Here are 10 recent news updates on health IT companies.
1. Alphabet, Apple and Microsoft have filed more than 300 healthcare patents between 2013 and 2017 — a moves that reveals the tech giants' increasing desire to disrupt the healthcare space.
2. Cigna launched a skill aimed at answering 150-plus commonly asked health plan questions for Amazon's cloud-based voice service Alexa, the insurer announced March 13.
3. Cerner, which lost out on an EHR contract at Chicago-based University of Illinois Health in late 2017, claims the hospital's contract with Epic will cost taxpayers nearly $100 million in excess costs.
4. Epic founder and CEO Judy Faulkner indicated the EHR giant does not plan to challenge the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' deal with Cerner.
5. Fitbit recently added a health tracking feature for women to help users track various aspects of their menstrual cycles to better understand their health.
6. Microsoft renamed its Microsoft Intelligent Network for Eyecare as part of the company's move to apply artificial intelligence across multiple medical specialties, the company announced March 8.
7. Royal Philips and Samsung Electronics entered into a strategic partnership March 8 to join Samsung's connected devices with Philips' cloud platform for increased access and information sharing.
8. Theranos and its founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes are facing "massive fraud" charges for allegedly lying to investors, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
9. The clinical communication and documentation solutions provider TigerText changed its name to TigerConnect to more clearly describe its solution, the company said in a March 1 statement.
10. HHS' Office of the Chief Information Officer awarded WidePoint Corp. a follow-on task order for its technology-based management solutions, the company announced March 13.