New research published in The Lancet (de Figueiredo et al. 2020) has found that, between 2015 and 2019, vaccine confidence remained low across Europe compared with other continents. Meanwhile, trust in the importance, effectiveness and safety of vaccines plummeted in Afghanistan, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines and South Korea during the same period.

“Confidence in the importance of vaccines (rather than in their safety or effectiveness) had the strongest univariate association with vaccine uptake compared with other determinants considered,” according to the study led by experts with the Vaccine Confidence Project (VCP).

Launched in 2010, the VCP provides a systematic approach of monitoring public confidence in immunisation programmes across the globe. The group continuously researches the causes and trends impacting vaccine confidence at national and global levels. Their findings help to inform policy and trust-building activities for improving immunisation programmes.

In this latest study, the VCP was able to estimate and map vaccine confidence for 149 countries from 2015 to 2019. The study used new and existing VCI surveys comprising nearly 300,000 individual responses from those countries. Bayesian tools enabled study authors to determine the link between vaccine uptake and socioeconomic and non-socioeconomic determinants (e.g. confidence in vaccine, trust in health system) in each country.

Apple has included for the first time in its Apple Watch Series 6 a blood oxygenation sensor. Here, HIMSS Media Editor in Chief Jonah Comstock takes the new health tracking feature for a spin.

Artificial intelligence algorithms are not only making our cars safer and shopping easier, but increasingly diagnose patients and help make the best decisions when caring for them.

When the novel coronavirus began its spread across the United States, it transformed healthcare in its entirety. That includes the health IT sector, where EHR vendors had to brainstorm and develop new EHR implementation ideas.

As a result, a number of remote, virtual EHR implementations launched, while another occurred at a pop-up hospital in the heart of New York City.

Meanwhile, in pre-pandemic days, wave of hospitals migrating away from certain revenue cycle products instigated large-scale EHR replacement projects. These stories represented some of the first transitions across EHR products wielding significant marketshare.

Although these are not all of the EHR implementations of 2020, these are some of the larger and most creative launches that’ll forever influence the industry. EHRIntelligence has listed these implementations in chronological order.

The pandemic has put stress on the healthcare industry in many ways, The pandemic has put stress on the healthcare industry in many ways, including those not often thought of – timely payment and high turnover. In this guest post, Jeanniey Walden, CIMO of a provider of earned income software, will explain how hospitals can quickly evolve their pay model to better support their work culture and reduce stress.

These new findings, based on a Johns Hopkins-led study (Murphy et al. 2020), highlight the need to rethink criteria by which EHR implementation is measured and incentivised. In addition, healthcare leaders should pay more attention to how the different features of EHR solutions may lead to differential outcomes.

Although increased use of computerised provider order entry (CPOE) for medications, for instance, was associated with improved patient satisfaction in some areas, researchers noticed that increased CPOE use for laboratory tests correlated with lower satisfaction in all areas.

This particular finding suggests that “studies of CPOE must look at these distinct order types rather than CPOE as a single entity,” the researchers point out. Note that CPOE for medication and laboratory orders is commonly unified by the EHR, however, “the workflows for each activity diverge almost immediately,” the researchers said, adding that more research is necessary to explain these contrasting associations.

Efficient distribution, dissipating stigma and an emphasis on decentralized trials are all working in favor of digital treatments, according to a panel of digital therapeutics executives and industry stakeholders. The increased adoption of virtual care technologies during the COVID-19 public health emergency is fairly well documented by this point, but a widespread embrace of health technologies is providing a similar upswell on individual niches within the digital health landscape.

One such group of beneficiaries are the companies working to develop, validate and distribute digital therapeutics. Speaking in a virtual panel at the DTx East 2020 web conference, digital therapeutics executives and other industry stakeholders reaffirmed the increased demand for efficient and scalable treatments as providers find their services stretched thin, and patients find themselves cut off from in-person care.

The startup will use the funding to help expand its platform of patient communication and digital care solutions. London-based startup DrDoctor has secured £3m in Series A investment from venture capital firms, Ananda Impact Ventures and 24Haymarket.

The funding will be used to expand its digital services platform and increase its reach across the United Kingdom.

The startup will also help partner trusts to break the backlog in care caused by COVID-19, including cancer care, which is now over 10 million appointments across the NHS.

Computer vision company Gauss teamed up with biotechnology company Cellex to develop a rapid, at-home and point-of-care COVID-19 antigen test.

While there are other at-home COVID-19 diagnostic tests available, at least two companies are working on rapid antigen tests that can be performed by people at home without involving a laboratory.

