How health systems can better protect patient privacy

September 24, 2023admin

How health systems can better protect patient privacy

Dr. Eric Liederman, director of medical informatics for The Permanente Medical Group, says good communications with patients about cybersecurity protection is essential – even as risks to protected health information are on the rise, from external bad actors and insider threats.

Growing patient discomfort in sharing health information

Beyond health system disruptions such as ransomware that can compromise patient data, cybercriminals are increasingly going after individual patients. Some know they have a “target” on their backs and remain tight-lipped with their healthcare providers, said Liederman.

Before what he referred to as the major ramp up in attacks against healthcare that began in 2015, there was “an appreciable minority of patients who were uncomfortable providing all their information to their doctors,” he told attendees at the HIMSS Healthcare Cybersecurity Forum in Boston earlier this month.

According to one 2014 survey, 10% of patients distrusted health technology, Liederman said, but another recent survey found 87% of patients are unwilling to divulge all their medical information.

It’s not only “a sense of psychic harm” they seek to control in holding back health information, a sense of distrust that their health system can protect them has them seeking care elsewhere.

“How do we impress upon our patients and our workforce that we’re protecting them?”

Implementing mechanisms to ensure the safety of data – from the inside of organizations out – and communicating about cyber protection efforts has resulted in better outcomes, Liederman said.

Joint governance leads to better patient protection

Liederman credited joint governance for helping to facilitate a higher sense of trust among patients and the workforce.

With joint governance, there’s increased dialogue that says, “We’re all together on this – all the way to the top of the organization,” he said.

At Kaiser Permanente, members from all parts of the organization play

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Health Information

September 15, 2023admin

How to protect your health information when using wearable technology

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BOSTON – Technology like smartwatches, smart rings and apps and websites can help you keep up with you health or fitness goals. They can be that extra push you need on your fitness journey, or important to monitor your health – but this could come at a cost.

Unlike doctors and other medical professionals, according to Consumers’ Checkbook, many of these medical apps, websites and devices you’re using don’t have to keep your health information confidential.

But what about HIPAA laws? HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, protects your sensitive medical information if you’re working directly with a medical professional. But in general, it does not cover:

Data collected from searches done on your phone or on the web.
Information you provide to a website or app that aren’t affiliated with your medical provider.
Health data generated by your phone, smartwatches and other wearable tech, unless that technology is provided by a HIPAA-covered entity.

This means your information that is being collected by apps you download will likely be shared and sold to companies or private data brokers, which consumer expert Kevin Brasler of Consumers’ Checkbook said is largely unregulated. You can “opt out” of sharing but you’ll have to read through their terms and conditions first. And Brasler said, more often than not, these “privacy policies” and agreements are tough to understand.

“A big problem is that recently, the [Federal Trade Commission] sued and fined several large apps for not doing what they promised. For not keeping their customers’ private medical information private. They were sharing that data with others and largely without their own customers’ consent,” Brasler told WBZ TV.

In February, the FTC took

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Health Information

September 14, 2023admin

B.C. takes positive steps to protect people’s health data

British Columbians health information was “disturbingly” vulnerable, privacy commissioner Michael McEvoy said in December.

B.C.’s privacy commissioner says the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) has taken positive steps to strengthen the privacy and security of the Provincial Public Health Information System.

“Every day, hundreds of health-care workers and policymakers across B.C. access the system,” commissioner Michael McEvoy said in the report.

“It is critical not only for the protection of British Columbians’ information and privacy rights, but also for the continued delivery of essential services without disruption, that robust privacy and security controls be in place for the system,” he said.

The follow-up comes in the wake of an Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner’s December 2022 report that found the PHSA’s failure to address security and privacy vulnerabilities put British Columbians at risk.

There, the office said the system and the citizens’ information it contains are vulnerable to malicious attacks or employee abuses.

In a report released Dec. 15, 2022, McEvoy said there are many areas where the system is vulnerable.

“The system contains some of our most sensitive health information — matters relating to our mental and sexual health, infectious diseases and more,” McEvoy said. “It is imperative that the (Provincial Health Services Authority — PHSA) put in place commensurate security measures to protect British Columbians from potential harms.”

That report made seven recommendations, including that the PHSA:

acquire, configure, and deploy a privacy-tailored proactive audit system;

ensure a multi-factor authentication solution meeting provincial standards is used to log onto the system;

encrypt personal information within the database at rest; and,

create appropriate written security architecture that includes full systems design documents and operations manuals for each component of the system.

