Here are a few I came across last week.
Note: Each link is followed by a title and few paragraphs. For the full article click on the link above title of the article. Note also that full access to some links may require site registration or subscription payment.
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Predictive Model Offers COVID-19 Guidelines for Healthcare Workers
The predictive model aims to protect operating room workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and conserve personal protective equipment.
By Jessica Kent
April 07, 2020 - Researchers from Stanford University’s department of surgery have developed a predictive model that provides best practice guidelines for operating room team members during the COVID-19 pandemic and helps conserve the personal protective equipment (PPE) they wear.
The guidelines are published as an article in press in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons ahead of print.
Hospital and medical school leaders at Stanford convened a PPE taskforce to develop a common predictive algorithm for PPE use. The taskforce consisted of members from the operating room, interventional suites, and endoscopy, as well as quality improvement and infectious disease experts.
The taskforce reviewed current data about COVID-19 transmission in hospital and non-hospital settings, and information on operating room risks during past outbreaks, like SARS and Ebola.
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Coronavirus chaos ripe for hackers to exploit medical device vulnerabilities
As crowded hospital emergency rooms and ICUs in major U.S. cities try to keep up with demand for medical services, their networks face a rising threat level from cybercriminals probing for weaknesses.
April 9, 2020
While cybersecurity experts and law enforcement have been raising the red flag for years about the vulnerabilities of networked medical devices in healthcare, the chaos of the coronavirus pandemic has created the perfect storm for hackers to exploit these weaknesses.
As crowded hospital emergency rooms and ICUs in major U.S. cities try to keep up with demand for medical services, the networks of these healthcare organizations face a rising threat level from cybercriminals probing for weaknesses.
Interpol on Saturday issued an alert warning that cybercriminals are using ransomware to target healthcare organizations already overwhelmed by COVID-19 and noted a significant increase in detected health system attacks since the start of the pandemic.
Cybercriminals are "using ransomware to hold hospitals and medical services digitally hostage; preventing them from accessing vital files and systems until a ransom is paid," the international security agency said.
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‘Every day is a new surprise.’ Inside the effort to produce the world’s most popular coronavirus tracker
By Jocelyn KaiserApr. 6, 2020 , 6:25 PM
Science’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center.
Many websites track the devastating spread of disease and death caused by the now-pandemic coronavirus, from the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) global map to The New York Times’s tally of U.S. cases at the county level. But one of the earliest, an online dashboard run by Johns Hopkins University, has become the go-to place for the latest data on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
With its black world map strewn with red circles and global, country, and state counts of cases, deaths, and recoveries, the Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases tracker sticks to the basics—no fancy graphs. Yet the site, which gets more than 1 billion hits a day, has become the most authoritative source for COVID-19 case data. It is used by news organizations and government agencies around the world. Its dashboard has been copied by states and countries. It has been spotted on a wall in a photo of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s coronavirus war room.
Behind the site is Lauren Gardner, co-director of Hopkins’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering, whose previous work involved spatial modeling of epidemics of measles and the Zika virus. Gardner spoke with ScienceInsider on Friday, 3 April, the day after COVID-19 cases surpassed 1 million worldwide, with more than 50,000 deaths. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
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AI and the coronavirus fight: How artificial intelligence is taking on COVID-19
From moderating social media to unpicking the very essence of COVID-19, AI is helping tackle the coronavirus in all manner of ingenious ways.
By Jo Best | April 9, 2020 -- 11:03 GMT (21:03 AEST) | Topic: Coronavirus: Business and technology in a pandemic
As the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak continues to spread across the globe, companies and researchers are looking to use artificial intelligence as a way of addressing the challenges of the virus. Here are just some of the projects using AI to address the coronavirus outbreak.
Using AI to find drugs that target the virus
A number of research projects are using AI to identify drugs that were developed to fight other diseases but which could now be repurposed to take on coronavirus. By studying the molecular setup of existing drugs with AI, companies want to identify which ones might disrupt the way COVID-19 works.
BenevolentAI, a London-based drug-discovery company, began turning its attentions towards the coronavirus problem in late January. The company's AI-powered knowledge graph can digest large volumes of scientific literature and biomedical research to find links between the genetic and biological properties of diseases and the composition and action of drugs.
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Real Use for AI Tools During COVID-19
April 9, 2020
As the volume of patients infected with COVID-19 continues to rise nationwide, so has the need for rapid patient management capabilities. To answer that call, many artificial intelligence (AI) tools manufacturers have taken steps to pivot their existing tools toward monitoring disease progression and severity.
But, what role can these technologies legitimately play, and what challenges can radiologists anticipate if they choose to use them? Diagnostic Imaging spoke with Eliot Siegel, M.D., professor and vice chair of radiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, to determine whether these tools could be useful during the pandemic.
Whitney Palmer: We are joined today by Dr. Eliot Siegel, professor and vice chair of radiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He is also vice chair of research information systems for the Department of diagnostic radiology and nuclear medicine. He is here with us today to discuss the role of AI diagnostic imaging tools in the COVID-19 pandemic. Thank you, Dr. Siegel, for being with us today.
Eliot Siegel, M.D.: Sure, thanks for the invitation. It should be fun.
Palmer: Wonderful. Well, if we can start out what is the role of radiology AI tools in this pandemic?
Siegel: Well, this pandemic has created a large number of challenges. And, one of the major challenges is in respiratory illnesses. One of the opportunities is to try to determine whether or not one might be able to develop tools that would help in diagnosis and tracking, looking at the trajectory of disease, and particularly in follow ups. So, one of the things that's really important to consider is the fact that we're going to be experiencing COVID-19 in multiple phases. Right now, pretty much whether you're in New York or some of the hotspots or whether you're in a hotspot-to-be, it's really likely that you're going to be seeing large numbers of patients with respiratory illnesses that will be presenting and, in general, the reality is that they will be related to COVID-19. So, at least in the United States, diagnosis at this kind of first phase or wave of disease is probably a relative moot point.
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Older Women With Chronic Conditions Rely on Internet-Based Health Information
APRIL 10, 2020
Samara Rosenfeld
Nearly 60% of older women who participated in the Women’s Health Initiative reported using the internet to obtain health information, according to the findings of a recent study.
The findings could inform the development of health messaging tailored to older women with chronic conditions.
