The moves made by Australian healthcare leaders to digitally transform health services now will directly impact the long-term wellbeing of citizens and protect the future economy.
However, to realise the potential of a digitalised healthcare sector and navigate the data era, leaders must prepare for innovative technologies and confront the rise in cyber and ransomware attacks head-on.

In the past two years, the healthcare system has been at the heart of societal and economic recovery. Its resiliency and innovation while facing the ongoing pandemic and other everyday medical challenges have been immense; the rapid shift to telehealth services helped reduce community transmission and protect patients and healthcare workers while keeping beds free for COVID-19 patients. Now, as governments collaborate with healthcare leaders and tech experts to realise the full potential of digitally driven service solutions, the progress made in recent times must be protected and enhanced.

Healthcare vulnerabilities

A cyberattack was reported every 8 minutes in Australia over the 2020–2021 financial year, with an 84 per cent increase in reports relating to the health sector in 2020 from 2019. The financial cost is staggering, but the human cost is incalculable. Already straining under a backlog of pandemic patient appointments, health systems are relying on digital transformations to turbocharge long-term resiliency. But cyberattacks can disrupt operations at large hospitals resulting in a lack of access to patient data and delays and cancellations of time-sensitive procedures.

The Australian Government’s Ransomware Action Plan reports that during the height of the pandemic in 2020, ransomware campaigns targeted Australia’s aged care and healthcare sectors. The ‘Maze’ ransomware encrypted valuable information, such as sensitive personal and medical information, so it could no longer be used until a ransom was paid. Reckless attacks such as these put patients’ lives at risk.

Preventative cyber technology is constantly evolving with innovations to protect data and keep pace with the bad actors; however, the Australian health sector will continue to be a vulnerable target because of its access to sensitive data and increased reliance on internet-enabled services. And alarmingly, according to a 2021 survey by Dell Technologies, 74% of health industry decisionmakers say they struggle to find suitable data protection for their AI and machine learning solutions. A collaborative public and private sector approach is now needed to maximise cyber security and resilience.

Ransomware is everyone’s problem and could hinder healthcare progress if not dealt with decisively. As the Australian government mounts more robust defences against cyberattacks, national partnerships with the brightest cyber experts, CIOs, and public health leaders are necessary to ensure Australia is cyber secure. Cyber is at the core of digital healthcare infrastructure and the basis for future progress, making it essential for combatting today’s healthcare challenges.

Protecting health data

Health data is the lifeblood of progress in solving healthcare problems. But accelerated digital transformations have created increasing complexities — and data protection must evolve to meet new demands.

After a tumultuous couple of years, healthcare waiting lists have grown out-of-hand, placing pressure on already overwhelmed facilities and staff. Telehealth services, supported by always-on digital platforms, initially boosted accessibility to services and continue to streamline efficiencies. The Australian government has recently committed an additional $24 million to support telehealth changes to give GPs and specialists additional flexibility to treat their patients safely as Omicron case numbers grow.

Meanwhile, the datasphere has grown increasingly complex. Simplified, agile as-a-service data management across the hybrid and multi-cloud is now essential for boosting operational efficiencies. Health records and mobile devices have streamlined wait times and minimised patients’ time spent in hospitals, as IoT and Edge computing have powered patient monitoring. Behind the frontlines, AI technologies have led the charge on healthcare research — enabled by High Performance Computing. In December 2021, the Australian Alliance for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare launched a roadmap with proposed strategies to cover critical issues in the roll-out of an AI enabled Australian healthcare system, with the goal being a fully funded national plan by 2025.

Given these advancements, it isn’t surprising that the health sector is a tempting target for cybercriminals. Retaining trust in the digital innovations that underpin Australia’s future economy and social wellbeing is critical to sustaining progress, which is why it’s more important than ever that our most sensitive data, health data, is rigorously protected.

As healthcare leaders look to reinforce the cyber resiliency of their organisations, focusing on their most critical data is key — from records with accompanying images to object data from diagnostic systems and health surveys. Placing this critical data in a vault will help ensure it is isolated, can’t be modified and can be quickly recovered in the event of an attack — enabling healthcare services to get up and running quickly again.

Better together

Protecting these unstructured datasets requires a ‘people, process, and best of breed technology solutions’ approach. While there is no antidote or 100% fail-proof approach, enlisting a cyber strategy that focuses on all three areas is vital. Cyber security is evolving quickly to keep pace with cybercriminals. That means cyber strategies should constantly evolve too, with stress tests and ongoing

assessments to ensure they are fit for purpose. So is having the right technology and cybersecurity partners. Planning and preparation are vital. This is not a journey that healthcare providers can travel alone — and there is no end in sight.

But the risks of not acting now far outweigh the short-term cost of investing in tighter cyber strategies. Healthcare progress is at stake. It is underpinned by technology innovations that require patient trust, continuity, and reliability. Take the potential for Digital Twin technology, which is transforming the sector and enabling healthcare institutions to meet pressing challenges — from personalising healthcare to combatting patient wait times. The powerful combination of the digital twin, IoT, AI, and data analytics will boost patient outcomes and hospital performance. But this must be supported by stringent cyber security to evolve with the trust of patients and healthcare providers — and remain operational in the event of a ransomware attack. Ransomware is a national and global challenge; an open, multistakeholder approach across sectors will help organisations ramp up defences. The nature of healthcare makes it particularly vulnerable, and the stakes are high as it powers national resilience beyond the pandemic. Securing the viability of healthcare innovations with first-class cyber strategies will benefit everyone everywhere. As we look to a more equitable, sustainable future that puts citizens at the forefront of progress, healthcare cyber security is more than a hot topic — it’s a lifeline.

