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Thousands of customers may be affected; total number unconfirmed
April 29, 2013 | By Sean Buckley
Windstream (Nasdaq: WIN) reports that it is suffering a "widespread" outage on its voice network, an issue that's affecting the ability of customers in several states to make long-distance and toll free calls. The number of customers affected is not known at this time.
The telco said on its website that the outage occurred around 11:30 a.m. EDT.
In addition to long-distance and toll-free voice services, the telco said on its Facebook page that the outage is affecting its ability to receive inbound calls to its support centers and that it is "investigating reports that local inbound and outbound calling also may be disrupted for some customers."
Windstream added that it "is working with the manufacturer on a resolution to the issue," but "an estimated time for restoral is not known." The service provider added that service will be "intermittent" until all of the problems are fixed.
A number of FierceTelecom readers, commenting on an earlier report about a separate outage in South Florida, said that the the voice network outage is in 23 states.
Earlier today, the telco reported that it experienced a failure on one of its switches Sunday afternoon, which interrupted service to about 30,000 local business and residential lines in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and surrounding areas.
Scott Morris, senior consultant, corporate communications for Windstream, told FierceTelecom he could not confirm "how many states are involved" and that "customers are beginning to come back in service."
Not surprisingly, the hardest-hit segment of the outage has been Windstream's business customers. One customer commenting on the outage said that "those customers of ours who have reached us by email or cell phone have not been happy, and I fear we have lost some loyal clients."
The Pentagon is so starved for bandwidth that it’s paying a Chinese satellite firm to help it communicate and share data.
U.S. troops operating on the African continent are now using the recently-launched Apstar-7 satellite to keep in touch and share information. And the $10 million, one-year deal lease — publicly unveiled late last week during an ordinarily-sleepy Capitol Hill subcommittee hearing — has put American politicians and policy-makers in bit of a bind. Over the last several years, the U.S. government has publicly and loudly expressed its concern that too much sensitive American data passes through Chinese electronics — and that those electronics could be sieves for Beijing’s intelligence services. But the Pentagon says it has no other choice than to use the Chinese satellite. The need for bandwidth is that great, and no other satellite firm provides the continent-wide coverage that the military requires.
“That bandwidth was available only on a Chinese satellite,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy Doug Loverro told a House Armed Services Committee panel, in remarks first reported by InsideDefense.com. “We recognize that there is concerns across the community on the usage of Chinese satellites to support our warfighter. And yet, we also recognize that our warfighters need support, and sometimes we must go to the only place that we can get it from.”
The Apstar-7 is owned and operated by a subsidiary of the state-controlled China Satellite Communication Company, which counts the son of former Chinese premier Wen Jiabao as its chairman. But the Pentagon insists that any data passed through the Apstar-7 is protected from any potential eavesdropping by Beijing. The satellite uplinks and downlinks are encrypted, and unspecified “additional transmission security” procedures cover the data in transit, according to Lt. Col. Damien Pickart, a Defense Department spokesperson.
“We reviewed all the security concerns, all of the business concerns with such a lease,” Loverro said. “And so from that perspective, I’m very pleased with what we did. And yet, I think the larger issue is we don’t have a clear policy laid out on how do we assess whether or not we want to do this as a department, as opposed to just a response to a need.”
Every new drone feed and every new soldier with a satellite radio creates more appetite for bandwidth — an appetite the military can’t hope to fill with military spacecraft alone. To try to keep up, the Pentagon has leased bandwidth from commercial carriers for more than a decade. And the next decade should bring even more commercial deals; in March, the Army announced it was looking for new satellite firms to help troops in Afghanistan communicate. According to a 2008 Intelligence Science Board study (.pdf) — one of the few public reports on the subject — demand for satellite communications could grow from about 30 gigabits per second to 80 gigabits a decade from now.
The Chinese are poised to help fill that need — especially over Africa, where Beijing has deep business and strategic interests. In 2012, China for the first time launched more rockets into space than the U.S. – including the Chinasat 12 and Apstar-7 communications satellites.