Mina Sedrak, MS, MD, and a team of investigators included older women who were enrolled in the nation Women’s Health Initiative study to learn online health information-seeking behavior among older patients with chronic illnesses. The team also compared the characteristics of patient who reported using the internet for health information with those who did not.
Sedrak, from City of Hope Medical Center, and colleagues included 72,806 postmenopausal women >65 years old. Participants were asked about their use of mobile phones, other mobile devices, and computers to access the internet. They were also asked whether they used the internet to search for health information. Each participant self-reported age, race or ethnicity, annual household income, smoking status, and medical conditions at baseline.
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The findings could inform the development of health messaging tailored to older women with chronic conditions.
Mina Sedrak, MS, MD, and a team of investigators included older women who were enrolled in the nation Women’s Health Initiative study to learn online health information-seeking behavior among older patients with chronic illnesses. The team also compared the characteristics of patient who reported using the internet for health information with those who did not.
Sedrak, from City of Hope Medical Center, and colleagues included 72,806 postmenopausal women >65 years old. Participants were asked about their use of mobile phones, other mobile devices, and computers to access the internet. They were also asked whether they used the internet to search for health information. Each participant self-reported age, race or ethnicity, annual household income, smoking status, and medical conditions at baseline.
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Apple, Google have teamed up to build system-level COVID-19 contact tracing, interoperable APIs for iOS, Android
The two tech giants' unprecedented partnership looks to engage as many users in disease tracing and prevention efforts as possible while tearing down the data silos of their respective smartphone platforms.
By Dave Muoio
April 10, 2020
Two of the biggest names in technology have formed an unprecedented partnership to introduce health data-sharing and COVID-19 contact-tracing technologies to the lion's share of the smartphone market.
In dual news releases published this afternoon, Apple and Google announced plans to launch APIs that will enable interoperability between iOS and Android products by way of official apps from public health authorities. The companies said these apps will be available for consumers to download from the App Store and the Google Play Store starting in May.
In the longer term, the two companies have committed to building a Bluetooth-based contac- tracing functionality into their underlying operating systems. The companies said that this strategy will be designed as an opt-in functionality, but would open the door for more participants and deeper dataintegration with health apps and governments' public health initiatives.
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Coronavirus Spread Shines New Light on Advance Care Planning
Patients are falling seriously ill with coronavirus, with a grim outlook ahead for the US. In response to that, patients and providers alike are considering advance care planning.
By Sara Heath
April 08, 2020 - The United States Surgeon General is warning that coronavirus is set to cause this generation’s Pearl Harbor or 9/11, foreshadowing a grim road ahead for the US healthcare system. With a projected death toll ranging from 80,000 to 100,000, questions are shifting toward advance care planning.
Advance care planning refers to the decisions a patient and her loved ones may make at the end of her life. Otherwise known as end-of-life care planning, this process weighs a patient’s quality of life goals, concerns for the end of her life, and how she may want decisions handled should she become incapacitated.
A concrete example of end-of-life care planning can include the signing of a do not resuscitate (DNR) order, although it can pertain to other issues like using a ventilator at the end of life.
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Pew Urges HHS to Implement Interoperability Rules Amid COVID-19
Pew Charitable Trusts is lending yet another voice stating the implementation of the ONC interoperability rule could help mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
April 06, 2020 - Pew Charitable Trusts have penned a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar urging immediate implementation of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information’s (ONC) interoperability rule as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ONC interoperability rule addresses information blocking and promotes use of third-party apps and application programming interfaces (APIs) for patient data access. This lines directly with Pew’s health IT initiative, which focuses on enhancing patient data interoperability and EHR safety.
“With the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, we are seeing historic shifts in the way healthcare is delivered—with more patients and providers relying on telemedicine to meet healthcare needs,” wrote Ben Moscovitch, project director of Health Information Technology at Pew. “The new regulations to promote data sharing play an essential role in ensuring continuity of care for patients and should be implemented without delay.”
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MGMA Urges ONC to Slow Down Implementation of Strategic Plan
Although the Medical Group Management Association agrees with the general premise of the 2020-2025 Federal Health IT Strategic Plan, the group urges ONC to make some key changes prior to publishing.
April 07, 2020 - The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) wrote a letter advising the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to not move too quickly to implement the proposed 2020-2025 Federal Health IT Strategic Plan.
“We urge ONC to avoid pushing physician practices too far, too fast,” wrote MGMA in the letter addressed to Don Rucker, national coordinator for health IT.
“The risks of moving too quickly include additional administrative and financial burdens on practices, weaker privacy and security protections for sensitive health information, an increased level of physician burnout, and the potential of compromised patient care.”
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April 9, 2020 / 8:02 PM /
Pass the salt: The minute details that helped Germany build virus defences
MUNICH (Reuters) - One January lunchtime in a car parts company, a worker turned to a colleague and asked to borrow the salt.
As well as the saltshaker, in that instant, they shared the new coronavirus, scientists have since concluded.
That their exchange was documented at all is the result of intense scrutiny, part of a rare success story in the global fight against the virus.
The co-workers were early links in what was to be the first documented chain of multiple human-to-human transmissions outside Asia of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
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Behind the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard
How a spur-of-the-moment decision went viral.
Jeffrey M. Perkel
7 April 2020
In December when the disease that now is known as COVID-19 emerged in China, Ensheng Dong was studying the worrying spread of measles. A first-year graduate student in civil and systems engineering with a focus on disease epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, Dong began tracking the new disease.
On 22 January, he and his thesis advisor in civil and systems engineering Lauren Gardner, who is co-director of the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Hopkins, released an online 'dashboard' documenting its spread.
That dashboard, like its subject, quickly went viral. It has become a familiar feature on news sites and on TV the world over, tracking the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, deaths, and recoveries globally. The site which Dong built in just a few hours receives more than a billion hits per day.
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Apr 09 2020
Walgreens expands telehealth as COVID-19 demands social distancing
Walgreens Find Care now includes a COVID-19 risk assessment, powered by Microsoft Healthcare Bot on Microsoft Azure.
Susan Morse, Managing Editor
Walgreens has announced the expansion of its telehealth program to include a COVID-19 risk assessment, information on clinical trials and a greater number of providers.
The updated Walgreens Find Care platform on a mobile health app and website now includes a COVID-19 risk assessment, powered by Microsoft Healthcare Bot which runs on Microsoft Azure, to help users assess their risk of COVID-19 based on CDC guidelines.
