Mike Miliard

The predictive models, available via GitHub, are meant to help health systems assess potential impact on supply chains and staffing and more as they map out their bed and ventilator strategies.

Both agencies will be able to more easily and securely exchange health records with outside providers, while participating health systems will gain a single point of entry to request agency health data.

"We see an enormous opportunity to enhance disease tracking for improved population health during the COVID-19 pandemic," said Scripps Research Translational Institute's Dr. Eric Topol.

Just days after the application period opened, some $3.23 million has already been approved to help hard-hit health systems deploy telemedicine technology, connected devices and remote patient-monitoring tools.

The cloud-based Mural virtual-care technology, hosted on Microsoft's Azure platform, enables clinicians to monitor the ventilation status of multiple ICU patients at once.

"Cyber criminals will use a time of crisis to cover some of their actions in a very opportunistic way. And so we try to track and match our operations and vigilance to that."

The Seattle-based health system, long focused on keeping competitive with consumer tech, is using its platforms to help manage "the biggest disruptor we've had," says its chief digital officer.

Financial pressures, limited resources, and changing regulations contribute to bottom-line risk and the alarming result is often rural hospital failure and closure. In this new series from Dr. Robert Budman, we explore what’s behind this and, more importantly, what rural and critical access hospitals can do to keep the doors open.

St. Stephen's Hospital, based in Hervey Bay, Queensland, one of the first HIMSS Stage 7 hospitals in Australia, used bar coding, CPOE and change-management strategies to boost its patient safety.

Physicians are now allowed to care for patients at rural hospitals "via phone, radio or online communication, without having to be physically present."