The post Protecting Patients From Ransomware Attacks appeared first on AJ Missaghi.

The majority of healthcare institutions are still not integrating data from various wearable devices, IOT devices, in home care systems and telemedicine system with other medical records. This disconnection is not only limiting the benefits that can be gained, but hindering the development of new treatments.

Remote patient monitoring has been a revolutionary tool for care delivery models across the globe. It is a technology that enables remote communication without an intermediary. This allows healthcare providers to monitor patients in hospital, at home and from a distance through wearable devices, and track their vital signs.

In the future, these networks will become more integrated with local GPs who can talk to patients from afar and offer advice on coping strategies for chronic conditions.

This article discusses how healthcare institutions need to rethink their approach to remote patient monitoring in order to integrate it into everyday healthcare practices and episodes of care.

Just over a week ago, whilst laying in bed with a high temperature, and like many others facing typical symptoms of COVID-19, I began to question if I was going to make it through the night. Now for full disclosure I knew that the events of the past 2 years had influenced my perception and general thinking about my health being in a critical state. Afterall I had faced many common cold and flu episodes in my life with many of them having similar symptoms. I had enough sanity to convince myself that the high temperature will pass but at the same time I knew that COVID symptoms can quickly escalate and become life threatening. At this point it’s nearing 2022 New Year midnight celebrations and I am trying to avoid the worst case scenario. My chest at this point is tightening, I am getting cramps in my upper back region roughly between my shoulder blades and my breathing is becoming shallow. Arguably some early signs of heart problems.  At the same time, I am conscientious that I am not the only one facing or having faced these symptoms. So instead of calling 000 – or 911 as my American friends would say – I decided to reach out to Nurse on Call. After a few ringtones and an automated answering system I was directed to a calm soothing voice of a nurse who no doubt ‘had seen this movie before’. She assured me that based upon my tone of voice I was fine but she needed to ascertain some additional information. And so began the data collection. Suddenly I realised that I have a wearable device which I had used for the past year on so many occasions to measure my recovery process post intense exercising such as running, cycling, weightlifting, or High-intensity Interval training as well as tracing my sleep patterns and stages such as REM or Deep sleep.  The data being produced was exactly the type of data that the Nurse on Call was asking for. Whilst the content (i.e. Data) was the same, the context was subtly different. She was trying to put together this data to achieve different correlations. 

My wearable device was spitting out real time data every second on my Resting Heart Rate, Respiratory rate, my Sleep pattern and recovery stages and my Heart Rate Variability. It gets better because I had access to historical data which had been accumulating over the past year and the picture that was being painted was one that not surprisingly my decline in health was not due to inappropriate amount of intense exercise – which I must admit that it’s not uncommon for my competitive nature – but due to COVID-19 having got a hold of my body and doing what it does best. 

Now back to my conversation with Nurse on Call, my nurse assured me that my respiratory rate was within the normal range. Yes we agreed that a healthy and active individual should not be facing such a high level of respiratory rate but I was not in a critical state. She also agreed that my high heart rate and abnormal breathing patterns were common in COVID-19 patients but not a cause for alarm. She instructed me to take another dose of paracetamol to manage my high temperature, consume more liquids and rest.

The next morning I woke somewhat bruised and battered from being upset and not being able to celebrate New Year with my family and friends. But I couldn’t help wonder about how the events of the night before with my Nurse on Call avoided a trip to hospital and its associated waiting game in an emergency department, not to mention adding additional stress that I would have added to an already overwhelmed healthcare system.

Suddenly I see a news flash on the lounge room TV that the recent COVID-19 wave in Australia had crashed many ambulance and emergency departments. Many of the calls could have been avoided by a similar assessment that my nurse had made for me. 

Wearable devices these days come in many sizes, colours and capabilities. Many of them such as Garmin have the capabilities that my Whoop device provided me. So the question is “why don’t we embrace them? Why doesn’t our healthcare system integrate these devices into Realtime patient monitoring platforms?”

Now these are somewhat rhetorical questions. My two decades of experience in the technology industry and in recent years the Healthcare Industry has taught me that these challenges are not just solved by technology, rather by embracing new ways of thinking that challenges the traditional healthcare operating models. The untapped opportunity in APJ around IOT devices is estimated to be approximately $44B and in ANZ alone we are facing a $200M virtual care opportunity, with many organisations racing to integrate the various parts of healthcare ecosystem. Dell Technologies and eCare21 have put together a proven virtual care platform that has solved some of these challenges.  Join me in the next article to go deeper into what I believe Healthcare industry must embrace in order to position itself for the future of Healthcare by introducing remote patient monitoring and fully integrated highly secure virtual care platforms as well as introduce you to Dell Technology and eCare21 with virtual capabilities that supports above scenarios. 

The post Remote Patient Monitoring and Virtual Care: How the Technology is Changing the Healthcare Industry appeared first on AJ Missaghi.

AJ and his team worked with TMC to develop a set of technology priorities which aligned with TMC’s new business model. So, developed a set of strategies to allow TMC technology to become less infrastructure centric and more application and value focused.

The post Toyota Australia appeared first on AJ Missaghi.

Key Outcomes delivered

1. Technology to support growth in the terminal upgrades as well as development of a new terminal (Terminal 4 for domestic travel).
2. Introduction of an Enterprise Data platform to support – enabling airports’ staff to perform deep analytics of its operations to support the establishment of new lines of business, products and services.

The post Melbourne Airport appeared first on AJ Missaghi.