International health IT week in review: November 1

Pulse+IT's weekly round-up of international health IT news for the week ending November 1: Renewed Ryuk threat warning for US hospitals, information blocking rules delayed, NHS Covid-19 app bugs, telemedicine for contact lenses, Alberta's $1.4b Epic roll-out, US VA's $16b Cerner roll-out, tele-assisted care, NHS health IT assessment criteria, France rebrands contact-tracing app, test result app for travellers
US hospitals warned of fresh wave of ransomware attacks
Information Security Media Group ~ Prajeet Nair ~ 29/10/2020
The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are warning hospitals about a fresh wave of Ryuk ransomware attacks that have recently targeted healthcare facilities around the country.
HHS delays data sharing regulation deadlines
Information Security Media Group ~ Marianne Kolbasuk McGee ~ 29/10/2020
Regulator says COVID-19 response stretching IT resources, making compliance challenging.
FBI, DHS warn hospitals of ‘credible threat’ from hackers
Bloomberg ~ William Turton, Kartikay Mehrotra and John Tozzi ~ 29/10/2020
The agencies said they'd received intelligence asserting that hackers were preparing to use Ryuk ransomware to attack medical facilities, using the Trickbot botnet to distribute it,
NHS Covid-19 app updated to improve accuracy and notifications
Digital Health News ~ Andrea Downey ~ 29/10/2020
Users had reported receiving notifications warning them of potential exposure to Covid-19 that disappear once they tried to open them.
CVS launches telemedicine enabled contact renewal service
MobiHealthNews ~ Laura Lovett ~ 27/10/2020
CVS is setting its sights on the eye care space, launching a new digital tool that lets customers renew contact lens prescription remotely via an online vision test and an asynchronous telemedicine interaction.
Connect Care second wave launches following delay
Edmonton Journal ~ Jeff Labine ~ 24/10/2020
The next part of a roughly $1.4-billion technology upgrade for the province’s hospitals, clinics and care centres rolled out Saturday morning after being put on hold in May because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
VA’s $16B EHR upgrade project finally goes live
MedCity News ~ Anuja Vaidya ~ 27/10/2020
Part of a $16 billion deal to upgrade the VA’s EHR system, the implementation marks a major milestone in the project that aims to roll out the new system to VA facilities nationwide by 2028.
Universal Community Health moves from text-enabled telehealth to robust ‘tele-assisted care
Healthcare IT News ~ Bill Siwicki ~ 27/10/2020
The health center invested in virtual care workstations with various scopes that allow physicians to remotely guide patients through near-complete examinations.
NHSX launches assessment criteria for digital health tools
Digital Health News ~ Andrea Downey ~ 26/10/2020
New standards for digital health technologies have been launched to provide clarity on how digital tools will be assessed.
France rebrands contact-tracing app in an effort to boost downloads
TechCrunch ~ Romain Dillet ~ 24/10/2020
Only 13,651 people declared themselves as COVID-19-positive in the app, which led to 823 notifications.
Airlines test app for travelers to share their Covid-19 results
MedCity News ~ Elise Reuter ~ 26/10/2020
The app, developed by the Commons Project Foundation and the World Economic Forum, lets travellers share vaccination records, Covid-19 test results and health declarations.
Posted in Australian eHealth