Hospital data breaches increased nationwide in 2020, affecting around 26.4 million people in the U.S., according to a study published Feb. 19 by cloud security platform Bitglass.

Technology companies and federal organizations are increasingly collecting users' personal data, spurring calls for more regulation to protect individual privacy.  The nation's approach to this regulation must balance privacy concerns alongside the social benefits of greater access to this data, David Deming, PhD, an economist, professor and director of the Malcolm Wiener Center of Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Mass., wrote in a Feb. 19 editorial published in The New York Times.

Hank Capps, MD, was named executive vice president and chief information and digital officer of Wellstar Health System, the organization said last week.

Thomas Tran retired as CFO of Molina Healthcare Feb. 17, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

Tower Health in West Reading, Pa., has chosen P. Sue Perrotty, a member of its board of directors, as interim president and CEO to replace Clint Matthews, who is retiring. 

From their thoughts on how to improve healthcare equity to ensuring telehealth remains a key part of care delivery after the pandemic, here are six key quotes about the role of innovation in healthcare that executives from hospitals and health systems across the country recently shared with Becker's Hospital Review:

Donald Brennan, the former president and CEO of Providence and Ascension, died Feb. 12, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal. He was 83.

All states have reported minimal flu activity for the third week in a row, according to the CDC's FluView report for the week ending Feb. 13.

California will set aside 10 percent of first COVID-19 vaccine doses for educators, Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a Feb. 19 news conference. 

The American Medical Association and Morehouse School of Medicine's Satcher Health Leadership Institute in Atlanta have created a physician fellowship program that will focus on addressing the causes of health inequities, the organizations said Feb. 22.

While healthcare workers received priority access to the COVID-19 vaccine, large inequalities exist among those being vaccinated, according to a new survey from the COVID States Project.

University of California Davis Health announced Feb. 18 it is joining Cleveland Clinic, Mount Sinai and Northwestern to advance a new digestive health EHR toolkit backed by the National Institutes of Health.

Pandemic-induced stress and post-infection inflammation can cause temporary hair loss, The New York Times reported Feb. 18. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has shined a new light on the importance of digital technologies within the practice of medicine and has served as a catalysis to boost innovation, according to John Brownstein, PhD.

Hospital margins, patient volume and outpatient revenue continue to lag when compared to prior year performance, according to a new report from healthcare consulting firm Kaufman Hall. 

Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine was 98.9 percent effective at preventing deaths or hospitalizations from the virus in Israel, the country's health ministry said Feb. 20, according to The Hill. 

Vaccine makers won't have to conduct monthslong, randomized clinical trials to gain authorization for COVID-19 vaccines altered to combat virus variants, the FDA said Feb. 22, according to The New York Times. 

COVID-19 case counts have decreased for five consecutive weeks, according to the CDC's COVID Data Tracker Weekly Review published Feb. 19.  

CMS published specific codes for billing Medicare for Eli Lilly's COVID-19 antibody cocktail.

The price countries pay per dose for COVID-19 vaccines varies between $2.19 and $44, according to regularly-updated data from UNICEF.