Government & Policy

The Patient Safety Strategy says new system will use AI to improve learning from care incidents.

The Western Australia initiative will leverage existing programs and locally based expertise, as well as deliver programs currently operating outside the state.

Mikko Vasama, general manager of Health Systems Nordics at Philips, says training, education and access to technology for patients are imperative, especially when working within a publicly funded healthcare system.

White's areas of focus at the agency included the Shared Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap, the recently proposed information blocking rules.

A new survey of over 2,220 people in England found support for collaborations resulting in access to the discoveries generated at less cost and improvements in the care provided.

The Department of Veterans Affairs and Verizon are teaming up to offer veterans who are customers of the telecommunications giant unlimited access to department's VA Video Connect telehealth app. WHY IT MATTERS The platform connects veterans with their health care team using encryption to ensure a secure and private session, and users can then participate in video appointments or engage with health professionals using the built-in chat feature. The partnership gives vets access across Verizon's nationwide 4G LTE network without incurring data charges. They can visit the VA Video Connect test site on their mobile device to test whether their device is compatible with the platform. Customers using devices running Apple's iOS software can download the app via Apple's App Store, and for all other users, a telehealth session launches automatically after a user selects an emailed session. The app is just one of several available from the VA, including an online scheduling application and an "Ask a Pharmacist" app, along with a variety of apps targeting mental health and wellness. THE LARGER TREND Telehealth is set for a major expansion in the U.S. This past month the Federal Communications Commission announced the agency would vote to advance a $100 million Connected Care Pilot Program, enabling telehealth expansion for low-income Americans nationwide, including veterans and others in medically underserved areas. The partnership with Verizon comes as the VA navigates a complex digital transformation, including the $16 billion implementation of the Cerner electronic health records system, which is slated to go live across care sites by 2028. However, the lack of interoperability between the Department of Defense and VA remains a major stumbling block, which the two entities hope will be smoothed through the creation of a special office, the Federal Electronic Health Record Modernization office, to help centralize decision-making. Further complicating matters was the first House VA Subcommittee on Technology Modernization hearing, held in September 2018, which revealed that officials and congressional members are not on the same page when it comes to governance and EHR interoperability. ON THE RECORD "VA's telehealth app for streaming live video sessions between patients and health care providers is another testament to our shared journey to fully integrated, seamless access to health care for our Veterans, no matter where they live," VA Secretary Robert Wilkie said in a statement. "Regardless of whether they live in city centers or rural areas, Veterans should be able to access the VA's telehealth resources," added Mike Maiorana, senior vice president of public sector for Verizon. Nathan Eddy is a healthcare and technology freelancer based in Berlin. Email the writer: nathaneddy@gmail.com Twitter: @dropdeaded209

Google, the University of Chicago Medical Center and University of Chicago are listed as defendants in a class action suit that alleges they failed to properly de-identify sensitive patient medical data. WHY IT MATTERS The complaint, filed by Matt Dinerstein in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District Of Illinois, claims UChicago "promised in its patient admission forms that it would not disclose patients' records to third parties, like Google, for commercial purposes." Instead, the university "did not notify its patients, let alone obtain their express consent, before turning over their confidential medical records to Google for its own commercial gain," the document states. The suit alleges that "Google and the university claimed the medical records were de-identified. But that’s incredibly misleading. The records the University provided Google included detailed datestamps and copious free-text notes." Google's expertise in data mining and artificial intelligence, Dinerstein charges, means it is "uniquely able to determine the identity of almost every medical record the university released." In addition to seeking monetary compensation, the suit calls for an injunction requiring the University of Chicago to comply with all HIPAA de-identification regulations, enjoining the organization from disclosing identifiable patient medical records to third parties without first obtaining consent. It also calls for an injunction prohibiting Google from using patient records obtained from U of C and an order requiring Google to delete all patient records received from the university. Since electronic health records contain patients' highly sensitive and detailed medical records, including records revealing not only a person's height, weight and vital signs, but whether they suffer from certain diseases or have undergone a medical procedure, the University's release of EHR data would be in violation of HIPAA, Dinerstein's suit alleges.. "The personal medical information obtained by Google is the most sensitive and intimate information in an individual's life, and its unauthorized disclosure is far more damaging to an individual's privacy," the lawsuit states. THE LARGER TREND The use of de-identified patient data has been common practice for years, but hasn't been without its scrutiny.  Back in 2010, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT launched a study on how to manage the privacy risks of using health information that had been stripped of personal identifiers. Even as researchers and technology developers noted that such de-identified data is a must-have for population health and other purposes, ONC said it was seeking a "consensus on what risk we can tolerate for identification and then what level of removal, what kinds of removal of information, are required to get to that level of risk," then National Coordinator Dr. David Blumenthal told Congress. More recently, de-identified data has become essential to the training and development of new artificial intelligence algorithms that are impacting every corner of healthcare, including AI technologies such as Google's DeepMind, which the class action suit names as one way the company could more easily "find connections between various data points" and compromise privacy, even with de-identified data. In 2017, Healthcare IT News reported on a DeepMind initiative, Verifiable Data Audit, that was exploring a blockchain-like service that "could give mathematical assurance about what is happening with each individual piece of personal data, without possibility of falsification or omission." The goal was to give providers and patients real-time insight into where and how data is being used. "For example, an organization holding health data can’t simply decide to start carrying out research on patient records being used to provide care, or repurpose a research dataset for some other unapproved use," according to DeepMind. ON THE RECORD "We believe our healthcare research could help save lives in the future, which is why we take privacy seriously and follow all relevant rules and regulations in our handling of health data," said Google in a statement responding to the lawsuit. "In particular, we take compliance with HIPAA seriously, including in the receipt and use of the limited data set provided by the University of Chicago." Nathan Eddy is a healthcare and technology freelancer based in Berlin. Email the writer: nathaneddy@gmail.com Twitter: @dropdeaded209

The agency warns that older MiniMed devices – which have been recalled by Medtronic – could be hacked and remotely controlled, adding to the list of cyber concerns for IoT devices.

The HIMSS EHR Association tells the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that the Promoting Interoperability Program needs consistency and specificity in its clinical requirements.

The White House wants "explainable" systems for healthcare, not black boxes, and wants research into new technologies that are "reliable, dependable, safe, and trustworthy."