What a difference the right person makes. During my first year at university I endured some impenetrable lectures on thermodynamics. The text book the lecturer recommended was equally gnomic. A change of course and a year later enter Dr. Hinchcliffe. His lectures were paragons of clarity which made the whole subject seem easy—enjoyable even.
After a period in the UK where CDs, zip drives and laptops containing large numbers of confidential data have been mislaid at a mind boggling rate it is hardly surprising that information security is now at the top of the agenda of many health organisations and their suppliers. I have recently been engaged in work for clients on information security particularly related to the ISO/IEC 27001 and 2 standards.
At the word standard eyes glaze because we assume they are as impenetrable as my first year thermo lectures. But if you want impenetrable try reading some of the books that are supposed to make the subject more accessible for your average manager or board member. They make the standards look like models of clarity.
If you are seeking to review your information security using ISO 27000 as the basis take my advice and read the standards, and, if necessary, get the right person who understands how they are applied operationally to help in any risk assessment and implementation. Don’t waste your money on derivative books.
What can you say about a man who had two lives?
From my office window I usually see the dawn. Sometimes the sun burns through the mist as a silver flash; sometimes as a red orb. Other days it’s a nondescript glow behind clouds. Part of a continual recycling that brings a new day.
Imagine how a single operation with a 300 percent mortality rate would appear on NHS Choices. In the 19th Century John Liston—proud of his ability to amputate the limb of an unanaesthetised patient in less than 30 seconds—accidently amputated an assistant's fingers along with the patient’s limb. Patient and assistant died of infection and an observer of shock.
George’s nightmare began with a succession of illnesses. At the beginning of the year he endured agonising head pain for a week after he was discharged from hospital. He was eventually readmitted, and medical staff discovered he had a bleeding capillary in his head. After some persuasion from my Mother--they are of a generation that prefers not to disturb doctors “unnecessarily”--he had called the out-of-hours GP service, but the doctor attending said he could do little because he did not have George’s medical record, thus lengthening the agony. But they say there is little evidence to support the use of ICT in healthcare.
A subset of applications seem to slip smoothly into healthcare causing minimum disruption and delivering maximum benefit. Examples are PACS, Electronic Document Management, the Vocera Communications System and Teleconferencing.
"The patient I was accompanying for a CT scan suddenly became very ill. I was immediately able to call the emergency department for backup from my Badge.”
If you think Windows Vista is slow you should have tried using Fortran IV. I studied at Manchester University where we were able to take advantage of the computing facilities—quite novel in those days. This entailed creating a stack of punched cards which I dutifully placed in a tray in the morning.