and Ministry of Health (MOH) recently mapped cloud security standards for the private healthcare sector.

This Multi-Tier Cloud Security (MTCS) Singapore Standard aims to bring clarity to the private healthcare sector on how cloud computing can be used and applied for their enterprises, as well as trust through transparency of cloud service providers (CSPs) via certification.

The mapping guidelines show that the base tier of the MTCS, Level 1, could be used to host publicly available information such as clinical standards and terminology systems. Meanwhile, the most stringent tier, Level 3, could be used to host clinical administrative support systems such as billing and admissions data.

"Singapore must continue to lay the foundations for innovative solutions to thrive and grow in a Smart Nation, and this means bringing clarity to industry sectors to aid in their adoption. We are encouraged that the healthcare sector can now look to adopting the cloud with the clarity which our Multi-Tier Cloud Security Standard brings," said IDA Assistant Chief Executive Khoong Hock Yun.

Besides the MTCS, IDA recently called for feedback on the possibility of a data certification framework.

The agency has been driving clarity in the data landscape through various guidelines and standards, and is looking into the potential for an expanded framework to further drive adoption and use of private datasets through clarity. One such potential use case could be in exploring how a "common tongue" could be achieved between dataset owners and potential buyers to better gauge datasets.

Nurdianah Md Nur

Read more…                 and       Microsoft MTCS Singapore

mis-asia

USA - New regulations may dampen BYOD plans for doctors and hospitals

Late last month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the first major update to HIPAA, the 1996 law that governs how companies operating in the health care field are required to protect the privacy and security of patient information.

The update, known as the HIPAA omnibus final rule, includes provisions that give Americans greater control over the personal health data and that strengthen the requirements of providers to report data breaches as well as the enforcement options available to HHS in the event of a breach.

In announcing the rule, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius pointed to the massive changes in health care technologies since HIPAA was became law in 1996. In a statement, she said, "Much has changed in healthcare since HIPAA was enacted over 15 years ago. The new rule will help protect patient privacy and safeguard patients' health information in an ever expanding digital age."

HIPAA was passed long before mobile technology like today's smartphones and tablets came on the market and in an era where issues like BYOD programs or modern cloud computing were virtually unimaginable in medicine (or any other industry). In updating HIPAA rules to directly or indirectly address these issues, HHS may actually make it harder for health care entities -- hospitals, medical groups, private practices, insurers, individual providers, health insurance exchanges -- to take full advantage of these technologies.

What's changed?

When it comes to technology, the most significant change is an expansion of liability when it comes to data breaches.

To date, providers have only been required to inform HHS of data breaches that result in "a significant risk of financial, reputational, or other harm to an individual." In other words, if you discover a breach but conclude that it doesn't present a risk of harm to an individual, you're not required to identify and report it.

The new requirements are much more stringent: any incident that results in unauthorized access, use, or disclosure of personal health information is automatically presumed to be a breach and potentially harmful to the individuals whose data is compromised. As a result, all such incidents need to be reported and will be considered data breaches (with potential penalty implications) until a risk assessment can be performed and reported that shows the chances that personal health information was actually exposed or compromised can be considered to be low.

That puts a much greater burden on the provider or organization.

One of the biggest areas of concern is mobile devices and removable media like USB flash drives or memory cards. If these devices contain patient data or credentials to access patient data, then a lost or stolen device may qualify a breach and would need to be reported -- even if the breach was unlikely to cause harm because a procedure like a remote wipe or device access and encryption policies. As a result, the new rule may make health care IT leaders, practice or hospital administrators, and risk management officials more hesitant to move forward with BYOD programs or broadening the range of devices provided to doctors, nurses, and other staff members.

How health care providers can cope

It's worth noting that privacy and security requirements concerning mobile technology haven't really changed. That means that many of the approaches already being used in the health care field to secure data on mobile devices will still meet the HIPAA requirements. Those approaches include mobile management, securing data on a device in an encrypted container, ensuring secure remote access to data, and using systems that let patient data be viewed on a mobile device without storing it on that device. All of those approaches require IT oversight of configuration of a smartphone or tablet regardless of whether it is employee-owned or not. They may also require limiting device features to ensure security.

Some organizations may also limit the selection of devices, platforms, or mobile OS versions that can be used by health care professionals. There are two key reasons for this. One is that the older versions of mobile OSes don't always include the security and management features that may be required. iOS devices running anything prior to iOS 4 or devices running a version of Android prior to Honeycomb on tablets or Ice Cream Sandwich on smartphones are key examples. The second reason is that SD cards, common on many Android devices, are removable media and therefore can present their own data loss or leakage concerns.

Eliminating BYOD from the equation makes it easier to ensure mobile devices used to access patient information are properly secured. That could mean locked-down devices provided specifically for work use, which is essentially the old BlackBerry model.

It could also mean using the COPE (corporate owned, personally enabled) model that lets users treat a device as their own while also ensuring security requirements are met. And it can mean supporting a scaled down version of BYOD in which employee devices are permitted but their access to an office or hospital network is limited to systems that don't provide patient information -- an approach that lets doctors and nurses access medical references and tools, which some studies suggest is a much more common use than accessing patient records, as well as their personal data and apps.

