Newsweek’s world’s best digital health companies list, Kaiser Permanente’s big data breach, Bayer uses Google AI to develop radiology apps, Microsoft’s AI lead puts Amazon cloud dominance on watch, text-based virtual care program, nearly 70% of docs enthusiastic about AI World’s Best Digital Health Companies 2024 Newsweek ~ Nancy Cooper ~ 25/04/2024 To help identify the new services and technologies that are transforming health care, Newsweek is partnering with Statista for the inaugural ranking of the World’s Best Digital Health Companies. Kaiser Permanente reports data breach impacting 13.4M ..read more

Pulse+IT was tootling around on the intertubes this week and came across what looked like a fabulous new resource from news magazine Newsweek, promising a list grandly titled the World’s Best Digital Health Companies, all 400 of them. We thought something sounded familiar about this list despite Newsweek’s promise that it is new, and then remembered that the magazine had published a list back in 2021 allegedly containing the world’s 250 smartest hospitals, which hilariously listed seven Australian hospitals located in world-famous “cities” such as Woolloongabba and Nedlands. It also notoriousl ..read more

The roll-out of one of the largest national information systems in New Zealand’s laboratory sector has come to fruition with the final implementation of pathology provider Awanui’s Project NOVA. NOVA has seen the deployment of a single core information system for the organisation’s human pathology laboratories, which provide testing services for about 75 per cent of the country. It has seen the consolidation of laboratory information systems on one platform across disparate sites, improvements to business continuity and For Awanui’s Chief Information Officer Brent Glanville, completing a proje ..read more

Calvary Health Care will deploy a Salesforce cloud-based customer relationship management solution for its home care services in advance of a longer term implementation throughout its residential aged care and hospital services in Australia. Salesforce will build a digital platform that Calvary hopes will transform connectivity across its business, hoping to improve the customer experience for Calvary clients, residents and patients as they transition from one service to another. Calvary hopes to be able to respond to the changing needs of clients with agility through the platform, and staff w ..read more

Mercy Health is piloting the Baret role-based messaging solution across several departments at two of its Victorian hospitals. Baret is a secure, targeted role-based messaging solution for Microsoft Teams that was launched by FiveP in October 2021 to enable closed-loop communications between frontline hospital staff. It was developed in association with Austin Health, where plans are afoot to integrate it with the Oracle (Cerner) EMR, and is also used by Monash Health and the Victorian Heart Hospital. Director of medical services at Werribee Mercy Hospital Oliver Daly said Austin Health’s invo ..read more

WA Health is expanding its new Patient Transport Coordination Hub (PaTCH) across metropolitan health services to streamline booking, scheduling and allocation of available non-emergency patient transport, having consolidated existing booking systems into a single process. WA Health’s shared services provider Health Support Services (HSS) has provided some of the technology for the new process, linking PaTCH with HSS’s realtime data demand program (RDDP) platform to support monitoring of WA Health system demand and capacity. According to HSS, PaTCH was first piloted at East Metropolitan Health ..read more

Queensland’s Mater Health has expanded the free eConsultant service it provides to rural and remote GPs, adding five new specialties in response to what it says is growing need. The eConsultant service is an electronic referral service that enables GPs to receive specialist advice about patients through an asynchronous secure messaging system. While the program initially focused on access to Mater’s experts in dermatology, endocrinology, and cardiology, it has now expanded to include respiratory and sleep medicine, renal medicine, neurology, infectious diseases and obstetric medicine. The eCon ..read more

Trust and genAI in healthcare, AI medical assistants and burnout, UK’s federated data platform, mental health tops telehealth usage, data privacy, Apple iPhones most-used commercial devices in healthcare, US VA Oracle Health EHR rollout to resume in 2025, 80% of US doctors employed by hospitals or corporate entities Most doctors, consumers need transparency to trust generative AI in clinical decisions, survey finds FierceHealthcare ~ Anastassia Gliadkovskaya ~ 18/04/2024 Though physicians are quickly growing more comfortable with generative AI, the vast majority expect models to be transparent ..read more

New Zealand health technology company Healthpoint is integrating the SNOMED clinical terminology into the application programming interface (API) for its Healthpoint health and social services directory. The move will enable applications and users of the Healthpoint API to use standardised clinical terminology, which Healthpoint says will reduce the chance of misinterpreting a clinical need and ensure greater accuracy when connecting people to the correct service the first time. The use of SNOMED CT within the Healthpoint API can assist in processes such as health promotion, patient journey ma ..read more

On March 21, the world’s first global AI resolution was adopted by the United Nations, soon after the Artificial Intelligence Act was approved by the European Parliament. These regulatory developments promote a risk-based approach to ensuring safety and compliance with fundamental rights, while aiming to boost innovation. In Australia, the Department of Science, Industry and Resources has similarly proposed a risk-based approach to regulating AI. The department’s related consultation attracted over 500 submissions, and their published response proposes to develop mandatory guardrails for high ..read more