Additionally, patients can learn about COVID-19 clinical trials by using the Find My Clinical Trial program.
National and regional partners have been added for patients to virtually connect with more than 30 providers, including many in states currently most impacted by COVID-19, such as New York, California, Illinois, New Jersey, Michigan and Florida.
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Examples of Virtual Telehealth Visit Growth Due to COVID-19
April 9, 2020
We all know that telehealth has been growing thanks to COVID-19. Let’s be honest, a lot of healthcare doesn’t have any choice. They have to move towards telehealth or not see patients that need to be seen. We highlighted the telehealth growth in smaller medical practices. Now, let’s take a look at some health system experiences.
The first example comes to us thanks to the amazing CT Lin, CMIO at UCHealth. He shared the following graph of UCHealth’s in-person visits (red) and virtual visits (blue) for part of 2019-2020:
Hard to ignore the inflection point where virtual visits passed in-person office visits.
What’s even more fascinating is CT Lin’s description of their telehealth experience prior to COVID-19:
We came up with all sorts of leadership plans to increase video visits: more education to front-line physicians (not helpful); sending experts to clinic to tout the benefits (nope); introducing video visits to clinicians already on bundled payments, such as surgeons whose post-op visits were no-fee (slight adoption). Video visit adoption was a local phenomenon: a few docs found it useful and did several hundred visits that way over the course of a year, and most others did not try it. Finally, we did get some traction by dedicating some urgent care docs to Virtual Urgent Care, for either a flat $49 fee or co-pay with participating insurers. For the most part though, bupkis.
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Practices Switch to Telehealth In Wake of COVID-19 Pandemic
April 9, 2020
A new survey of independent medical practices and billing companies has found that they are leaning heavily on telehealth to keep generating income.
The survey, which was conducted by Kareo, connected with more than 600 medical practices and 140 medical billing companies. The vendor conducted the research in late March.
It found that one of the immediate actions medical practices and clinics are taking to maintain their patients’ access to care is to adopt telemedicine solutions. The study found that 75% of respondents reported either having a telemedicine solution already in place or that they intended to deploy one in the near future.
This approach comes as providers grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, with 9% of respondents reporting practice closures and many more worried about potential practice closures. Kareo’s analysis of patient encounters of more than 50,000 medical providers found that by late March, medical practices saw a roughly 35% fall in patient volume.
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Coronavirus Gives People a Reason to Use Telehealth, But Doubts Remain
A new survey finds that people are ready to use telehealth to seek testing and treatment for the Coronavirus, but they're still worried about the quality of care and the lack of a personal touch.
April 06, 2020 - Nearly three-quarters of people recently surveyed say they would consider using telehealth for treatment if they feel they have symptoms of the Coronavirus. And two-thirds said the pandemic has increased their willingness to try connected health for the first time.
The responses to a survey of 2,000 adults by Sykes Enterprises aren’t surprising, given the increased adoption of telehealth and mHealth by healthcare providers during the COVID-19 crisis to triage patients and protect doctors and nurses. But they do represent some of the first numbers to come in on public perception of telehealth, and they could be used to help keep the momentum going once the emergency has passed.
The survey, taken on March 19 and 20 and including respondents from across the country, appears to show that public knowledge of telehealth is improving, regardless of the pandemic.
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COVID-19 Business Email Compromise Schemes, Ransomware Escalating
The FBI expects business email compromise schemes tied to the COVID-19 pandemic will rise in the coming weeks, as Interpol reports a spike in ransomware attacks on healthcare providers.
April 07, 2020 - Hospitals and other healthcare providers are increasingly being targeted with ransomware attacks amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Interpol. The news comes as the FBI alerts all sectors to an expected increase in business email compromise schemes tied to the crisis.
Interpol has 194 member countries, including the US. A purple notice to those members warns healthcare organizations of a spike in targeted ransomware attacks against these crucial providers currently engaged with fighting the Coronavirus.
According to Interpol’s data, the ransomware is primarily spreading through emails that frequently claim to contain information or advice about the Coronavirus from a government agency. US Federal agencies have also recently reported a surge in fraud schemes related to COVID-19.
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Gottlieb, Mostashari propose plan to build a national COVID-19 surveillance system
Apr 8, 2020 3:57pm
Five healthcare experts — including former top government healthcare officials Scott Gottlieb and Farzad Mostashari — have proposed a plan to build a national COVID-19 surveillance system.
A system to effectively track and trace COVID is a prerequisite for gradually reopening the economy, the healthcare leaders said in a recent paper issued by the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy.
“We need to implement the tools and policies to conduct more effective surveillance, containment, and case management of COVID-19 for the future,” the co-authors wrote. “Building these capabilities now will accelerate our ability to assure the public’s safety the foundation for a sustainable and secure approach to reopening our communities.”
The report authors include former Food and Drug Administration Commissioners and physicians Gottlieb and Mark McClellan, along with Mostashari, who served as the National Coordinator for Health IT. Authors also include Lauren Silvis, senior vice president of external affairs at technology company Tempus, and Caitlin Rivers, Ph.D., a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
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After 9/11, we gave up privacy for security. Will we make the same trade-off after Covid-19?
By Casey Ross
April 8, 2020
In a span of weeks, the novel coronavirus has turned the nation’s roiling health privacy debate on its head. Concerns about what Google and Facebook might be doing with patients’ sensitive health information have receded, and instead, Americans are being asked to allow surveillance of their daily movements and contacts, and even their temperature and other physiological changes.
By tapping into people’s phones and medical records, researchers and public health authorities are hoping to more swiftly identify and isolate potentially infected patients and corral a pandemic that is outrunning them despite unprecedented restrictions on daily life.
Underscoring the urgency, the federal agency in charge of policing data breaches is now saying it will back off enforcement of certain privacy rules to make it easier for hospitals and their vendors to share patient medical records with public health officials. Meanwhile, the nation’s tech behemoths are collecting health information through Covid-19 symptom checkers, data that could prove invaluable to disease trackers when combined with travel and location data from smartphones.
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Kushner’s team seeks national coronavirus surveillance system
By ADAM CANCRYN
Updated: 04/08/2020 12:19 AM EDT
Critics worry about a Patriot Act for health care, raising concerns about patient privacy and civil liberties.