Outside providers also impacted

The expansion of liability could also affect outside organizations.

Before the update, companies that provide services to health care organizations, like consulting firms, software vendors, and cloud service providers, could only be liable for breaches if they operated under a business associate agreement with an organization that was required to comply with HIPAA like a hospital, doctor's office, or insurance company.

The new rule expands the type of companies that can be considered business associates or subcontractors and holds them liable for breaches along with their customers.

Cloud service providers are probably the most significant example because many individual health care providers and small practices rely on cloud-based EMR systems like Dr. Chrono  which are designed primarily to support mobile devices like the iPad. They could also cover firms that setup and manage in-office systems, including mobile management solutions and overall practice management and administrative services.

As a result, companies or consultants whose primary business is not health related -- independent software developers or storage providers who work with clients from across a range of different fields -- may find that the prospect of taking on HIPAA liability is more than they're willing to consider. This could lead to a type of market isolation in which health care providers have fewer choices.

Other changes in the updated law -- paticularly granting patients or their designees access to their health information and blocking providers from reporting specific events to insurers -- also have some impact on health IT and health care administrators. Transferring patient data electronically may create some challenges in ensuring that the data is formatted in a way to pass from one system to another. Blocking data from being reported to an insurer may pose issues with EMR, practice management, and medical billing systems.

Both of these issues, however, will almost certainly be handled by the developers of the software and systems involved.

Ryan Faas

http://www.citeworld.com

Singapore - Nanotechnology: Spotting a molecular mix-up

High-resolution microscopy reveals that a benzene-like molecule known as HBC has a quantized electron density around its ring framework (left). Theoretical calculations show that the observed quantum states change with different tip positions (right, upper/lower images, respectively).

Information within the bonds of molecules known as super benzene oligomers pave the way for new types of quantum computers

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) is routinely employed by physicists and chemists to capture atomic-scale images of molecules on surfaces. Now, an international team led by Christian Joachim and co-workers from the A*STAR Institute of Materials Research and Engineering has taken STM a step further: using it to identify the quantum states within ‘super benzene’ compounds using STM conductance measurements1. Their results provide a roadmap for developing new types of quantum computers based on information localized inside molecular bonds.

To gain access to the quantum states of hexabenzocoronene (HBC) — a flat aromatic molecule made of interlocked benzene rings — the researchers deposited it onto a gold substrate. According to team member We-Hyo Soe, the weak electronic interaction between HBC and gold is crucial to measuring the system’s ‘differential conductance’ — an instantaneous rate of current charge with voltage that can be directly linked to electron densities within certain quantum states.

After cooling to near-absolute zero temperatures, the team maneuvered its STM tip to a fixed location above the HBC target. Then, they scanned for differential conductance resonance signals at particular voltages. After detecting these voltages, they mapped out the electron density around the entire HBC framework using STM. This technique provided real-space pictures of the compound’s molecular orbitals — quantized states that control chemical bonding.

When Joachim and co-workers tried mapping a molecule containing two HBC units, a dimer, they noticed something puzzling. They detected two quantum states from STM measurements taken near the dimer’s middle, but only one state when they moved the STM tip to the dimer’s edge (see image). To understand why, the researchers collaborated with theoreticians who used high-level quantum mechanics calculations to identify which molecular orbitals best reproduced the experimental maps.

Traditional theory suggests that STM differential conductance signals can be assigned to single, unique molecular orbitals. The researchers’ calculations, however, show that this view is flawed. Instead, they found that observed quantum states contained mixtures of several molecular orbitals, with the exact ratio dependent upon the position of the ultra-sharp STM tip.

Soe notes that these findings could have a big impact in the field of quantum computing. “Each measured resonance corresponds to a quantum state of the system, and can be used to transfer information through a simple energy shift. This operation could also fulfill some logic functions.” However, he adds that advanced, many-body theories will be necessary to identify the exact composition and nature of molecular orbitals due to the location-dependent tip effect.

The A*STAR-affiliated researchers contributing to this research are from the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering
 

References

1. Soe, W.-H., Wong, H. S., Manzano, C., Grisolia, M., Hliwa, M., Feng, X., Müllen, K. & Joachim, C. Mapping the excited states of single hexa-peri-benzocoronene oligomers. ACS Nano 6, 3230–3235 (2012). | article

Singapore - Data storage: Hybrid solutions

As digital information continues to accumulate, data storage facilities require new technologies to cope with supply and demand.

As demand escalates for ever-faster and more efficient and reliable data storage, researchers turn to next-generation non-volatile memory technology

Internet, computing and networking technologies are now integral to many people’s lives, generating ever-increasing amounts of digital information. Data storage experts estimate that by 2020, 35 zettabytes — 35 x 1021 bytes — of digital information will require storage that is safe, reliable and above all, quickly accessible. “Storage is the most likely issue to inhibit the capability and performance of a computing system,” explains Yong Khai Leong at the A*STAR Data Storage Institute. “Current hard disk drives consume significant energy and release a lot of heat.”

