Ransomware attacks are a highly profitable and flourishing business in the 21st century. They can have a drastic impact on hospitals, clinical laboratories, and patients. The Sophos Group, a British security hard/software company, has reported survey responses from 328 healthcare IT managers in 30 countries.
The pandemic has put a spotlight on the increasing role of cyberattacks and weaknesses in healthcare. In healthcare as in other industries, cybercrime does not stop at national borders. With this idea in mind, the US consulate general in Düsseldorf and the US embassy in Vienna recently invited interested parties to their Cybersecurity in Healthcare Briefing.
Since 2015, the number of known ransomware attacks has not only increased substantially across many industries. Hospitals, and the healthcare industry in general, have also become favorite targets of ransomware attackers, leading to very real incidents in which patient care and patients’ lives have been put at risk.
Of all the methods used in identity and access management (IAM), biometrics is arguably the oldest: it has been around long before IAM was a “thing”. Humans are naturally optimized for recognizing fellow humans’ faces, voices and other biometric features. However, even biometric recognition between humans is less than perfect, as countless cases of successful impersonators and impostors…
IT networks of hospitals and other healthcare institutions are currently very much in the focus of both hackers and IT security specialists. In a healthcare landscape in which both organizational and medical heavily rely on IT, keeping networks safe is key to protecting patients’ data and lives.
The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has created a great deal of uncertainty about how key requirements should be interpreted. This means that collaborators in international genetic research projects do not always agree on fundamental issues such as whether they are processing personal data, consent requirements under the GDPR and on what basis genetic data can be transferred…
An in-depth analysis of more than 20,000 health related mobile applications (mhealth apps) finds “serious problems with privacy and inconsistent privacy practices.”
Greiner Bio-One presents the Vacuette® Evoprotect Safety Blood Collection Set - the ideal choice for venous blood collection and short-term infusion of intervenous fluids.
A new project for radiation exposure reduction aims to improve justification of computed tomography (CT) in Europe through co-ordinated action. For this, the European Society of Radiology has been awarded the European Commission Tender ‘European co-ordinated action on improving justification of computed tomography’ (acronym: EU-JUST-CT). The project started on 7 April 2021 and will last until…
The majority of top-rated fertility apps collect and even share intimate information without the users’ knowledge or permission, a collaborative study by Newcastle and Umea Universities has found. Researchers are now calling for a tightening of the categorisation of these apps by platforms to protect women from intimate and deeply personal information being exploited and sold.
The brand-new Vacuette® Evoprotect Safety Blood Collection Set is the next evolution of safety.
Coronavirus-associated concerns dominate the Top 10 list of important technology hazard risks for hospitals, in an annual report published by ECRI, a nonprofit technology Pennsylvania research firm. The list is derived from ECRI’s team of technology experts who monitor hospital and healthcare organizations, and published to inform healthcare facilities about important safety issues involving…
Injuries due to contaminated puncture devices are still the most frequent cause of accidents in hospitals. This is a significant source of danger for many employees in the healthcare industry. At this moment in time, there are already more than 20 bloodborne pathogens that we know of. The most dangerous are HBV, HCV and HIV. Recent studies show that it is up to ten times more likely for more…
Dosimetry specialist PTW Freiburg GmbH signed a collaboration agreement with The Netherlands Cancer Institute – Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital (NKI-AVL, Amsterdam) to jointly develop an advanced EPID-based dosimetry solution for automated patient-specific quality assurance in radiotherapy. The new software module RT EPID, which will become part of PTW’s patient QA platform Veriqa, builds on…
The Vacuette® Visio Plus Needle with optical venipuncture control can make an important contribution to simplifying blood collection routine for phlebotomists. The needle has a translucent plastic hub, which functions as a view window. If venipuncture is successful, the view window is coloured red due to the blood flow. The Vacuette Visio Plus Needle guarantees a safe blood collection procedure…
Carestream Health’s ImageView software has received the Risk Management Framework Authority to Operate from the Department of Defense (DoD), paving the way for streamlined installations for defense customers. Defense Health Agency (DHA) Cybersecurity Logistics (CyberLog), part of DHA’s Medical Logistics (MEDLOG) Directorate, is widely considered to have extremely rigorous cybersecurity…
One of the most effective ways to protect yourself against needle-stick injuries (NSI) is to use safety products in your everyday work. In this area, Greiner Bio-One can offer you a comprehensive portfolio for a variety of requirements.
Until recently, the major challenges surrounding Point-of-Care-testing (POCT) concerned the quality of the results and improving the reagents and the procedures in order to optimise patient care. In the modern clinical environment, however, IT security of POCT devices is becoming increasingly important, in Germany also due to new industry-specific safety standards under the Act on the Federal…
Cyber attacks on hospitals occur every day. However, if IT security works well, nobody needs even notice. But if defence measures fail the impact can be enormous and the outcry among the general public large. The new branch-specific security standard (B3S) of the German Hospital Federation (DKG) shows how hospitals can improve their IT security. The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI)…
