Welcome to our Healthcare IT Today Weekly Roundup. Each week, we’ll be providing a look back at the articles we posted and why they’re important to the healthcare IT community. We hope this gives you a chance to catch up on anything you may have missed during the first week of 2024.

2024 Health IT Predictions: Health Equity. As in past years, we asked the Healthcare IT Today Community to offer their predictions for the year ahead. First up is health equity, where our experts anticipate an emphasis on bidirectional data sharing, collaborative care, and community health. Read more…

2024 Health IT Predictions: Cybersecurity. Given the ever-evolving threat landscape, our experts had no shortage of cybersecurity predictions for the new year. Highlights included an accelerated move to zero trust, a reexamination of cybersecurity toolsets, and a renewed focus on incident response and resilience. Read more…

2024 Health IT Predictions: Telehealth and Virtual Reality. In 2024, our experts see care at home, chronic condition management, mental health, and virtual nursing dominating the telehealth conversation. Meanwhile, VR could play a greater role in treating developmental disabilities. Read more…

2024 Health IT Predictions: Value-Based Care. To truly achieve VBC, our experts foresee a greater role for community health, a broader focus on marginalized populations, and an expansion of SDOH data collection. Drug prices may also be in the crosshairs in 2024, for uses ranging from cancer treatment to weight loss. Read more…

Check out all our 2024 Health IT Predictions here!

Exploring the Hidden Challenges of the Digital Health Revolution. Amid ever-changing regulatory policies and cybersecurity threats, Abhishek Khandelwal at Capgemini Engineering recommended regulatory sandboxes as a way to test digital health tools in a controlled environment with the oversight of regulators. Read more…

The Time Has Come to Replace Crash Bleeps. Hannah Parrish at Alertive described how NHS Trust facilities are introducing digital messaging to enhance communication and improve response times to emergency calls – achieving both a technological upgrade and a cultural shift in the process. Read more…

Amazon’s New Prime Benefit Is a Wake-Up Call for Traditional Health Systems. Sonia Singh at AVIA Health said Amazon’s model of 24/7 access to virtual care and its trusted brand experience should drive traditional health systems to reassess their primary care strategies and consider digital-first options. Read more…

Manage Compliance With Fine-Grained Data Protection. Access controls such as fine-grained data protection only exposes the sensitive data that an employee needs to see to do their job. This helps to protect data at its source and protect against cyber threats, noted Marlena Herrera at Protegrity. Read more…

Funding and M&A Activity:

• Chronic metabolic disease prevention company Twin Health secured $50 million in funding.
• Digital addiction treatment provider PursueCare completed a $20 million Series B fundraising round and acquired two digital therapeutics originally developed and commercialized by Pear Therapeutics.
• Digital engagement vendor mPulse acquired HealthTrio and Decision Point Healthcare Solutions, which respectively provide health management and member experience analytics tools.
• Real-world evidence company ConcertAI acquired CancerLinQ, the real-world data and technology service subsidiary of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Thanks for reading and be sure to check out our latest Healthcare IT Today Weekly Roundups.