HIMSS Analytics has partnered with Comcast Business to release a report entitled "Healthcare Network Provider Solutions, Barriers and Challenges."
The data comes from a focus group of seven healthcare IT professionals conducted at this year's HIMSS conference in March. The participants included CIOs, CMOs and IT directors.
The focus group identified four major concerns faced within their organizations. These included mobile devices, information exchange, security and data storage/images.
The biggest concern regarding mobile devices was employee demand for a BYOD policy. IT leaders worried that they would have no control over these devices, and they noted that many employees had found ways to work around security policies. These "jailbreaks" placed the privacy of patient information in jeopardy.
Data storage is a challenge because medical images are so resource-intensive. Exchanging these images between physicians and locations and the securing of images taken with mobile imaging machines were also concerns. Information exchange presents obstacles, particularly in regions where health information exchanges (HIE) have not taken off at the regional and state levels.
Current network environments in hospitals consist of cobbled collections of DSL, Ethernet, private microwave, T-1 lines and Wi-Fi. However, the demand for wireless is rapidly outpacing available resources. Many old buildings had drop zones, or areas that their Wi-Fi antennas couldn't reach.
Wireless is a great benefit, but it also creates problems. Employees can easily access the Web for a variety of daily tasks. They can also waste time on the Web using sites like Twitter, Amazon and Facebook. Using the network for personal reasons exposes it to threats like malware. IT can disable access through the hospital network, but employees simply hop onto the guest network for personal surfing.
As these focus group participants work to propel their organizations into the future, they are concerned about the scalability of their current networks. Some also expressed frustration with hospital executives, who are not always informed or supportive of the need for more IT resources including both infrastructure and staff.
Finally, the focus group debated whether or not cloud computing could work in a healthcare environment. Some expressed comfort with private clouds, while others said clouds were not place for sensitive patient data. They also expressed concerns about depending on a provider and the challenges that dependency could pose in terms of disaster recovery.
Edited by
Alisen Downey
