The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has announced the winners of the Use of Blockchain in Health IT and Health-related Research Challenge. […]

CommonWell Health Alliance announced that members will be giving patients access to their health data for the first time via the CommonWell network, a not-for-profit trade association of health IT companies working together to create universal access to health data nationwide. […]

The Medical Group Management Association 2016 Cost and Revenue Report, released in August 2016, found that IT costs have increased by more than 40 percent per physician since 2009. […]

The National Institutes of Health announced the winners of the Design by Biomedical Undergraduate Teams Challenge, which included designs for smart pills and disposable sepsis detection chips. […]

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology released its 2017 draft of the Interoperability Standards Advisory for public comment. […]

As the Precision Medicine Initiative continues its work to revolutionize how to improve health and treat disease, Cloudera has announced it will be donating its technologies to researchers and has pledged to train 1,000 of them in the latest big data technologies and data science techniques. […]

Due to a lack of adequate resources, many health care providers are falling far behind in their cybersecurity practices, according to data in the 2016 HIMSS Cybersecurity Survey. […]

The medical device industry’s role in health care is changing, says a new report called “Beyond the device: From producer to problem solver,” produced by PwC. Seven in 10 of the largest medical device companies have reorganized to broaden the services they offer health care customers. […]

Cybercriminals have become more sophisticated–going beyond mere ransomware to destruction of files, database internals, and complete systems, according to a July 2016 white paper published by EMC. That’s why EMC officials recommend a new type of security called a layered data protection strategy. […]

Federal agencies are putting increasing amounts of time and resources into providing telemedicine for American veterans. […]

The Health Information Trust Alliance and Children’s Health, the leading pediatric health care system in North Texas, have partnered to launch HITRUST CyberAid–a cyber solution for smaller health care organizations. […]

Advocate Health Care Network, the largest fully integrated health care system in Illinois, has agreed to pay $5.55 million for multiple HIPAA violations–the largest settlement against a single entity to date. […]

Researchers in the Project MinE global gene sequencing effort have identified a new, critical ALS gene, thanks to funding provided by the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge donations. […]

Since 2003, the Office for Civil Rights has settled HIPAA violations to the tune of $36 million, with the two most recent settlements coming from Oregon Health & Science University and the University of Mississippi Medical Center. […]

The Federal Communications Commission released its broadband health mapping tool, Connect2Health (C2H), which shows areas of the United States that lack broadband connectivity and health care resources. “It becomes a powerful storyteller,” said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. “It becomes a story of what is possible and what is needed.” […]

Both the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and the Department of Health and Human Services have spent time and dollars this July on the future of electronic health information. […]

The American Telemedicine Association’s 2016 report card on state telemental telehealth policies was released earlier this month, and gave eight states an A, but only one state, Colorado, an F. The report identified existing policy barriers that impede telemental health and patient access to quality health care services. […]

APIs, known as application program interfaces, and their use with apps might just hold the key to achieving interoperability between electronic health records, or so the Federal government is hoping. […]

Telehealth, the delivery of health care services while the patient is at one site, and the licensed health provider is at another site, is here. But what does the future hold in terms of cost, coverage, consumer demands, and legislation? MeriTalk takes an in-depth look at those challenges, and talks with industry leaders. […]

MeriTalk sits down with Jim Custer, the director of product development in the health care division of Yorktel, for a Q&A on the techie side of telemedicine. […]

Health care wearables are gradually becoming an integral component of patient care, with an influence on remote patient monitoring, wellness program development, treatment of chronic disease, and more. […]

Telehealth is not just a novel idea or futuristic concept. It’s rapidly becoming what consumers want and what providers need. But is telehealth everything people hope it will be? […]

The Department of Health and Human Services announced two cooperative agreement funding opportunities for an Information Sharing and Analysis Organization for the health care and public health sector. The goal of the ISAO is to use information sharing as a means to strengthen response to health-related cyber threats. […]

The Democratic National Convention, which meets in Philadelphia this week to nominate the party’s presidential candidate, released its party platform that deals with technology issues including broadband, open Internet, privacy, education, and cybersecurity. […]

The Republican Party platform, released during the convention in Cleveland that chose Donald Trump as the nominee, explains the party’s views on technology including broadband expansion, net neutrality, cybersecurity, education, and health care. […]

The Obama administration this month announced a series of new investments, partnerships, and policies to further the Precision Medicine Initiative, including $55 million in awards from the National Institutes of Health. […]

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights recently released new Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act guidance on ransomware. […]

The White House released its $400 million Advanced Wireless Research Initiative, led by the National Science Foundation, to enable the use of four city-scale testing platforms for advanced wireless research. […]

Lillian Ingster, director of the National Death Index (NDI), has access to the entire universe of death data in the United States since 1979. Ingster shares her experience managing this data with her Federal peers as often as she can. […]

The potential harmfulness of mobile health care apps was one of the chief concerns raised at the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Disrupter Series Hearing on Health Care Apps. […]