The Gauss and Cellex test has not yet gained Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. The companies are pushing for FDA Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) some time this fall.

Sona Nanotech, based in Halifax, Canada, is awaiting FDA approval for its rapid detection COVID-19 antigen test. The test utilizes a nasopharyngeal swab and provides a result in 15 minutes without the use of either laboratory equipment or a reader, according to the company.

There is a growing consensus among public health officials and business leaders that a widely-accessible rapid antigen testing solution is needed to decrease the public health threat from COVID-19 and mitigate the pandemic’s economic impact until a vaccine is widely available.

The error allowed a patient to access video recordings of another patient’s consultation. London-based digital firm Babylon Health has admitted that a data breach occurred that allowed a patient to access recordings of another patient’s consultation via the GP at Hand app.

The app, which has more than 2.3 million UK users, allows members to book medical appointments, access a triage chatbot and have consultations with NHS doctors via smartphone video call.

A Babylon spokesperson says the error occurred through a new feature that allows people who booked an audio-only consultation to switch to video part way through a call.

Cerner says the evolution of technology has helped it maintain and facilitate interoperability and patient data sharing over the last 40 years.

September 15, 2020 - From the early-eighties to now, interoperability, its definitions, and the scope of it has evolved tremendously. Whether it’s data integration or data interfacing, interoperability is all about data sharing.

Not only is interoperability the exchange of patient data, but at Cerner, it’s the process of making patient data accessible for health systems and ensuring the data is always relevant to patient care.

However, while Cerner consistently looks forward and adapts to various evolutions in technology, EHR vendors, throughout history, have faced several interoperability challenges.

“Getting to a common understanding of the data that needs to be exchanged and the increase in the number of stakeholders that we are able to connect to is a challenge,” Hans Buitendijk, director of interoperability strategy at Cerner, said in an interview with EHRIntelligence.

“The variety of provider perspectives and EHR perspectives on the data, how it’s expressed the level of standardization of the data, how you express conditions, diagnoses, procedures, and tests.”

Regulatory authorities such as the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicine Agency (EMA) are heavily regulating the medical landscape when it comes to artificial intelligence (A.I.)-based solutions. The FDA, in particular, took the lead, having issued a specific framework for A.I.-based algorithms.

However, even this leading authority, like other regulatory bodies, does not provide a comprehensive database of these tools that it has approved. One can expect such information to be readily available, especially for a prominent technology like A.I. But the very authorities regulating the landscape failed to provide it.

It’s a booming market and it’s not because of its hype. The number of life science studies published around A.I. rose from 596 in 2010 to 12,422 in 2019. Such smart algorithms promise to augment medical practice from eliminating alarm fatigue through improving prosthetics to managing a pandemic.

Moreover, according to forecasts, the global market size for A.I. in healthcare will soar past its $1 billion valuation in 2016 to $28 billion in 2025. This trend is not showing any signs of slowing down as we march steadily into the A.I. era of healthcare. As such, expectations are high within the medical community.

Getting up to speed with competitor Apple, Fitbit has gained medical device clearances in the U.S. and Europe for its smartwatch electrocardiogram app.

The wearables giant announced Monday its ECG app got a green light from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the EU’s CE mark. The regulatory approvals open up the capability for its ECG app to track users’ heart rhythms for signs of atrial fibrillation.

It follows in the footsteps of the Apple Watch receiving FDA clearance in 2018 for its ECG feature. Samsung got an FDA nod in August for its ECG monitoring app as part of the Galaxy Watch 3.

Amazon also recently jumped into the wearables space with its Amazon Halo fitness tracker. That device, which does not offer heart rhythm tracking, monitors activity and sleep trends and has tools to measure body fat and tone of voice as an indicator of overall well-being.

Google is in the process of acquiring Fitbit, which now has 30 million active users, for $2.1 billion. The deal still needs to be approved by regulators.

Fitbit unveiled the ECG app as a feature on its newest device, Fitbit Sense, which will be available in October.

Of 50 worldwide COVID-19 apps analyzed in Nature Medicine, only 16 promised to anonymize, encrypt and secure the data they collect. A large portion of COVID-19 apps available in the Google Play Store ask users for advanced access permissions, but very few indicate to users that collected data will be made anonymous and secured, according to an analysis of 50 such apps published recently in Nature Medicine.

The investigation – conducted by two researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Illinois Informatics Institute – reviewed a sample of apps hailing from dozens of different countries around the world. Twenty of these offerings were issued by governments, health ministries or other official sources.