Relying on Chinese companies could be a problematic solution to the bandwidth crunch, however. U.S. officials have in recent years publicly accused Chinese telecommunications firms of being, in effect, subcontractors of Beijing’s spies. Under pressure from the Obama administration and Congress, the Chinese company Huawei was rebuffed in its attempts to purchase network infrastructure manufacturer 3Com; in 2010, Sprint dropped China’s ZTE from a major U.S. telecommunications infrastructure contract after similar prodding. Last September, executives from the Huawei and ZTE were brought before the House intelligence committee and told, in effect, to prove that they weren’t passing data back to Beijing. “There’s concern because the Chinese government can use these companies and use their technology to get information,” Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, said at the time. The executives pushed back against the charges, and no definitive links to espionage operations were uncovered. But the suspicion remains. And it isn’t contained to these two firms.
“I’m startled,” says Dean Cheng, a research fellow and veteran China-watcher at the Heritage Foundation. “Is this risky? Well, since the satellite was openly contracted, they [the Chinese] know who is using which transponders. And I suspect they’re making a copy of all of it.”
Even if the data passing over the Apstar-7 is encrypted, the coded traffic could be used to give Chinese cryptanalysts valuable clues about how the American military obfuscates its information. “This is giving it to them in a nice, neat little package. I think there is a potential security concern.”
And even if the Chinese don’t intercept the data, there’s always the danger of them suddenly deciding to block service to the American military.
For his part, Loverro says the Department of Defense will be reviewing its procedures to ensure that future satellite communications deals both let troops talk and let them talk in private. The Pentagon will get another opportunity shortly: the Apstar-7 deal is up on May 14, and can be renewed for up to three more years.
The mashup of personal assistant and predictive search known as Google Now gets approved for iOS. But will it take attention away from Siri?
by Seth Rosenblatt
Google Now arrives today as an app on Apple's iPhone and iPad.
(Credit: Google)
Google's predictive search and voice recognition tool sauntered over to Apple's iOS as an app on Monday.
Having debuted at last year's Google I/O conference, the Now-enabled Google Search 3.0 for iOS brings the same robust search features and visual style, called cards, to iPhones and iPads. Tamar Yehoshua, Google Now's product manager, said that Google Now will compete well against Apple's personal assistant Siri because of its accuracy.
"We think we've built a great experience," she said during a conversation at Google's headquarters in Mountain View last week. "We're giving you an answer before you've even asked," she explained. Google is "able to predict knowledge that you want before you know you want it."
Google Now does that by taking advantage of several different technological areas. It leverages, according to Yehoshua, the text-to-speech output, the Knowledge Graph, and the technology stack to provide its voice recognition and predictive search combo.
Unlike Google Now on Android, which you can start using as long as your device is running Android 4.1 or later, the Google Now app on iOS will require you to log in to your Google account first. But the defining features of Google Now, the voice recognition and the predictive search, remain intact.
The predictive search in Google Now will use your calendar, for example, to determine what information it should show you. That info can change depending on where you're going, so it might show you traffic on your route home, or tourist sites near your hotel.
Google Now's Voice Recognition has made some significant improvements, Yehoshua said, since it debuted last spring. "We've seen a 15 to 35 percent improvement since Jelly Bean [Android 4.1]," she said.
Search, she said, is continually growing. "People got used to using keywords to search because they had to, but it's not the best way to search. We have implemented just the beginning phases of context and conversation," she said, such as following a question like "How tall is Barack Obama?" with "And how tall is his wife?"
And an even more complex scenario she posited as a future goal for Google Now would be to follow "What happened in the Giants game?" with "Who's pitching? When are the playing tomorrow?" and the tricky integration of other digital services that could conclude with "Record the game for me."
Yehoshua declined to comment when asked about Google's plans to port Google Now to other platforms, such as Chrome. But it's becoming apparent that the service is big deal for Google, as evidenced by the attention that co-founder and CEO Larry Page paid Google Now during last week's quarterly earnings call.
The goal of Google Now, he said, "is to get you the right information, at just the right time." He noted the key features of the service, including that it provides people with their boarding passes and delivery updates as well as traffic conditions, local sports scores, and upcoming weather conditions without prompting.
