You’re ready to take the next step—or the first step—in your career: exploring health IT jobs. Where do you start?

Job seeking can be an arduous process, but it doesn’t have to be. There are professionals whose careers are focused on identifying talented individuals like you to fill open positions within health IT organizations. Working with recruiting and talent specialists can help you obtain all of the tools and information you need to get to the next level of your career—maybe even help you find your dream job.

To prepare you for all of the career opportunities out there, we sought the expertise of health IT talent expert Lisa Cannon, a member of the HIMSS Students and Early Careerists Task Force and the director of talent development at The Chartis Group. In this Q&A she shares her expert perspective on how to execute a job search successfully—no matter where you are in your career—and become a stand-out candidate to potential employers.

Healthcare technology continues to be a sector of significant spend, with Forbes reporting that public and private investment in healthcare artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to reach $6.6 billion by 2021. An array of new technologies ranging from AI and machine learning to wearables and microchipped drug capsules, once deemed science fiction, have the potential to transform the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Yet historically adoption of technology in health care has been decidedly slower than in other industries, leading to a question of whether these investments will deliver their expected return.

The reasons behind the healthcare industry’s slow adoption of new technology are multifaceted and include everything from regulatory hurdles to cost barriers. But the willingness of healthcare providers to embrace technological innovations at the point of care is certainly a critical factor.

While AI has applications in many disease categories, the potential to apply it in oncology is particularly exciting given the rapidly increasing complexity of cancer treatment in this era of precision medicine and value-based care. To better understand how providers feel about using AI in oncology, a survey was done of 180 oncologists from across the United States, including hospital- and community-based practices. Its purpose was to gauge their views on the potential of AI to improve care, where they see opportunities to leverage it in their practices, and possible barriers to adoption.

As more hospitals adopt a mobile strategy, multipurpose tools are becoming an increasingly popular option. Workstations on wheels still serve a purpose in healthcare. The carts help clinicians tote around all of the devices and equipment they need and connect to systems at a patient’s bedside.

But they’re hardly as nimble or convenient as the current generation of clinical mobile computers that have a battery life that lasts for an entire shift, are built to withstand drops and can easily be sanitized.

Small yet mighty, these tools help ease workflows and improve communication among clinicians. And they can perform an array of critical functions that once required additional or cumbersome technologies to execute.

“Today’s caregivers are being asked to do more with less. How do you do that? You need to make some part of their jobs easier,” says John Barr, a consulting systems architect for Memorial Hermann Health System in southeast Texas, where the company’s stable of Honeywell Dolphin CT40 and CT50 models has grown to nearly 400. (He expects that number “to grow significantly, by fourfold to fivefold” in the near future.)

Although Memorial Hermann still deploys more than 6,500 workstations on wheels, response to the new computers has been positive, with users citing security and portability as perks. The equipment also supports a systemwide initiative to untether staff from stationary command posts and bulkier tools.

“I think nobody would argue that access to information on a mobile handheld device is easier than dragging around a computer on wheels,” Barr says.

That sentiment is growing: Ninety percent of healthcare organizations plan to implement (or are currently implementing) a mobile device initiative, a 2018 Jamf survey found. And 47 percent of respondents said they plan to increase mobile device usage by 2020.

An interview with Richard Staynings, Chief Security Strategist, Cylera. Currently leading healthcare security strategy at Cylera, a biomedical HIoT security startup, Richard Staynings has more than two decades of experience in both cybersecurity leadership and client consulting in healthcare. Last year, he served on the Committee of Inquiry into the SingHealth breach in Singapore as an Expert Witness. He recently spoke to Healthcare IT News on some of the current developments in healthcare cybersecurity.

Q. Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications in healthcare are all the rage now, and so are cybersecurity threats, given the frequency and intensity of healthcare-related incidents. In particular, some of the cyberattacks have become more sophisticated through the use of AI to get past cyber defenses. On the medical devices front, AI is also being used to constantly manage and secure the rising number of healthcare IoT devices as they connect and disconnect from hospital networks. How do you think the application of AI in healthcare cybersecurity will be like in the next few years?

