International health IT week in review: October 18

Pulse+IT's weekly round-up of international health IT news for the week ending October 18: France told to drop US cloud for health data, India's digital health ID, NHS's Excelgate, healthcare consumerism platform, Microsoft Teams takes off, semantic interoperability, US telehealth reimbursement, scanner to ID patients, Cerner's interop tools, blockchain-powered Digital Health Pass
France’s Health Data Hub to move to European cloud infrastructure to avoid EU-US data transfers
TechCrunch ~ Romain Dillet ~ 13/10/2020
Those services should avoid using American cloud hosting companies altogether, such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud.
India hopes digital health ID can get economy moving again
Bloomberg ~ Vrishti Beniwal ~ 14/10/2020
A $23 million program offering a digital health ID to every citizen could bolster India’s economic growth amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to the head of the country’s health authority.
Dido Harding questioned on safety standards of using Microsoft Excel
Digital Health News ~ Andrea Downey ~ 15/10/2020
The head of NHS Test and Trace has been asked to explain the safety standards considered when using Microsoft Excel to hold vital Covid-19 test data.
Press Ganey acquires Doctor.com, secures majority stake in Binary Fountain
MobiHealthNews ~ Dave Muoio ~ 14/10/2020
By bringing together the three companies' respective online offerings, Press Ganey aims to play a dominant role in managing the information a consumer sees when searching online for information about a physician or health system.
Sequoia Project sets sights on semantic interoperability with new guidance effort
Healthcare IT News ~ Mike Miliard ~ 14/10/2020
Its new Data Usability Workgroup will build implementation guides to help facilitate more useful health information exchange and more intuitive clinical workflows.
More than 65 million Microsoft Teams messages sent since NHS rollout
Digital Health News ~ Hannah Crouch ~ 13/10/2020
New figures from NHS Digital have revealed more than 65 million messages have been sent on Microsoft Teams since it was rolled out across the health service in March.
CMS will reimburse for 11 new telehealth services during the public health emergency
FierceHealthcare ~ Susan Morse ~ 15/10/2020
CMS has made some temporary telehealth measures permanent but providers still await an announcement on whether payment parity will remain when the public health emergency ends.
No-touch palm scanner helps ID patients while dodging COVID-19
MobiHealthNews ~ Dave Muoio ~ 13/10/2020
Imprivata and Keyo's biometric device connects to a health record-integrated interface that helps health organizations quickly verify patients' identities during check-in.
Epic to use InterSystems as data foundation for latest EHR release
Healthcare IT News ~ Kat Jercich ~ 13/10/2020
Using the IRIS platform will allow Epic customers access to larger datasets and provide enhancements in asynchronous mirroring, according to InterSystems.
Cerner unveils new interoperability tools
Healthcare IT News ~ Mike Miliard ~ 13/10/2020
At the Cerner Health Conference, CEO Brent Shafer said COVID-19 has "inspired a burst of innovation," with hundreds of patents and faster progress for a wider array of technologies moving from concept to general availability.
IBM Watson Health to launch blockchain-powered Digital Health Pass
Healthcare IT News ~ Kat Jercich ~ 12/10/2020
The tool is built on IBM blockchain technology aimed at allowing users to share their verified health pass – established on criteria such as COVID-19 test results – without exposing the data used to generate it.
‘Excel-gate’ highlights need for ‘quality technical capability’ in NHS
Digital Health News ~ Andrea Downey ~ 09/10/2020
Using Microsoft Excel is not an uncommon “workaround” when managing data but organisations need to find a “more robust” way of doing so, they said.
Posted in Australian eHealth