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s task force has reached out to a range of health technology companies about creating a national coronavirus surveillance system to give the government a near real-time view of where patients are seeking treatment and for what, and whether hospitals can accommodate them, according to four people with knowledge of the discussions.
The proposed national network could help determine which areas of the country can safely relax social-distancing rules and which should remain vigilant. But it would also represent a significant expansion of government use of individual patient data, forcing a new reckoning over privacy limits amid a national crisis.
Health privacy laws already grant broad exceptions for national security purposes. But the prospect of compiling a national database of potentially sensitive health information has prompted concerns about its impact on civil liberties well after the coronavirus threat recedes, with some critics comparing it to the Patriot Act enacted after the 9/11 attacks.
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The Health 202: Coronavirus means Americans are finally embracing virtual health care
THE PROGNOSIS
Millions of Americans being quarantined may be what finally gets telemedicine widespread acceptance in the United States.
The pandemic is prompting a seismic shift among policymakers, providers and patients as they contemplate how to ensure Americans can get needed care even as most of the country practices social distancing.
“I think this may be just what we needed to get us to adopt telemedicine,” Farzad Mostashari, former national coordinator for health information technology during the Obama administration, told me. “There were all these barriers. … In the midst of this pandemic, it’s amazing what can happen.”
The coronavirus crisis is exposing broad inconsistencies in the use of telehealth in the United States, as primary-care doctors beg patients to stay at home unless they have urgent symptoms requiring an in-person evaluation.
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COVID-19: How the coronavirus crisis will change the care model
Spanish CIOs from major hospitals explained in a HIMSS Europe webinar how they are handling the extreme situation caused by the pandemic.
By Teresa Bau
April 08, 2020 09:33 AM
The coronavirus pandemic has been pushing the limits of the healthcare systems in many European countries, among them, Spain, where COVID-19 is causing thousands of deaths and is requiring an unprecedented amount of medical resources.
A group of CIOs from major hospitals in Spain took part in a HIMSS Europe webinar last week to share their views on how they are handling the crisis from the technological point of view.
Data saves lives
More than ever, healthcare professionals are seeing how data can make a difference between life and death. Barcelona Hospital Clínic’s CIO David Vidal reproduced the words of an infectious diseases specialist working in his centre: “We are saving people’s lives thanks to data”.
Due to the high number of patients needing hospitalisation, hotels and sports pavilions have been transformed into care facilities, especially in Barcelona and Madrid. IT teams have worked tirelessly to ensure the EHR is accessible at every point of care. Additionally, they have facilitated the work of medical teams creating new alerts systems and methods to classify COVID-19 patients, helping doctors and nurses in the decision-making process, as explained by Jesús Redrado, CIO at Clínica Universidad de Navarra, a prestigious private hospital in the Navarra region.
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COVID-19 pandemic opens up new frontiers for health data privacy
While European governments look to digital health technology for ways to speed up their containment strategies, the long-term view is that the COVID-19 emergency will generate new approaches to sharing healthcare data once the pandemic has passed.
By Piers Ford
April 08, 2020 05:35 AM
The COVID-19 pandemic has turned up the volume of the ongoing debate around health data privacy across Europe. New frontiers are opening up daily as the European Commission and individual member states seek ways to engage digital technology in their efforts to contain the spread of the virus while adhering to the requirements of GDPR and the region’s exacting ePrivacy regulations.
Ensuring personal privacy
Against a background of widespread urgency, some countries have forged ahead without waiting for international efforts to provide a framework for sharing health data for the public good while preserving the principles of personal privacy.
Publicly, eyebrows were raised in the European Data Protection Supervisor’s office by South Korea’s rapid roll-out of Corona 100m, a central tracking app that informs citizens when they are within 100 metres of known COVID-19 cases. Privately, there has been considerable admiration for the role the app has played in the country’s relatively successful containment strategy.
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Coronavirus: Crowdsourcing the race to trace
The Singaporean app claims to be less invasive than a similar, Chinese app
9th April 2020
If you thought a global pandemic would end the trite observation that there’s an app for everything, I am about to disappoint you.
Because there are, indeed, already apps for COVID-19.
Specifically, there are apps for intensive contact tracing, which has been credited for keeping the outbreak under control in countries like Singapore.
Though the major work was done early with manual contact tracing, on 20 March, the Singaporean Government launched an app to ensure contacts were not missed.
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COVID-19 puts a spotlight on new pop health demands
"My world before COVID consisted of taking care of patients one at a time," says one doctor. "Now, my duty is to serve an entire patient population." Other providers will soon have to acquaint themselves with remote monitoring and new models of care.
April 08, 2020 01:07 PM
Dr. Jaan Sidorov, CEO of the Population Health Alliance in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a network of 152 independent community-based providers, says he and his colleagues are quickly learning how the COVID-19 crisis will change their practice patterns.
Even though Sidorov is a longtime expert in pop health, he's already seeing up-close how the coronavirus pandemic is changing his own daily duties of care delivery.
"My world before COVID consisted of taking care of patients one at a time," he said. "Now, my duty is to serve an entire patient population."
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Cyber attacks continue to mount during COVID-19 pandemic
From PPE phishing scams to ransomware to hospital supply chain risks, hackers and scammers are seizing on the chaos of the coronavirus crisis.
By Nathan Eddy
April 08, 2020 11:24 AM
Intelligence agencies, security firms and Big Tech giants and all ringing alarm bells over the growing threat from cyber criminals in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic – with ransomware attacks, opportunistic phishing threats and other malicious activities all threatening healthcare organizations worldwide.
Scams by so-called gray-marketers for personal protective equipment have been increasing steadily as healthcare professionals face shortages of critical supplies.
The FBI has issued a warning about Kwampirs malware targeting supply chains including the healthcare industry – Kwampirs is a backdoor Trojan that grants remote computer-access to attackers.
"One of the reasons for this increased risk to the supply chain and the healthcare sector is a rise in the number of people who are now working from home because of the COVID-19 pandemic," Elad Shapira, head of research for third-party security-management-automation specialist Panorays, wrote in a research note.
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Stanford Tests Machine Learning To Manage COVID-19 Surge
April 8, 2020
Stanford University researchers are working with clinicians to see whether AI can help manage surges of COVID-19 patients, as well as identifying patients likely to need ICU care to keep them from deteriorating.
