HITEQ Resources & Events

Recent Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) policy is bringing patients unprecedented access to their health information. Join the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in September for an event focused on patient access to health data. The day will bring together patients, providers, payers, and health IT developers to discuss how HHS policies are working in practice and how to maximize the impact of these policies. The event will also highlight educational tools and resources, such as patient-facing apps that enable the availability of patient information and make that health information easier to understand.

Come to the ONC and CMS patient access event to hear more about…

Patients’ experiences accessing their data, including the benefits and challenges they faced along this journey. How the next generation of apps are connecting across new health information sources to bring together patients’ data and preferred tools to act on that data. Clinicians who are at the forefront of helping patients access and understand their data, recognizing patient preferences and privacy concerns. Innovative developers demonstrating how they are making patients’ data actionable, and the implementation challenges they face as they connect sources across the care continuum Health care payers’ their successes and challenges with making data available to patients. Don't miss this opportunity to learn about the latest developments in patient data access and how you can be a part of the path forward.

Registration details to follow soon! Until then, you can find valuable information and resources about the patient’s right to their data on our website. If you would be interested in sharing a patient experience with accessing and using patient data, please share with us at https://www.healthit.gov/feedback.
 

Succeeding with value based care requires using and understanding your health center's clinical and payer data in new and more specific ways. This webinar discussed two key areas where health centers may need to build capability or new processes:

• Managed care payer and payment information to conduct strategic review of health plan contracts.

• The challenge and importance of coding specificity for adequate risk adjustment and quality measurement in value based care arrangements with health plans.

HITEQ will be joined by subject matter experts from Primary Care Development Corporation and Starling Advisors who will share resources for developing these areas within your own health center.

It's time to reconsider your strategy if you still treat cyber risk as an annual project or initiative. Having a thorough ongoing program in place means that even in the worst-case scenario, you'll be ready to demonstrate that you did what was reasonable and appropriate to protect your systems and patient data. Nothing can guarantee that a cyberattack won't become a breach. Health Centers are a domain with a high potential for data breaches, and the risk continues to grow as health centers use new tools and the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI). As a result, it is crucial for health center leadership to adopt breach prevention strategies across their entire organization, as opposed to relegating it to the IT department. 

To support health centers in their cybersecurity strategy and implementation, the HITEQ Center offered a free learning collaborative -- Improving Health Center Cybersecurity: Risk Assessment, Breach Defense, Mitigation, and Response. This learning collaborative involved four structured virtual learning sessions. During the series participants engaged with subject matter experts and their colleagues in peer-to-peer learning and discussion. Topics included: health center breach mitigation tactics, operationalizing cybersecurity to better mitigate risks, cybersecurity implications of generative artificial intelligence in health centers, and incident response planning from a cybersecurity perspective.

Session 4: Cybersecurity Incident Response Planning for Health Centers

According to IBM's annual Cost of Data Breach Report, the average cost of a data breach for a healthcare organization is more than $10 million. Having a well-documented cybersecurity incident response plan is essential and required for all Health Centers due to the sensitivity of the patient data they are responsible for maintaining. The cost and damage caused by a data breach is often exorbitant, but a strategic incident plan can help to significantly mitigate such effects, and potentially, prevent them from occurring in the first place. This session will provide an overview of incident response planning requirements for health centers and review established workflows for common incident response scenarios such as ransomware attacks.

It's time to reconsider your strategy if you still treat cyber risk as an annual project or initiative. Having a thorough ongoing program in place means that even in the worst-case scenario, you'll be ready to demonstrate that you did what was reasonable and appropriate to protect your systems and patient data. Nothing can guarantee that a cyberattack won't become a breach. Health Centers are a domain with a high potential for data breaches, and the risk continues to grow as health centers use new tools and the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI). As a result, it is crucial for health center leadership to adopt breach prevention strategies across their entire organization, as opposed to relegating it to the IT department. 

To support health centers in their cybersecurity strategy and implementation, the HITEQ Center is offering a free learning collaborative -- Improving Health Center Cybersecurity: Risk Assessment, Breach Defense, Mitigation, and Response. This learning collaborative will involve four structured virtual learning sessions. During the series participants engaged with subject matter experts and their colleagues in peer-to-peer learning and discussion. Topics included: health center breach mitigation tactics, operationalizing cybersecurity to better mitigate risks, cybersecurity implications of generative artificial intelligence in health centers, and incident response planning from a cybersecurity perspective.

Session 3: Cybersecurity Implications of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Health Centers

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies (e.g., ChatGPT, Google Bard) has exploded in 2023, catapulting new forms of rapid processing of text, audio, visual data (i.e., large language models and machine learning) to the forefront including in healthcare. The rapid rise forces health centers to grapple with what possibilities AI has to offer and it’s many potential risks. Both in terms of provision of care as well as in management of IT and related services. As these new tools are introduced and integrated to address acute and future needs, it becomes critically important to ensure that patients' data remains secure. This session will discuss recommendations and strategies for assessing risk and improving cybersecurity policies and procedures in relation to AI and it’s attendant technologies.