The Center for Discovery and Innovation at Hackensack (N.J.) Meridian Health began using a tool on March 12 that combines elements of CDC and World Health Organization diagnostic tools to accelerate test results for COVID-19.

Fayetteville, Ark.-based Ozark Orthopaedics has notified 15,240 patients that their protected health information may have been exposed in a phishing attack.

Hackers have started to trick people into visiting malicious websites of phony maps displaying the spread of COVID-19 to infect their computers with malware, according to Business Insider.

Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Israel, signed on as a tenant of a new medical innovation center under development at the former Michael Reese Hospital site in Chicago, according to a March 12 Chicago Sun-Times report.

In just the last six months, amid rising concerns over Google's data-sharing partnerships with hospitals and health systems, sister company Verily has struck several partnerships of its own with health systems across the U.S.

Seven big technology firms met at the White House on March 11 to discuss ways to prevent further spread of disinformation about the coronavirus, according to Politico.

Six former ONC leaders congratulated HHS on the final interoperability rules, which dropped March 9, and outlined several critical features of the regulations.

Here's the latest roundup of stories about health IT companies, including Apple, Epic and Microsoft.

The healthcare communication platform company, Pulsara, announced today that they are expanding their Pulsara ONE package, and that it will now be offered at no cost to all referring facilities. 

The Department of Veterans Affairs' recent decision to further delay its Cerner EHR go-live indicates that the agency's feedback and review process is working, according to former VA secretary Anthony Principi.

Twitter expanded its work from home policy, previously only "strongly encouraged" in most regions, to make remote work mandatory for all 4,900 global employees in its efforts to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus.

B.well Connected Health, a startup developing software that gives patients direct access to their real-time healthcare data, closed a Series A funding backed by Des Moines, Iowa-based UnityPoint Health, Appleton, Wis.-based ThedaCare and Walgreens' Well Ventures.

Rachel Sherman, MD, former principal deputy commissioner of food and drugs for the FDA, has joined the board of directors for Sema4, a startup using advanced analytics to build models for precision medicine delivery.

Everbridge, a global leader in critical event management (CEM), announced on Monday that the company has unveiled new CEM capabilities across the Internet of Things (IoT) for corporate, government and healthcare organizations to protect their people, assets, operations, supply chain and brand from critical events such as coronavirus (COVID-19). 

The global spending on IT is forecasted to decrease for the year due to the unknown impacts of the coronavirus, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Coronavirus cases are appearing in communities across the country and healthcare organizations are preparing for an overflow of cases, remote working and potential understaffing as a result of efforts to contain the spread. Forty-five states have reported coronavirus cases as of March 12.

As COVID-19, the infection caused by the novel coronavirus, continues to spread across the U.S., hospital and health systems' EHRs will be tested by evolving workflows, data demands and cyber threats, according to Erich Huang, MD, and Eric Perakslis, PhD.

United Community Family Services is implementing a $1.8 million Epic EHR, which will allow the Norwich, Conn.-based medical center to access health information from other Connecticut providers such as Hartford Hospital and Yale New-Haven Hospital, The Bulletin reports.

Cheyenne (Wyo.) Regional Medical Center announced March 11 that it has started notifying an undisclosed number of patients about a phishing attack.

Ryne Natzke explains how Visit Pay is utilizing Sphere's platform which allows the patient to be able to pay their entire balance or set up recurring payments to their card or ACH account on file with the response of a couple of text messages.