In this very special episode of HIMSSCast, host Jonah Comstock welcomes his mother Carol Hornbeck, a marriage and family therapist in Minneapolis, and her colleague Edwin Shurig, a mental health counselor in Indianapolis. Along with Healthcare IT News Senior Editor Kat Jercich, we discuss what it was like for small practices and independent therapists to make the sudden move to telehealth in the face of COVID-19 — and how the experience will shape the future of their practice.

This podcast is brought to you by OnTrak. 

Talking points

• Edwin and Carol’s telehealth experiences prior to the pandemic
• Which telehealth tools helped with the transition
• Pros and cons of teletherapy
• Telehealth: Great for couples, tough for kids
• Going beyond telehealth: apps in the session room
• Therapeutic applications of fitness apps and trackers 
• Thoughts on teletherapy startups
• The importance of therapists connecting to each other
• Regulatory challenges of teletherapy— especially licensure
• How Edwin and Carol will use telehealth going forward
• Payment parity and reimbursement challenges
• Advice for telehealth tech vendors

More about this episode

The Virtual Care Paradigm Episode 1

The Virtual Care Paradigm Episode 2

Carol on "Talking Your Way to Change"

COVID-19 ratcheting up demand for virtual behavioral healthcare, Cigna finds

Telehealth use on rise for behavioral health

Now is the time for providers to be proactive about telehealth

Teladoc Health data shows virtual mental healthcare boom

Angel Mena, MD, and Steven Rube, MD, discuss the challenges of managing and sharing patient data post-pandemic and lessons learned from the COVID-19 crisis. 

Merging clinical, technical and data realms to capture and share patient data most effectively has been ramping up quickly during the pandemic, according to Steven Rube, MD, Senior Vice President, Global Clinical Services, IMO. He and Angel Mena, MD, Adult Medicine Physician, TriHealth, and  CMIO of Clinician Collaboration Platform, Halo Health, share their expertise on adapting technology to the clinical world in this podcast.

Specifically, Mena and Rube talk about:

• The impact of the pandemic on provider organizations' access to patient data
• How technology can overcome bottlenecks to patient data access
• Lessons learned to ensure accessing complete picture of patients post-pandemic

The first technology-enabled remote clinical trial was launched nearly a decade ago, and that field — now generally referred to as "decentralized clinical trials" — has been advancing and gaining traction ever since. But, like so many other remote tools, it's been greatly accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

On today's HIMSSCast, host Jonah Comstock and MobiHealthNews Managing Editor Laura Lovett welcome John Reites, CEO and cofounder of THREAD Research, to give us an update on where this new paradigm for clinical trials is today, and where it's headed.

Talking points:

• The effect of the pandemic on decentralized clinical trials
• Reconciling cultural differences between pharma and tech
• How vaccine trials are their own animal
• How decentralized trials can help improve clinical trial diversity
• The role of consumer wearables in clinical trials today
• Why clinical trial innovation must be global
• How physicians, researchers, and patients are responding to new clinical trial models
• What everyone should know about decentralized clinical trials

More about this episode:

THREAD Research

That Apple video

Trials and tribulations – the new world of decentralized trials

Spurred by the pandemic, AI is driving decentralized clinical trials

Virtual clinical research company Thread acquired by two private equity firms

Exo raises $40M for handheld ultrasound; decentralized trial platforms raise nearly $100M; and more digital health funding news

Current Health launches decentralized clinical trial initiative

Decentralized clinical trial startup Florence lands $80M for company growth

Labcorp updates its clinical trial process with a technology-enabled platform

The year for mobile-enabled clinical trials: 2013 or 2030? (Throwback #1)

ResearchKit update: Notes from the field on trial retention, Android integration, and more (Throwback #2)

Cyberattack leads to a network outage at Scripps Health; HRSA tells 6 drugmakers they’re in violation of the 340B statute. Also: Google using AI to help patients find answers to dermatology questions.

