It will take close collaboration between governmental bodies and private businesses to achieve interoperability across U.S. healthcare. There’s no big news in that. However, a high-powered panel fleshed out the details on the necessity Feb. 14 at HIMSS19 in Orlando.

HHS is pushing new interoperability rules to encourage better care coordination and empower patients to become stronger partners in their care through access to their digital health records––and the industry seems to be on board.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has proposed a federal rule aimed at putting patients in the center of the U.S. healthcare system. CMS Administrator Seema Verma discussed the development in a keynote session delivered Feb. 12 at HIMSS19 in Orlando.

Healthcare organizations were targeted in 96 email fraud attacks on average in Q4 2018—an increase of 473 percent, compared to the Q1 of 2017, according to a new report issued by cybersecurity company Proofpoint.

Younger generations have different preferences when it comes to healthcare, with many rejecting some of the traditional aspects of care, according to a recent consumer survey from Accenture. These changing attitudes will help shape the future of healthcare as younger people age and have higher care needs.

Apple is working with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to make its Health Records on iPhone feature available to veterans, the company announced. Patients receiving care through the Veterans Health Administration will be able to view their aggregated health information on their iPhone in the Health app.

HHS is addressing one of the biggest issues in healthcare: interoperability. The agency, through CMS and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), has proposed new rules to support electronic health record (EHR) interoperability.

Amid a major period of consolidation in the healthcare space, health systems have grown so large that using a patient’s name or date of birth isn’t a good identifier anymore. Instead, hospitals are turning to biometric systems, which use fingerprints or other physical characteristics to identify people, The Wall Street Journal reported.