Most of the processing work in a computer is performed by random-access memory (RAM), which can access any part of its memory very quickly. However, this comes at a cost — information in RAM is not stored when the computer is off — so storage devices using non-volatile memory (NVM), such as ROM and flash memory associated with magnetic hard disks, are used for long-term storage.

Yong and co-workers reviewed existing data center storage systems, and suggested ways to incorporate next-generation NVM, which can do the job of RAM as well as providing storage, into future data centers1. They focused on the importance of scalable, affordable storage systems, and the need for devices that can quickly read files and metadata. Examples of metadata include the keywords stored alongside every webpage for the benefit of internet search engines.

Data centers already use alternatives to hard disks such as solid-state drives (SSDs) that use less power than magnetic hard disks. However, SSDs are expensive and still slower than RAM. “We propose a new storage architecture incorporating next-generation NVM technology in a hybrid form with magnetic disk drive technology,” explains Yong. “This NVM has a longer life span than SSDs, and is quicker at reading metadata.”

A conventional magnetic disk drive in hybrid with next-generation NVM can spin less quickly because the task of reading data is sent through the NVM first. As a result, less energy is consumed. Also, while the NVM is searching through files, the disk drive is free to carry out maintenance tasks such as file backups, reducing the potential for data loss.

Yong notes that future systems will need intelligent algorithms — software that knows which data tasks to prioritize in the NVM at different times according to user demand.

A*STAR is leading the global search for data storage solutions, with a three-year research program in place. “We are taking a holistic approach in investigating the optimal ways to integrate these new emerging memory technologies into current systems and data centers,” Yong says.

The A*STAR-affiliated researchers contributing to this research are from the Data Storage Institute
 

References

1. Yong, K. L., Aung, K. M. M. & Alexopoulos, P. S. Storage system architecture for data centers of the future.International Journal of Advancements in Computing Technology 4, 184–192 (2012). | article

Singapore - Data storage: A fast and loose approach improves memory

Purely electronic memory begins to lose data as temperature increases, while mechanical shuttle memory retains its data more strongly.

An unconventional design for a nanoscale memory device uses a freely moving mechanical shuttle to improve performance

A loose and rattling part in your cell phone is generally a cause for concern. Like most other electronic devices, your phone works by moving electrons through fixed circuit pathways. If electrons are not sufficiently contained within these pathways, the efficiency and speed of a device decrease. However, as the miniature components inside electronic devices shrink with each generation, electrons become harder to contain. Now, a research team led by Vincent Pott at the A*STAR Institute of Microelectronics, Singapore, has designed a memory device using a loose and moving part that actually enhances performance1.

The loose part is a tiny metal disk, or shuttle, about 300 nanometers thick and 2 micrometers long, and lies inside a roughly cylindrical metal cage. Because the shuttle is so small, gravity has little effect on it. Instead, the forces of adhesion between the shuttle and its metal cage determine its position. When stuck to the top of its cage, the shuttle completes an electrical circuit between two electrodes, causing current to flow. When it is at the bottom of the cage, the circuit is broken and no current flows. The shuttle can be moved from top to bottom by applying a voltage to a third electrode, known as a gate, underneath the cage.

Pott and co-workers suggested using this binary positioning to encode digital information. They predicted that the forces of adhesion would keep the shuttle in place even when the power is off, allowing the memory device to retain information for long periods of time. In fact, the researchers found that high temperature — one of the classic causes of electronic memory loss — should actually increase the duration of data retention by softening the metal that makes up the shuttle memory's disk and cage, thereby strengthening adhesion. The ability to operate in hot environments is a key requirement for military and aerospace applications.

The untethered shuttle also takes up less area than other designs and is not expected to suffer from mechanical fatigue because it avoids the use of components that need to bend or flex — such as the cantilevers used in competing mechanical memory approaches. In a simulation, Pott and co-workers found that the shuttle memory should be able to switch at speeds in excess of 1 megahertz.

The next steps, the researchers say, include designing arrays of the devices and analyzing fabrication parameters in detail. If all goes well, their novel device could compete head-to-head with the industry-standard FLASH memory.

The A*STAR-affiliated researchers contributing to this research are from the Institute of Microelectronics

References

1. Pott, V., Li, C. G., Vaddi, R., Tsai, J. M.-L. & Kim, T. T. The shuttle nanoelectromechanical nonvolatile memory. IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices 59, 1137–1143 (2012). | article

Singapore - Data storage: Electrically enhanced recall

A voltage applied across a magnetic tunnel junction increases the device’s energy efficiency, thus enabling smaller devices — potentially as small as 5 nanometers — for higher density data storage.

Operating tiny magnetic memories under electrical fields reduces power demand and could enable storage and retrieval of data at much higher speeds than conventional devices

Random-access memory (RAM) is a fast electronic device used in computers to temporarily store data. Traditional RAM is based on the flow of electrical current for data processing. To make RAM faster, more energy efficient and capable of storing more information in a smaller volume, hardware developers are investigating RAM based on magnetic fields. Miniaturization of these devices, however, is hampered by thermal instabilities. Hao Meng and his co-workers at the A*STAR Data Storage Institute have now shown how electric fields can help to circumvent this instability in tiny magnetic memories, as well as reduce operating power1. “This means more information can be stored in a single chip at a cheaper price,” says Meng.