According to STAT News, the team there has already picked an existing AI tool and is posed to decide how to integrate it into its existing clinical operations infrastructure. The project is using machine learning technology to analyze patient data and score patients as to how sick they are, as well as whether they are likely to need a higher level of care.
Ron Li, a Stanford doctor and clinical informaticist leading the project, told STAT that that building the model isn’t the challenge. “It’s the workflow design, the change management, figuring out how do you develop the system the model enables,” said Li, who’s presenting the work at a virtual conference hosted by Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.
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Free Online COVID-19 Surge Planning Tool Available to Hospitals
By Alexandra Wilson Pecci | April 08, 2020
The model, developed by researchers at University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS), has already informed decision-making at both the system and government levels.
A newly developed modeling tool to predict hospital capacity needs during the COVID-19 pandemic is available online and free to the public.
The COVID-19 Hospital Impact Model for Epidemics (CHIME), developed by researchers at University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS), has already informed decision-making at both the system and government levels.
"Publicly available and designed for hospital operations leaders, this modeling tool can inform preparations for capacity strain during the early days of a pandemic," the authors wrote in an Annals of Internal Medicine.
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https://hitinfrastructure.com/news/interoperability-platform-ensures-access-to-covid-19-patient-data
Interoperability Platform Ensures Access to COVID-19 Patient Data
Interoperability platform, Consensus, offers tools to healthcare providers to ensure access to patient health records during the COVID-19 pandemic.
April 03, 2020 - A leading internet and information services company recently announced that it will offer healthcare providers free access to on-demand patient record query through its healthcare interoperability platform during the COVID-19 pandemic.
J2 Global recently launched its healthcare platform, Consensus, a tool that allows healthcare providers to access patient records needed for treatment through Carequality.
“Consensus can be used to quickly and securely obtain patient data on past and current conditions and treatments from a surrounding healthcare community. This helps enable care teams to make better decisions at the point of care,” Nate Simmons, president of J2 Cloud Services, said in the announcement.
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Zoom to Halt Feature Development to Bolster Privacy, Security for COVID-19
After reports found serious privacy and security issues in Zoom, the videoconferencing platform will stop feature development to improve its posture given the rapid increase in users from the COVID-19 pandemic.
April 02, 2020 - Zoom announced it plans to enact a freeze on all feature development and shift its engineering resources for the next 90 days to focus on privacy and security issues, in light of recent cybersecurity concerns that have emerged during the Coronavirus pandemic.
The videoconferencing platform has a healthcare-specific service. Meanwhile, the Office for Civil Rights has lifted penalties for HIPAA noncompliance around expanded telehealth use during the crisis. Zoom was listed as an acceptable platform for this use, which means providers can use the platform for remote care or consultations.
“Usage of Zoom has ballooned overnight – far surpassing what we expected when we first announced our desire to help in late February,” Zoom CEO Eric Yuan wrote. “To put this growth in context, as of the end of December last year, the maximum number of daily meeting participants, both free and paid, conducted on Zoom was approximately 10 million.”
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Integrating Social Determinants of Health into the EHR
Addressing social determinant requires integration of this information into the EHR. Otherwise, providers will not be able to use it for clinical decision-making.
April 03, 2020 - It’s now considered common knowledge that providers need to address a patient’s social determinants of health. These factors such as an individual’s financial situation, ability to get healthy food options, and access to reliable transportation can be more important to an individual’s health outcomes than the actual clinical care he receives.
In fact, commonly cited statistics show that clinical care influences just 10 to 20 percent of a patient’s outcomes, while social determinants of health impact the remainder. If a patient cannot adhere to his hypertension care plan if the medication is too expensive for him to buy every month, then outcomes will suffer. Similarly, outcomes will not improve for an obese patient, if she cannot afford healthy food options or get to a grocery store miles away from home.
But providers are often unaware of this information and some have previously felt it was not their responsibility to address. Only as the evidence has grown have providers felt a push to incorporate these non-traditional risk factors into their clinical decision-making.
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Alexa, Do I Have Coronavirus?
There’s a way to bring in big tech without compromising our privacy.
By Jacob Sunshine and Shyam Gollakota
Dr. Sunshine is an assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine in the Department of Anesthesiology. Dr. Gollakota is an associate professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington.
· April 5, 2020
SEATTLE — One in four U.S. households have a smart speaker and 81 percent of adults own a smartphone. These devices might seem to be unlikely medical instruments, yet their computing capability, storage and sensor quality is often superior to the clinical-grade equipment used to monitor patients in an intensive care unit.
For example, the Philips X2 monitor, a monitoring system used to measure vital signs in I.C.U.s around the country, costs thousands of dollars. The smartphone in your pocket has a processing capability 20 times stronger; smart speakers are 10 times as powerful.
Hundreds of millions of smart speakers and phones in the U.S. (and billions worldwide) can be marshaled quickly as a key public health tool. Until universal testing for the coronavirus is in place, smart devices can identify patients for testing. Technology companies can contribute to the national effort to fight the coronavirus pandemic by enabling their platforms to passively collect, analyze and transmit health information.
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April 7, 2020 / 2:49 AM / a day ago
African Americans more likely to die from coronavirus illness, early data shows
April 6 (Reuters) - Early data from U.S. states shows African Americans are more likely to die from COVID-19, highlighting longstanding disparities in health and inequalities in access to medical care, experts said.
In Illinois, black people make up about 30% of the state’s cases and about 40% of its coronavirus-related deaths, according to statistics provided by the state’s public health agency. However, African Americans make up just 14.6% of the state’s population.
In Michigan, black people account for 40% of the state’s reported deaths, according to data released by the state, but its population is only 14% African American.
Many U.S. states, including hardest-hit New York, have not released demographic data showing the virus’ toll on different racial groups.
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Period, Fertility Tracker Apps Built on Limited Data
— Apps gain in popularity, but lack efficacy evidence, regulation, researchers say
by Amanda D'Ambrosio, Staff Writer, MedPage Today April 6, 2020
As more women use fertility and menstruation tracking apps, there may not be enough evidence to prove that they are effective for planning and preventing pregnancies, a scoping review found.
