Health information technologies (IT), including electronic health records (EHRs) and mHealth technologies, are expected to play a key role in improving the quality of health care delivery for Americans and improve the performance of health care delivery. The federal government has committed $27 billion dollars over the coming decade, to fund the implementation of EHRs through an incentive-based program for organizations that demonstrate "meaningful use" of certified EHR technology. Though the potential for EHRs to improve the quality of health care is generally understood, researchers suggest that concerns about the confidentiality and privacy of EHRs present significant barriers to their effective use. As health IT becomes more widespread, health information breaches are increasing, as is public attention to such breaches, as are general concerns about the privacy and security of health information. The objectives of this workshop, the second iteration of the Securing Information Technology in Healthcare (SITH) workshop, are to: advance our understanding of the causes and consequences of security breaches; and promote the security and privacy of health information. feedback from workshop participants to a focused post-workshop survey, and a short after-action report. These products will provide the basis for an article summarizing the key ideas of the workshop for a relevant journal (e.g., IEEE Security & Privacy).
The Securing Information Technology in Healthcare (SITH) workshops, hosted by the Institute for Security, Technology, and Society (ISTS) at Dartmouth College, were created to provide a forum to discuss security and privacy of health information for experts from a broad range of perspectives, from officers at large healthcare companies, startups and nonprofits, to physicians, researchers and policy makers. The SITH (May 2010) and SITH2 (May 2012) workshops focused on the security and privacy challenges of health IT in a variety of healthcare settings. SITH3 (May 2013) focused more specifically on mobile health (mHealth), considering the security and privacy implications of mHealth as well as a range of other challenges relevant to mHealth. All three workshops were held on the campus of Dartmouth College, and included invited speakers from across the US and beyond. The SITH2 and SITH3 workshops were supported by this NSF award, with a matching grant from Dartmouth College. SITH2 focused on the immense challenges in safeguarding patient information, usability and healthcare data breaches; access-control methodologies in clinical systems; mobile health; secure audits; and policy and technical approaches to health IT privacy and security. It included a keynote lecture by Dr. David Blumenthal, the former National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. SITH2’s 53 attendees hailed from across the U.S. SITH3 focused more specifically on mobile health (mHealth) – the application of mobile computing technologies to health and wellness. Advances in mobile medical devices, including medical sensors, as well as the proliferation of applications for handheld devices, such as smart phones and tablets, have given rise to this transformational field of mHealth. The workshop included two exciting keynote speakers, Dr. Patricia Mechael, Executive Director of the mHealth Alliance, and Dr. Wendy Nilsen, Health Scientist Administrator at the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR). It included four in-depth panel discussions: Intersection of mHealth and Behavioral Health; Evolving Business Models in mHealth; Opportunities for mHealth in the Developing World; and Challenges in Securing mHealth Infrastructure. There were 80 participants, including 9 who responded to an open call for participation and whose travel was subsidized by this NSF award. Summaries of each workshop, including video for SITH3, are available at www.ists.dartmouth.edu/events/sith3/.
