Population Health

COVID-19 is highlighting the need to drive digital maturity with investment, while addressing data sharing models, says Ahmad AbuSalah, health informatics and intelligence officer at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre.

It's been a busy year. As health systems continue to grapple with the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis, we look back on the tech lessons learned these past many months – with cautious optimism for a better year ahead.

We start 2021 with hope and well-founded optimism, despite the ravages of the pandemic, reflects Dr Charles Alessi, chief clinical officer at HIMSS. 

Experts call the logistics of getting doses into the hands of distributors a "phenomenally critical" challenge – and not one that's easily solved.

The pandemic has shown the crucial role Internet access plays for telehealth, and for the overall health and wellbeing of a population, says CEO Tom Mihaljevic.

A new JAMIA study found that more than 6 million messages related to COVID-19 were sent using the Watson Assistant platform between March 30 and August 10 of this year.

A worldwide spear phishing effort, with bad actors impersonating biomedical researchers and targeting company execs, holds "potential hallmarks of nation-state tradecraft," according to a new security report from IBM Security X-Force.

A new study examined past vaccine uptake rates for flu and H1N1, and found that inoculation efforts fell short. The feds must help bridge that gap, "particularly for high-risk populations and communities of color," said former ONC chief David Blumenthal.

Having the algorithms is the only way to deal with overwhelming amounts of data and a huge influx of COVID-19 patients, says Adam Myers.

Healthcare organizations in Asia Pacific are looking to further leverage technology to improve healthcare systems and operations, as well as explore new models of care outside of hospital walls.