A Life Image survey conducted in March found that 70% of health care organizations were aware of the implementation of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT's interoperability and information blocking rules, which took effect Monday, but almost half of respondents admitted engaging in practices that violate the rules. Results from the poll, which involved almost 4,000 insurers, health care providers, information technology and other health care leaders, indicate "general confusion" about the rule's requirements and the measures necessary to avoid being penalized.

Improved health IT delivery and better vendor and organizational teamwork are the top satisfaction variables for EHR success among inpatient and ambulatory doctors and nurses, according to a new KLAS Impact Report. EHRs that offer rapid system response time and capabilities to help achieve quality health care, cater to specialty care and create internal integration also lead to EHR success, respondents said.

Trinity Health announced that protected patient information was downloaded by an unauthorized individual exploiting a bug in the Accellion File Transfer Appliance. Meanwhile, Personal Touch has suffered an unrelated ransomware attack involving records hosted in their private cloud, affecting more than 750,000 employees and patients.

Researchers are using algorithms that mine data sets from sources like electronic medical records to create artificial patients and patient populations that reflect real people, which can then be used to speed the medical innovation process. "The key advantage that synthetic data offers for health care is a large reduction in privacy risks that have bugged numerous projects [and] to open up health care data for the research and development of new technologies," said professor Allan Tucker at Brunel University London, who has studied the subject.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki has said the Biden administration will not be supporting any federal system that would require Americans to carry COVID-19 vaccine passports nor will it create a federal vaccination database. The administration has said it would defer to private firms if they want to require proof of COVID-19 vaccination, and Psaki said "Americans' privacy and rights should be protected so that these systems are not used against people unfairly."

Three health systems will work together with Akili Interactive to test a connected health program to treat cognitive dysfunction, or brain fog, among COVID-19 survivors in their homes. "This investigation is the first to our knowledge to evaluate feasibility of a computer gaming approach of cognitive rehabilitation in survivors of non-neuro/non-trauma critical illness," researchers said.