Now, the office said, the six-month follow-up shows two recommendations fully

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Health Advice

August 26, 2023admin

Can wildfire smoke make you sick? Health risks and how to protect yourself

A person travels in a boat past people walking on the boardwalk as smoke from the McDougall Creek wildfire blankets the area on Okanagan Lake, in Kelowna, B.C., Friday, Aug. 18, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Contact a qualified medical professional before engaging in any physical activity, or making any changes to your diet, medication or lifestyle.

As dozens of forest and wildfires continue to burn across Canada, ways to protect ourselves from smoke are top-of-mind for many Canadians.

Yahoo Canada spoke to a top respirologist in Toronto who weighed in on the impact of smoke on our lungs, and what to do to stay safe. Read on for everything you need to know.

Where are the wildfires in Canada?

As of Aug. 16, there were 220 uncontrolled fires and more than 400 others across the country, with some areas now of high-priority.

British Columbia has entered a state of emergency due to massive fires across the province, with Kelowna making headlines for devastating impact. The CBC reported more than 30,000 have evacuated their homes in the area, and dozens of homes have burned.

The 110-square-kilometre McDougall Creek fire is burning on both sides of Lake Okanagan, and it’s unknown when it could end.

The McDougall Creek wildfire burns on the mountainside above houses in West Kelowna, B.C., on Friday, August 18, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

Last week, Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories, was under a mandatory evacuation order as fires barrelled towards the city of about 20,000 residents. In Fort Smith, N.W.T. a fire continues to burn just four kilometres from the community.

The air quality health index rated Yellowknife’s risk at a 9

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Health Advice

August 22, 2023admin

Melanin-Infused Glasses Aim to Help Protect Your Eyes From the Sun

Modern glasses come with tons of different lens coatings and treatments to enhance your vision, including blue light filters, polarization and more. One new type of lens treatment is melanin infusion.

Melanin is the pigment that causes your skin to tan and protects it from the sun’s UV rays. The darker your skin, the more natural melanin it has. Melanin also plays a similar role in your hair and eyes — it gives brown and hazel eyes their color and protects the eyes from damage by absorbing light.

Because of its protective properties, some brands are now offering glasses and sunglasses with lenses that have been treated with melanin. That may sound a bit wacky — after all, could wearing melanin in glasses really be effective? On the other hand, a little extra melanin could be helpful for people with lighter eyes, who don’t have as much natural melanin for protection. Think of it like sunscreen for your eyes.

At CNET, we’ve been diving deep into the ins and outs of eye care, separating fact from fiction when it comes to everything from sunglass tints to eye drops. Here’s what we uncovered about melanin-infused glasses.

Melanin and eye health

Melanin is “instrumental in optimizing eye health,” said Dr. Saya Nagori, an ophthalmologist and CEO of EyeFacts. It absorbs several types of light, including kinds that can cause damage or stress over time, like UV light. It’s also an antioxidant, making it “effective in stabilizing free radicals, reducing inflammation and defending against toxins,” Nagori added.

Research also suggests that melanin may help prevent age-related macular degeneration, a common cause of vision loss in older adults.

But not everyone has the same amount of melanin in their eyes. People with blue or green eyes have less melanin, while

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Department Health

July 12, 2023admin

HHS Announces Actions to Protect Consumers and Lower Health Care Costs

New Report Projects Nearly 19 Million Seniors Will Save $400 Per Year on Out-of-Pocket Prescription Drug Costs

Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced actions to protect consumers from junk health plans, surprise medical bills, and excess costs that lead to medical debt. These actions build on the Biden-Harris Administration’s effort to eliminate hidden fees in every sector of the economy and lower health care costs for American seniors and families.

Coinciding with the actions taken today, HHS also released a new report projecting that nearly 19 million seniors will save approximately $400 per year on prescription drug costs when the $2,000 out-of-pocket prescription drug spending cap from the Inflation Reduction Act – President Biden’s historic lower cost prescription drug law – goes into effect in 2025.

The report follows last week’s actions advancing historic provisions in the law that allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices and cap the cost of each Medicare-covered insulin pump at $35 per month.

“The Biden-Harris Administration continues to take action to lower costs for millions of Americans and improve health outcomes across the nation. Today’s announcement protects patients from junk health insurance and unfair billing practices, and increases transparency in our health care system, while continuing to implement President Biden’s historic prescription drug law that is lowering costs for millions of seniors across the country,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. “The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to helping seniors and people with disabilities save money on the medications they need and ensuring hardworking families have insurance when they need it.”

“The Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to make health care more affordable are life-changing for millions of Americans,” said Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure. “No one should go bankrupt trying to get and keep themself or their

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Health Advice

July 1, 2023admin

Do masks protect from wildfire smoke, poor air quality? Health risks

People walk wearing masks as an air quality health advisory from wildfire was issued in New York on Wednesday, June 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki). — Do masks protect you from wildfire smoke? We asked an expert (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki).