Most women used "period tracker" apps for fertility and reproductive health monitoring, pregnancy planning, and pregnancy prevention, yet there was limited evidence-based research and regulation around app use, reported Sarah Earle, PhD, of the School of Health, Wellbeing and Social Care at the Open University in Milton Keynes, England.
Many apps may not accurately predict a woman's fertile window, and women that use menstruation trackers for contraception may be at risk for unintended pregnancy, they wrote in BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health.
"Women are interested in tracking their fertility for multiple reasons, but are sometimes using apps for purposes that they are not designed for," Earle said in an email to MedPage Today.
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AMA offers further guidance for telehealth rollouts
Its updated Digital Health Implementation Playbook Series offers tips and best practices for making the most of virtual consult technologies.
By Mike Miliard
April 07, 2020 05:00 PM
The American Medical Association has put together a new guide to help providers implement real-time virtual visits between clinicians and patients.
WHY IT MATTERS
The 128-page update to AMA's Digital Health Implementation Playbook Series comes as telehealth adoption is increasing by leaps amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The 128-page update to AMA's Digital Health Implementation Playbook Series comes as telehealth adoption is increasing by leaps amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Use of virtual care technologies had already doubled between 2016 to 2019, and since the COVID-19 public health emergency, more and more overtaxed health systems have been availing themselves of tools that enable care to be delivered remotely, keeping patients and healthcare professionals away from potential infection.
AMA's playbook series offers 12-step processes to help with rollouts of various digital health tools. With regard to telehealth specifically, the guide highlights the importances of identifying compelling use cases, putting together teams comprising the right stakeholders, key metrics to define success, how to assess and contract with vendors and more.
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New Effort Uses Smartphone Data Collection To Track COVID-19
April 7, 2020
Researchers at UC San Francisco have launched a new COVID-19 tracking effort allowing adults with a smartphone anywhere in the world to participate. The project builds on the university’s long-term experience using mobile apps to collect health data from a far-flung base of users.
The initiative, known as the COVID-19 Citizen Science Center (CCS), is intended to gather data that will help UCSF researchers better understand the factors behind how the virus affects individuals and populations. The program relies on a smartphone app created for this purpose.
According to CCS co-leader Gregory Marcus, MD, MAS, who serves as a professor in the UCSF Department of Medicine, data gathered by the app could help the researchers understand how the virus is spreading and discover ways to cut down on new infections. “Social distancing keeps many protected, but joining together to contribute data will help us beat this thing,” Marcus told a UCSF publication.
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The New Stories Data Can Tell
April 7, 2020
In order to make the best possible decision during a crisis, healthcare leaders need reliable, up-to-date information delivered quickly. Delays and inaccuracies in getting that information can mean lives lost. Omni-HealthData, from Information Builders recently introduced enhanced capabilities to make it even easier for healthcare providers to get a single, high-quality view of patients, physicians and facilities.
Omni-HealthData is the result of a close collaboration between Information Builders and St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN). It is an application that integrates data from physician offices, hospitals, nursing homes and numerous other sources. It is able to tap into EHRs, financial systems, HR platforms and even public data repositories like US Census and Death Indices. This wealth of data is normalized, analyzed and delivered to end-users via out-of-the-box dashboards.
Armed with these dashboards, leaders are able well-informed decisions.
“We’ve been on this journey with Omni-HealthData for a while now,” explained Dennis McLaughlin, Vice President of Operations and Product Management at Information Builders. “We are collecting and consolidating data from all kinds of resources – clinical data, financial information, and a lot of other disparate systems so that we can paint as complete a picture as possible. We apply our expertise in contextualizing data to really make a difference in healthcare.”
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Welsh GPs get video consulting service
06/04/20
Mark Say Managing Editor
Welsh GPs have been equipped with a system to provide for video appointments with patients as part of the response to the coronavirus outbreak.
Named the NHS Wales Video Consulting Service, it has been developed from a proposal produced by the Welsh Government and TEC Cymru, the country’s digital health agency, and based on a trial at the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board.
Video appointments will be offered if doctors want more information than a telephone call can provide. In these cases, surgeries can provide simple instructions about how people can access the free technology that will work with their smartphone, tablet or PC.
Health board staff working with frontline teams will be trained in the system. 290 GPs across 73 practices have already been trained on the new platform.
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Facebook asks users about coronavirus symptoms, releases data to researchers
By Katie Paul on Apr 7, 2020 12:58PM
Google already surveying users for Carnegie Mellon project.
Facebook said on Monday it would start surveying some US users about their health as part of a Carnegie Mellon University research project aimed at generating "heat maps" of self-reported coronavirus infections.
The social media giant will display a link at the top of users' News Feeds directing them to the survey, which the researchers say will help them predict where medical resources are needed. Facebook said it may make surveys available to users in other countries too, if the approach is successful.
Google, Facebook's rival in mobile advertising, began querying users for the Carnegie Mellon project last month through its Opinion Rewards app, which exchanges responses to surveys from Google and its clients for app store credit.
Facebook said in a blog post that the Carnegie Mellon researchers "won't share individual survey responses with Facebook, and Facebook won't share information about who you are with the researchers."
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https://healthitanalytics.com/news/understanding-the-covid-19-pandemic-as-a-big-data-analytics-issue
Understanding the COVID-19 Pandemic as a Big Data Analytics Issue
Big data analytics techniques are well-suited for tracking and controlling the spread of COVID-19 around the world.
By Jessica Kent
April 02, 2020 - The rapid, global spread of COVID-19 has brought advanced big data analytics tools front and center, with entities from all sectors of the healthcare industry seeking to monitor and reduce the impact of this virus.
Researchers and developers are increasingly using artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing to track and contain coronavirus, as well as gain a more comprehensive understanding of the disease.
In the months since COVID-19 hit the US, researchers have been hard at work trying to uncover the nature of the virus – why it affects some more than others, what measures can help reduce the spread, and where the disease will likely go next.
At the core of these efforts is something with which the healthcare industry is very familiar: Data.
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Express Scripts to allow members to use SilverCloud Health’s mental health platform for free
Apr 6, 2020 12:50pm
Express Scripts will make SilverCloud Health’s digital behavioral health platform available for free to its members as they navigate the COVID-19 pandemic.
SilverCloud’s tool is designed to assist in building resilience and ways to manage stress and sleep. Using cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness and positive psychology, the platform aims to assist users in improving their emotional health.
