Password systems are the easiest type of security to implement for programmers. Then, throw in two-factor authentication and an edict from healthcare IT to rotate to new passwords every 30 or 90 days, and you end up with password hell. It’s not all the programmers' fault—you’re plugging dozens of external services and outside databases into hospital systems. Single sign-on (SSO) brings its own problems. The Change Healthcare debacle that cost billions and leaked up to 210 million patient records to the internet occurred when a hacker used stolen credentials, most likely obtained by calling someone and telling them IT needed their password.
The cost is minutes every day, but millions of minutes collectively. However, that cost is spread out across millions of people. We do need better badge-token and biometric security structures for critical systems.
Passwords in Healthcare: A Doctor’s Perspective on Why They aren’t Working - Healthcare Dive
The move by pharmaceutical manufacturers into telehealth and direct-to-consumer sales of prescription drugs has attracted the attention of US Senators - Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Dick Durbin and Peter Welch. Pfizer and Lilly are on the hot seat, but pretty much every large manufacturer is working some sort of direct-to-consumer play using telehealth services now. From the looks of it, not much is going to come out of the inquiries - and they aren’t talking to Amazon, Walmart, Optum, Kroger or the dozens of others entering telehealth specifically for direct-to-consumer prescription sales. Lawmakers Seek Answers on Pfizer, Lilly Telehealth Moves - Pharmaphorum Excerpt from ‘Blind Spots’ by Marty MakaryThe Harvard Gazette has bravely stepped into the allergy fray. We salute them (while hiding behind that tree way over there). Dr. Marty Makary is a surgeon and professor at Johns Hopkins, with several books on healthcare systems and reform. His latest is Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health. This is an excerpt from a chapter on allergies and the history of their development. Surgeon, Professor Marty Makary Examines Damage Wrought When Medicine Closes Ranks Around Inaccurate Dogma - Harvard Gazette Boarding Patients in Emergency Departments Nearly Doubles Daily Cost of Care, Study FindsA study with 25 patients in a stroke center isn’t large, but it aligns with other studies in Annals of Emergency Medicine and Academic Emergency Medicine showing that boarding significantly increases mortality rates, doubles healthcare costs, exacerbates staffing problems, and decreases care availability for all ED patients. Facility closures and patient rerouting, bed reductions as cost-cutting measures in hospitals, increased acuity due to primary care and specialist shortages, discharge delays, and post-acute care placement issues (such as a lack of skilled nursing and rehabilitation beds)—even poor maintenance and CNA staffing that causes delays in clearing rooms—all contribute to the problem. These are well-known issues, but investing in adequate inpatient staffing, infrastructure, equipment, and staff development doesn’t tend toward short-term ROI. The front end is all cost, with rewards only in long-term ROI and brand improvement. So far, most solutions have been limited to suggestions about penalties and additional paperwork to track boarding times. Boarding Patients in Emergency Departments Nearly Doubles Daily Cost of Care, Study Finds - EMS World
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