"Looking for the nearest pharmacy? Just ask Google for directions, and we'll deliver them instantly," Page said. "No typing needed. And you can now ask conversational questions like 'Do I need a jacket this weekend?'"
While it's clear that Google Now is growing in its important to Google, especially as a strong customer-facing tool for its Knowledge Graph, it's less obvious how many people with iPhones will abandon Siri and its automatic start features in order to jump into Google's competing app.
There is much to talk about in last week’s news of the Free Fall in PC sales, IBM’s results and potential sale of its server business. Coupled with prior misses at Oracle, Dell’s dilemma and HP, it is easy to describe these events as evidence of a fundamental and tectonic shift in technology. (Link to Michael Hickins post on CIO Journal)It is and that is another post.
What is interesting about these events is blaming the sales force for these results. I recall that sales force lack of execution was specifically mentioned in at least two of the companies mentioned above. It is interesting, because for years Sales has been sacrosanct, a protected class, a group that was held accountable in private but rarely chastised in public. That got me thinking, has something changed?
Yes, yes, yes and no.
Yes, instrumenting the sales force creates the information needed to assign blame for poor results. It is now possible and ‘good management’ to actively manage sales as a process, just like any other function thanks to significant investments in sales force, marketing analytics and other ‘generate demand’ technologies. Execs now have the data to prove that Sales is not doing its job. Managing all of that information at the center and running the blame storming processes only drives up the cost of sales. Too bad that these announcements illustrate giving executives data does not mean that they know how to use it effectively.
Yes, weak management will use the ‘data-fication’ of sales to assume they can remove customers and choice out of the sales process or equation. Making sales a formula: number of calls, persistence of calls, adherence to processes = sales. If others can make the equation work, and they will because of the nature of data, then the problem must be you. That works if your running a repeatable and predictable process in a supply chain where there is no room for people to refuse to go along with the process. Last time I looked customers have more choice than ever as the lines between B2B and B2C smear. Yes, weak management will use sales execution as a reason to ignore or postpone tough decisions around products, services, pricing and the inevitable evolution of the market, what it wants and values. Simply saying sales did not get the job done works as a legitimate reason if suddenly a pack of wild dogs starts eating all the purchase orders, not if customers do not want to buy your products or have already bought all they need.
No, I am not saying that sales is not to blame and we all have met some rather interesting sales people who we would rather not buy from. But technology is changing the nature of sales, the information around it and ultimately the way you manage demand generation and revenue recognition. It is a sign of weak management when one applies new technologies and instrumentations to old management practices and axioms and expects a different result. A common problem whenever big data gets into the picture.
Sales management and sales leadership processes, most developed in the 1960’s to 1980’s, must evolve from current underpowered approaches that do not to make efficient use of the tools and information technology now provides. Blaming the sales force is a symptom of that gap and a sign of weak management and a call for a revolution in sales management to match the revolution in sales technology.
Google today announced plans for a $600 million expansion of its data center in Lenoir, bringing Google's total investment in the state to $1.2 billion.
Details related to the expansion were not immediately available, and the impact on employment was not immediately clear.
Additionally, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) announced it will participate in a new program Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK) is developing for large customers that wish to buy renewable energy. The renewable energy option will be voluntary and will not affect the rates of other customers.
Duke Energy will make a regulatory filing proposing the program to the N.C. Utilities Commission in the next 90 days.
The announcement was made at Google’s data center in Lenoir, where Gov. Pat McCrory, U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows, N.C. Sen. Dan Soucek, N.C. Rep. Edgar Starnes(Majority Leader), Duke Energy State President Paul Newton and Google Operations Manager Enoch Moeller were present.
Caldwell County has 11.6 percent unemployment, according to the latest N.C. Commerce Department. Compare that to the 8.9 percent rate for the state as a whole. (The agency reported statewide unemployment of 9.2 percent Friday, after adjusting for seasonal factors.)
Sprint (NYSE: S) may be a late bloomer in the Ethernet services market, but it has put some bold plans in place that will leverage its Network Vision initiative for its wireless network to deliver a broader set of Carrier Ethernet services this year.
