President's Message

Dear Maryland Chapter of HIMSS Members, Colleagues and Friends,

What an interesting couple of months we have had. I attended the National HIMSS Conference in March, and I couldn’t help but notice that there was a greater emphasis this year placed upon the Cybersecurity threat.

There was an entire section devoted to Cybersecurity vendors and they had their own venue for presentations. If you were fortunate to attend any of the Cybersecurity presentations, either at the venue, or in one of the many ballrooms, they were pretty packed, and you could sense the concern in the attendees as they learned just how vulnerable their systems and devices were.

Over the past couple of months, we heard about different organizations being attacked, including Hollywood Presbyterian being attacked with ransomware, but most of us thought that was clear across the country – it is not going to affect us.

But now that we have had a health system in our own state affected, not yet knowing the overall impact that it may entail, I believe that most of you are a lot more concerned about the security of your own organization.

Maryland HIMSS conducted a special meeting for CIO’s and CISO’s in March with a focus on Cybersecurity. It was very well attended. It provided the group with a secure forum, to talk about issues and concerns that they are facing. As we received a lot of feedback, we are working towards providing additional opportunities to foster the sharing of ideas and to improve communication in the future.

Our Spring Educational Event’s focus on “Cybersecurity in Healthcare” was one of our largest attended events ever, showing us that the topic is on the minds of a large portion of our membership. It is a topic that is not going to go away anytime soon and one that each of us needs to learn more about, so that we can better protect the healthcare organizations and their patients, that we work at and serve.

We just finished our annual Golf Tournament, which was an overall success. After almost three weeks of rain, Mother Nature took a break, the sun came out and we enjoyed a beautiful day of fun and networking.

At the beginning of June, our Board will meet to plan the events and activities of our upcoming educational year. If you have any ideas as to topics that you would like us to consider, please send them our way.

I hope to see you out at one of our upcoming events in the new educational year (July 2016 – June 2017).

Bob Hooper
President, Maryland Chapter of HIMSS

Advocacy Committee

See you in the Summer!

Chris Panagiotopoulos
Advocacy Committee Chair

Communications Committee

First off, I would like to welcome Erika Moon as the newest member of the Communications Committee.  And, also many thanks to our other committee members, Kent Budd, Joyce Dean, and Walter Bergman, not only for their service this past year but for the several years that they have contributed to the Chapter’s communications efforts to serve the membership.

The Maryland Chapter of HIMSS is an all-volunteer organization and its strength is derived from the commitment and passion of its volunteers.  Serving on a committee can and should benefit both the organization and the individual volunteer.  It is an opportunity for the individual to provide their skills and expertise to the Chapter to achieve specific goals while also allowing the volunteer to gain additional experience with existing skills as well as developing new skills.  And best of all, it can be fun!

Did you receive an email about the Annual Chapter Survey?  Did you complete the survey?  You may access the survey at http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07ecdm6iepilkxkg0k/start .  But act quickly so you can be also be entered in the drawing for a gift card.  The survey will be an important input to the Board’s Annual Planning Session in early June which will prioritize the Chapter’s activities for the upcoming program year that runs July 2016 – June 2017.

We are always looking for volunteers that have expertise or interest in the areas of web site authoring, graphic design, Constant Contact, photography, videography, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.  We have would like to do more and more but much depends on contributions of our volunteers.

Something on your mind?  Please drop us a line md.info@himsschapter.org .

Have a great Summer!

Mark Doore
Communications Committee Chair

Community Outreach Committee

On May 16^th, 100 players participated in the 6^th Annual Golf Tournament which was held at Hayfields Country Club under bright sunny skies.  All enjoyed a day of networking, breakfast, golf, cocktails and a buffet dinner.  Many walked away with some awesome raffle prizes that included drivers, wedges, putters, range finders, bags and golf balls.

A special thank you goes out to all of our sponsors who made this event possible.

Event Sponsor – Ricoh

Dinner Sponsor – Citrix

Cocktail Sponsor – Cisco

Brunch Sponsor – CAS Severn

Beverage Sponsor – Clearpath Solutions Group

Goodie Bag Sponsor – First Choice Professionals.

Hole Sponsors – Byte Grid, Caradigm, CTI, Edge Hosting, Futura Mobility, GeBBS, Iatric Systems , IBM,  Informatica, Level 3 Communications, Modis Health IT, Pure Storage, RackTop, RMS Omega,

Walter Bergman
Community Outreach and Golf Tournament Chair

CXO Outreach Committee

As the concerns within health care regarding cybersecurity expand, we were approached by several of our local Chief Information Officers (CIOs) to collaborate and focus our next CXO roundtable event on this topic.  We began planning and coordinating an end of March event, with the goal to bring key stakeholders from the region’s hospitals and health systems together, joining a dialogue with the industry experts.

Little did we know that just couple of days before our CXO event, one of our regional health systems would be the next victim to a ransomware attack.

We had over forty seasoned, diverse Health IT and Non-IT Leaders (CXOs) join cybersecurity subject matter experts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and private industry. The evening was kicked off with a keynote from, Darren Lacey, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for the Johns Hopkins Health System and was followed by a panel discussion comprising of Special Agent Daniel Gray, FBI Baltimore Cyber Task Force, Darren Lacey, Robert Bell, Beazley/RSM US LLP, Supervisor, Security & Privacy Practice, and Kevin Johnson, CEO, Secure Ideas. The panelist shared thoughts on the state of the industry, current trends and measures being taken from their perspective. This was one of the most engaging discussions we have seen in the recent CXO meetings.

