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Seqster, which develops tools for patient-generated longitudinal health records – incorporating EHR information, genomic profiles, wearable device data and more – has launched the most recent version of its platform on Microsoft Azure cloud.
WHY IT MATTERS
Seqster Platform v7.1 is a HIPAA- and FDA 21 CFR PART 11-compliant multi-cloud platform. It features new security, scalability and customization capabilities, according to the San Diego-based company. The platform, which connects users to more than 3,000 health systems nationwide. It s also compliant with new CMS and ONC 21st Century Cures Act rules.
With help from Azure, Kubernetes and Istio, Seqster can now automate the deployment and scaling of its app containers without the need for DevOps. It also offers encryption for data in transit among resources and enhanced logging for observability and policy adherence, according to the company.
Seema Verma is administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
This article was coauthored with Alexandra Mugge, deputy chief health informatics officer at CMS, and Shannon Sartin, chief technology officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation.
In 2018, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT and the White House Office of American Innovation, publicly announced our commitment to ensuring that patients would have access to their healthcare data wherever and whenever they need it, and we commenced on a journey to break down the barriers that keep critical patient health information locked in digital silos.
Credit: National Cancer Institute
It’s hard to believe that 4 years have passed since the Cancer Moonshot℠ was “launched.” In December 2016, Congress passed the 21st Century Cures Act, which authorized $1.8 billion in funding for the Cancer Moonshot over 7 years. Even though it is only at the midway point in terms of funding, we believe it is well on its way to producing meaningful improvements for people with cancer.
Supporters heralded the Cancer Moonshot as “an enormous, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the cancer community and our nation to come together around a single disease that touches everyone.”
The architects of the Moonshot articulated three ambitious goals for the Cancer Moonshot: to accelerate scientific discovery in cancer, foster greater collaboration, and improve the sharing of data.
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) has been vigorously enforcing patients’ right to access their medical records under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
[1] According to an October 9 notice, the OCR has settled nine such investigations in its HIPAA Right of Access Initiative.
[2]
In a blog post
[3] put together by Waller law firm professionals, the initiative is discussed alongside other rules affecting an individual’s right to access their records, specifically the 21
st Century Cures Act’s interoperability and information-blocking rules:
“Under these Rules, a patient’s request for records (as well as others) must be provided in compliance with the Information Blocking Rule requirements or the Health IT developer and healthcare providers risk enforcement…[or potentially be subject to] penalties of up to $1 million per violation.”
Saturday, January 9, 2021
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration had a busy 2020, as detailed in earlier blog posts. This blog post explores politics and a few policy activities we’ll be keeping an eye on in 2021 and how they might impact medical product manufacturers, particularly now that we know the U.S. Senate will be controlled, like the U.S. House of Representatives and the White House, by Democrats.
Politics
Chairmanship of the powerful House Energy & Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over FDA, remains with Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey while Senator Patty Murray of Washington is in line to helm the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension (HELP) Committee. While President-elect Joe Biden has announced his picks for Secretary of Health and Human Services (California Attorney General Xavier Beccera) and Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Rochelle Walensky, chief of the Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital