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Chinese government-linked hackers targeted biotech company Moderna Inc... earlier this year in a bid to steal valuable data...the U.S. Justice Department made public an indictment of two Chinese nationals accused of spying on the United States, including three unnamed U.S.-based targets involved in medical research to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The indictment states the Chinese hackers “conducted reconnaissance” against the computer network of a Massachusetts biotech firm known to be working on a coronavirus vaccine in January...READ MORE

The novel COVID-19 virus has now infiltrated our communities on a global scale, forcing pharmacies to quickly adapt in order to sustain operations in the new normal...pharmacies everywhere are experiencing a dramatic influx in demand, but dwindling supply of resources and staffing...in a world increasingly influenced by technology, there is ample opportunity to leverage automation within pharmacies that can not only improve operations and maximize efficiency, but support patient wellness while growing their business and profits...

Adherence Pouch Packaging
- unit-of-use packaging alone saved more than 46.5 minutes per 100 prescriptions filled compared to count-and-pour dispensing.

Medication Synchronization and Adherence
- pharmacies can adopt medication synchronization, meaning all of a patient’s prescriptions are synchronized to be refilled on the exact same day of the month, eliminating the need for separate call-ins and pickups...READ MORE

The HHS Office for Civil Rights announced... that during the coronavirus pandemic it will use discretion when enforcing HIPAA-compliance for telehealth communications tools...Even though some of those technologies may not fully comply with HIPAA requirements, OCR says it "will not impose penalties for noncompliance with the regulatory requirements under the HIPAA Rules against covered health care providers in connection with the good faith provision of telehealth during the COVID-19 nationwide public health emergency."...Covered entities seeking to use audio or video communication tech to reach patients where they live "can use any non-public facing remote communication product that is available to communicate with patients," said the agency. "This exercise of discretion applies to telehealth provided for any reason, regardless of whether the telehealth service is related to the diagnosis and treatment of health conditions related to COVID-19."...READ MORE

Amazon is jumping into the medication adherence space with a new feature that lets users link up their pharmacy prescription information and, in turn, get reminders about when to take their pills and order refills...The latest feature was born out of a collaboration between the online retail giant and Omnicell, a tech-enabled medication management company. Initially the feature will be rolled out to Giant Eagle Pharmacy customers...this feature will be using “multiple layers of verification” to protect user information, including voice recognition and passcodes...Voice technology is coming onto the healthcare scene in recent years...“Voice has proven to be beneficial for a variety of use cases because it removes barriers, and simplifies daily tasks,”... “We believe this new Alexa feature will help simplify the way people manage their medication by removing the need to continuously think about what medications they’ve taken that day or what they need to take...READ MORE

Leading health IT groups are criticizing the Trump administration's move to abruptly change how hospitals report COVID-19 data, saying it jeopardizes public trust and hampers the industry's ability to respond to the pandemic...the Trump administration directed hospitals to sidestep the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send critical information about COVID-19 hospitalizations and equipment to a different federal database set up by the Department of Health and Human Services...The American Medical Informatics Association and the American College of Medical Informatics wrote an open letter claiming this shift in reporting will create data gaps, "hindering efforts to recognize, understand, and evaluate important trends related to COVID-19."...READ MORE

Within the last month or so, more Las Vegas Valley medical offices have started offering telemedicine appointments in response to the COVID-19 outbreak — part of a nationwide trend that has seen an explosion in use of the technology. A big selling point is that many patients are uneasy about going to a doctor’s office because of the risk of getting infected or infecting others…Some doctors and telemedicine experts say the COVID-19 outbreak is spurring more acceptance of telemedicine — a change that could have a long-lasting impact on the nation’s health care system… Telemedicine took off in Nevada after Gov. Steve Sisolak’s stay-at-home order and social distancing guidelines, cardiologist Dr. Jeffrey Levisman said. “It’s an attempt to continue to provide medical care, especially for patients who are sick and elderly who are at a higher risk of getting the virus and (experiencing) a bad outcome.”…READ MORE

The federal government has released its long-awaited plan to reduce red tape and other administration snarls that create time-eating obstacles for doctors using health information technology...The Department of Health and Human Services' Strategy on Reducing Regulatory and Administrative Burden Relating to the Use of Health IT and EHRs, mandated by the 21st Century Cures Act, aims to reduce the effort and time required by clinicians to meet reporting requirements, record health information, and improve the functionality and intuitiveness of EHRs...READ MORE

With little still known about the novel coronavirus and its treatments, some shady websites are grabbing coronavirus-related URLs to push unproven products to consumers...The Food and Drug Administration has issued more than 20 warning letters since mid-May to websites selling unproven COVID-19 treatments. These online retailers are selling products like hydroxychloroquine, essential oils and alternative sanitizers that claim to treat COVID-19 or kill the virus on surfaces...The FDA took action against these websites, requiring that they remove claims that certain products will treat COVID-19 and stop selling drugs like chloroquine for unapproved uses...READ MORE

News about COVID-19 runs rampant on the internet and changes by the hour, or even by the minute. It’s difficult to stay on top of what’s happening, much less what’s important, in the life sciences industry without scrubbing the entire internet. That's what W2O Group and the California Life Sciences Association (CLSA) are looking to change with a new data-driven platform...Their jointly launched dashboard, called COR, uses W2O’s machine and artificial intelligence data engine to scrape its life science industry data set for news and posts mentioning COVID-19. It then serves up the top-ranked information across different sectors—life sciences, healthcare providers, media, California, and the scientific community—to reveal what’s trending in each one from that segment’s leading voices and sources in almost real time...READ MORE

The U.S. will get its first entirely 5G-enabled hospital this week as the Department of Veterans Affairs brings the technology up online at its Palo Alto hospital...The VA's Palo Alto Health Care System, which is an affiliate of Stanford University School of Medicine, will be coming online as also the first 5G-enabled health facility in the world VA Secretary Robert Wilkie said…"What 5G will deliver is richer, more detailed, three-dimensional images of the patient's anatomy with resolution so clear and consistent that it will give us reliable use of important telesurgery services to veterans across the nation," Wilkie said. "That means reliable capacity to allow the VA's best physicians to consult during surgery even when they are not in the same room or halfway across the country."...READ MORE