What Can We Do About Medical Device Security?
There is no denying that medical IoT is a huge step for medicine, and many IoT devices are life-saving for patients. But we can’t overlook their obvious weaknesses and associated risks. What can patients, clinicians, and regulatory bodies do to improve the situation?
Drones Could Be the Future of Healthcare
WakeMed Health & Hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina, teamed up with the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s Division of Aviation to conduct a first round of test flights for drones to carry simulated medical packages from Raleigh Medical Park, located across the street from the campus, to a main tower at the hospital.
Digitally Driven: Link Technology to Process Change
Measuring digital success via number of dashboards delivered fails to recognize the limited capacity of managers and staff to ingest dashboards and meaningfully act upon them. Digitally driven organizations tie each dashboard to specific objectives of the organization and ensure that users find the dashboards helpful in completing their work.
The Chronic Issue of Cybersecurity
Healthcare institutions are vulnerable cyber targets, with thousands of patient records to protect and a federal requirement to comply with HIPAA and HITECH. These institutions lack the staffing (and sometimes the awareness) to prevent personal health data from being accessed and held by threat actors.
FDA Addresses Device Safety Process, But Will It Be Enough?
The 510(k) process is required by the FDA when introducing a medical device to the market for the first time, changing the indications for a previously cleared device, or making significant modifications to a previously cleared device.
What Is the Role of AI in Medicine?
The FDA in February warned against the use of robotic assistance devices for mastectomies and other cancer surgeries, asserting the products may pose safety risks and result in poor outcomes for patients.
AI: Augmented Intelligence or Electric Sheep?
Although individuals on the panel expressed slightly differing views overall, they agreed that AI in healthcare is an overhyped concept inappropriately attributed to programs that do not fit any reasonable definition of AI tools.
Could Medical Device Security Depend Upon Clinicians?
For nearly a decade, healthcare professionals and medical device manufacturers have been aware that medical devices, including insulin pumps and pacemakers, can be hacked. While some strides have been made in securing these types of devices, the growing interconnectivity of smart medical devices continues to outpace security.
What One Hospital Learned From a Ransomware Attack
This month’s PSQI Online Spotlight looks at the lessons an Indiana hospital learned from a ransomware attack.
Believing Is Seeing
Business-to-consumer industries know how to collect data and turn it into information that prompts us to do things, including buying products and securing services. In some cases, these prompts are helpful (e.g., using Waze to display the best driving route and point out the nearest Dunkin’ Donuts).