This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Contact a qualified medical professional before engaging in any physical activity, or making any changes to your diet, medication or lifestyle.

As dozens of forest and wildfires continue to burn across Canada, ways to protect ourselves from smoke are top-of-mind for many Canadians.

Yahoo Canada spoke to a top respirologist in Toronto who weighed in on using face masks to stay safe. Read on for everything you need to know.

Where are the wildfires in Canada?

According to the latest figures released by Natural Resources Canada on June 21, there were 78 active uncontrolled wildfires across the country, as well as 122 controlled wildfires and 130 others.

On Monday, Environment Canada had air quality statements issued for parts of Alberta, British Columbia, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and much of Ontario.

“Air quality and visibility due to wildfire smoke can fluctuate over short distances and can vary considerably from hour to hour,” the statements read. “Wildfire smoke can be harmful to everyone’s health even at low concentrations.”

For Ontario, the weather agency said “very high levels of air pollution have developed due to smoke from forest fires,” adding smoke from Quebec fires have “deteriorated air quality.”

In this GOES-16 GeoColor and fire temperature satellite image taken Tuesday, June 6, 2023 at 6:40 p.m. EDT and provided by CIRA/NOAA, smoke from wildfires burning in the Canadian Provinces of Quebec, right, and Ontario, left, drift southward. (CIRA/NOAA via AP)

Last month, The Canadian Press also reported Canada’s emergency preparedness minister said the “images of wildfires burning across the country are some of the most severe ever witnessed in Canada

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Health Advice

May 9, 2023admin

Internet surfing may help protect against dementia

An older Black man wearing glasses using the internet and reading off of a tablet while drinking coffee on an outdoor patio — Regular internet surfing may be beneficial to brain health among older adults, a study finds. Westend61/Getty Images

Regular use of the internet by older people is associated with a significant reduction in the risk of developing dementia, according to a recent study.
The study also found a “sweet spot” for internet use of up to 2 hours a day, beyond which the risk of developing dementia is likely to increase.
According to experts, support should be offered to older people to use new online technology and tackle barriers to access.

A new study explores the effect of internet use among older people as a means of preventing dementia.

The study finds that older individuals who regularly use the internet are nearly half as likely to develop dementia as those who do not regularly use the internet.

For an average of 7.9 years — and for up to 17.1 years — the authors of the study tracked the cognitive health of 18,154 adults who did not have dementia. The people in the study were 50 to 64.9 years old at the start of the study.

Regular internet users had a 43% reduced risk of developing dementia compared with non-regular users. By the end of the study, 4.68% of the individuals had been diagnosed with dementia.

The study also suggested that the beneficial effects of internet use depended on the degree to which people were online, presenting a U-curve of the data.

Those who never went online or were there more than two hours remained at a higher risk of dementia. However, the authors caution that small sample sizes prevented the observation of significant differences between user groups.

The authors of the study also looked at whether educational attainment, race-ethnicity, sex, and generation impacted the association between internet use

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Health Advice

January 25, 2023admin

Natural disasters strike everywhere: Ways to help protect your health

Climate change is an escalating threat to the health of people everywhere. As emergency medicine physicians practicing in Australia and the United States, we — and our colleagues around the world — already see the impacts of climate change on those we treat.

Will we be seeing you one day soon? Hopefully not. Yet an ever-growing number of us will face climate-related emergencies, such as flooding, fires, and extreme weather. And all of us can actively prepare to protect health when the need arises. Here’s what to know and do.

How is climate change affecting health?

As the planet warms, people are seeking emergency medical care for a range of climate-related health problems, such as heat exhaustion and heat stroke, asthma due to air pollution, and infectious diseases related to flooding and shifting biomes that prompt ticks, mosquitoes, and other pests to relocate. News headlines frequently spotlight physical and emotional trauma stemming from hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, and floods.

We care for people displaced from their homes and their communities by extreme weather events. Many suddenly lack access to their usual medical team members and pharmacies, sometimes for significant periods of time. The toll of extreme weather often lands hardest on people who are homeless, those with complex medical conditions, children, the elderly, people with disabilities, minoritized groups, and those who live in poorer communities.

On a recent 110º Fahrenheit day, for example, a woman came to an emergency department in Adelaide, Australia complaining of a headache, fatigue, and nausea, all symptoms of heat exhaustion. She told medical staff that she had just walked for two hours in the sun to obtain groceries, as she had no car or access to public transportation. While health advisories in the media that day had advised her to stay inside in air conditioning,

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Tag: protect

Growing patient discomfort in sharing health information

Joint governance leads to better patient protection

Where are the wildfires in Canada?

Melanin and eye health

Where are the wildfires in Canada?

How is climate change affecting health?