The conversation, moderated by Mary O'Brien, National Healthcare Director at Patina Solutions, expanded on the collaborative research by Canon Solutions America's Enterprise Managed Services Division Healthcare Advisory Team and Patina Solutions, published in a white paper earlier this year titled "Strategic Information Management: Healthcare's RX for Triple Aim Success".

Panelists were asked to share how they are impacted by changes, challenges and risks in the industry. Speaking from his perspective as Sr. VP and Community Health Investment Officer at Northwell Health, Dr. Raju shared his thoughts on how the data collected by health systems and the efforts to secure it will only get more complex as more community outreach elements are added. "Firewalls can't protect the data when we have to send it outside of the hospital to community associations, for instance."

"Technology is getting massively more complicated and the cost of maintenance has been increasing," offered Phil Loftus of SSM. "As hospital systems grow, it's only a matter of time before systems are migrating to cloud as they look for ways to offset those costs." He also noted the complexities that systems face as they merge and connect hospitals across networks, adding more possible entry points for breaches.

The conversation also focused on the significance of cultivating partnerships between vendors and health systems, moving beyond a transactional relationship to a more strategic one. With patient information at the forefront of discussions on healthcare information security, it is vital that vendors assist the organization with the safeguarding of patient healthcare information (PHI), based on the goals of the organization.

Additional topics included:

• Landscape of healthcare security
• Scope of security problems for health systems
• Strategies and approaches of industry leaders
• Best practices inside and outside of the industry

"When considering new vendor offerings, it's not the technology, it's the adaptation of the EMR to it...When considering cloud solutions it's about who's accessing our data," says Edward Henry of Princeton Healthcare. "When it comes down to it, a strong vendor management program with regular audits, is where success lies."

"Awareness of healthcare security is top of mind these days, and the question of 'How Safe and Secure is Your Patient Information?' is one that we are working with our healthcare clients to understand," said Valerie Belli, Vice President Canon Solutions America's Enterprise Managed Services Division. "Through events like these, our goal is to continue learning how managed services and technology offerings can best serve large and complex organizations."

This event is the first in a series, focused on sharing best practices in healthcare and developing thought leadership. Strategic Partnerships are the cornerstone of Canon Solutions America's Enterprise Managed Services Division's engagements with healthcare clients. EMSD's healthcare offering seeks to go beyond delivering multi-functional print devices, software, and services by seeking to align to the strategic goals of each healthcare entity, including helping support organizations requirements for HIPAA compliance and increased patient information security. To assist in this effort, the Healthcare Advisory was created to conduct primary research on industry trends and to focus on opportunities in the healthcare print space by identifying and implementing best practices, including benchmarking metrics to track program goals and successes.