The passion to pioneer technology within the field of mHealth has forged a new partnership between two titans in their respective industries.

On Thursday, GlobalSat WorldCom Corp. – a global leader in the development and manufacturing of GPS receivers and electronic communication devices – confirmed its freshly cemented alliance with SecuraTrac – a well-respected provider of various mobile health and safety solutions.

A joint statement from the partners reveals that the two companies are behind the release of the Mobile Personal Emergency Response System (mPERS) called the MobileDefender.
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This week, the Health Information Trust Alliance (HITRUST) issued new guidance for healthcare organizations wanting to assess the state of their cybersecurity preparedness.

The release comes in direct response to the heightened awareness and concerns about cyber threats, attacks and incidents.

The guidance identifies an appropriate subset of controls within the HITRUST Common Security Framework (CSF) that are most directly related to detecting and thwarting cyber-related breaches and allows organizations to assess against the cyber-specific controls and receive a snapshot of their cyber capabilities and readiness.

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The critical issue of patient engagement was broached on a multitude of occasions last week at the 2013 HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition in New Orleans. It’s a topic that Eric Manley, the eHealth System Manager for the Mayo Clinic, knows a thing or two about.

“The main objective is to engage patients at the right place, at the right time,” he explained in a recent report, highlighting that the Mayo Clinic sees just north of 1 million patients annually.

Online, however, the Mayo website sees 250 million unique visits every year.

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Cognizant of patient concerns related to their privacy and the security of their health and personal information, Verizon is forging ahead and into the beta testing phase of a new service designed to qualm some of these worries.

The service in question will enable doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals to quickly and efficiently exchange medical information via highly secure electronic means.

Speaking at HIMSS 2013 in New Orleans this week, Verizon Chief Medical Officer Peter Tippett said the progress of the forthcoming offering – called “Secure Universal Message Services” – has been impressive.

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A recurring theme at the HIMSS 2013 conference and expo this week in New Orleans was the security of mobile health data.

With mobile technologies becoming central to expanded remote patient care and consultation, the challenge of securing patient information is growing by the day.

As a result, PerSysTek is behind a new solution that may rise to this very challenge.

Many of the vendors at HIMSS have great solutions meeting various mobile health (mHealth) needs but Physicians and Patients have been leery of adopting such technologies due to the security risk associated with mobile devices.

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As surprising as the fact may seem, the healthcare industry is moving like molasses to adopt cloud technology, despite the rapid pace at which other industries are doing so.

CDW’s 2013 State of the Cloud Report surveyed IT professionals to explore what factors drive the shift to the cloud, what types of applications organizations are taking to the cloud and what benefits (beyond cost savings) they are achieving.

According to findings presented, only 35 percent of health IT professionals surveyed revealed that their organization is presently using cloud computing.

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It’s news that will do little to quell worries about the security of electronic health records.

An announcement from Milwaukee-based Froedtert Health reveals a security breach that could have put sensitive information relating to 43,000 patients at risk.

“On December 14, 2012,” a notice from the health system reads, “we learned that a computer virus may have allowed an unauthorized person to access a Froedtert Health employee’s work computer account… We found no evidence that any unauthorized person accessed any personal information or medical records.  As a precaution, we felt it was important to tell you this occurred.”

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