Links to the stories:

Scripps Health network still down, 2 weeks after cyberattack

Six drugmakers are in violation of 340B statute, says HRSA

Google gives a sneak peek into its new AI dermatology assistant

Susan Collins, Twilio’s Global Head of Healthcare Services, joins us to discuss the changing landscape of healthcare and the need to consider both the provider and patient when thinking about consumerization. Learn about strategies healthcare organizations can take to create a sustainable patient-centric experience that enhances value-based care.

Smart hospital rooms are on the horizon, with some medical centers already rolling them out. In addition to cost and logistics as limiting factors, health systems must consider cybersecurity and resilience when implementing smart room technology.  On today's episode HITN Senior Editor Kat Jercich speaks with Thanos Drougkas, a network and information security expert at the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA).

This is part three of a three-part podcast series on hospital network security brought to you by Aruba Networks.

Talking points:

• What is a smart hospital?
• Advantages of remote patient monitoring and smart hospital tech
• Security challenges of smart hospitals
• Cybersecurity threats: Looking beyond the malicious outsider
• How the pandemic has affected smart hospitals
• How cybersecurity threats can impact patient care
• Best practices for smart hospital security

More about this episode:

Understanding smart hospitals and why most aren't there yet

Smart buildings present a unique healthcare cybersecurity threat

How to assess the security of hospital IoT

How healthcare organizations can enhance RPM security, resiliency

CaptureRx ransomware attack exposes patient information from multiple provider systems; Insurers are concerned that telehealth reimbursement parity may lead to overutilization. Also: Bigfoot Biomedical receives FDA clearance for its Bigfoot Unity Diabetes Management System.

Links to the stories:

Thousands of patient records exposed after ransomware attack on CaptureRx

Telehealth reimbursement parity spurs insurer concerns of overutilization

FDA greenlights Bigfoot Biomedical's insulin recommending diabetes management system

New trends in computing require new frameworks and architectures, so that when stakeholders want to merge or collaborate they can trust that their technologies will work together. For edge computing, that framework is Secure Access Service Edge, or SASE. This network architecture rolls software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) and security into a single cloud service.

Samuel Hill, senior manager for healthcare at Aruba Networks, joins host Jonah Comstock to dig into what SASE is and why it's important for healthcare technologists to know about.

This podcast is brought to you by Aruba Networks.

Talking points:

• Why SASE is coming out strong as the pandemic abates
• What SASE is and why it makes sense as more work goes remote
• Healthcare as an illustrative use case for SASE
• Hospital use case example: radiology
• Security implications of SASE frameworks
• Benefits and drawbacks of SASE
• How SASE relates to SD-WAN and SD-Branch
• Tips for implementing a SASE framework
• What is ZeroTrust and how does it fit in?

More about this episode:

Last week on HIMSSCast: Edge Computing 101 with Tao Zhang

Health passports and distancing tools among COVID-19 tech climbing Gartner Hype Cycle

Ponemon Survey

ATM Digital: WAN & Security Transformation

Theresa Payton Keynote

Biden Administration aims to get 70% of Americans at least one vaccine dose by July 4; Healthcare among the top industries affected by tracked ransomware incidents . Also: Employer health benefits management platform Collective Health has scores $280 million in Series F funding .

Links to the stories:

Biden sets new goal of 70% of adults getting the COVID-19 vaccine by July 4

Healthcare hackers demanded an average ransom of $4.6M last year, says BakerHostetler

Collective Health scores $280M to scale employer health benefits platform

Encouraging girls and young women to study for careers in health IT is 

ongoing. Experts say it will take years to reach gender parity. In this podcast, 

IMO CEO Ann Barnes talks about her philosophy on what’s needed now, the 

changes she’s made in her company and how the health IT industry can come 

together to bring about gender equity in a cohesive, collaborative way.

In this podcast, we’ll discuss:

•

Learning from one another to bring more parity to the health IT 

industry

•

Best practices in developing women leaders in health IT

•

How the industry is collaborating and sharing best practices for 

greatest impact