Electronic Health Records (EHR, EMR)

It's now easier than ever for criminals to get into hospital networks, and ransomware is on the rise. Cybersecurity experts offer advice to help hospitals beat back the hackers.

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.

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.

In application programming interface deals with Health Gorilla, Inuvio, Medisafe and Wink Health, drchrono enables users to tap new functionalities with its EHR, revenue cycle and practice management platform.

The Samsam and Maktub Locker malicious code programs attack vulnerable patches and spread to all systems connected to a network.  

Cybercriminals said they'll unlock the data for 45 Bitcoins, and they gave the hospital an option of paying 3 Bitcoins to unlock a single computer. 

Clinical decision support misfires are commonplace but often hard to detect, according to a close examination of CDS systems at Brigham and Women's hospital in Boston published in the most recent Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

Researchers say that pilot program demonstrates how readily available technologies can be used along with an EHR to improve communication between doctors and patients with type 1 diabetes.

Looking into its crystal ball – or perhaps digital spreadsheets – PiperJaffray analysts see big plays in the RCM market. That potential is so large, in fact, that Cerner alone has a $40 billion opportunity, and it ranks fifth in market share.

Across the healthcare industry, "the state of decision-making is really bad." Following the so-called Three Ps could point a way forward.