International health IT week in review: August 19

Pulse+IT's weekly round-up of international health IT news for the week ending August 19: Welsh child health record, Epic opens up, NHS Digital restructure, FHIR-enabled apps, tech companies target health, app for PROMs, early warning system for aged care, DeepMind eyes off AI
Integrated child health system goes live in Wales
Digital Health News ~ Hannah Crouch ~ 16/08/2018
Developed by NHS Wales Informatics Service, the system ensures that every child in Wales has an active care record.
Epic plans event for ‘non-users’ on info exchange capabilities
Health Data Management ~ Joseph Goedert ~ 15/08/2018
Epic Systems is inviting provider organizations that don't use its information systems to its headquarters to learn how to exchange information with Epic users.
Redundancies loom over major restructure at NHS Digital
Digital Health News ~ Owen Hughes ~ 16/08/2018
Hundreds of staff at NHS Digital will be forced to re-train or face the axe as the organisation moves to upskill its workforce via a major restructure.
Geisinger, Merck co-launch new FHIR-enabled patient apps
Healthcare IT News ~ Mike Miliard ~ 15/08/2018
The apps will leverage SMART on FHIR to bring patient communication and medication reconciliation data into EHR workflows.
Study: many US hospitals won’t reach HIMSS Stage 7 until 2035
Healthcare Informatics ~ Rajiv Leventhal ~ 14/08/2018
Unless the healthcare IT ecosystem experiences major policy changes or leaps in technological capabilities, many hospitals will not reach Stage 7 of HIMSS Analytics’ Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) until 2035, according to new research.
Tech industry giants vow support for healthcare interoperability
Health Data Management ~ Greg Slabodkin ~ 14/08/2018
Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Salesforce have pledged to work to advance open standards to enable healthcare interoperability.
AHRQ issues app challenge for patient-reported outcomes data
Health Data Management ~ Greg Slabodkin ~ 14/08/2018
AHRQ’s challenge requires participants to draft technical specifications using HL7’s Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standard to develop the apps.
The FDA has cleared its first digital birth control app
Gizmodo ~ Ed Cara ~ 13/08/2018
The app, called Natural Cycles, is the first medical device of its kind to be cleared by the FDA, but hasn’t come without its share of controversy in other countries where it has already received clearance.
Digital ‘early warning system’ trialled at Sheffield care homes
Digital Health News ~ Owen Hughes ~ 14/08/2018
Care homes in Sheffield are piloting an ‘early warning system’ for residents to preemptively catch health problems and reduce hospital admissions.
Google’s DeepMind to create AI product to spot eye disease
Health Data Management ~ Staff writer ~ 13/08/2018
DeepMind plans to develop a product that will help doctors detect more than 50 sight-threatening conditions from a common eye scan.
Posted in Australian eHealth