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The Venture Fund challenge will award winners money, mentorship and the opportunity to pilot emerging technologies.   

The authors of a Health Affairs report also suggested that policymakers could use Yelp to identify which quality measures are most important to doctors and patients. 

An employee of the Office of Child Support Enforcement was using a personal machine that to conduct audits and the laptop, which was stolen, might have contained millions of records with personal health information.

With the recent surge in ransomware attacks, cybersecurity is a top priority for healthcare organizations across the nation. But even if providers have top security measures in place, there's another component to consider: the vulnerabilities of third- and fourth-party vendors. Almost three-quarters of businesses said cybersecurity incidents related to vendors are increasing, according to a recent Ponemon Institute survey, requested by BuckleySander and Treliant Risk Advisors. About half of the respondents said their organization experienced a data breach caused by a vendor, but 16 percent of respondents were unsure if a breach had occurred. And another 65 percent said managing cybersecurity incidents involving vendors is difficult. "The type of risk we're seeing now is changing in response to our evolving data-driven economy," Rena Mears, managing director of BuckleySandler, said in a statement. "The risk to strategic data assets extends beyond any single third-party, but rather to the web of relationships that comprise the data ecosystem." [Also: Lack of business associate agreement, risk analysis to cost Minnesota health system $1.55 M in HIPAA fines] More than a third of businesses don't believe their third-party vendors would notify them if a data breach occurred. And a staggering 73 percent of respondents don't believe a fourth-party vendor would contact them regarding a data breach. A fourth-party vendor is often hired by the third-party vendor. Survey respondents admitted their organizations shared sensitive data with third-parties that may have poor security policies in place. More than half said they weren't able to determine the safeguards in place by their vendors to prevent a data breach and 60 percent of respondents said their organizations don’t monitor their vendors’ security and privacy practices. Only 41 percent said their vendors' safeguards were sufficient. "The inability of so many companies to confirm whether third-parties have had a data breach or cyberattack involving sensitive and confidential information should be a wake-up call for businesses across all industries," said Susanna Tisa, chief business officer of Treliant Risk Advisors, in a statement. "To mitigate this risk, companies should compile a comprehensive inventory of and conduct data and privacy risk assessments for all third-party vendors," Tisa added. "However, we found few companies represented in this research, in particular those outside the regulated banking sector, have done so." Twitter: @JessieFDavis Email the writer: jessica.davis@himssmedia.com Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook and LinkedIn

Remember ONC Regional Extension Centers? There were 62 of those federally-funded organizations, better known as RECs, created nationwide in 2009 with a mission of helping primary care physicians move from paper to digital systems. In 2009, Morehouse School of Medicine was awarded a $21 million from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to become the only REC in Georgia to provide on-the-ground technical assistance for individual and small medical practices. News out of Atlanta today is that the Georgia center, GA-HITEC, part of the National Center for Primary Care at Morehouse School of Medicine, is closing in on getting the job done. The Georgia REC has reached 100 percent of the eligible primary care providers in the state and 89 percent of its eligible critical access and rural hospitals have achieved Stage 1 meaningful use. [Also: Most RECs plan to stay open for business] Through the program, it has reached more than 4,000 eligible primary care physicians and 56 critical access and rural hospitals by employing a 10-Step Roadmap to meaningful use. Also, it has assisted members in receiving more than $80 million in incentive payments through the federal EHR incentive programs. "Through our quest for Health IT interoperability we have provided the Georgia medical community increased patient engagement and improved quality health care through the use of technology," said Dominic Mack, MD, GA-HITEC's principal investigator and newly named director of the National Center for Primary Care at Morehouse School of Medicine, in a news release. He added that the work of the team would result in both better clinical outcomes and improved population health outcomes. As the national REC program is slated to sunset in late 2016, GA-HITEC continues to develop activities in support of CMS' HIT initiatives, including Stage 2 and Stage 3 meaningful use, health information exchange, clinical practice transformation, along with other value-based reporting efforts. And, GA-HITEC is not alone. Most RECs plan to stay open, according to the 2014 HIMSS Regional Extension Center Survey. Twitter: @Bernie_HITN Email the writer: bernie.monegain@himssmedia.com Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook and LinkedIn

The cross-vendor data exchange using IHE and FHIR specifications showed off promising strides, while the industry is still working toward more widespread, real-world use cases.

(SPONSORED) As the second installment of the two-part series on digital health's impact on pharma, CEO Ryan Beckland addresses remote patient monitoring and patient-generated health data.

Healthcare leaders are focused on the potentially conflicting market forces as rising consumer expectations and care transformation are reshaping the industry, according to the Advisory Board Company.  

The agencies are looking for ways to use a single credential for accessing health records across multiple providers. The identity solution must enhance privacy and security, be interoperable and cost-effective, officials say.

The hospital partnered with Techstars to create a three-month program to help startups working on technologies ranging from analytics of unstructured data to create artificial intelligence apps to virtual reality for improving inpatient experience.