#264 – ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS: ONE STEP FORWARD TWO STEPS BACK – JEFF HARRIS

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Growing up in rural South Alabama, the nearest doctor was about 20 miles away in a little town called Frisco City. His name was Dr B. L. Hanks, and he received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. I’m told he made house calls in his younger years, but when I knew him he could barely walk. He would shuffle into the examination room, lean against the wall and run his hand through a head full of unruly white hair and ask what was wrong, while all the while looking at non-verbal signals which were just as important as anything I said. Continue reading

#156 – RANSOMWARE IN HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATIONS: THE HUMAN FACTOR – JEFF HARRIS

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AAA-Jeff-150x150Bob is a hockey fan. His Facebook timeline is filled with posts about his favorite team and his search for tickets. Bob also works in the department of Health Information Services for a major hospital in a large city. One day Bob receives an email at work informing him that he has won two tickets to the upcoming semi-finals in which his beloved team will be top seeded. Finally entering in every contest for free tickets that popped up on social media had paid off! He eagerly clicks on the link but nothing seems to happen. The next week the hospital’s network is down and a shadowy group is demanding thousands of dollars to unlock critical records. Continue reading

#153 – HOW THE GRINCH IS STEALING OUR HEALTHCARE RECORDS – JEFF HARRIS

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AAA JeffAs I mentioned in the previous article, Healthcare Privacy, Farrah Fawcett and Blockchain, a blockchain is a distributed database that acts as a ledger for transactions. It is best known as the technology behind Bitcoin, a type of digital currency that is both easily accessible and very secure. Blockchain technology allows users to transfer bitcoin anonymously and securely while still insuring that the data itself is trustworthy. Continue reading

#152 – ON FARRAH FAWCETT, HEALTHCARE PRIVACY AND BLOCKCHAIN – JEFF HARRIS

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AAA-Jeff-150x150Farrah Fawcett, actress and model, was diagnosed with cancer in 2006. She battled the disease until her death in 2009, the details of which were widely publicized in tabloid magazines often before she had a chance to tell her friends and family. In an interview in 2009, given just before she died, she is quoted as saying, “It seems that there are areas that should be off limits.” Of course she was a celebrity, the average person has nothing to fear, right? Continue reading

#128 – ALARM FATIGUE – JEFF HARRIS

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AAA-Jeff-150x150In the mid 1960’s, a man witnessed an awful multi-car pileup in San Francisco. That man also happened to have a PhD in psychology and was an inventor as well and he decided to do something about rear end collisions. The result was a third brake light installed at the top of the rear window in automobiles. Testing showed that the addition of the third light reduced rear end collisions by 50 to 60%. Continue reading