Healthcare

Considering the recent “Playing with FHIR” research report together with the earlier “All that We Let In” research report (which looked at the state of mHealth app/API security), it would be understandable if healthcare organizations were unsure of what immediate actions they should take. In this article we will focus on healthcare service companies who have patient or clinician mobile apps, for whom we will recommend 3 immediate steps which should be taken today. Read Full Story

Alissa Knight released her report “Playing with FHIR” a couple of weeks ago (download it here) about her investigations into the security of healthcare apps and APIs which use the FHIR standard. This report has certainly sparked a lot of debate about the security of healthcare apps and a broader discussion about who is accountable for keeping patient data safe as the ecosystem expands. The bottom-line is that everyone in the healthcare ecosystem needs to take steps to shield their APIs immediately. Read Full Story

In this article, we’ll be looking at the role that mobile health or mHealth apps and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are playing in remote care of the elderly. We shall also consider the vulnerabilities that can afflict these digital platforms, as well as remedial measures and best practices for dealing with these issues. Read Full Story

We are delighted to be hosting some unique content from our friend and recovering hacker Alissa Knight. This is the third blog in a series about the security risks exposed by the push to adopt FHIR APIs in US healthcare. Read Full Story

We are delighted to be hosting some unique content from our friend and recovering hacker Alissa Knight who will be writing on the topic of healthcare API security. In the first article, Alissa provided a plain English explanation of FHIR from the perspective of a hacker. In this blog, Alissa covers mobile API authentication and authorization. Read Full Story

We are delighted to be hosting some unique content from our friend and recovering hacker Alissa Knight who will be writing on the topic of healthcare API security. In this blog, Alissa provides a plain English explanation of FHIR from the perspective of a hacker. Enjoy! Read Full Story

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  In 2016, mHealth apps were the third fastest-growing category of apps behind games and utilities. In 2017, the number of healthcare applications available for smartphone users doubled from that of 2015 to 325,000, from 84,000 different publishers, with an estimated 3.7 billion downloads that year. By 2018, nearly a third of all patients were using their mobile phone for health-related searches and for booking appointments, an overwhelming 99% of consumers believed that mHealth apps improved their quality of life and 70% of millennials were interested in a mobile app that would help them actively manage their well-being. By 2027, mHealth app usage among patients is projected to grow at a 10-year CAGR of 40%. Read Full Story

As we discussed in our previous blog, there is a strong argument to be made that Bluetooth Contact tracing is too Blue Sky. The technology has been overhyped, over promised and, in the UK at least , the delivery so bungled that public confidence has been completely undermined. In the meantime we are stepping back to manual contact tracing efforts, with privacy characteristics that don’t come anywhere close to the lofty aspirations of decentralised contact tracing apps. Read Full Story

Contact tracing has been in the news a lot in recent months. No wonder. It’s widely seen as playing a key role in opening our societies up again after lockdown, and an important part of the strategy for countries that have already done well in suppressing transmissions. As technologists we, and many like us, immediately jumped onto the possibilities of Bluetooth. A ready made technology available on just about every smartphone designed for ubiquitous short range radio communication. Perfect. We just need to throw an app together and we can map all the contacts people are having day to day, so if anyone gets sick we can automatically alert anyone else that might have been exposed. Cool. Should be ready in a couple of weeks, right? Read Full Story