Meng and his team investigated a type of memory that incorporates so-called ‘magnetic tunnel junctions’ (MTJs). Other researchers have previously observed electric-field induced improvements in MTJs, but only in fairly large devices — about 7 micrometers across. Large structures limit the writing speed and suffer from poor compatibility with other electronic components. Meng and his team demonstrated that the concept is also applicable to smaller and faster MTJs that can be integrated more easily.

MTJs are an ideal building block for magnetic memories because of their simplicity and large output signal. In general, they consist of just two magnetic layers separated by a thin insulating barrier (see image). A current passing through the device writes the binary information by controlling the direction of the magnetization in one of the magnetic layers. This process stores information as either a ‘one’ or a ‘zero’, depending on whether the induced magnetization is parallel or antiparallel to the magnetization of the second magnetic layer. A measurement of the resistance across the intermediate barrier can then read out the information as it is needed.

The researchers are working to make MTJs smaller so that they can squeeze in more information. However, smaller devices require larger current densities to switch the magnetization: this leads to heating and makes them less efficient. As a workaround, Meng and his co-workers applied just 0.2 volts across electrodes attached to each side of a 150-nanometer MTJ made of CoFeB-MgO. This reduced the magnetic field required to switch the magnetization by as much as 30% which, in turn, decreased the writing current density.

“Such devices could improve the data transfer rate; that is, how fast you can copy your files from one device to another,” says Meng.

The A*STAR-affiliated researchers contributing to this research are from the Data Storage Institute

References

1. Meng, H., Sbiaa, R., Akhtar, M. A. K., Liu, R. S., Naik, V. B. & Wang, C. C. Electric field effects in low resistance CoFeB-MgO magnetic tunnel junctions with perpendicular anisotropy. Applied Physics Letters 100,122405 (2012). | article

USA - How to Organize a Data Science Team

As the saying goes, good help is hard to find. When it comes to the loosely defined qualities of a data scientist, locating and organizing expert help among the dearth of candidates may seem closer to impossible.

A few experts in this emerging field served up their perspectives on selecting data scientists and organizing teams for the right approach on analysis of huge and varied data sets Wednesday as part of the Chief Data Scientist Summit in Chicago held by BI event organizers *IE.

Before you start looking to hire a data scientist, you need to know what you’re looking for. Aron Clymer, data scientist at salesforce.com, oversees a team of about a dozen data scientists and business analysts for the SaaS vendor’s product lines that touch on about 1 billion behavioral data transactions per day.

Clymer suggested that to get an idea of the size and scope of the team, start with an assessment of the three types of “products” data science teams produce: ad hoc, periodic and real time. Ad hoc queries are often on the lighter-effort end of the spectrum, where periodic may take deeper digging and real time requires unique infrastructure. From there, you can better gauge a data science team’s reach across enterprise data and capabilities with adding data-backed insight on business questions.

And to formally organize your data scientists and business data analysts, you’ll likely “settle” between the two extremes of enterprise data science teams: the one-person “spanners” who truly cover all aspects to business analytics, and the piecemeal, multi-membered team approach.

The spanners like those harnessed at Netflix may be nice in terms of project turnaround and elimination of team friction, but they’re not realistic for most organizations to court, pay and keep a single, all-encompassing data scientist of that skill level. On the other end, a full data science team can provide a more well-rounded approach to business questions and niche skill set, though risks the same challenging issues associated with adding a tech team layer, as well as team member obligations with other departments.

In describing his own team, Clymer said a hub-and-spoke approach keeps data scientists aligned with the specific concerns and interests with particular products. As data scientists may typically work from data marts and off models, Clymer said it’s critical to have a separate ETL and data warehouse people – “Data scientists typically aren’t good at this, too.” – with as much automation included on those fronts as possible.

Then there is the issue of finding the right people for the job. Accretive Health Chief Data Scientist Scott Nicholson discussed the very human elements he’s looking for in analytics hires. Health care is a people-facing industry that requires transparency in its functions, so an ideal data scientist must bring solid communications skills and ample curiosity. Instead of someone who “jumps all over the tech,” Nicholson, who has also worked in analytics for e-commerce and at LinkedIn, said the best data scientists are people who ask: “How can I make a quick impact?”

“The engineering stuff you can pick up ... but the curiosity? That’s something that’s built in. I can teach someone Python, but the curiosity is far harder to get.”

Nicholson adds that the right candidate must be ready to follow a model from the first business questions through development and definitely into deployment. This “end-to-end” quality forces the data scientist to see the user’s predicaments. In addition, it should enable better understanding to follow up with business questions that root out more of the unknown patterns and problems lurking in the data.

