That’s a wrap on Paubox Spring Summit, Secure Communication During a Pandemic! A special thank you to all of our wonderful panelists and moderators. Today’s digital conference included industry leaders like Anshul Pande , vice president and chief technology officer of Stanford Children’s Health, and Michael Parisi, vice president of business development & adoption at HITRUST. Here’s a recap of today’s panels.
Click here for the full agenda and panelist bios.
Digital First Healthcare in a Post Pandemic World | Anshul Pande
Panel overview: Pande explored what digital transformation means in a post-pandemic world and how organizations worldwide can focus on technology as a support rather than a crutch.
Key takeaways:
- Between 2019 and 2020, investment in healthcare technology doubled. This investment brings with it new ideas, new products, and new services.
- Empathetic design for healthcare technologies is a must. If it’s easy for the patient or end-user, the patient or end-user is more likely to use it.
- Transformation is a no-brainer during a crisis because if you don’t transform, your organization could die.
- A silver lining of the pandemic is how healthcare organizations have expanded telehealth access for their patients.
Pande also touched on statistics and data from Stanford Children’s Health. Before COVID hit, the 2020 goal for telehealth appointments was 7,000, but instead, they hit over 86,000. Additionally, Pande and his team found that patients, especially teenage males, are more comfortable talking to and providing information to mental health professionals from the comfort of their bedroom.
About Anshul Pande
Pande is the vice president and chief technology officer of Stanford Children’s Health, the only healthcare system in the San Francisco Bay Area dedicated to pediatric and obstetric care. It is also one of the few in the country. As CTO, Pande is responsible for all aspects of technology selection, deployment, and delivery for Children’s Health. For more information about Anshul Pande, click here.
A Valley of Innovation—Rapid Adoption of Technological Solutions to Address COVID-19 | Susan Ibáñez, Chris Lindley, and Julie Jackson
Panel overview: Ibáñez, Lindley, and Jackson addressed how Vail Health uses technological innovations to address pandemic-related challenges.
Key takeaways:
- Innovative technology allowed Vail Health to double its number of COVID-19 vaccine appointments from 256 per day in December 2020 to nearly 600 per day today
- Be sure to choose an agile vendor that is willing to work alongside your organization to create adaptable technology that can change as needed.
- By improving workflow, organizations can improve ROI, patient experience and free up staff for other essential tasks.
The Vail Health executives also discussed the impact that rapidly adopting new technology had on their organization. Ibáñez said, “I think this will teach us that we can fast track when needed, but it will be a fine balance [of speed versus regulations]." Additionally, Lindley noted, “At the end of the day, it all comes down to community impact. These technology changes have really helped the community."
About Susan Ibáñez
Ibáñez is the chief information officer at Vail Health, a nonprofit community healthcare system in Colorado’s Eagle and Summit counties. Within the system are a 56-bed hospital, a 24/7 emergency care facility, and other specialty services and clinics.
About Chris Lindley
Lindley is the chief population health officer at Vail Health. He is also the Vail Health COVID-19 incident commander and the executive director of Eagle Valley Behavioral Health.
About Julie Jackson
Jackson is the director of applications & informatics for Vail Health. She has been with Vail Health for over four years and is also a registered nurse working with COVID-19 patients. For more information about these panelists, click here.
The Cyber Threat Landscape Evolution: How the Pandemic Changed the Attack Surface in Healthcare | Tony UcedaVélez
Panel overview: Attendees learned about the proliferation of cyber threats during the pandemic and post-pandemic era, risks to data security in transit for healthcare professionals, and the importance of endpoint protection.
Key takeaways:
- Old habits die hard. Train your staff and train them often. Training should be quick, effective, relevant, and fun.
- Multi-factor authentication should be applied to everything.
- Invest in email security and defend your endpoints.
Additionally, UcedaVélez touched on the rising number of cybersecurity attacks on the supply-chain side of healthcare. Bad actors are leveraging any information they can to launch attacks against organizations. Healthcare providers should create a threat model simulation to elucidate any vulnerabilities and understand how their organization could be compromised.
About Tony UcedaVélez
Tony is the founder and CEO of security consulting firm VerSprite, based in Atlanta. He founded VerSprite after working in the IT and information security space for nearly a quarter of a decade. To read more about Tony, click here.
How the Paubox Email API Can Help Fight the Pandemic | Nick Wong and Dan Dorszynski
Panel overview: Dorszynski and Wong reviewed how automating parts of the contact tracing process can save lives, time, and money, the importance of delivering a frictionless test result, how using a HIPAA compliant email API is a hassle-free way to keep PHI protected.
