Abstract: Currently, there is a convergence of three key factors in the global landscape that creates an opportunity for the research community to make fundamental contributions to improving the quality of life of every single citizen. Conversely, failure to recognize and act on this phenomenon may have disastrous effects on multiple levels. The first factor is the unprecedented focus and willingness to invest in the healthcare industry. The second factor is the fact that the prime directive of the healthcare sector, i.e. nothing interferes with the delivery of care, has ramifications on every aspect of information technology used in this domain. The final factor is the recognition that patient empowerment and buy-in will be critical for the advance of health information technology. These factors highlight the fact that there are inherent assumptions in the existing access models that render them ineffective and not applicable for long term use in the healthcare field. This talk will highlight all these issues and challenge the research community to delve more the industry-specific constraints that require further innovation in the space; possibly necessitating a re-examination of the core assumptions in the field. Bio: Tyrone Grandison is currently the Program Manager for Core Healthcare Services in the Healthcare Transformation group of the IBM Services Research organization (Hawthorne, New York). His immediate interests are in developing innovative solutions for ensuring patient privacy protection and for integrating information from multiple sources to get more complete views of patients to enable better decision making. Prior to this, Tyrone led the Intelligent Information Systems (Quest) team in the Computer Science department at the IBM Almaden Research Center (San Jose, California). The team pioneered research in Relational Database Privacy, Disclosure-Compliant Query Processing for RFID and Mobile Data Networks, Security Exception Handling in Healthcare Information Systems and Large Scale Text Analysis of Online Data. Tyrone is a Distinguished Engineer of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and has been further recognized by the IEEE (2010 Technical Achievement Award), the National Society of Black Engineers (i.e. Pioneer of the Year 2009) and the Black Engineer of the Year Award Board (i.e. Modern Day Technology Leader 2009, Minority in Science Trailblazer 2010). Tyrone received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from the University of the West Indies, Jamaica in 1997 and 1998, respectively, and a Ph.D. degree from the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in the United Kingdom. Presented: June 9, 2010