While he could not reveal the specific details or when its new set of Ethernet services would be available, Mike Fitz, vice president – wireline and solutions engineering for Sprint, said in an interview with FierceTelecom that "we're entertaining deals now and we'll be turning customers up."
Given the fact that Sprint's main focus is on wireless, the largest customer for the Ethernet access service will be its wireless division.
In addition to building out the Ethernet to support the backhaul of wireless traffic, Ethernet will be used to back up its Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) services.
Its ongoing rollout of Ethernet is supported by ongoing investments in its wireline network infrastructure. Last year, the service provider increased its investment in its wireline business by 53 percent. Fitz said that "I do expect that the investment to remain at these higher levels as we go forward."
To date, Sprint's Ethernet offering, which clients use primarily to access its MPLS network services, is available in 147 markets domestically and 64 countries. In 2013, Sprint plans to expand to about 30 new domestic cities, which includes a combination of new cities and expansions within existing cities.
A key challenge for Sprint in expanding into to new markets is getting last mile network connections to the businesses it needs to serve. Unlike AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ), both of which have an expansive wireline last mile network Sprint has to rely on partners to get that last mile access.
"We've been expanding rapidly with Ethernet access and that's a key for us," Fitz said. "When we don't own much of that access, or any of that access, we need to have as many interconnections out there as we possibly can to help with price and with reach."
Outside of the U.S., Sprint continues to establish External-Network to Network Interconnection (E-NNI) agreements with other service providers.
In Spain, Sprint just established a connection with data center provider Interxion, giving them access to all of the area network service providers such as Telefonica.
Serving the growth of its current Ethernet access service and upcoming CE launch will be its network backbone that's being built with 100G optical capabilities. Leveraging Ciena's (Nasdaq: CIEN) 6500 platform, Sprint will be able scale its core network initially to 40G and 100G, and later 400G as network demands dictate.
Recently, the service provider turned up its first 100G link across 2,100 km.
Fitz said what is unique about their link is that "it is the first link at 100 Gig that we have been able to do across that distance without any regeneration."
Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) on Wednesday named Provo, Utah as the third market where it will deliver its 1 Gbps fiber to the home (FTTH) service where it will take on incumbent telco CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL).
Unlike its network plans in Austin and Kansas City it is taking a different approach to the Provo, Utah deployment by purchasing the city's existing iProvo fiber network.
Although the deal still needs city council approval, Google said that it would upgrade the existing network to 1 Gbps technology and complete network construction so all homes in the city can get access to the service. In addition to the 1 Gbps service, it would offer a free 5 Mbps service to the 115,000 residents on the existing Provo network who pay a $30 activation fee.
City council members are scheduled to vote on the deal next Tuesday, April 23.
Kevin Lo, general manager, Google Fiber, said in a blog post that they "intend to begin the network upgrades as soon as the closing conditions are satisfied and the deal is closed."
Google said that if the deal closes, it hopes to have service up and running by late 2013, meaning Provo would be the second city besides Kansas City where it offers the service. Amidst great fanfare, Google Fiber announced earlier this month that it would bring its service to Austin, Texas where it would compete against AT&T (NYSE: T) and Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC). In Austin, Google won't begin offering services until 2014.
Hours after Google made its Austin announcement, AT&T said that it too would build a 1 Gbps service, but it did not specify a timeline of when it would actually deliver it to the city.
What's different about the latest proposal in Provo is that Google is purchasing another service provider, whereas in the other markets it's building its network from scratch.
In Provo, Google Fiber will compete with area cable operator Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) and incumbent telco CenturyLink, which currently don't provide speeds anywhere near 1 Gpbs.
Comcast currently provides up to 105 Mbps speeds on its existing HFC-based DOCSIS cable systems, while CenturyLink offers a mix of ADSL2+ and VDSL2 services on its hybrid hybrid copper/fiber fiber to the node (FTTN) network.
CenturyLink, which entered Provo, Utah in 2011 when it purchased Qwest, currently offers speeds from 1.5 Mbps to 40 Mbps depending on how far away a customer resides from the nearest remote terminal or central office. In addition to providing much lower speeds, CenturyLink caps its lower speed 1.5 Mbps users at 150 GB a month and 250 GB for its higher speed subscribers.
