Data Sets:
Archived Supplemental Data Files | CMS. (n.d.). https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Medicare-Fee-for-Service-Payment/AcuteInpatientPPS/Archived-Supplemental-Data-Files | (Medicine et al., 2017)
Xu, H., Granger, B. B., Drake, C., Peterson, E. D., & Dupre, M. E. (2022). Effectiveness of Telemedicine Visits in Reducing 30‐Day Readmissions Among Patients With Heart Failure During the COVID‐19 Pandemic.
Journal of the American Heart Association, 11(7). https://doi.org/10.1161/jaha.121.023935
Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) | CMS. (n.d.). https://www.cms.gov/medicare/medicare-fee-for-service-payment/acuteinpatientpps/readmissions-reduction-program
James JT. A new, evidence-based estimate of patient harms associated with hospital care. Journal of patient safety. 2013;9(3):122-8. 2. Suter LG, Li SX, Grady JN, Lin Z, Wang Y, Bhat KR, et al. National patterns of risk-
standardized mortality and readmission after hospitalization for acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, and pneumonia: update on publicly reported outcomes measures based on the 2013 release. Journal of general
internal medicine. 2014 Oct;29(10):1333-40. PubMed PMID: 24825244. PMCID: Pmc4175654. Epub 2014/05/16. Eng

Conducted exploratory data analysis to unveil trends and patterns related to the impact of technology on healthcare outcomes and data breaches.

Carried out a thorough literature review on relevant topics and compiled and cleaned the necessary datasets for analysis. 

**Data Visualization **
- Visualized state-wise Telehealth hospital distribution using Plotly Express and Squarify.
- Analyzed the impact of telemedicine and virtual visits on patient outcomes, including readmission and mortality rates, through a stacked bar chart highlighting obstacles.
- Created a State-wise heat-map depicting the percentage of readmissions in each state.

Investigated readmission and mortality rates based on patient demographics, including age, gender, race, and socioeconomic status, utilizing pivot tables.

Examined trends in healthcare industry data breaches over the past few years using time series analysis.

**Cybersecurity Strategies **
Investigated data breach trends for all states to develop effective strategies for preventing and responding to such incidents. The analysis led to the creation of a predictive model for cybersecurity priorities based on historical patterns and feedback.

This project provides a holistic view of the impact of technology on healthcare outcomes, identifies challenges in telehealth adoption, and offers insights into developing robust cybersecurity strategies for the healthcare industry.

The United States Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) started the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) in 2010 as a component of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

By penalizing hospitals with higher- than-expected readmission rates for specific diseases, the program seeks to minimize avoidable hospital readmissions.

The objective of the program is to encourage hospitals to improve the standard of patient care to decrease readmissions and enhance patient outcomes.
•  The SNF VBP Program was established by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to incentivize skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) to improve the quality of care they provide to Medicare beneficiaries.
• The program evaluates SNFs based on their performance on a hospital readmission measure and scores them on both improvement and achievement, with the higher of the two scores being used.
• SNFs receive quarterly confidential feedback reports on their performance and can earn incentive payments based on their performance.
• Hospitals with higher-than-expected readmission rates are susceptible to fines under the HRRP from CMS, which are taken into consideration for both the HRRP and SNF Value-based programs.
• Heart failure (HF), pneumonia (PN), 

• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD),
• Coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG), elective total hip arthroplasty, and/or total knee arthroplasty
(THA/TKA).

We were able to uncover the numerous issues ACOs with high readmission rates encountered as well as the adverse remarks they made about telehealth thanks to our investigation.

With this knowledge, we want to address the need for alternative technical advancements that can provide better remote or virtual therapy for ACOs that have been penalized for having a large number of readmissions.

We spoke about a few digital tools and technology that could lower fines and raise the standard of 
healthcare.
1. Wearable Devices (Watches, Skin patches), Senor devices (IR Vein Scanner), EKO (ECG+ Stethoscope) which will create Synthetic data instead of PHI.
2. Asynchronous telehealth: It allows doctors to consult with patients and keep an eye on them away from their regular
offices. There could be less of a need for in-person interactions, and there might be fewer patient data sent via unsafe networks because it works with synthetic data produced by digital health care products.