George Mason University Professor Kirk Borne, an astrophysicist and computational science professor at the university, stressed the importance of getting clear communication on executive expectations. Recounting a project in a previous position at NASA that spent its first few months asking the “same question with different terms,” Borne recommended data science teams that have a foot firmly planted in the business operations of the enterprise. It’s a connection between the two sides of the house that he’s currently looking into with the relationship between computational and business school degrees at George Mason.

“Once you understand the business question, you can prioritize your response and even come up with better questions,” Borne said during a roundtable discussion at the event.

Justin Kern

http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/

Singapore - A*STAR’s Data Storage Institute Launches Next Generation 5mm Hybrid Hard Disk Drive

The “A-Drive”, one of the world’s thinnest 5mm hybrid hard drive in a 2.5’’ form factor, was officially launched by Mr. S. Iswaran, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Home Affairs and Trade & Industry, to commemorate the Data Storage Institute’s (DSI) 20 years of R&D in the area of data storage capabilities.

The “A-Drive” represents the next generation of storage innovation providing capacities of up to 1 TB Hard Disk Drive (HDD) with 32 GB Solid State Drive (SSD). This potentially allows the “A-Drive” to store over 250,000 songs in its 5mm body. The “A-Drive” also addresses limitations of the popular, yet expensive, flash-based SSD, as well as the conventional HDD for the consumer and business industry.

DSI’s “A-Drive” is set to change the consumer and enterprise landscape, targeted specifically for tablets, ultrabooks, and future data centres. With its slim form factor, the “A-Drive” could fit into tablet devices, greatly expanding its storage space while extending battery life by up to 30%. The “A-Drive” will be a cheaper alternative to the SSDs currently used in ultrabooks, offering the same instant-on capability but with larger storage capacity. In addition, the “A-Drive” can be extended for enterprise storage applications, reducing power consumption by up to 50%, resulting in greener and more efficient data centres with better optimisation of the already limited rack space.

“Today, our year-long vision of creating a 5mm thin hybrid hard drive in 2.5’’ form factor with increased storage capacity and reduced power consumption at a lower cost for manufacturers has become a reality,” said Dr. Pantelis Alexopoulos, Executive Director of DSI. “We have managed to fit an amazing amount of innovation and advanced technology into a thinner, cheaper, and faster design, and we think the consumer and enterprise impact will be significant.”

One of the main challenges in reducing the thickness of current 7mm hard disk drives by almost 30% without compromising on its performance and stability is its spindle motor design. To achieve a reduction in size, DSI researchers developed a proprietary axial field motor which runs smoother, quieter, more efficiently, lowering power consumption by up to 70% yet at a fraction of the cost of SSDs. The motor’s design has been patented, along with 30 other unique designs for the “A-Drive”. In addition, DSI has collaborated with multinational corporations and local companies, such as Seiko Instruments, Miyoshi, and Unisteel, to develop key components for the “A-Drive”.

“Our capabilities today have been the result of two decades of collaboration with industry partners around the world. This has enabled DSI to develop groundbreaking solutions like the ‘A-Drive’. We look forward to future partnerships as we continue our drive towards new innovations that will shape the data storage landscape,” said Dr. Alexopoulos.

http://www.a-star.edu.sg/

USA - US researchers to develop gene chip technology to fight malaria

The researchers from the US University of Notre Dame’s Eck Institute for Global Health are looking to deploy gene chip technology to lessen or contain drug resistance to malaria, which is an increasing issue globally and specifically in Southeast Asia. 

They are developing a gene chip which could contribute to identifying drug resistance in the blood samples.

Lead researcher, Michael Ferdig said, “The goal is to see resistance as it is emerging, respond in real-time and modify strategies to save a drug, like protecting it with new formulations and combinations tailored to the specific location of emergence.” Mr. Ferdig also said, “We now have markers for emerging resistance and new hypotheses that we will use to track down the resistance mechanism.”

Francois Nosten, Director of the Shoklo Malaria Research unit said, “Southeast Asia and in particular western Cambodia, is the region where all the resistances in plasmodium falciparum have emerged.”

According to the experts, the gene chip technology is years away from the practical participation. “The gene chip is only at the first stage of being developed,” said, Mr. Nosten.

Artemisinin is a natural plant product representing first-line treatment for malaria. “Several groups are competing to find the molecular markers of resistance to artemisinin, but it will take several years before something is usable in the field and we do not have this time to waste," Mr. Nosten also said.

Artika Shah

http://www.healthcareglobal.com/

USA - The Usage of Tablets in the Healthcare Industry

Since they were brought to market, the healthcare industry has dreamed of embracing tablets and leveraging the innovative technologies and features innate to these types of mobile devices.

The ability to gather and access information with the touch of a fingertip, and carry it around wherever you go is invaluable for those working in this sector and a trend that is transforming the industry as we speak.

The launch of the first truly portable, user friendly and user experience (UX) rich tablet the Apple iPad, a revolutionary device in terms of mobile computing is changing the way in which the healthcare sector operates.

Regarding the iPad and other portable tablets, the healthcare industry was enthusiastic about their features and abilities, yet slow to jump on the bandwagon and truly adopt/embrace the technology. The reason for this slow adoption is primarily due to issues including security, privacy of patient information and data (regulations such as HIPAA), and integration with backend systems. Additionally, no one truly figured out how to create a compelling user experience for mobile applications in this space. There was a lack of understanding about which apps would be best suited for tablets in the healthcare segment.