The researchers classified nearly half as informational tools, roughly a third as tracking tools, 10% as assessment tools and 8% as scientific research apps. Common features across these apps included live maps and confirmed-case updates, alert systems, direct-to-government symptom reporting and COVID-19 education. More specialized functions included device-connected vitals monitoring, contact tracing and virtual consultations.

Theo Sergiou, a patient speaker and activist, says that although progress has been made in terms of empowering patients at an organizational level, there is room for improvement at an institutional level.

Elective but necessary surgeries were banned for a time. To properly catch up, Phoenix Children’s Hospital built a visually informative, interactive, actionable dashboard using Microsoft’s Power BI software.

This wide variety of infection control strategies and measures has been documented and analysed by an international team of researchers (Desvars-Larrive et al. 2020), resulting in the creation of a structured open dataset called the ‘Complexity Science Hub COVID-19 Control Strategies List’ (CCCSL).

Started in mid-March 2020, the CCCSL dataset aims to improve the current knowledge on country-based interventions implemented to mitigate the burden of COVID-19. Through this database project, governments, health authorities and researchers will be able to evaluate the effectiveness of various strategies and policies to contain the COVID-19 epidemic, e.g. the epidemic growth rate or the daily reproduction numbers.

CCCSL includes a specific hierarchical coding scheme for NPIs. These codes provide an easy way to visualise the dataset. Based on the review of mitigation strategies (NPIs), eight themes – called level 1 (L1) in the coding scheme – were identified and labelled by the research team: (i) Case identification, contact tracing and related measures; (ii) Environmental measures; (iii) Healthcare and public health capacity; (iv) Resource allocation; (v) Risk communication; (vi) Social distancing; (vii) Travel restriction; and (viii) Returning to normal life.

As it prepares to go public, telehealth company Amwell priced its stock late Tuesday between $14 and $16 per share.

The company aims to sell 35 million shares of its Class A common stock, which would bring in gross proceeds of $490 million to $560 million, according to its updated S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Amwell estimates the proceeds from the IPO will be approximately $488 million, or $538 million if the underwriters exercise their option to purchase additional shares of Class A common stock at $15 per share.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, as normal hospital workflows were disrupted, providers often struggled to get the critical patient information they needed.

This was particularly true in New York City, which was hard-hit by the pandemic in April and May, where a data-sharing platform proved to be a valuable tool for health systems including NYU Langone Health, Mount Sinai and Northwell Health.

Insurer Healthfirst operates a private health information exchange (HIE) with data points on its 1.4 million members in NYC and Long Island.

Inova Health System is among a dozen health systems affected by a ransomware attack at a third-party software vendor.

The Falls Church, Virginia-based health system is notifying more than 1 million patients and donors that their personal data may have been compromised by the cyber attack.

Blackbaud, a third-party service vendor used for fundraising and alumni or donor engagement efforts at non-profits and universities, said cyber attackers intermittently removed data from Blackbaud’s systems between February 7, 2020 and May 20, 2020.

We strongly believe that only digital health can bring healthcare into the 21st century and make patients the point-of-care.

We strongly believe that only digital health can bring healthcare into the 21st century and make patients the point-of-care.

Research published this week by Philips gives an insight into doctors’ experience of COVID-19 and how they believe the healthcare industry should change in response.

The Future Health Index (FHI) Insights: COVID-19 and Younger Healthcare Professionals survey supplements the main FHI 2020 global report, The Age of Opportunity.

It captures feedback from 500 doctors under the age of 40 in five countries: France, Germany, the US, China and Singapore.

The survey reveals that during COVID-19, younger doctors changed their attitudes towards the relative benefits of different health technologies.

Before the pandemic, 60% ranked artificial intelligence (AI) as the top digital health technology that would most improve their work satisfaction, with 39% identifying telehealth as the top technology. Now following the pandemic, 61% rank telehealth as the digital health technology that would have most improved their experiences at this time, with AI falling to 53%.

For many younger doctors, working through COVID-19 has shown what a more technologically forward-thinking workplace could look like, with 44% reporting the pandemic exposed them to new ways of using digital health technologies.

As the respiratory disease COVID-19 is caused by a new pathogen, SARS-CoV-2, there is so much uncertainty that makes the battle against the pandemic even more challenging. Experts continue with their research work to have a better understanding on COVID-19’s underlying physiology and its interactions with the body’s different system processes.

Hundreds of startups are trying to make it in a digital health market that is now flush with cash. But a breakthrough technology is not enough to succeed. Here are lessons that startup CEOs can learn from the digital health companies that have hit the mark and those that missed, industry experts say.