You don’t have to be a news junkie or political aficionado to know that state unemployment information systems massively failed during the COVID-19 pandemic at a time when they were most desperately needed.
Overwhelmed by a rush of newly laid-off workers, websites crashed and timed out while phone lines were tied up for hours, leading to frustration and delays in benefits payments – harming local economies and imperiling American families.
In Ohio, unemployment overpayments reached
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HHS
HHS Establishes $80M Public Health IT Workforce Program
What You Should Know:
- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) today announced the establishment of an $80M Public Health Informatics & Technology Workforce Development Program (PHIT Workforce Program) to strengthen U.S. public health informatics and data science.
- The PHIT Workforce Program aims to train more than 4,000 individuals over a four-year period through an interdisciplinary approach
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HHS Launches VC Partnership to Develop Solutions to Prevent Future Pandemics, Public Health Emergencies
What You Should Know:
- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launches a new $50M venture capital partnership with nonprofit organization Global Health Investment Corporation (GHIC) to accelerate development and commercialization of technologies and medical products needed to respond to or prevent public health emergencies, such as pandemics, and other health security threats
- Through the BARDA Ventures program, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development
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Q1 2021 Health IT/Digital Health PC/VE, M&A, IPOs/ SPACs Activity
The first quarter of 2021 has been one of investor optimism as the vaccine rollout continues ahead of expectations and economic activity begins to accelerate in response. Within the Health IT industry, the already strong investment and M&A trends seen in 2020 have only accelerated. Over the course of the quarter, we observed $7 billion in private equity and venture capital investment across 158 companies.
By comparison, Q1 of 2020 saw $3.2 billion and 127 investments. Health IT
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Biden Announces Deal With Merck, Johnson & Johnson to Boost COVID-19 Vaccine Production
What You Should Know:
- President Biden’s administration today announced a historic manufacturing deal between Merck and Johnson & Johnson (J&J), to expand production of J&J’s COVID-19 vaccine. The collaboration will increase manufacture of vaccine drug substance, as well as its fill-finish capacity – two of the biggest bottlenecks facing J&J in the production of its vaccine.
- In addition, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will collaborate with Merck
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Onyx, AMA Innovations Form Collaboration to Build FHIR-Based Messaging
What You Should Know:
- Onyx and AMA Innovations partner to rethink ways FHIR-based messaging technology can improve links between healthcare and community-based organizations.
- As part of the collaboration, both organizations will jointly
target grant opportunities through HHS’ Administration for Community Living’s
Social Care Referrals Challenge Program.
Onyx Technology LLC and AMA Innovations Inc., a technology development subsidiary of the American Medical Association, today
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To Beat COVID-19, We Need A Modern Approach to Public Health Data
The COVID-19 pandemic, which has taken 270,000 American lives to date, has shined a light on another crisis — the U.S. currently has no standardized system for reporting public health data. Health departments all over the country resort to using paper, fax, phone, and email to transmit and receive critical information, and essential healthcare workers are spending precious time retyping data into systems from printed reports and PDFs.
At the heart of this lack of a centralized infrastructure
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HHS Awards $20M in Funds to Increase Data Sharing Between HIEs & Immunization Registries
What You Should Know:
- The ONC today unveiled a series of investments to improve
the sharing of health information related to vaccination.
- The new investments will provide opportunities to track
vaccination progress, help clinicians contact high-risk patients, and help
identify patients due to receive the second dose of the vaccine.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
acting through the Office of the National
Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) today
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Meaningful Use of Genomics Requires Informatics Beyond EMRs
Electronic medical records (EMRs) are widely expected to serve as a cornerstone technology that drives the delivery of modern patient care.
But can the EMR alone support all the informatics capabilities required by an ever-evolving healthcare industry? The rapid growth of precision medicine, particularly the use of genetic and genomic information during clinical decision making, is a compelling example that functionality beyond the EMR is required. Not only does genomic data represent a
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Billions in Federal Provider Relief Funds Have Been Distributed. Now Come Auditing and Compliance.
Of the $175 billion in federal Provider Relief Funds (PRF) allocated to healthcare providers, $125 billion has been accepted by hospitals and healthcare providers. The cash infusion was designed to cover costs related to COVID-19 related care. These targeted payments were earmarked for preventing, preparing for, and responding to the Coronavirus, solely for reimbursement of healthcare-related expenses or lost revenue directly attributable to COVID-19.
Early on, providers who received PRF
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