What's significant about Google's presence in Provo for the incumbent players like CenturyLink, which along with Comcast have enjoyed a duopoly for decades, will soon face a competitor that has plenty of financial backing.
If all you envisioned developing by being an early recipient of Google Glass Explorer Edition was a quick resale profit, think again: Google has rules against reselling the wearable tech without its permission.
As the Web giant began shipping the high-tech specs this week, it also unveiled a host of developer preview documentation, specs, and rules about what developers could and couldn't do. One of those things, apparently, is reselling or even loaning the $1,500 device to someone else. Developers who do risk having their prized specs deactivated.
As spotted by Wired, Google's terms of service regarding ownership and use are fairly specific:
You may not resell, loan, transfer, or give your device to any other person. If you resell, loan, transfer, or give your device to any other person without Google's authorization, Google reserves the right to deactivate the device, and neither you nor the unauthorized person using the device will be entitled to any refund, product support, or product warranty.
That's not the only limitation placed on the new eyewear. Google, which generates 95 percent of its revenue through advertising,doesn't want developers placing ads on the hotly anticipated eyewear. The terms state that "Glassware" developers may not "serve or include any advertisements" and they "may not charge" users to download apps for the device.
The terms of service were revealed Tuesday, along with documentation for the Mirror API, the programming interface that developers will use to create services for the high-tech eyewear. At the same time, Google revealed the high-tech spectacle's specs, which include a 5-megapixel camera, a bone conduction transducer for audio, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and 12GB of usable memory.
Verizon (NYSE: VZ), according to financial analyst estimates, is expected to report that Q1 2013 earnings per share will rise 11.8 percent on strong wireless and FiOS services revenues.
The telco will report its earnings before the opening bell rings on Wall Street tomorrow at 8 a.m. ET.
A recent Thomson Reuters poll of financial analysts estimated that Verizon will report Q1 earnings tomorrow of 66 cents per share, up from 59 cents per share in Q1 2012 and that revenue grew 4.6 percent to $29.5 billion.
Two of the key challenges that will affect Verizon's Q1 report will be expected declines in traditional voice services and a slight decline in business service revenues due to economic pressures in the United States and in Europe.
Given the ongoing decline of wireline-based voice services, Colby Synesael, an analyst with the Cowen Group, said that wireline margins will face pressure from "union costs, payroll taxes, content costs and Redbox (online video) launch costs."
In Q4 2012, FiOS was one of the biggest contributors to the telco's wireline growth.
Although it is now focusing on growing out FiOS in existing markets and transferring problem copper-based customers to Fiber to the Home (FTTH), the telco added 144,000 net new FiOS Internet connections and 134,000 net new FiOS Video connections during that quarter.
AT&T (NYSE: T) reported that vandals cut into a fiber cable in Gilroy, Calif., on Tuesday disrupting Internet, wireline phone and wireless service for local residents and businesses.According to Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith, the fiber cables were cut near Monterey Highway at around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday.
After the incident left many subscribers without service for all of yesterday, AT&T said that it expects to fully restore service today. Due to the extent of the damage, AT&T had to install new cable to the affected area.
George Ross, a spokesman for AT&T, told the Santa Cruz Sentinel that while he would not reveal how many customers were affected, "technicians are working to repair the damage as quickly as possible."
The telco is now offering a $250,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the people responsible for vandalizing its network in Gilroy.
This is not the only time that AT&T's fiber network in Santa Clara County has been compromised. In April 2009, vandals cut cables in south San Jose, which caused a major disruption to telecom services in southern Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties.
After the 2009 incident occurred, local competitive provider CruzioInternet decided to build its own fiber-based network to support its DSL and hybrid fiber/wireless-based services for residential and business customers. CruzioInternet's co-founder Chris Neklason said they were not affected by the latest fiber cut.
AT&T wasn't the only local utility that was the victim of vandalism on Tuesday.
The damaged cables were reported not long after a Silicon Valley poser substation owned by Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) located about a half-mile from AT&T's facilities were damaged by rifle shots fired at it yesterday morning. This incident prompted the energy provider to ask businesses and residents to conserve energy.