A. Healthcare is widely considered to be an easy and soft target because “who in their right mind would attack the weak and defenseless?” …. or so the thought goes! The fact is that healthcare presents a rich target for cyber criminals because of the value of the data hosted and processed. When you couple that with a chronic historical underinvestment in the development of capable cybersecurity teams and tools across healthcare, you can see why perpetrators are so keen to break walk in. But it’s no longer the theft of medical records, or PII that concerns me, it’s the wholesale theft of intellectual property from research universities and pharmaceuticals by rogue nation states, (one in particular) and the potential to hold both hospitals and their patients to ransom by just about anyone. That’s what really worries me most.

I believe we are on the cusp of an AI arms race. Attackers are busy designing new attack vectors and methods to get by cyber defences that heavily leverage AI and Machine Learning (ML). Advanced persistent threats (APTs) that hide unnoticed on the network for years sometimes, while gathering vital information and gradually expanding their footprint till they own the entire network, just as the attack on SingHealth in 2018 demonstrated. AI that perfectly emulates the normal acceptable behavior of users and systems on the network and as such goes undetected by even the best cyber defences.

The customer journey is the process in which a consumer becomes a customer. It’s not nearly as direct as you might think, especially in a day and age where the majority of consumers will do extensive research online on a variety of different platforms to determine what their problem is, what the best solution to their problem is, and what brand to choose. Because of how complex and unique the customer journey can be, you will want to create a customer journey map, or visual representation of that process, to help guide your marketing efforts. This visual representation is typically a diagram that shows the steps your customers go through when engaging with your brand through various touch-points both online and offline.

Cybersecurity Strategies for Healthcare IoT

Hospitals with strong risk management strategies will be better positioned to respond to cyberattacks, according to a report from Moody’s Investors Service. Cyberattacks pose a greater fiscal and credit risk to nonprofit hospitals than any other sector of municipal finance due to the increasingly interconnected nature of hospital operations and information technology.

Hospitals with strong risk management strategies will be better positioned to respond to these operational and financial disruptions, according to a report from Moody’s Investors Service.

Small hospitals face the biggest risk, because many lack the necessary cybersecurity resources and will be less able to absorb any financial impact, according to report authors Jennifer Barr, a Moody’s analyst, and Lisa Goldstein, Moody’s associate managing director.

Virtual reality has big potential to stimulate creative thought, conversation and empathy. Although it might seem more suitable for gamers or tech gurus, virtual reality is going mainstream for a variety of audiences. Older adults in assisted living facilities are no exception.

Just as today’s children prefer iPads to playing outside, older adults — a population at risk for isolation and loneliness, who are using technology in greater-than-ever numbers — are finding games like bingo less than engaging.

Which is why I believe wider VR implementation in the older adult living industry is crucial.

“The market is going to demand it, and not only the residents, but their families, their children, their grandchildren and millennial caregivers,” said Dean Maddalena, president of studioSIX5, in a recent CDW report titled “The 21st Century Senior Living Community.”

“It’s part of everyday life, and we want these communities to mimic everyday life as much as possible,” Maddalena said.

The report cites a growing number of providers using this transformative technology to engage residents, stimulate memories and even nurture an understanding of different ailments.

In recent letters to Senate leaders, 56 organizations, including the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives and the American Hospital Association, have urged legislators to allow HHS to fund work related to the development of a national patient ID in the quest to improve the accuracy, interoperability and security of health data exchange and enhance patient safety. For years, Congress has banned such funding, citing privacy concerns raised by use of a national ID.

A new report from Manatt Health Strategies points to big differences in how return on investment should be gauged, depending most importantly on provider type – but also on acuity mix, IT infrastructure, staffing and other considerations. As more health systems avail themselves of the quality, cost and access benefits that come with telehealth, IT leaders naturally have big questions about how those major investments in technology infrastructure, reshaped clinical strategy and staffing changes should be paying off.

A new study from Manatt Health Strategies offers perspective, drawn largely from two case studies of different care providers, about how the return on investment should be assessed for nascent telehealth deployments.

