Top news stories from AMA Morning Rounds®: Week of July 22, 2024

Read AMA Morning Rounds®’ most popular stories in medicine and public health from the week of July 22, 2024–July 26, 2024.

Global tech outage halts operations, medical treatments across U.S.

The AP (7/19, Bellisle, Shastri) reported on “the many operations and medical treatments halted across the country because of a global technology outage” on Friday. The major outage disrupted medical centers “around the world.” According to the AP, “the American Hospital Association said the impact varied widely: Some hospitals were not affected while others had to delay, divert or cancel care.”

STAT (7/19, Palmer, Trang, Ross, Subscription Publication) reported similarly that “a widespread outage to Microsoft systems took down computers in health systems around the globe, leading many to cancel non-urgent medical appointments and surgeries as they encouraged patients to make plans for disrupted travel and delays in care.” The problem “appears to have stemmed from a software update from the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which disabled computers running Microsoft Windows.”

Coaching by professionally trained peers decreases physician burnout, interpersonal disconnectedness

Healio (7/22, Byrne) reports, “Physician coaching by professionally trained peers effectively decreased physician burnout and interpersonal disconnectedness, according to study results.” Additionally, the approach “increased professional fulfillment and engagement, findings of a randomized clinical trial showed.” The findings were published in JAMA Network Open.

You may also be interested in: What is the most stressful medical specialty? AMA survey data reveals top 6.

Health care organizations have reported record number of data breaches in 2024

Modern Healthcare (7/23, Broderick, Subscription Publication) reports, “Health care organizations have reported a record number of data breaches this year—and the full scope of the high-profile ransomware attack on Change Healthcare is still unknown.” Through the end of June, “387 data breaches, affecting more than 45 million people, were reported on” HHS’ Office for Civil Rights breach “portal—the highest number of incidents in the first six months of any year since OCR began publishing cases in 2010.” Roughly “50 million individuals were affected by 357 breaches reported in the first half of 2023.”

Editor’s note: Get updates on ongoing cybersecurity concerns and resources to protect patient health records and other data from cyberattacks.

Twice-yearly shots 100% effective in preventing new HIV infections in women, study finds

The AP (7/24, Cheng, Imray) reports, “Twice-yearly shots used to treat AIDS were 100% effective in preventing new [HIV] infections in women, according to study results published Wednesday.” Researchers found “there were no infections in the young women and girls that got the shots in a study of about 5,000 in South Africa and Uganda.” Meanwhile, “in a group given daily prevention pills, roughly 2% ended up catching HIV from infected sex partners.” The injections made by “Gilead and sold as Sunlenca [lenacapavir] are approved in the U.S., Canada, Europe and elsewhere, but only as a treatment for HIV.” Gilead “said it is waiting for results of testing in men before seeking permission to use it to protect against infection.” The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

CNN (7/24, Howard) reports, “Many of the women and girls who received lenacapavir, about 69%, experienced reactions at the injection site compared with 35% in the placebo injection group, but no safety concerns were found, according to the researchers.”

HHS renames, restructures ONC

Fierce Healthcare (7/25, Beavins) reports the Office “of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has been renamed and restructured, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced.” The agency’s “restructuring will affect technology, cybersecurity, data and artificial intelligence strategy and policy functions.” ONC “will be renamed the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy and Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ASTP/ONC).” ONC head Micky Tripathi “will hold the new title of assistant secretary for technology policy in addition to his title of national coordinator for health IT.”

Healthcare IT News (7/25, Miliard) reports “oversight over technology, data, and AI policy and strategy will move from” the Assistant Secretary for Administration “to ASTP/ONC – including the HHS-wide roles of Chief Technology Officer, Chief Data Officer and Chief AI Officer.” Meanwhile, “the 405(d) Program, a public-private cybersecurity effort between the federal government and the health care industry, will move from” the Assistant Secretary for Administration to the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.

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