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The vendor aims to transform healthcare interoperability with faster onboarding, easier maintenance, higher availability and lower costs, a company VP contends.

Ponemon Institute and Keyfactor say 60% of organizations aren't adequately maintaining their digital certificates and public key infrastructure.

The news comes as the death toll in mainland China is reported to have exceeded 1,000. 

Last week, Victoria-based Melbourne Pathology became the latest pathology provider to upload reports to My Health Record (MHR). This allows both patients and clinicians to have convenient and secure access to their pathology reports. Other Victorian labs sharing reports with consumers and clinicians in the MHR include Alfred Health, Monash Health and VCS Pathology. The full list of participating providers is available here.  THE LARGER TREND Last June, the Northern Territory (NT) Department of Health became the first pathology provider to link the online tests results it is sharing via MHR with Lab Tests Online, HealthcareITNews reported. In the same month, South Australia (SA) Pathology also connected to the MHR. Based on the latest statistics from the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) as of December 2019, there are 22.68 million MHRs, of which 12.99 million records have information in them. ON THE RECORD “Investigation results are one of the most common tools doctors use to evaluate your health. In the 2018-2019 financial year alone, Medicare funded over 147 million pathology tests,” said Professor Meredith Makeham, a GP and Chief Medical Adviser, ADHA in a statement.  “It’s easy to quickly lose track of your results, particularly if you don’t have a regular GP or when you are seeing a range of healthcare professionals to manage multiple conditions and tests. MHR allows you to keep your important test results safe in one place, which you and your healthcare providers can access at any time to make more informed decisions about your treatment or care.” Victorian-based general practitioner, Dr Nathan Pinskier, said: “When I need a patient to have a pathology test, I simply send an electronic request and the patient attends the lab with a paper copy. Since the lab already has the electronic request, there’s no human data entry, which greatly reduces the risk of patients receiving the wrong test. Once there’s a report, I receive a copy through my secure messaging software and my patient receives a copy in their MHR, where it can’t be lost and where future healthcare providers can review it to inform their own clinical decision-making.”

AI and blockchain also continue to feature in its new technologies, as the revenue cycle and data exchange company works to help modernize the claims process and digitize more transactions.

Better assessment of how often docs interact with their EHRs, at work and during "pajama time" – tracking documentation, prescriptions, inbox time and more, is a key step toward improving the physician experience says one AMA expert.

Overall immunization process time at the hospital has dropped from about 48 hours per month to 2.5 hours. And four steps have been cut from the process.

Update: HIMSS20 has been canceled due to the coronavirus. Read more here. Gauging a patient’s recovery status is tricky if you don’t know what they should be expected to recover to. Researchers are using data collected from patient-worn sensors, such as Apple Watch or Fitbit, to build a "digital twin" of baseline patient health information. A digital twin is essentially like creating a backup of a patient’s physical state before a procedure, so providers know what to look for a patient to work towards in recovery, said Dr. Mohamed Rehman, a professor and clinician at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, who will explain the concept in a session at HIMSS20 on March 11. Currently, data points such as steps, heart rate, and hours of sleep are used to monitor patients in a variety of settings, but Rehman said there are greater capabilities on the horizon. "Once we develop the digital twin, we can use it to improve the person," he explained. "You can use it as a metric for improvement." The ability to spot abnormalities and the health impacts they may portend is where Rehman sees the digital twin headed. For instance, if a 30 year old patient normally takes 12000 steps a day, and gers 8 hours of sleep a night and suddenly goes to 6000 steps, and five hours of sleep, something could be seriously wrong. A system that can track deviations from baseline can pick up issues much earlier, said Rehman. Real-time monitoring means the possibilities for new data sources are wide. Rehman says even using a metric like time spent on social media can be valuable. If a teenager usually spends three hours a day on social media and gradually drops to an hour to 30 minutes, it could be a harbinger of problems with their mental or physical health. The insights brought by a digital twin means that care can become more precise, targeted, and based on the most accurate and real-time personal data possible. Rehman notes that the current paradigm relies on a doctor asking a patient how they feel. Wider use of digital twins could change this. "When you go to the doctor, they’ll already have data off your digital twin," said Rehman – noting that wearable technology is ubiquitous and that many people are already capturing this data. Imagine if a doctor already had clues about a patient’s health before they even walked in the door. "Today you’re giving them subjective data," he said. "This will be objective data." Dr. Mohamed Rehman will discuss this emerging approach to personalized medicine during his HIMSS20 session, "Creating Digital Twins: Leveraging the IoMT." It's scheduled for Wednesday, March 11, from 2:30-3:30 p.m. in room W230A.