After much dialogue, the consensus from all attendees was not to necessarily focus all attention and energy on prevention rather, how will organizations respond when they happen. So while each organization prepares and put the appropriate upfront measures to prevent these attacks, simultaneously they need to prepare a response strategy.

The group discussed various ways the CIO’s and CISO’s can collaborate. Maryland HIMSS and region’s CIO’s agreed to continue the collaboration and take these discussions to the next level to better prepare and address these key challenges;  including a representative group from the area providers, payers and law enforcement to meet and share information  and  security strategies.

Thanks to everyone who attended this event.  Special thanks to Stephanie Reel, CIO, Johns Hopkins Health System, Tressa Springmann, CIO, Lifebridge Health and Jon Burns, CIO, University of Maryland Medical System for their support and collaboration in making this event a success.

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Ravi Singh, rsingh@fidesinfosys.com, 240-314-0152

Karen Wilding, kwilding@umm.edu , (443) 842-1972

Membership Committee

Our April Education Session added 18 new members to the Maryland Chapter.   On behalf of the board, I  want to welcome them, and we are looking forward to seeing and meeting everyone at our future events.   Some of those companies include IBM, Union Hospital of Cecil County, Inscope Intl, Peninsula Regional Medical Center, Tricerat, American Systems and Winthrop Resources.   

Non-Members can join the Maryland chapter by attending an event as a non-member.  Then complete and return the application within 5 days after an event.  All non-member registration fees include a one-year chapter membership if the completed application is returned in this time period. 

For our Corporate Members / Organization Affiliates keep an eye out for our team when we come to your office for a Meet and Greet in the upcoming months.    

To all National Members, help spread the word of HIMSS and grow our chapter at the same time with the HiMSS + 1 Membership Program.  This national program allows you to provide a free National (and included State Chapter) Membership to a friend who has never been a HiMSS member. 

Go to the chapter website for details and instructions at http://md.himsschapter.org

If you are interested in joining this committee, please contact the Brian Zernhelt Membership Committee Chair at bzernhelt@softwareconsortium.com or 410-740-1910 x104

Brian Zernhelt
Membership Committee Chair

Program Planning Committee

The Rapid Evolution of Cybersecurity in Healthcare … and the Need for it in Maryland!

By Kathryn A. Whitmore, Maryland HIMSS Board Member and Program Planning Chair

Did you join the April 22^nd Maryland Chapter of HIMSS discussion on cybersecurity risks and solutions? With over two hundred registrants, our Spring Educational event drew a record number of participants to the Ten Oaks Ballroom in Clarksville to learn about cybersecurity challenges and the opportunities to mitigate the threat.  The healthcare industry, across the country and right here in Maryland, now faces the reality of cyber-attacks in the news on a regular basis. Your Maryland Chapter of HIMSS will continue the discussion on cybersecurity threats, mitigation strategies, and the sharing of lessons learned at upcoming events.

The expert speakers and topics highlighted during our April 22^nd event included the following:

• Our program opened with Why Your Firewall Strategy Isn’t Working by Don Kopanoff, Systems Engineering Manager at Fortinet, Inc.
• Exploring recent cyber-attacks, Healthcare: Is the Cyber Threat Real? by Emma Garrison-Alexander, Ph.D., former Transportation Security Administration CIO and current Vice Dean of Cybersecurity & Information Assurance in the Graduate Program at the University of Maryland University College brought a resounding ‘yes’ from the group.
• An engaging panel discussion on Vendor Solutions Helping Protect Maryland Patients included representatives of start-up innovations to global corporations:

• Fortinet – Don Kopanoff, Systems Engineering Manager
• TSC Advantage – Will Durkee, Cyber Security Risk Assessment Team Lead
• WhiteHat Security – Johnathan Kuskos, Threat Research Center Manager
• ComplyAssistant – Gerry Blass, CEO and President
• Protenus – Robert Lord, CEO and Co-Founder

• Lunchtime brought an enlightening and comedic set of Cybersecurity Lessons Learned for Healthcare from The Security Blogger.com, Joey Muniz, a Technical Solutions Architect with Cisco Security.
• The program closed with a thought provoking yet humorous presentation on the NIST Cybersecurity Framework from Scott Montgomery, VP and Chief Technical Strategist for Intel Security.

As always, speaker presentations from Past Events may be found under Education & Events on our website http://md.himsschapter.org. Individuals participating in the entire program were eligible for earning 4 hours of CPHIMS/CAHIMS continuing education.

We thank you for your continued interest in Health IT and the Maryland Chapter of HIMSS.  We encourage you to join the cybersecurity discussion at upcoming events.

If you would like to volunteer your time to help our Program Planning team, please contact:

Kathryn Whitmore (KathrynWhitmore@STSConsultingGroup.com) at 443-742-4643.

Kathryn Whitmore
Program Planning Committee Chair

Professional Development Committee

Maryland HIMSS – HEALTH IT SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

The Maryland HIMSS Chapter is pleased to announce the opening of our annual call for applications for scholarships.

Every year, Maryland HIMSS awards two deserving students actively enrolled in a health care information technology/computer science related degree program.  We are honored to support individuals advancing their education while also providing them with additional opportunities for professional development.

In addition to the $2,500.00 award, recipients will also receive

• Honorary Maryland HIMSS Chapter Membership for one year
• Admittance into all Chapter Education Programs at no cost
• Appointment to a chapter committee of choice

Please review the scholarship specifics on our website; application packages are due Friday, July 1, 2016.

If you have any questions, please reach out to:

Karen Marie Wilding, Chair, Professional Development

Maryland HIMSS Chapter MD.ProDev@himsschapter.org

Karen Marie Wilding
Professional Development Committee Chair