Barracuda Consulting, LLC

Written By: Kelly Buckman Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past decade, chances are that you’ve heard of the “Cloud” and may even understand the value of Cloud technology for storing large amounts of data for businesses and other types of organizations. What you may not know is how healthcare is benefiting from advances in cloud technology, and in particular, software as a service. A common delivery model for many business applications, Software as a service, also known as SaaS, is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. * Typically accessed using a thin client via a web browser, some common examples of SaaS include Office 365, Google Apps, Citrix GoToMeeting, Cisco WebEx, and Netflix. With SaaS, vendors develop, monitor and maintain the application. Data is stored off-site and users access software over the internet. And since SaaS vendors develop and troubleshoot any issues that may aris...

Written By: Kelly Buckman As we’ve seen time and again, many of the latest trends in Healthcare technology today come from the business sector, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), and Big Data, to name just a few. So, it comes as no surprise that one of the newest up and coming advances in Healthcare IT involves a way of structuring data that has its roots in the digital currency market. Best known for being the public ledger for all transactions in the Bitcoin (cryptocurrency) network, blockchain is a “distributed and a write-once-read only record of digital events in a chronological order that is shared in a peer-to-peer network”. [Bitcoin or cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for security, making it difficult to counterfeit. It is not issued by any central authority and is immune to government interference or manipulation.] Because it is a data structure that can be time-stamped and signed using a private key ...

Written By: Kelly Buckman By now, we’re all familiar with fitness trackers and their value in helping us meet our goals of getting and staying healthy. In fact, the number of connected wearable devices is expected to climb from an estimated 325 million in 2016 to over 830 million in 2020. That’s an increase of nearly 40% for a device that is primarily used to help people get and stay healthy. * It stands to reason that this technology would be adopted by hospitals and healthcare providers to improve the quality of care, although the ramifications of such usage are far reaching. One example of beneficial use of wearable technology is tracking bracelets worn by doctors, nurses, and patients that can help capture data on the amount of time a patient spent in the waiting room, or the time a doctor spent in front of a computer. The data collected can then be used to improve patient workflows or reduce wait time, which can lead to a direct cost reduction per payment. Sharp Chula Vista Medica...

Written by: Kelly Buckman An elderly woman living alone with limited mobility dials into a teleconference to receive physical therapy via digital monitoring A new mother living in a remote rural area dials into a tele-session to receive assistance with breastfeeding Two physicians 1200 miles apart meet over video conference to review a patient’s X-rays. These scenarios are all examples of ways Telehealth is used in the modern age. Telehealth is most commonly defined as “the distribution of health-related services and information via electronic information and telecommunication technologies” ( www.hrsa.gov ). The terms ‘Telehealth’ and ‘Telemedicine’ are often used interchangeably, but there are subtle differences, in that telemedicine involves using telecommunication and information technology to provide clinical health care whereas ‘Telehealth’ is a broader term encompassing non-clinical (i.e., administration and provider education), as well as clinical implications. It may surprise y...

Written by: Kelly Buckman Those of us working in the field of Healthcare IT are often intimately familiar with HIPAA regulations and their impact on our day to day operations.  But in the course of working to resolve problems for our customers, how often do we really think about the pitfalls of sharing healthcare related information amongst ourselves and others? Usually, this takes the form of screenshots, samples of reports, data files, etc. I can’t count the number of times I’ve emailed a screenshot of a software-created object to one or more of my co-workers in the course of collaborating on an issue (“Have you seen this before?”), or a customer contact to triumphantly demonstrate that I’ve resolved their data or server-related issue. (“Look, it’s fixed.  You’re welcome!”) But very often, the data transferred back and forth contains PHI (Protected Health Information) or PI/PII (Personal Information/Personally Identifiable Information) such as name, address telephon...