 The patient data volume is divided into five categories: "1384 patients".

The divisions are grouped into three categories: "1-5 divisions", "6-10 divisions", and "11-15 divisions". The heat map shows that the majority of patients are in hospitals with a volume of 25-1384 patients and are treated in 11-15 divisions. The fewest patients are treated in hospitals with a volume of >1384 patients and greater than 6 divisions.

The division with the highest density is 11-15, whereas hospitals with 456-1384 patients have the highest number of readmission patients.

The second-highest density is observed in the division of 6-10, where hospitals with 25-144 patients have the highest number of readmissions. The division of 1-5 also shows a moderate density of readmission patients, particularly in hospitals with 144- 456 patients.

Electronic health records (EHRs): Deploying specialty EHR applications at the network layer allows
hospitals to keep track of patient’s medical histories, prescriptions, and treatment regimens. The incidence of readmissions can be decreased by hospitals using EHRs to make sure patients receive the proper care and follow-up following discharge.
Quality of Service (QoS) applications to prioritize critical healthcare traffic, such as telemedicine consultations and real-time patient monitoring.

As a whole, under state and federal law, hospitals and other healthcare organizations in the US should expect to pay a price for data breaches involving PHI. Thus, these organizations must take the necessary actions to protect PHI and adhere to all applicable privacy and security regulations.

Our recommendations for Reducing Readmissions, also contradict data privacy, The possibility of data leaks is among the main issues surrounding wearable technology.

Wearable technology gathers private health information, including heart rate, blood pressure, and sleep habits.

It is possible to utilize this information to identify specific people and to use it maliciously.

 In the event of a data breach, hospitals must notify the impacted people, the attorney general, and other governmental entities, according to the Massachusetts Data Breach Notification Law. A civil fine of up to $5,000 may be imposed for each infraction of the statute. New York: For violations of PHI, the New York State Department of Health can impose civil fines of up to $15,000. Further, hospitals must notify impacted persons, the state attorney general, and other governmental entities in the case of a data breach under the New York State Information Security Breach and Notification Act.

Healthcare organizations that neglect to protect patient data may be subject to financial penalties of up to $500,000per breach under the Florida Information Protection Act. In the event of a data breach, hospitals must also notify impacted people, the Florida Department of Legal Affairs, and other governmental organizations, according to the legislation.

Health and Safety Code of Texas, Chapter 181, mandates the implementation of adequate procedures to ensure PHI confidentially by healthcare organizations, including hospitals, as well as the notification of impacted persons and the Texas Attorney General's office in the event of a breach of unsecured PHI. A violation of the statute can result in civil fines of up to $1.5 million.

Hospitals are required by Texas Business and Commerce Code, Chapter 521, to put appropriate safeguards in place to ensure the security and privacy of sensitive personal data, including PHI.

• In the event of a breach of sensitive personal information, the legislation mandates that enterprises notify those impacted.
• It also imposes civil penalties of up to $100 for each person affected by the breach, with a maximum penalty of $50,000 per breach.

Infractions of the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA) are punishable by civil fines of
up to $25,000 per patient. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) also allows for statutory damages of up to $750 per consumer per incident, or actual losses, whichever is higher.

This layer manages the logical addressing and routing of data packets between different networks. Applications deployed at this layer include:
- Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology to securely connect remote clinics and providers to the main network.
- Quality of Service (QoS) applications to prioritize critical healthcare traffic, such as telemedicine consultations and real-time patient monitoring.

This layer is responsible for data transmission and error detection, providing reliable data transfer between nodes.

Applications deployed at this layer include:- Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) segmentation to separate traffic between different departments, such as finance and patient care.
- Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) to prevent loops and improve network redundancy.

This layer establishes and manages communication sessions between different applications, providing mechanisms for session setup, maintenance, and teardown.

Applications deployed at this layer include:
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) to secure communication channels and protect sensitive patient data.

Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and virtualization technologies to enable remote access to clinical applications and patient data.

This layer is responsible for end-to-end data delivery, ensuring that packets are delivered reliably and in the correct order. Applications deployed at this layer include:
• Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to provide reliable and ordered delivery of data packets.
• User Datagram Protocol (UDP) for real-time applications that require low latency, such as video conferencing and remote consultations.