Venture capital investments can help transform global health as well as the economies of low- and middle-income countries by bringing innovative technologies and treatments to patients, writes Emerging Health Ventures founder Nina Rawal. High-income countries face similar disease challenges and could also benefit from innovations designed for use in LMICs, Rawal writes.

Harvard University professor and hospital IT expert John Halamka has been hired as president of the Mayo Clinic platform, a data repository that will develop new analytics and digital services. Halamka said he wants to create a data "innovation factory" as Mayo focuses on in-home health care, digital diagnostics and clinical analytics.

In this podcast, Melanie Matheu, CEO of Prellis Biologics, discusses the potential possibilities linked to using laser printers to create organs and vascular systems that would revolutionize not just the medical industry but the lives of patients and their families as well.

In a speech at a National Organization for Rare Disorders summit, HHS Secretary Alex Azar said the Trump administration is committed to helping patients with sickle cell disease live longer and experience improved quality of life. Azar said experts with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute believe a cure is on the horizon within the next decade.

Many health care organizations have long supported congressional action to allow HHS to fund the establishment of a national patient identification system. NPIs would facilitate the matching of patients to their medical records, thus improving efficiency and reducing the risk for medical errors, and it would improve the security of Social Security numbers, though cost and patient privacy are issues that must be addressed.

America's Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association sent a letter to the departments of Treasury, Labor and HHS, urging agency officials to extend from January to April the comment period for a proposal that would require health insurers to provide real-time, personalized out-of-pocket spending estimates for members. The rule will cause major disruptions and "development of thoughtful, constructive comments will not be possible under the current 60-day timeframe," the groups wrote.

Health care providers can take several measures to pass or avoid a security audit by the HHS Office for Civil Rights, and the most important step is to "educate all staff members on the requirements contained within the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT Guide to Privacy and Security of Electronic Health Information," says Troy Young, chief technology officer at AdvancedMD. Other steps include reviewing policy and procedure documentation, discussing EHR and software data protection with vendors, setting strong passwords and frequently updating them, and creating a security risk assessment or management plan.

An analysis of data from Medicare beneficiaries with complex chronic health conditions showed those living in rural areas had 23% higher mortality rates and 40% higher rates of preventable hospitalizations than their peers living in urban areas. Poor access to cardiologists, endocrinologists and other specialists was the main reason for the disparity, according to the study in Health Affairs.