Government & Policy

Despite the highest agency user fees on record, and granted new authorities to reform and accelerate medical device and biologics approvals, representatives questioned delays in getting products to patients faster.

While he praises the EU's data protection regulations, Eric Sutherland, senior health economist at the OECD, believes policies and standards must "harmonize" to ensure that public health organizations can access health data as needed.

Calling Blackbaud's security before a major data breach "lax," the Federal Trade Commission said the company allowed a hacker to steal PII and PHI, and ordered it to delete old data and report on its data usage going forward.

Temporary Medicare items will be in trial soon to allow patients to get admitted and seek psychiatric virtual consultations in private hospitals.

It has recently announced a $17 million project to develop a clinical decision support system for public emergency departments.

Gözde Susuzlu Briggs, programme manager for the European Patients' Forum, discusses the "Data Saves Lives" initiative, which explains digital data and AI concepts to patients and encourages involvement in patient advocacy organizations.

Also, an approval management functionality has been added to NSW's real-time prescription monitoring platform.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, ARPA-H, seeks to scale hospitals' cybersecurity capacity by automating patch deployments across networks and medical devices, speeding the time from vulnerability detection to software updates.

The guide, which encourages secure-by-design software development, is the latest in government efforts to shore up vulnerable organizations. It summarizes cybersecurity best practices and links to free support resources.

It will support major reforms in the sector, particularly the introduction of a new consolidated law.