por Future Healthcare Today
In an emergency first responders need to focus on the critical situation in front of them and not worry about the security and reliability of their technology and connectivity. When creating a mobile hotspot, using 4G LTE Vehicle Internet (VI) is one way that EMS services can have reliable and fast connectivity in the field. With the connectivity enabled by LTE VI first responders can do what needs to be done from any location and focus on critical work. These were the key themes of our latest Future Healthcare Today podcast, where Justin St Arnauld, Associate Director and Solution Architects at Verizon Wireless, and Steve Carr, Sales Director of Public Sectors in the Central Area at Cradlepoint, discussed how LTE Vehicle Internet solutions are helping first responders to successfully deliver on their mission. “We are enabling first responders with all of the great technology they have at their disposal by connecting them in real time so they can serve the people in their communities and protect them to the best of their ability,” said St Arnauld.
Traditionally, when people think of the national critical infrastructure, they think of the power grid, communications networks, and other physical structures that are fundamental to our society’s daily function. But securing American healthcare is also an essential part of national critical infrastructure safety. While healthcare and public health have long been part of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) 16 critical infrastructure sectors, it wasn’t until the nation was paralyzed by the COVID-19 pandemic that the security of our public health and healthcare environments became a focus for security. These were the key themes of our recent telehealth podcast series titled, “Securing American Healthcare: An Essential Part of National Critical Infrastructure,” where Cathy Lester, Managing Partner, Business Development for Healthcare at Verizon, and Greg Garcia, Executive Director of Cybersecurity for the Health Sector Coordinating Council, discuss how telehealth and the vaccine supply chain impacted security over the past year.
With significant investment in research and development being a driver for COVID-19 vaccine distribution and management, it reinforces an emerging need for the critical role AI and IoT to break down distribution barriers and better leverage social determinants of health to ensure equitable care. In addition, enhanced collaboration between public and private sector healthcare agencies will help to transform both the vaccine distribution efforts and shape the development of solutions that can impact the development of future innovations. These were the themes in our second interview in the “Sustaining the Momentum of Digital Transformation in Public Healthcare – The Critical Role of AI and IoT in Patient-Centric Care” podcast series in the larger “Public Health Trends in 2021 & Beyond: What a Difference a Pandemic Makes” podcast series on Future Healthcare Today andGovernment Technology Insider. In this episode, we are joined once again by Lindsey Fabiano, Global Enterprise Strategy Development Manager for Healthcare, Insurance & Life Sciences at Verizon and Dr. Pierre Vigilance, Founder & Principal, Health_Up Strategy Advisors, and Affiliate at CityFi, who also discuss how the pandemic will forever change the future of healthcare delivery and distribution.
The need to find a vaccine for COVID-19 resulted in significant investment in research and development, and use of cutting-edge data management technologies and solutions from the digital transformation in public healthcare. Thanks to these efforts, multiple viable COVID-19 vaccines were developed in just six months – with the critical component toward this success being AI modeling. And now, as the vaccines are being deployed, IoT plays a similarly critical role in tracking and sensing. While this is all great news, there are current challenges with the vaccines being distributed to everyone equally, and a focus on social determinants of health can help bridge these gaps. In addition, more can be done to use AI and IoT to be further used to break down care walls and provide patient-centric care to all. In our second podcast in Public Health Trends in 2021 & Beyond: What a Difference a Pandemic Makes, our topic is “Sustaining the Momentum of Digital Transformation in Public Healthcare – The Critical Role of AI and IoT in Patient-Centric Care.” Lindsey Fabiano, Global Enterprise Strategy Development Manager for Healthcare, Insurance & Life Science at Verizon; and Dr. Pierre Vigilance, Founder & Principal, Health_Up Strategy Advisors, and Affiliate at CityFi, will address this topic further. This particular podcast was recorded in two parts. Stay tuned for the second episode where Lindsey and Pierre discuss how the public and private sector healthcare agencies can better collaborate, as well as the future of overall healthcare delivery.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth has been brought squarely to the forefront of care in both the public and private sector. After nearly a year of experience with telehealth and high adoption rates, agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) are looking to make telehealth services permanent and deliver on telehealth expansion to support mental health services, including both group and individual therapy.In order for telehealth services to truly meet constituent needs, there is still much to do in terms of expanding rural bandwidth capabilities, COVID reimbursement allowances for telehealth needing to be made permanent, as well as ensuring that all HIPAA challenges are being met. These were some of the key themes from our first episode, which featured insights from Lea Sims, Sr. Manager, Healthcare, Insurance, and Lifesciences at Verizon; and Dr. Jerry Hauer, Senior Advisor at Teneo. Both executives discussed how innovation will be critical for overcoming these challenges – ultimately driving telehealth expansion and adoption even further this year.