How Standards & Standardised Infrastructure Fuel Innovation
Posted 4th April 2018 by Jane Williams
It might surprise a lot of people to learn that standards can be viewed as a tool to support innovation, to set businesses free and to focus on the core of their product where their expertise lie. When working with the use of electronic communication systems within the entire healthcare sector, the main focal point is often ensuring a good support for collaboration and work processes.
Medical Device Cyber Security: An Open Letter From Jim Jacobson
Posted 28th March 2018 by Jane Williams
Dear Colleagues,
The time for comprehensive IT security within healthcare facilities has come. We see news stories every day making the need obvious: stolen data, compromised devices, and interruptions in care delivery. The cyber security threat landscape is constantly evolving. Our defensive measures must evolve too.
The Coming Marriage Between Open Pharma Research and Blockchain
Posted 13th March 2018 by Jane Williams
The pharmaceutical research industry is suffering from a lack of innovation, yet we see an exponential increase in new science and technologies. Open innovation, in the truest meaning, is a disruptive model that will greatly increase our joint chances of translating new research into treatments, but we need new ways of sharing and participating in collaborative drug research. Blockchain technologies can provide the digital infrastructure that allows trusted and secure transactions of research assets. Applying smart contracts on top of such infrastructure will further increase the speed of the life science ecosystem allowing exploration, co-creation, and transaction of research assets to happen in an unprecedented manner. In fact, we can’t afford to object to such a marriage between pharma open innovation and blockchain technologies.
Cyber Security Challenges in the Pharma Industry
Posted 19th February 2018 by Jane Williams
In general, the pharma industry has not been cutting-edge in terms of maturity in information security practices.
The Blockchain: The First Steps Toward its Healthcare Transformation
Posted 7th February 2018 by Jane Williams
What is the blockchain?
According to a recent Forbes article: the blockchain is one of the most misunderstood technologies of 2017 (1). While most healthcare professionals have heard the term “blockchain” and are aware of the innovations in financial technology, few understand the fundamental principles behind the technology in order to speculate the impacts it will have on the healthcare industry, at hospitals, and for patients. This inability is common across sectors and can be attributed to the absence of any standard definition of blockchain technology. However, it is important that industry leaders have a firm basis for understanding it in order to foresee its impacts on their business. What follows is a list of key points for understanding the blockchain and enabling speculation on its impacts in healthcare: