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More than 90 percent of non-federal acute care hospitals are using 2015 edition certified technology or plan to be soon, says National Coordinator Don Rucker, MD.

The new tier, known as Nursery, comes as the EHR vendor has also reduced pricing for its more expensive tiers by 33-80 percent.

Big Blue said it hopes to disrupt the cloud market and become one of the largest hybrid cloud providers.

From decision support optimization to EHR performance improvement, the Boston health system puts its data to work in new and interesting ways.

How can European citizens be given union-wide, secure access to their health data? And how can Member States collaborate on the secure and authorised access to national genome databases? At the recent European Data Summit in Berlin, organised by the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation, a breakfast session supported by HIMSS Europe saw experts tackle these issues, with Marco Marsella, Head of the eHealth, Well-Being, and Ageing Unit from the European Commission, presenting their plans to support Member States in enabling cross-border health data exchange and facilitating the secondary use of patient data for research purposes in the field of genomics. Marsella said there was no need for new standards, arguing that the focus now had to shift to adopting existing standards to facilitate cross border eHealth. The European Commission already supports a variety of initiatives in these areas, including the European Reference Networks for Rare Diseases or pilot projects to exchange patient summaries and e-prescriptions across national borders. “Most of the EU Member States and governments seem to be willing to support these initiatives; but some are more successful than others to promote health information exchange across the care continuum and to enable their citizens to access their health records”, said Jörg Studzinski, Director Research and Advisory Services at HIMSS Analytics, who participated in the meeting. “It will be important to create more agile, effective and efficient governing structures and legal frameworks to provide the necessary push in this area – in particular within Germany." Germany aims for national EHRs by 2021 Niklas Kramer, from the German Federal Ministry of Health, admitted that Germany has not been very successful in digitising its health services. The current government, however, has outlined an eHealth strategy aimed at adopting the country’s Health Telematics Infrastructure for information exchange and introducing nationwide electronic health records by 2021. But the complexity of the project, looking at the accessibility, sharing, and use of health data, was highlighted by the panel. The German research community, for instance, is getting increasingly frustrated over the legislative barriers regarding the use of big data, at a time their peers in other countries are making significant scientific progress in this field. “eHealth policy should be key part of the eGovernment modernization efforts and Germany should follow the Estonian and Nordic approach when it comes to free flow of data, research and health treatment. As for the European Genomics Declaration, it would be great to see Germany joining forces with other Member States to link genomic databases across borders”, said Dr Pencho Kuzev, Data and Digital Policy Coordinator at the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation. “There is a clear commitment and guidance from the European Commission to facilitate a multi-stakeholder approach to make cross border healthcare a reality and overcome the current technical gaps and challenges when it comes to exchanging data”, added Anett Molnar, Senior Manager, Public Policy and Engagement at HIMSS Europe. “HIMSS and HIMSS Analytics are prepared to support the European Commission and Member States through opinion exchange, workshops and research initiatives and jointly further the mission to transform healthcare through the use of information and technology.”

At the Mental Health Awareness Singapore Learning Series “Healthy Mind , Better Life” Seminar organised by charity group Brahm Centre held on 25th October, Dr. Amy Khor, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Health, announced the launch of the Dementia Friends mobile app. The app allows users to easily access information about dementia, receive updates on upcoming events on caregiving, and most importantly, use it to search for loved ones who have lost their way home. Since its soft launch, more than 1,500 mobile users have downloaded the app and signed up as Dementia Friends. The mobile app is co-developed by the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC), Nanyang Polytechnic and IHiS (Integrated Health Information Systems), which is the national technology agency for healthcare in Singapore. “Caregivers can activate this network of Dementia Friends in times of crisis, as the community of Dementia friends can help to keep a lookout for loved ones once they get a notification from the app,” said Dr. Khor. She also said that to date, six Dementia-Friendly Communities (DFC) have been formed. DFCs are support networks that help seniors with dementia live and age well, as well as provide much needed support to caregivers. Under the DFC initiative, residents, grassroots leaders, business owners and frontline government agencies are trained to help persons with dementia and their families. The six DFCs are at Yishun, Hong Kah North, MacPherson, Queenstown, Fengshan and Bedok. The Dementia Friends mobile app is available for download on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. In August, the National Institute on Aging in the US awarded a US$4.5 million grant to the University of California Berkeley and People Power, an IoT software provider, to support research on smart home solutions for caregivers of dementia patients. People Power is creating customised systems through behavioral research on targeting everyday stressors for caregivers and dementia patients. The new technology gives caregivers proactive alerts that identify abnormal qualities in patient activities.

In 1995, the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) Medical Corps introduced a large scale Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system, the first of its kind in Singapore. In less than a decade, the improved second generation of the EMR was implemented and most recently, the latest generation of its EMR system was rolled out in April 2016. In an interview with Healthcare IT News Asia Pacific, RADM (Dr) Tang Kong Choong, Chief of the SAF Medical Corps, gave an update on the recent developments at the organisation as well as some of the lessons learnt behind the implementation of the third generation EMR system. Could you share with us briefly about your role as Chief of Medical Corps (CMC)? How has it been thus far since your appointment in May 2015? As the Chief of the SAF Medical Corps (CMC), I am overall responsible for the provision of quality healthcare services to all SAF servicemen and women and robust medical support to enable the SAF to conduct safe and realistic training. Since assuming the appointment of CMC in May 2015, I have had the privilege of setting the vision and driving the implementation of projects and initiatives to improve the quality of care and medical support provided to our servicemen and women. In April 2016, the 3rd generation of the SAF’s Electronic Medical Records System, known as the PAtient Care Enhancement System 3 or PACES 3, was rolled out. PACES 3 is an entirely new EMR system that connects seamlessly with Singapore’s National Electronic Health Records (NEHR) system. PACES 3 contains clinical decision support features and enhances patient safety by allowing the SAF to share allergy information and other key medical information with Singapore’s healthcare providers through the NEHR. Its user-friendly mobile eHealth portal has allowed our soldiers to conveniently book their own medical review appointments, retrieve information about their health visits and investigations, and enabled greater health ownership amongst our soldiers. In 2017, the SAF Medical Corps reviewed the SAF’s approach to the promotion of health. We collaborated with external partners such as the Health Promotion Board on useful national-level health initiatives such as the National Steps Challenge (Corporate) and introduction of healthier dietary choices for the SAF. The SAF Medical Corps also hosted the 3rd Asia Pacific Military Health Exchange, which saw more than 500 participants from the military medical services of Asia-Pacific nations gather in Singapore to share and learn from one another in the field of military medicine. We also enhanced our cooperation with the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), with the SAF Medical Corps embarking on a pilot partnership with the SCDF; 12 SAF medics were deployed to work alongside SCDF personnel on their ambulances for three months from October to December 2017. The SAF’s new Electronic Medical Records (EMR) System – PAtient Care Enhancement System (PACES) 3 was launched in April 2016 and was the winner of the “Digitalised Care to Support One Healthcare System” category at the National Health IT Excellence Awards 2017. Unlike its predecessors which was hosted internally on the SAF intranet, PACES 3 is now also connected to national healthcare systems such as the National Electronic Health Record (NEHR) and Critical Medical Information System (CMIS). What were some the considerations and challenges behind implementing an EMR that could easily integrate with other health systems/infrastructures? The key impetus for hosting PACES 3 on an Internet-facing platform was to integrate our medical care records with that of the national healthcare system. Introduced in 1995, PACES was upgraded to PACES 2 in 2005 to have networked capabilities over a secured intranet system. The Ministry of Health’s articulation of the national vision of “One Patient, One Record” and the introduction of the National Electronic Health Record (NEHR) in 2011 was a strong impetus for us to develop PACES 3 onto an Internet-facing platform that is integrated with the national healthcare system. This provided a seamless and safe transition of medical care between healthcare providers. The choice of the health IT solution and the partner agencies was a key consideration in the SAF’s EMR System. After an open tender and robust evaluation process, the SAF Medical Corps awarded the contract jointly to Allscripts and National Computer Systems (NCS). Prior to this partnership with the SAF, Allscripts had partnered Singhealth for their electronic medical records system and had a strong presence in Singapore, while NCS had worked with the SAF Medical Corps for both earlier versions of PACES. With PACES 3 on an Internet-facing platform, we had to ensure the security of the medical data. To address this challenge, the project team built in multiple layers of protection and defences to ensure the robustness of the system against cyber threats. A second challenge was the migration of 20 years’ worth of electronic medical records stored over the lifespan of PACES and PACES 2, to PACES 3. The project team worked closely with our vendors to ensure the fidelity of data transfer as this was important in patient care and safety. Looking to the future, even as PACES 3 was rolled out in April 2016, it is necessary to start thinking about PACES 4 and the next generation of EMR systems for the SAF. I am cognisant that PACES 3 will need to be upgraded or refreshed to meet the health needs of the SAF in the next decade. The SAF Medical Corps will keep abreast of the developments in medical IT through participation in relevant medical IT events and conferences, development of our people in medical IT literacy, and also putting in place a system of continual review and improvements. Are there any collaborations /projects between SAF and other medical organisations with regards to health IT? The SAF Medical Corps is currently in dialogue with the Singapore Ministry of Health to better understand the development and implementation of Smart Healthcare initiatives for Singapore. We want to ensure that the SAF’s future developments in medical IT continue to be aligned with the nation’s push towards Smart Healthcare. RADM (Dr) Tang Kong Choong is a speaker at the inaugural International Military Health IT (IMHIT) track at HIMSS AsiaPac 18 in Brisbane this November.

The health system has used evidence-based best practices in clinical decision support tools to reduce non-emergent blood transfusions.

Veracode found that the healthcare and retail sectors are reducing risk the fastest among other industries, but 75 percent of employees struggle with identifying best practices.