HIMSS Day Two Recap – Wednesday 2/13

The rainy Florida weather did not dampen the spirits of attendees on day two of HIMSS19. For the Ntirety team attending sessions and workshops, the midweek focus centralized on visibility in technology, including cybersecurity, compliance and emerging innovations. With this theme in mind, here are our takeaways for Wednesday, February 13:

1. Visibility Leads to More Aggressive Security

The continuous expansion of communicating networks within healthcare opens new channels for attacks, explains Doron Kolton, Chief Strategy Officer of Emerging Technologies at Fidelis Cybersecurity. The more visibility organizations have into their web of connected systems, the better they can find data and potential entry points that would be most appealing to attackers.

“Knowing what attackers desire creates an opportunity for an active defense,” emphasizes Kolton. “To lure, detect, and defend.”

Achieving this deception defense strategy starts with data mapping your organization’s networks and connected systems, identifying weak links and vulnerabilities, then using decoys or honeypots to ensnare would-be attackers, effectively employing more aggressive cybersecurity.

2. Always See Security Through to Compliance 

Security and compliance are often synonymous in conversations about healthcare technology; yet, bringing an IT security plan up to compliance requires organizations to take a hard look and truly assess the situation, noted Adam H. Greene, JD, MPH. In his session, Turning Good Information Security Into Good HIPAA Compliance, Greene pointed out that conducting risk assessments and routine gap analysis brings visibility for internal teams to evaluate security measurements and defend against data breaches or compromises. Documenting and preemptively studying audit protocols helps organizations ensure their risk management plans meet compliance standards; however, if a data breach does happen—Greene warns “not if, but when”—these tested and documented assessments can provide helpful visibility for regulators and auditors.

“Hindsight is always 20/20. After the breach has occurred, it is always very easy to go back and say you should have done this differently,” explains Greene. “Versus [saying] you guys aren’t looking prospectively.”

3. Shining Light on Cloud Solutions in Lightning Sessions

One of the most popular ways to quickly digest information at HIMSS is through the conference’s Lightning Sessions, where presenters have 20 minutes to share on a variety of topics and discussions. In a series of quick sessions all focused on emerging cloud solutions in healthcare, presenters from Google Cloud shared new tools that aim to bring healthcare teams together and protect data, granting better visibility to different systems and processes.

More consumers expect the healthcare experience to mirror other industries with one-click options and instantaneous results, yet with often-segmented systems of tools in use, health organizations struggle to meet patient expectations. Through Google’s cloud-based tool, Chrome Enterprise for Healthcare, providers hope to connect data between systems more efficiently, delivering the information and enabling visibility at the speed patients are now accustomed to.

Google is also tackling machine learning within healthcare. Machine learning can provide researchers with a gold mine of information, but collecting and combining data sets is a cumbersome—and sometimes muddled—process. Harmonization of data through cloud-based tools from Google provides researchers with the insights necessary to redact sensitive and non-relevant data points and filter them into usable, more protected data sets for machine learning and AI analyzations.

Looking Ahead at HIMSS19

Although day two started off cloudy in Orlando, inside the convention halls at HIMSS19, thought-leaders and innovators illuminated audiences about security, compliance, and cloud solutions. For Ntirety, the greatest takeaway was the common session theme of visibility in systems and processes and the importance it carried throughout health organizations, from patient care to research.

With the day three on the horizon, the Ntirety team looks forward to our final round of sessions and another busy networking day with our fellow attendees.

Need help implementing more aggressive security, compliance plans, or database tools? Contact us today for an assessment from our team of experts!