“We know Americans need help in managing the physical and emotional toll of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Glen Stettin, M.D., chief innovation officer at Express Scripts, said in a statement. “In this time of self-quarantine and social distancing, these digital health tools can empower people and help them think and feel better.”
SilverCloud is one of the tools offered on Express Scripts’ digital formulary, which intends to make it easier for plan sponsors to determine the digital health tools that may best fit their needs.
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HP, 3D printing companies ramp up efforts to supply critical medical parts
Apr 6, 2020 3:45pm
IT giant HP Inc. and its network of customers have produced more than 25,000 3D-printed parts for medical gear like respirators and face shields to help with critical shortages of the medical supplies.
Those parts have been shipped to hospitals and healthcare providers in the U.S. and overseas to help deliver critical parts in the effort to battle the COVID-19 pandemic as demand for face shields along with N95-masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) has skyrocketed.
In one example, HP is working in Spain with Príncipe de Asturias Hospital to use 3D printing to produce a respiratory circuit designed to improve the oxygenation of patients with COVID-19, company officials said. The number of parts produced is scaling quickly as requests continue for additional supplies in countries around the world, the company said.
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Digital health investments were off to a record start. How will COVID-19 change things?
Apr 6, 2020 3:55pm
Digital health venture funding was on a tear in early 2020, with a record $3.1 billion invested during the first quarter.
In the first three months of this year, digital health companies raised more than $3 billion across 107 deals—more than 1.5 times the total funding in Q1 of any previous year, according to a report from venture capital firm Rock Health.
Q1 2020 was the second-largest quarter in terms of total funding, and 57% greater than the average quarterly funding across 2018-2019. This caps off the largest ever twelve-month funding period for digital health, with $9.3 billion invested across Q2 2019-Q1 2020.
The average deal size spiked in Q1 2020 at $29 million—compared to $19.5 million in 2019 and $21.5 million in 2018. And, six “mega deals”—funding rounds of $100 million or more—accounted for 33% of total digital health funding in Q1, Rock Health said. Those deals included Alto Pharmacy, Verana Health, and Tempus.
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Google and USCF collaborate on machine learning tool to help prevent harmful prescription errors
Machine learning experts working at Google Health have published a new study in tandem with the University of California San Francisco’s (UCSF) computational health sciences department that describes a machine learning model the researchers built that can anticipate normal physician drug prescribing patterns, using a patient’s electronic health records (EHR) as input. That’s useful because around 2% of patients who end up hospitalized are affected by preventable mistakes in medication prescriptions, some instances of which can even lead to death.
The researchers describe the system as working in a similar manner to automated, machine learning-based fraud detection tools that are commonly used by credit card companies to alert customers of possible fraudulent transactions: They essentially build a baseline of what’s normal consumer behavior based on past transactions, and then alert your bank’s fraud department or freeze access when they detect a behavior that is not in line with an individual’s baseline behavior.
Similarly, the model trained by Google and UCSF worked by identifying any prescriptions that “looked abnormal for the patient and their current situation.” That’s a much more challenging proposition in the case of prescription drugs versus consumer activity — because courses of medication, their interactions with one another and the specific needs, sensitivities and conditions of any given patient all present an incredibly complex web to untangle.
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Apr 3, 2020 - Technology
Exclusive: Americans wary of giving up data to fight coronavirus
Most Americans don't want app makers or the government to scrape their data to combat the coronavirus pandemic, a new survey finds, in the face of public- and private-sector efforts to do just that.
Why it matters: Efforts to fight the pandemic are putting new pressure on privacy protections, particularly around health information, but this study's results shared with Axios suggest the U.S. public isn't ready to give them up.
By the numbers: Some 54% of Americans surveyed from March 21–27 by research firm Oliver Wyman Forum said they'd be comfortable sharing health status data, such as whether they'd recently visited a doctor, in the interest of monitoring public health.
- But that was the only type of data that a majority of those polled said they'd be OK sharing. Roughly a third of respondents said they'd accept the gathering of data on airline travel patterns or of publicly available biometric data, such as mass temperature scanning across groups of people.
- Even fewer wanted their wireless location data tracked, either on an individual basis or in aggregate, to assess social distancing practices and possible coronavirus transmissions.
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Broadband engineers threatened due to 5G coronavirus conspiracies
EE suspects telephone mast engulfed by fire in Birmingham was an arson attack as celebrities claim Covid-19 caused by new network
Jim Waterson, Media editor
Sat 4 Apr 2020 05.27 AEDT Last modified on Sat 4 Apr 2020 06.16 AEDT
Telecoms engineers are facing verbal and physical threats during the lockdown, as baseless conspiracy theories linking coronavirus to the roll-out of 5G technology spread by celebrities such as Amanda Holden prompt members of the public to abuse those maintaining vital mobile phone and broadband networks.
Facebook has removed one anti-5G group in which users were being encouraged to supply footage of them destroying mobile phone equipment, with some contributors seemingly under the pretence that it may stop the spread of coronavirus and some running leaderboards of where equipment had been targeted.
Video footage of a 70ft (20 metre) telephone mast on fire in Birmingham this week has also circulated widely alongside claims it was targeted by anti-5G protesters. Network operator EE told the Guardian that its engineers were still on site assessing the cause of the fire but it “looks likely at this time” that it was an arson attack.
The company said it would be working with the police to find the culprits. It said: “To deliberately take away mobile connectivity at a time when people need it more than ever to stay connected to each other, is a reckless, harmful and dangerous thing to do. We will try to restore full coverage as quickly as possible, but the damage caused by the fire is significant.”
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Pew Urges HHS to Implement Interoperability Rules Amid COVID-19
Pew Charitable Trusts is lending yet another voice stating the implementation of the ONC interoperability rule could help mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
April 06, 2020 - Pew Charitable Trusts have penned a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar urging immediate implementation of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information’s (ONC) interoperability rule as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ONC interoperability rule addresses information blocking and promotes use of third-party apps and application programming interfaces (APIs) for patient data access. This lines directly with Pew’s health IT initiative, which focuses on enhancing patient data interoperability and EHR safety.
“With the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, we are seeing historic shifts in the way healthcare is delivered—with more patients and providers relying on telemedicine to meet healthcare needs,” wrote Ben Moscovitch, project director of Health Information Technology at Pew. “The new regulations to promote data sharing play an essential role in ensuring continuity of care for patients and should be implemented without delay.”