Key takeaways:
- COVID contact tracing must occur within 3 days of a positive test result to be effective.
- Paubox Email API can be the foundation or cornerstone of any modern health application. For some example use cases, read about Paubox customersAlcala Testing and ZiphyCare.
- An overview video showing how the Paubox Email API works can be found here.
About Nick Wong
Wong is a software engineer and email API specialist at Paubox. He recently spoke at Paubox SECURE, Paubox’s digital health security conference, in October. Wong shared about the endless possibilities that Paubox Email API grants developers to keep their email communication secure and safe from unauthorized users.
About Dan Dorszynski
Dorszynski has been working as a software developer for the web before Facebook, Twitter, and Google were even ideas. He has spent the last 20 years as an independent web developer before joining Paubox as a software engineer. Additional information about both panelists can be found here.
A Uniform Approach to Sharing Assurance and Other Certifications | Paddy Padmanabhan, Michael Parisi, Brian Kline, Michael Mead, and Howard Rosen
Panel overview: Attendees learned from established industry leaders how to demonstrate that they meet various security and privacy requirements such as the HIPAA Security & Privacy Rules, NIST, ISO, PCI, and other standards.
Key takeaways:
- Certifications have become “table stakes” within the healthcare industry.
- Certification processes can be expensive, time-consuming, and have many moving parts.
- There is no such thing as a HIPAA certification. HITRUST certifies the implementation of controls, which is the closest thing to a HIPAA certification.
Key soundbites:
- "The difficulty with [certification] is really your program management skills.” -Brian Kline
- "To be honest, it makes everything easier to work with really great auditors. They make a big big difference." -Howard Rosen
- "Assess once, report many." -Michael Parisi
- “Secure portals and exposure of portals through the web or an application - I think that will continue. Millennials and Gen X'ers are tech-savvy and like to communicate with doctors on their time.” -Michael Mead
About Michael Parisi
Michael Parisi is the vice president of business development & adoption at HITRUST. He’s a seasoned information security and privacy industry professional. He has served as a lead healthcare industry expert, a national healthcare third-party assurance specialist, and the national HITRUST services lead for PricewaterhouseCoopers.
About Brian Kline
Brian Kline is the compliance and standards lead for Webb Adams — a veteran-owned business composed of cybersecurity and policy professionals well-versed in designing and managing security, privacy, and compliance programs. Kline is passionate about helping clients meet compliance standards and preparing them for industry certifications and attestations such as HITRUST, HIPAA/HITECH, SOC 2, GDPR, and ISO 27001.
About Michael Mead
Michael Mead, BCPA, is the chief operations officer for The Medical Cost Savings Solution, where in just the past three years he has led the effort to save self-pay patients over $1.5 billion in their medical expenses. Before joining MCS, he led top Medicare Advantage programs in the reorganization and the implementation of new systems.
About Howard Rosen
Howard is the strategic and visionary leader of LifeWIRE, which he invented and developed as a patented population management communication platform that humanizes digital communication through personalized, responsive interactions between parties like healthcare providers and patients. For more information on these panelists, click here.
The Future of Healthcare, IT Security, and Cybersecurity featuring Matthew Wallace and Aaron Collins
Panel overview: Drawing from their unique experiences and backgrounds, Wallace and Collins shared valuable insights about the future of healthcare, IT security, and cybersecurity. It’s more important than ever that healthcare industry professionals know how to navigate the rising threat of cybersecurity attacks and the long-lasting repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Key takeaways:
- Vulnerabilities and data breaches are not only the result of the software purchased but also the software integrations built into third-party vendors.
- To help spot cybersecurity threats, organizations need understand their firewall patterns and monitor if the patterns change after introducing new technologies into their stack
- Telehealth was the right solution at the right time during the heat of the pandemic. Post-pandemic, telehealth will still be an important solution, especially in rural communities.
About Matthew Wallace
Matthew Wallace is the vice president of strategic initiatives and partnerships at Easterseals Louisiana. He’s passionate about the health of all people; he believes that when people are healthy, communities are healthy and thrive. In his current role, Wallace oversees government affairs, development, and communications.
About Aaron Collins
Aaron Collins is the systems administrator for the Developmental Center of the Ozarks. He is well versed in the building and maintenance of HIPAA compliant environments, firewall administration, FileMaker databases, Mitel phone controllers, and network administration. For more information about these panelists, click here.
About Paubox Spring Summit
Paubox Spring Summit 2021 is a one-day virtual event, providing the opportunity to hear relevant content from thought leaders, along with opportunities for remote networking with peers.
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