Kurtis Stenderup, a spokesman for the Santa Clara county sheriff's department said in a Reutersarticle that investigators believe that incidents that took place at AT&T and PG&E "are linked."
Complaint Alleges Unauthorized Charges for ‘Premium’ Text Message Services
The Federal Trade Commission has taken legal action to shut down an operation that allegedly took in millions of dollars from placing charges on consumers’ mobile phone bills, many of which were “crammed” or unauthorized charges.
The complaint against Wise Media, LLC, Brian M. Buckley and Winston J. Deloney is the first FTC case against mobile cramming and part of the FTC’s focus on consumer protection issues that may arise from the explosive growth of mobile technology. The FTC’s complaint asks the court to immediately freeze the defendants’ assets and order them to stop their deceptive and unfair practices. The agency is also seeking a permanent injunction that would force the defendants to give up their ill-gotten gains so they can be used to provide refunds to victims of the scam.
“The concept of ‘cramming’ charges on to phone bills is a not a new one,” said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez. “As more and more consumers move to mobile phones, scammers have adapted to this new technology, and the Commission will continue its efforts to protect consumers from their unlawful practices.”
The defendants allegedly billed consumers for so-called “premium services” that sent text messages with horoscopes, flirting, love tips and other information. The Commission’s complaint alleges that consumers across the country were signed up for these services seemingly at random, and that the operation placed repeating charges of $9.99 per month on mobile phone bills, without consumer knowledge or permission.
According to the complaint, in many instances, Wise Media sent text messages to consumers that suggested they were subscribed to the service, which many consumers dismissed as spam and ignored. Even if consumers responded via text indicating that they did not want the services, they were charged on their mobile phone bills on an ongoing basis.
Wise Media and its operators have taken advantage of the fact that consumers may not expect their mobile phone bills to contain charges from third parties and that Wise Media’s charges appear on bills in an abbreviated manner that does not always clearly designate the company as the source of the charge. As a result, many consumers didn’t notice or understand the charges and paid the bills. To the extent that consumers did notice the charges, the process of obtaining refunds was difficult and often unsuccessful according to the complaint.
The Commission alleges that Wise Media went to great lengths to hide its contact information from consumers. When consumers victimized by the scam were able to find a phone number for Wise Media, its call center employees frequently promised refunds that were never provided.
In the complaint, the FTC alleges that the defendants’ practices were deceptive and unfair in violation of the FTC Act. In addition to Wise Media, Buckley and Deloney, the complaint names Concrete Marketing Research, LLC, alleging that it received ill-gotten funds from the operation.
On May 8, Commission staff is hosting a roundtable discussion on mobile cramming with consumer advocates, industry leaders and government regulators to address how to protect consumers from this growing problem.
The Commission vote authorizing staff to file the complaint was 4-0. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
NOTE: The Commission files a complaint when it has “reason to believe” that the law has been or is being violated and it appears to the Commission that a proceeding is in the public interest. The complaint is not a finding or ruling that the defendant has actually violated the law. The case will be decided by the court.
The Federal Trade Commission works for consumers to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices and to provide information to help spot, stop, and avoid them. To file a complaint in English or Spanish, visit the FTC’s online Complaint Assistant or call 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357). The FTC enters complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available to more than 2,000 civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad. The FTC’s website provides free information on a variety of consumer topics. Like the FTC on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and subscribe to press releases for the latest FTC news and resources.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Jay Mayfield, Office of Public Affairs 202-326-2181
STAFF CONTACT:
Duane Pozza, Bureau of Consumer Protection 202-326-2042
Robin Thurston, Bureau of Consumer Protection 202-326-2752
Big data analytics tools along with patient lifestyle changes can help save the health care industry up to $450 billion, according to consulting firm McKinsey & Co.
The health care IT industry can save up to $450 billion if they use big data analytics and patients make the right choices about their care and lifestyles, a recent report by consulting firm McKinsey & Co. revealed.
These savings could amount to 12 to 17 percent of the $2.6 trillion baseline in U.S. health-related spending, the firm reported.