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Could wearables like Apple Watch, Fitbit fitness trackers help detect coronavirus?
Mike Feibus
Special for USA TODAY
April 3, 2020.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Personal electronics makers like Apple, Fitbit and Samsung build fitness trackers, smartwatches and other wearables to help keep us healthy by monitoring our activity. Increasingly, they’re also being used to identify and monitor the sick.
And now, as those stricken with COVID-19 overwhelm the nation’s health care system, the scarcity of test kits confounds hospitals’ ability to quantify the onslaught and make critical decisions for where to deploy doctors, nurses, respirators and other scarce care resources.
To fill the void, hospitals are grasping for creative new ways to ease the burden, like incorporating wearables into their coronavirus efforts. Specifically, they plan to use them to:
· Track the progress of the pandemic as it spreads across the country
· Identify doctors, nurses and other clinicians who have contracted the disease as quickly as possible, and
· Monitor coronavirus patients to make better decisions about who should be hospitalized – and when.
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Vendors debut AI X-ray system for COVID-19, give it away for free
Thirona and Delft Imaging have unveiled CAD4COVID, a tool to help triage COVID-19 cases and indicate the affected lung tissue.
By Bill Siwicki
April 06, 2020 10:04 AM
Technology vendors Thirona and Delft Imaging have launched CAD4COVID. This new artificial-intelligence tool analyzes X-ray images and is intended to support healthcare specialists managing COVID-19 cases. The companies have made the tool available free of charge in support of the crisis.
Thirona and Delft Imaging are partnering with several hospitals and academic medical institutions worldwide to validate CAD4COVID.
WHY IT MATTERS
Delft Imaging specializes in tuberculosis screening, and, with its existing CAD4TB system, which uses artificial intelligence to screen for TB, more than six million people have been screened in more than 40 countries.
Together with its sister company and AI-specialist Thirona, Delft Imaging developed a tool to help triage COVID-19 cases and indicate the affected lung tissue. CAD4COVID builds on the technical core of the CAD4TB software, developed and distributed by Thirona and Delft Imaging, respectively.
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Kaiser Permanente, Livongo expand access to myStrength mental health app
The app includes COVID-19-specific modules that can help individuals manage heightened stress, and offers ideas to manage social isolation.
By Nathan Eddy
April 06, 2020 12:24 PM
Healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente and digital health specialist Livongo have teamed up to offer Livongo’s myStrength behavioral health app to Kaiser Members.
The partnership allows Kaiser's members to have 24/7 access to the app through their mobile devices or their computer, which includes myStrength’s selection of digital behavioral health tools to combat stress and bolster mental health.
These include COVID-19-specific modules that can help individuals manage heightened stress and ideas to manage social isolation, a thing that can contribute markedly to a deterioration in health.
The app also provides tips for parenting during challenging times, alongside additional information aimed at supporting personal mental health and emotional well-being.
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VA hits pause on Cerner EHR rollout amid coronavirus crisis
While work at Mann-Grandstaff is 99% complete, right now the department's priority is the "care of veterans and providing surge capabilities for civilian health care systems."
By Mike Miliard
April 06, 2020 01:43 PM
In a letter sent to Sen. John Boozman, R-Arkansas, chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies, U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert L. Wilkie said the COVID-19 pandemic "has shifted the overall priorities" of the VA – and that the department would delay its ongoing EHR modernization as a result.
"Our priority is the care of veterans and providing surge capabilities for civilian health care systems," said Wilkie. "With VA medical centers reallocating staff to manage Veteran patients with COVID-19, I directed the Office of Electronic Health Record Modernization (OEHRM) to immediately shift to a non-intrusive posture with VA health care operations to allow our frontline clinicians to focus on Veteran care."
He emphasized that the VA is still committed to rolling out a modernized EHR system and is working closely with Cerner, the Department of Defense, the Federal Electronic Health Record Modernization Office and other stakeholders to chart an eventual path forward.
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More Hospitals Achieving Interoperability Goals
April 6, 2020
New research from the ONC has found that a meaningful percentage of hospitals are engaged in data sharing, with a growing number making patient health information available from outside sources. Though the data goes back a couple of years, it’s still a worthwhile look at where data sharing trends are among hospitals. It will also be interesting to see how this data changes post-COVID-19.
According to the report, which looked at hospital interoperability in 2018, almost half of hospitals participated in all four domains of interoperability, e.g. sending, receiving, finding and integrating data. On average, researchers found that hospitals used roughly three different electronic methods to electronically exchange summary of care records with outside providers.
Meanwhile, the percentage of hospitals that received and searched for or queried summary of care records grew in 2018, and the percent of hospitals with the capacity to integrate data into their EHR grew by 17% between 2017 and 2018.
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How the Coronavirus Could Push Health IT to EHR Interoperability
Three health tech and economy experts said the coronavirus pandemic will force EHR vendors to work with one another and deploy the FHIR APIs.
April 02, 2020 - The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology’s (ONC) interoperability rule was finalized in early March, right before the massive spread of the coronavirus pandemic. However, the spread of that virus has put the importance of EHR interoperability under a microscope, health technology experts wrote in a recent post for the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy.
On March 17, the Trump Administration announced the expansion of telehealth solutions in an attempt to lessen the impact of COVID-19, also loosening restrictions on health data exchange across providers.
But, the lack of interoperability between separate EHR vendors makes it difficult to exchange important patient data. If providers cannot access patient data immediately, there could be deadly consequences.
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Weekly News Recap
- HHS and CMS issue a long list of waivers and rules that relax limitations on telehealth billing, off-premise hospital services, PA/NP/CRNA supervision, COVID-19 testing, and sharing of patient information by business associates.
- Microsoft warns hospitals about VPN vulnerabilities that may attract ransomware hackers.
- FCC allocates $200 million to help providers buy telehealth equipment and services.
- CereCore lays off employees as its parent, HCA Healthcare, implements COVID-related expense cuts.
- The Department of Defense pauses its MHS Genesis Cerner implementation to focus on COVID-19.
- HHS asks hospitals to share COVID-19 testing data and to send bed capacity and supply inventory information to CDC via emailed worksheets.
- Apple develops a COVID-19 screening website and app in partnership with the federal government.
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Enjoy!
David.