This however, is all starting to change. The rapid adoption of tablets, including the iPad both in the consumer and enterprise world has put pressure on the healthcare industry to evolve and truly embrace this new technology. This pressure stems from increasingly prevalent industry trends and factors such as the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) phenomena, the use of healthcare apps in the consumer sector, and the overall adoption of smartphones and other mobile devices by doctors, patients and vendors alike.  All of these trends have brought a whirlwind of change to the healthcare sector.

The pressure to evolve was felt by healthcare industry segment, as other segments of the industry were adapting mobile technologies at a rapid pace, and the healthcare industry was increasingly being viewed as laggards. Perceiving this weakness, many entrepreneurs started writing apps for this segment as they realized that doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare personnel had acquired tablets and smartphones but they were lacking the apps to do their day to day work using these devices. There was a vacuum in this space, and this reinforced the pressure on the healthcare industry to move fast and close the gap.

Let’s take a closer look at the evolution of tablet adoption across the healthcare spectrum:

Doctors and nurses were the early adopters of tablets, which is no surprise given they were also the early adopters of smartphones, and today, are the demographic that uses them the most in the healthcare industry. Drugstores followed doctors and nurses as they searched for better, more efficient and more convenient ways to serve consumers. Drug stores began leveraging tablets to offer prescription and non-prescription drug order applications and provide store and pharmacy locations as well as drug-related information to patients.

The pharmaceutical industry followed suit by developing apps and tablet-friendly mobile web sites that offered important information about the drugs to doctors, nurses and patients alike. The ability to access drug-related information on the go as well as a patient’s allergic information at the same time helps doctors and pharmacists to avoid prescribing and issuing medicine to patients that may cause them harm, thus saving lives and costly healthcare expenditure in treating unwanted drug interactions. Instant availability on patient and drug, disease and treatment information results in fewer cases of misdiagnosis, quicker and safer drug prescriptions, quicker approvals for Rx and a reduction in medical malpractice lawsuits.

The bio-tech industry soon hopped on board as they started adopting tablets for collecting observation data, field level monitoring and quick image capture using the highly advanced tablet cameras. Genentech is an example of a company that has embraced tablet use, having standardized and issued more than 7,000 iPads to its employees worldwide.  The tablets run customized native and mobile web apps that provide accurate reports including current state of research on the many drugs and treatments that Genentech is working on. It provides the dashboard customized for each user and a communications hub built on top of Apple Facetime and iChat that allows employees in its San Francisco headquarters to be connected over voice and video with field offices in 30 other locations worldwide. Genetech also uses tablets to collect the field information and patient data on clinical trials. Unlike the traditional data collection methods, iPads enable them to record audio, video and high resolution images of the patients and send them for processing and reference in a centralized repository.

Finally, hospitals, healthcare management facilities and institutions have now warmed up to the notion of tablet use. These organizations are starting to use tablets for patient monitoring, financials, inventory updates, notifications, communication as well as to manage task lists.  Stanford medical Center Hospital in Palo Alto, California and its affiliates across the nation, The University of California San Francisco (UCSF) medical center, Kaiser Permanente, the largest healthcare provider in US, The Washington hospital group among others now provides tablets to its doctors, paramedics, pharmacists and administrative staff. They use the tablets to schedule patient checkups in both outpatient and inpatient wards, issue and authorize prescriptions, record and transmit patient data in multimedia format and use instant live audio and video conferencing and chat features to enhance collaboration. This model is being rapidly adopted across the spectrum by healthcare providers in the United States.

There are several factors driving the change in how the business and processes run inside healthcare organizations. Healthcare organizations are moving from traditional methods of information collection and retrieval to a mobile and on site and on demand collection, retrieval, collaboration and communication in the healthcare sector.  Some of these changes are being driven by the doctors, some by patients and others by pharmacies. Additionally, bio-tech and pharmaceutical companies are in fierce competition which forces them to evolve and embrace new technology if they wish to be successful. On the provider side, no hospital or healthcare provider wants to be tagged as laggard and outdated in terms of technology adoption, which is causing these institutions to embrace tablets. It’s interesting to note that according to data collected by Manhattan Research, 81% of physicians used a Smartphone in 2011, up from 72% in 2010. Doctors, nurses and patients are demanding access to information on their tablets and smartphones, which is driving organizations to embrace tablets.

In a separate study conducted by American Electronics Association, doctors and patients were asked about how they would like to use wireless devices (smartphones and tablets). Most of the respondents wanted to use their device to communicate with their doctors, pharmacists and nurses and vice versa. Many of them also want to be able to store and access their healthcare records including diagnostic records online through the mobile device.

The figure below explains the questions asked and the response in detail:

What specific applications in the consumer and enterprise space are driving tablet adoption?( Conversely, what apps are driven by the adoption of tablets in the enterprise?).

