This year’s HIMSS Conference offered some exciting insights and a renewed focus on data-sharing and interoperability. While the healthcare industry has been extolling the virtues of data interoperability for years until recently it has remained one of the biggest obstacles to providing quality healthcare today. Yet, the tides are turning. New government regulations, like the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ interoperability rules and the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources
Read More
ONC
Health Gorilla Raises $50M to Expand FHIR-Native Health Interoperability Platform
What You Should Know: - Health Gorilla raises $50 million in Series C funding to securely enable the exchange of actionable and aggregated clinical data. - The new investment will accelerate Health Gorilla's mission to connect everyone, everywhere, with actionable health data. Health Gorilla, a Sunnyvale, CA-based health interoperability platform, today announced it has raised $50M in Series C funding led by SignalFire with participation from Epsilon Health Investors, IA Capital, and
Read More
ONC Publishes the Trusted Exchange Framework and the Common Agreement
What You Should Know: - The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) and its Recognized Coordinating Entity (RCE), The Sequoia Project, published the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), creating the baseline legal and technical requirements that will enable secure, nationwide information sharing across different health care entities, completing a critical 21st Century Cures Act requirement. - The release of TEFCA today marks the beginning of the
Read More
What Will It Take for Hospitals to Survive the Pandemic?
On New Years Eve, just as the Covid-19 outbreak in Los Angeles was at its worst, all 451 of Olympia Medical Center’s exhausted employees learned they would soon lose their jobs. After 74 years, the hospital closed for good on March 31st, leaving residents of the surrounding community — poor and mostly people of color — without a place to see a doctor. And it isn’t the only hospital closing. At least 47 hospitals have closed or filed for bankruptcy in the last year, and there will
Read More
Mastercard, b.well Team Up on Digital Health Patient ID Verification for Interoperability
What You Should Know: - b.well Connected Health today announced a partnership with Mastercard to provide individuals a simpler and more secure way to prove their identity online and in-person when accessing healthcare services. - The partnership enables healthcare organizations to provide their members and patients with a biometric alternative to verify their identity in-person or virtually, replacing traditional processes involving physical documents such as a
Read More
Health Plans Must Go Beyond the ONC Mandate and Prioritize Member Experience
We are all frustrated when there’s a glitch with our online banking, or if bandwidth problems interfere with streaming the movie we want to watch. Imagine how individuals will react when the results of a cancer screening don’t find their way into Apple Health or Google Health, where such information is supposed to be easy to find. Or worse, if an individual is given the wrong information about a cancer diagnosis. An individual’s first call about missing health data or claims is going to
Read More
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
Read More
ONC Issues First Health IT Standards Bulletin Discussing USCDI & SVAP
What You Should Know: - The ONC released the first ONC Standards Bulletin, a new communication tool ONC will use to periodically update the healthcare industry about ONC health IT standards and policy initiatives. - Based on a HITAC recommendation, the Bulletin is part of the ONC’s ongoing efforts to communicate, coordinate, and promote the adoption and use of health IT standards to facilitate the access, exchange, and use of electronic health information. - The inaugural ONC
Read More
How to Capitalize on Digital Health Momentum in 2021
As we re-examine the healthcare system in the wake of the pandemic, we are continually identifying opportunities to rebuild parts of the system to new and improved specifications. One critical facet is digital health, where we continue to struggle with what should really be table stakes: the ability to integrate data from disparate organizations and systems into a unified view of the whole person and take action. During the height of the pandemic, telehealth made it possible to deliver care
Read More
CIO: 3 Rules for Meeting ONC/CMS Interoperability, While Improving Cybersecurity
Healthcare data security has been a growing concern for CIOs for the last year or so, as hackers are increasingly targeting health information. Now, with a global pandemic forcing a shift to telemedicine and remote work, and new rules from the ONC and CMS introducing more regulatory burden, healthcare CIOs have more to manage than ever. Fortunately, it is possible to roll out new capabilities while simultaneously improving cybersecurity by following these three rules: Rule 1: Think Like an
Read More