McKinsey & Company analysts Basel Kayyali, David Knott and Steve Van Kuiken posted an article in April based on a report, "The Big Data Revolution in Healthcare," released in January.
Combining use of big data with actions such as aspirin use by those at risk for coronary heart disease—or screening for cholesterol and hypertension—can reduce the total cost of care by more than $38 billion, the company reported. McKinsey reported that a "fundamental mind-set shift" is essential as health care organizations need to recognize the value of big data and act on the information.
"Although these tools will continue to play an important role, stakeholders will only benefit from big data if they take a more holistic, patient-centered approach to value, one that focuses equally on health-care spending and treatment outcomes," according to McKinsey.
"Patients will not benefit from research on exercise, for example, if they persist in their sedentary lifestyles," the McKinsey analysts wrote. "And physicians may not improve patient outcomes if they refuse to follow treatment protocols based on big data and instead rely solely on their own judgment."
As the health care industry moves from a fee-for-service model to incentives for outcomes, doctors will need to rely on big data to be able to predict outcomes, Dave Dimond, chief strategist for industry solutions at EMC, recently told eWEEK.
"With these emerging shifts in the reimbursement landscape, health care stakeholders have an incentive to compile and exchange big data more readily," the McKinsey report stated. "If payers do not have access to outcomes information, for instance, they will not be able to determine the appropriate reimbursement levels."
To use big data to gain better value out of care and focus on treatment outcomes, McKinsey recommended encouraging patients to make healthy choices about diet and exercise, having caregivers coordinate care and access to patient information, selecting doctors based on their skills rather than job titles and developing new approaches to health care delivery.
In addition, for health care organizations to take advantage of the potential of big data, they'll need to train people to be data scientists, or workers equipped in machine learning and statistics, McKinsey noted.
By 2018, the United States will be short 2 million workers with skills for data analysis, data management and systems management, according to the report.
Big data tools enable the health care industry to gain transparency by making information in electronic health records (EHRs) usable, searchable and actionable, according to McKinsey.
"Health care stakeholders that take the lead in investing in innovative data capabilities and promoting data transparency will not only gain a competitive advantage but will lead the industry to a new era," McKinsey stated.
In addition to EHRs, other sources of big data include health insurance claims and pharmaceutical R&D.
Patient confidentiality concerns have led health care IT to lag behind retail and banking in big data, according to McKinsey.
With the potential for data breaches, providers and researches can de-identify patient records in databases and must be vigilant about potential data leaks, McKinsey reported.
The people with really cool glasses and fancier gadgets than the rest of us call it "the Internet of Things" — the fact that everyday devices are starting to communicate with each other and with us. Already we can use a smartphone to start the car, turn on the AC before we get home, and have the doctor monitor the trajectory of our blood pressure in traffic. But what if when we drive near a grocery store, our refrigerator lets us know we’re low on milk? Would that be convenient? Disconcerting? Or maybe a little bit of both? That's what we're talking about and we'd like hear what you're discussing around the national water cooler.
In preparation for a workshop in Washington, D.C., on November 21, 2013, FTC staff is asking for your comments about the next age of connectivity. Technologies like this can make daily tasks a lot more convenient, but are there consumer privacy and data security issues that should be considered, too? Here are some of the questions we hope you’ll weigh in on:
What’s next in connectivity? What products and services are on the horizon?
Are there particular kinds of technology that serve as useful case studies for the issues we should be talking about?
How is all this connecting coming about? RFID? Barcodes? Wireless?
Who’s who in the smart ecosystem? What kinds of companies are taking the lead?
How are consumers benefitting from smart technology?
Are there unique privacy and security concerns associated with smart technology and the data collected?
How should privacy risks be weighed against potential benefits? Can and should de-identified data be used for other purposes like healthcare decision making or energy efficiency? Why? Why not? Discuss among yourselves.
“Battlestar Galactica” fans can relax. We’re not talking about the Revenge of the Cylons here. But we think there are questions that merit a frank discussion.
Email your comments to IoT@ftc.gov by the June 1, 2013, deadline. (That's I-o-T as in Internet of Things.) And mark your calendar for the November 21st workshop.