“Most hospitals tend to make the mistake of selecting infeasible EHR options despite knowing their constraints. Sometimes, seeking a third party’s advice who is in a neutral position would be useful,” said Heungro Lee, Partner, VAIIM Consulting Group. The Electronic Health Record (EHR) is defined as a longitudinal electronic record of patient health information generated by one or more encounters in any care delivery setting, according to the HIMSS Health Information and Technology Resource Library. Included in this information are patient demographics, progress notes, problems, medications, vital signs, past medical history, immunisations, laboratory data and radiology reports.

The EHR automates and streamlines the clinician’s workflow and its adoption can be a means in which hospitals and healthcare organisations tap on to improve healthcare delivery by capturing structured healthcare information. However, different hospitals or healthcare organisations can have very varied budgets and approaches to EHR adoption or even improvement. Mr Heungro Lee, who is in charge of healthcare strategy as a partner at VAIIM Consulting Group, highlighted some key considerations for healthcare organisations and hospitals in their approaches to EHR adoption:

“Decision making is always difficult. But with a well-designed decision making process, the journey might be easier. The first step for EHR adoption for these organisations is to define what their constraints are, be it availability of budget, timelines to meet or the internal manpower resources required.

The next step is to prioritise the goals to achieve and these could be process standardisation, improving patient care and monitoring and managing hospital’s performance, etc. The final step is to source out feasible options based on the previous two steps. From my experience, most hospitals tend to make the mistake of selecting infeasible options despite knowing their constraints. Sometimes, seeking a third party’s advice who is in a neutral position would be useful.”

A legal expert who helped write HIMSS’ comments on the proposed rule offers an in-depth look at the new regs, and explains what they could mean for IT and infosec leaders. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has proposed new rules that will have a profound effect on how healthcare providers share patient data. The Office for the National Coordinator of Health IT and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are each reviewing industry comments on their proposed rules.

HHS clearly intends to transform how patient data is shared among providers and with patients by outlining permissible business practices that will not be considered information blocking and by requiring healthcare providers and their service providers to share data more broadly.

“Section 4004 of the 21st Century Cures Act prohibits ‘information blocking’ and authorizes HHS to identify activities that will not constitute information blocking,” explained Amy S. Leopard, a partner at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, a law firm that specializes in various industries including healthcare.

Leopard specializes in healthcare privacy and security. She recently worked with HIMSS staff on the comments to the HHS proposed Information Blocking rules.

The UK is moving one step closer to creating an infrastructure for the use of health-related data at scale with the launch of seven centres announced this week.

Led by Health Data Research UK and part of a four-year, £37.5m investment from the government through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, these hubs will, among others, seek to transform the way cancer data is used and expand opportunities for patients to participate in clinical trials.

They were selected in an open competition by an independent panel, after being examined against criteria including their potential for impact, and over 100 organisations from the NHS, academia, charities, tech and pharma companies are involved.

MITRE Lead Clinical Informaticist Sharon Sebastian discusses efforts to share clinical decision support across domains.

Exponential Medicine aims to cross-fertilize and blend tech innovations to get unstuck from a “sick care system,” says founder and chair Dr. Daniel Kraft.

A collaborative mission drives the staff at UCHealth: Keep costs down while improving quality of care. Accomplishing this goal can be tricky, but current models of predictive analytics for healthcare are helping achieve that balance.

“Our use of analytics creates a win-win-win scenario for patients, payers and providers,” Steve Hess, CIO of UCHealth, tells HealthTech. “And that’s something that is very rare in healthcare.”

Four years ago, the Aurora, Colo.-based organization began moving down a path toward predictive analytics by focusing on patient surveillance in outpatient care. And that has since compelled UCHealth to leverage an existing universal database to better predict patient outcomes in clinical settings — including operating rooms.

Dr. Clint Devin, an orthopedic spine surgeon at UCHealth Yampa Valley Medical Center in Steamboat Springs, Colo., helped launch that database in 2008 while working at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Formerly known as the Quality Outcomes Database (QOD) Spine registries, the effort was established in coordination with nonprofit NeuroPoint Alliance to collect, sort and analyze the safety of care, patient-reported outcomes and satisfaction of care across multiple healthcare settings in spine surgery.