The biggest use of tablets is driven by the fact that patients feel the need to stay in touch with their healthcare providers including doctors, nurses, pharmacists and health plan administrators at all times. Patients are connected to their mobile devices 24/7, creating a natural platform from which they can interact with their healthcare providers through applications.

A Healthcare IT Insights and Opportunities’ study conducted by CompTIA found that 38% of physicians with smartphones use medical apps on a daily basis. This figure is expected to rise to 50% by the third quarter of 2012.  It was also found that two-thirds of respondents consider implementing or improving mobile technologies to be a high or mid-level priority. Within clinics, doctor’s offices, hospitals and laboratories, the biggest usage of tablets stems from four main areas:

•    Patient monitoring and data collection – this includes using the Bluetooth enabled sensor devices and Wi-Fi+ Bluetooth enabled interfaces to patient monitoring devices, to medical instruments that can transmit information to the tablet when in the vicinity.

•    Dashboard and Reports – covering patients, prescriptions, diagnostics, legal, financial and operational information summaries and details

•    Appointment scheduling – this includes doctor and nurse visits, laboratory tests, reminders, re-scheduling, cancellations and delegation, doctor to assistant/junior doctor, nurse etc.

•    Prescriptions, authorizations, refills, patient-drug interaction and dosage management. Fast and timely approval of Rx refills and Rx authorizations means the difference between life and death in many cases and this is an area that smartphones and tablets help in reducing the turnaround time required by doctors to approve the requests from pharmacies and patents by up-to 90%.

What are the key advantages of using the tablets in healthcare space?

•    Tablets avoid cumbersome and error prone human data entry. They eliminate human introduced errors such as in data entry by feeding in data form patient care systems.

•    Tablets eliminate the need to record information on paper and enter into systems.  This saves time, energy, money and improves efficiency.

•    Easy information access: Tablets provide rapid access to information wherever healthcare personnel need it

•    Paperwork minimization: Tablets help minimize the messy paperwork and the manual workflow process – again, increasing efficiencies

•    Voice, Video, Image and Text: The visual, multimedia (audio, video) and graphics capabilities can be leveraged to record and provide on demand information such as the visual images of a patient, disease progression and sounds, such as an irregular heartbeat.

•    Communication capability: Allows doctors, nurses and other healthcare personnel to communicate virtually and more effectively

•    Privacy and Security of data: The iPad and similar tablets provide 128 and even 256 bit encryption of data on storage and transmission. This minimizes data leak and security violations from manual handling of un-encrypted paper forms and other hard copy documents

Where is the industry headed?

Tablets are gaining an increasing foothold in the healthcare sector across all segments. Tablets are improving patient care wellness programs, hospitals, laboratories, clinic management systems, pharmaceutical services and bio-technological advancements.

With doctors increasingly using their own tablets to manage and maintain their schedules and reminders, the healthcare organizations are now forced on building applications that are optimized for tablets.   These applications provide the integration of existing information systems, and introduce tablets as a form for both data gathering and dissemination of critical information.

New and emerging advancements in technology have enabled patient monitoring devices and instrumentation to communicate directly with tablets within a vicinity using tools such as Bluetooth. These devices can also upload patient data using a Wi-Fi network over the web, which can then be monitored in real time by nurses and doctors.

Increasingly sophisticated apps are being created, which cater to all aspects of healthcare management for usage by both healthcare personnel and patients. These apps range from providing dashboards for patient information, disease and condition monitoring to patient data collection and consolidation. Apps also help with business intelligence and analytics, scheduling and calendar management, prescription dispensing, pharmaceutical refills and authorizations, drugs and new treatment information, collaboration, and communication. In terms of tablet adoption in the healthcare industry, we have only begun to scratch the surface. With technological advancements increasing by the day, the possibilities are endless as healthcare professionals continue to search for better ways to provide care.

Rauf Adil

Rauf Adil is director of technology at Virtusa.

http://www.healthcareitnews.com/

USA - Microsoft Surface tablets: A natural fit for healthcare

The upcoming Surface tablets have Windows inside, and that makes them a perfect fit for healthcare providers looking to upgrade their medical practices.

Healthcare has always been an industry ripe for using tablets. Workers in healthcare are constantly flitting around the office, and having constant access to the medical practice's network is a big benefit. The highly portable Surface tablets on the way from Microsoft could revolutionize these offices, if developers jump on the Metro bandwagon.

I have recently visited two medical practices that are entrenched in the tablet philosophy. The two offices are very different, but have each settled on the old Tablet PC to mobilize the workers providing healthcare.

These offices are using the old convertible notebook with Windows 7, tablets that can swivel the screen to expose a full laptop. The workers carry them all day, entering pertinent information at each stop which is instantly updated to the patient's record.

In one practice the nurses and physician assistants use old HP Tablet PCs, while the doctors carry Motion slate Tablet PCs. The nurses I interviewed always use the HPs in laptop mode as they find typing easier to enter information on the run.

The doctors use a pen with the Motion, primarily to access information in the patient record when they come in for the examination. The two doctors I spoke with hated having to use the pen to manipulate the interface.

