A state board in Illinois has recommended voiding a seven-year, $62 million contract for Epic to implement a new electronic health record (EHR) system at University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System in Chicago, finding some merit to Cerner’s claims that there was conflict of interest with the firm hired to evaluate the bids.

Verizon’s 2018 Data Breach Investigations Report mirrored what was released last month in its report on breaches involving protected health information (PHI) in prior years. Whereas all other industries profiled—including education, financial and retail—saw the majority of their breaches come from external forces, most of the healthcare industry’s threats came from inside.

The U.S. Coast Guard has announced it will join the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) $4.3 billion rollout of a Cerner electronic health record (EHR) system, giving the health IT giant yet another major customer within the federal government.

A survey from Black Book Research found when healthcare organizations don’t have a master patient database across various departments, match rates when exchanging records with other health systems are much lower.

Facebook had been discussing a data sharing project with hospitals and medical groups to match patient data with socioeconomic information from Facebook profiles, but CNBC reports the project has been put on hold as the social network faces scrutiny over how it collects and shares data on its users.

Microsoft has filed a lawsuit against for-profit hospital giant Community Health Systems (CHS), claiming CHS unlawfully helped hospitals it was selling to continue using Microsoft software.

GE Healthcare has announced it will sell its revenue cycle, ambulatory care and workforce management software units to private equity firm Veritas Capital for $1.05 billion, following earlier plans for General Electric to sell assets and rumors the entire company could be broken up.

Blockchain has been touted—to the point of being called overhyped—as the technological breakthrough healthcare organizations need to more easily secure and store patient data. Five companies are now launching a pilot program to see if blockchain can live up to its promises by applying the technology to the common problem of inaccurate provider directories.