Deep Dive: In Part 1 of a four-part series, healthcare cybersecurity veterans discuss the major risks facing healthcare organizations, and why protecting sensitive data and systems is a must for providing care.

Precision medicine is just starting to gain ground in the healthcare industry. Most patients have yet to have medical care designed to enhance effectiveness or therapeutic value for select groups of patients, especially by utilizing genetic or molecular profiling.

But some forward-looking healthcare provider organizations have started using precision medicine in their day-to-day operations. And the number of technology vendors with precision medicine offerings is growing.

Precision medicine is indeed the future of medicine overall. And as a result, it is time for all healthcare provider organizations to start thinking about how they can incorporate the high-tech offering.

Here, executives from precision medicine groundbreaking provider organization NorthShore University HealthSystem and precision medicine technology vendors 2bPrecise, Orion Health and Translational Software offer healthcare CIOs and other leaders and IT workers key best practices and tips for implementing precision medicine technologies.

Medisafe’s medication management platform is now integrated with Apple Health Records, providing an easier way to keep tabs on prescriptions and boost medication adherence, says CEO Omri Shor.

Because of the great amount of personal information involved, medical records command a high value on the dark web and can be listed for up to $1,000 each – 10 times more than the average credit card data breach record. Cybercriminals can then easily obtain this information and impersonate legitimate patients.

This is why digital identity verification is a key component of ensuring patient security. This is why all sectors of healthcare need to properly vet and verify their patients to ensure that they are who they claim to be.

Over the past decade, there have been more than 2,550 healthcare data breaches impacting more than 175 million medical records, according to the HIPAA Journal. That’s the equivalent of affecting more than 50% of the U.S. population.

People in the UK could benefit from faster diagnosis and better treatment for debilitating illnesses after the government revealed this week that it would invest over £130m in research for healthcare innovation.

This includes a £50m funding boost to support NHS diagnostic services and the work of the Centres of Excellence in digital pathology and imaging with AI, set up by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) last year.

The healthcare industry continues to be a favorite target of hackers. And the only way this will stop is for hospitals to take control of their technology. In this guest post, Keenan Skelly, VP of global partnerships and security evangelist at a market leader in next-generation cybersecurity readiness, offers a few ways facilities can strengthen cybersecurity and prevent future breaches and cyberattacks.

In the nearly 20 years since I started medical school, I’ve seen the practice of medicine undergo a wholesale technological transformation. Take medical records as a simple example. I am 100% certain that today’s medical students are much slower walkers than me. Why? Because the days of sprinting on rounds to get ahead of the white coat phalanx, pull down a cabinet and open a three-ring binder chart to the next blank page before the intern reaches the door ended a decade ago.

Today’s medical students are instead both blessed and cursed with EMRs and patient care technologies that track and trend every aspect of the inpatient and outpatient course, demanding hours of tedious, field-driven data entry while yielding treasure troves of mineable new information.

Men do it, women do it, young, old, Men do it, women do it, young, old, even doctors admit to doing it sometimes. In fact, if there’s anything surprising about the news that 50pc of us seek health advice online, it’s that the figure is so low.

According to new research carried out on behalf of the RCSI, half of all Irish people surveyed say they use the internet to investigate potential health woes.

The knee-jerk reaction to such a statistic is to fear that these keyboard patients are putting their health at risk by not heading directly for their GP’s busy waiting room.

But is the internet really such a bad place to venture when you’re worried about your well-being?

Several months ago, I was told I would need a biopsy on my breast. I was breastfeeding at the time and advised to stop to have the procedure. Reluctant to do so if not absolutely necessary, I sought other opinions online, contacting one of the world’s leading lactation experts, Dr Jack Newman, via the web, as well as experts in La Leche League.

Risa Stack, general manager at GE Ventures, discusses new trends in consumerism and patient engagement as well as advances in pharmacogenomic therapies.