These practices are a perfect fit for the Surface tablets. The keyboard covers can be used by those who are more comfortable with typing for data entry, and the touch tablet for those like the doctors who just need to tap and access information.

What needs to happen to get these healthcare providers rolled over to the better solution is for the developers behind the practice management software in use to convert it to the Metro interface for the Surface. It might take a fair bit of work to make the proper conversion, but the target market is huge and flush with funds.

I suspect in a year or two we might see a lot of Surface tablets when we visit the doctor. It's a case of the perfect tool for the job, with everyone winning. All day battery life and a computer that is easy to carry for extended periods. Throw Windows into the mix and it's almost perfect.

If I had a company with medical practice software, I would divert every resource to getting it perfected for Windows Pro/RT tablets.

Related:

-       Surface: Why Microsoft’s big mystery turns out to be a big mistake

-       With Surface tablet, Microsoft breaks tradition

-       Eight new platform announcements for Windows Phone 8

-       Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8: There’s good news and bad news

-       Microsoft Surface tablets: Obviously designed for me

-       Will Microsoft Surface for Windows 8 Pro tablets be competition for Ultrabooks?

-       Okay, let me get this straight. Did Microsoft just kill the Windows tablet OEM market?

-       Surface: Microsoft, What the Hell is Wrong With You?

James Kendrick 

http://www.zdnet.com/

USA - The BYOD Healthcare Challenge – 2012

BYOD is the buzz...not BYOB. Every networking company is chattering about this and every Healthcare CIO is..."should be".."really" concerned. So what does this actually mean?

The Trends

- 81% of employed adults use at least one personally owned device for business use.

- Apple shipped more iPADS in 2 years than MACS in over 20 years.

- 59% of employees use mobile devices to run line of business applications

- 90% have disabled auto-lock for tablets, 75% for smart phones.

IT BYOD Challenges

- 2/3 say preventing unauthorized network access is a somewhat to an extremely important task.

- < 10% of organizations are "fully aware" of the devices access their network.

- 74% of companies allow BYOD usages in some fashion.

- $429,000 is the typical large company loss due to mobile computing mishaps in 2011.

- 1/2 of companies have experienced a data breach due to insecure devices.

- 71% of companies are discussing developing custom mobile applications.

Any BYOD Policy has to be be:

1. Easy to set-up.

2. Does not burden IT resources.

3. Should support a wide range of devices.

http://davidhoglund.typepad.com/

Singapore - ADSC Researchers Aim to Improve Pill Identification Accuracy

Researchers at the Advanced Digital Sciences Center specializing in computer vision technologies are developing an intuitive, reliable and fast solution for identifying and retrieving relevant information about pill medications.

Applications for the pill identification technology include use in hospital and nursing home pill packing machines, as well as a mobile device for patients, specifically the elderly, to ensure the right pills are being taken each day.

Many of today's hospitals currently have pill packing machines, which automatically package the pills for each patient. Some of these machines include quality control modules to check for physical defects of pills, gaps in package seal, correct and readable labels and quantity errors, using technology such as barcodes and radio-frequency identification (RFID). However, in many machines, these techniques are inaccurate or outdated, often leading to time-consuming manual quality control.

ADSC's pill identification research is led by Gang Wang, a research scientist at ADSC and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign computer science graduate. It was inspired by a conversation about personal pill containers between ADSC Director Marianne Winslett and ADSC research scientist Jiangbo Lu, who helped initiate the research.

According to Wang, ADSC's technology works directly on pill images using image processing and computer vision techniques. First, given an input image, the pill part is automatically separated from the background. Then different techniques are applied to detect and represent key visual features of the pill, including major colors, shape and imprint. Finally, a two-step image matching approach is performed to retrieve the top matched pills from an online image database, based on the similarity of visual features.

Wang and his team have been collaborating with Singapore's National University Hospital to develop a final product in a testing lab. Wang is using the algorithm created at ADSC to complement the current pill packing machines the hospital already has. The hospital's machines have been programmed with the new algorithm, so the machines are able to automatically detect anything incorrect in the packing.

In developing the algorithm, Wang and his team faced many challenges, such as low quality images of pills, due to reflections on bag surface, and pills with similar shapes, textures or colors. Additionally, when there are multiple pills in a bag, some may be occluded or identical pills may have different orientations.

"We have addressed the imaging and orientation issues, but we are still working on how to tell small differences between the pills, or the verification accuracy," Wang said.

Ideally, the team believes that every hospital in the world would benefit from this technology. In addition, they plan to also push the mobile version of their pill identification technology, as it will most benefit the aging population.

"Aging has become a very big problem, so we're seeing more and more senior citizens staying home without other relatives or healthcare providers," Wang said. "They have to take care of themselves and often have to take a lot of pills every day. Our staff can integrate our algorithm with the proper hardware and we can help them make sure they take the right pills each day."

Wang and his team plan to commercialize the application for use in hospitals to complement pill packaging machines in the near future. They are also looking to create a prototype this summer and expect to integrate the algorithm with the hardware later in 2012.

The Advanced Digital Sciences Center is a Singapore-based research center for faculty of the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. ADSC focuses on breakthrough innovations in information technology.