The topic of security is on the minds of most healthcare IT professionals today. Securing remote access to your hospital's network is the deadbolt that helps protect your data. Most people don't leave their backdoor wide open, or expect that little doorknob lock to be secure, so why do most hospitals do the equivalent with their networks?

Times, they are a changing! And, that's a good thing! Have you evaluated or made plans to move to MEDITECH's new Expanse platform? I wanted to share with you how we are keeping up with the changes and helping hospitals keep up too.

As an IT security vendor, it's hard to compete with hope. After all, hope is free.

I was chatting with a group of hospital CIOs recently and we were discussing network security and what makes their networks vulnerable. I was surprised by the difficulty each was having with remote access by physician office staff. It was unanimously one of the greatest concerns. While we know they have some longstanding, awesome partnerships with physician offices, there are three main vulnerabilities that have surfaced with remote network access:

1) Unknown terminations
2) Inappropriate access discipline
3) Access after termination

It’s been a little while since our last post. Please forgive the lapse — we’ve been busy connecting medical devices to EHRs at many hospitals. And we have another Smart Pump EHR Integration implementation currently scheduled to go live in September.    

Connecting smart pumps to your EHR is a complex project, but well worth it. Doing so improves patient safety, saves your nurses time, and helps increase IV reimbursements. If you’re interested in learning more about Smart Pump EHR Integration, we’re hosting three webinars this summer on the subject, including one where Amy Speanburg, MS, RN, Clinical Informatics Specialist at Saratoga Hospital will join us as our guest speaker.

Scroll down for registration links and a description of each webinar.  

It is said that a heart attack is 80% preventable by eating well, exercising regularly, and keeping stress to a minimum*. While there is no official statistic yet, I would say that a cyber-attack is 95% preventable by vetting partners well, exercising caution, and keeping access points to a minimum. 

As I wrote in a blog post on May 3, we were honored that Sallie Arnett, CIO of Licking Memorial Health Systems, shared her hospital’s sepsis success in a live webinar which we held on May 17. If you didn’t have the opportunity to attend, here’s a link so that you can watch it on demand. And here’s an updated version of what I posted on May 3:

It's 2018, a time when there is an endless amount of information available, multiple technologies to choose from, a 24/7 news cycle, and access to any type of information, in seconds, at your fingertips. (Or, actually, without even having to use your fingertips at all — you simply have to say out loud what you want to know!)