Securing IT in Healthcare: Part II

May 15-16th, 2012
Dartmouth College
Hanover, New Hampshire

The federal government has committed $27 billion dollars, over 2011-2021, to fund the implementation of electronic health records (EHRs) through an incentive-based program for organizations that demonstrate "meaningful use" of certified EHR technology. This push toward EHRs combined with the use of mobile health (mHealth) technologies is motivated by a desire to increase quality of care and lower healthcare costs, however, it also has created immense challenges in safeguarding patient information. 

On May 15th and 16th, Dartmouth's Institute for Security, Technology and Society (ISTS) hosted the Securing Information Technology in Healthcare (SITH2) workshop in collaboration with members of the Trustworthy Information Systems for Healthcare (TISH) and SHARPS (Strategic Healthcare IT Advanced Research Projects on Security) project teams. Over forty experts in the fields of information security and healthcare privacy convened at the Tuck School of Business for two days of presentations and discussions to cover a range of topics relevant to data security and patient privacy in a healthcare setting. These experts included chief security officers of large healthcare networks, physicians, researchers and policy makers. This workshop built on ISTS' first SITH workshop conducted in May 2010.

Dartmouth Provost Carol Folt Photos by Ali Uribe

Dr. David Blumenthal Photo by Samantha Oh

At this year's workshop we addressed a variety of issues associated with healthcare IT through panels and breakout sessions on topics including:

1. Usability and Healthcare Data Breaches
2. Clinical Systems - Have Access Control Methodologies Kept Pace with Users' Expectations and the Regulatory Environment?
3. Mobile Health
4. Secure Audit
5. Policy and Technical Approaches to Health IT Privacy and Security

We also were honored to have Dartmouth Provost Carol Folt welcome the participants and Dr. David Blumenthal, the former National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, present the Keynote Address. Dr. Blumenthal's presentation is available via download.  All of the panelist presentations and summaries of each panel discussion and breakout session are available for download at the links within "Conference Information" above.

The Institute for Security, Technology, and Society (ISTS) hosted the SITH2 workshop with generous support from the Center for Digital Strategies at the Tuck School of Business and funding from the National Science Foundation and the Dartmouth Conferences*.  

* The Dartmouth Conferences were created by a gift from Fannie and Alan Leslie. Under the terms of this gift, the biennial Dartmouth Conferences will address issues of broad academic, social, cultural, and topical interest or relevance.