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The Joint Commission will begin offering a new certification program aimed at protecting patient privacy and creating standards for the secondary use of de-identified healthcare data. The program's goal is to provide an objective evaluation of whether best practices are being observed in the use of data and secondary data, the commission said Tuesday. (DeSilva, 12/5)

On March 15, 2020, just days after the US declared a national emergency because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the computer network for the US Department of Health and Human Services briefly vanished from the internet. In public remarks the following day, HHS Secretary Alex Azar attributed the 10-minute outage to a cyberattack but downplayed its severity, telling reporters that “there was no data breach or no degradation in terms of our ability to function and serve our important mission here.” (Robertson and Griffin, 12/6)

Google wants to make your cell phone a “doctor in your pocket” that relies on the company’s artificial intelligence. But first, the tech giant will need to convince skeptical lawmakers and the Biden administration that its health AI isn’t a risk to patient privacy and safety — or a threat to its smaller competitors. (Reader, 12/4)

In a recent study published in the journal NPJ Digital Medicine, researchers reviewed current guidelines on the ethical implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in military and healthcare applications. Their discussions focus on ‘generative AI,’ a novel technology aimed at efficiently generating information, and attempts to overcome currently prevalent limitations on the ethical use of the technology. They develop and propose a novel system for the ethical application of AI to military and clinical research, named the “GREAT PLEA.” (de Sousa, 12/5)

Ochsner Health’s digital medicine program hasn't just improved access and outcomes for the New Orleans-based health system’s vulnerable patient population. The organization's leaders say the initiative has also proven a point: If a health system builds a digital medicine program focused on reducing chronic diseases, their patients--including those who have historically faced barriers to accessing services--will use it. (Perna, 12/5)

Health systems across the country are charging patients for messaging their physicians through patient portals. But Philadelphia-area systems are not joining the new trend. During the COVID-19 pandemic, patients began sending more messages to their physicians, often through portals such as MyChart. Telehealth has remained popular and doctors are finding themselves spending as much as an hour or two a day responding to patient messages — a service that hospitals and physician offices have typically not charged for. (Gutman, 12/6)