The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), in collaboration with standards development organizations (SDOs) and health IT stakeholders, released the Project US@ (‘Project USA’) Technical Specification Final Version 1.0. This new specification is a unified, cross-standards, health care specification that could be used across industry for representing patient addresses (mailing, physical, billing, etc.) to improve patient matching. Patient matching and specifically how patient addresses are represented has long been viewed as a critical component of nationwide interoperability and the nation’s health IT infrastructure. The availability of a unified, cross-SDO specification is a testament to the broad industry engagement behind this effort. Now that a specification exists, ONC encourages state and federal agencies, public health organizations, payers, health IT developers, research organizations, health care providers, and all other interested stakeholders to consider adopting and implementing the final specification. “A standardized patient address might seem like a small thing, but that’s precisely why this work was important. Improving the accuracy and consistency of addresses will have a big impact if implemented at scale,” said Steve Posnack, deputy national coordinator for health IT. “I am grateful to the SDOs, federal partners, and health IT stakeholders who all joined in to rapidly develop this new specification.” Also available today is the Project US@ Companion Guide developed by and in collaboration with the American Health Information Management Association. This resource provides operational best practices related to accurate and timely capture and management of patient addresses developed in Project US@ Technical Specification Final Version 1.0. A draft Technical Specification Version 1.0 was released for comment in June 2021 and SDO’s collected input during a 30-day comment period in July 2021. Nearly 130 comments were received from stakeholders and the public, informing the Final Version 1.0 released today. This completes ONC’s goal to complete Project US@ by early 2022. More information about Project US@ can be found on the Project US@ page.

Stryker announced a definitive merger agreement to acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of common stock of Vocera Communications for $79.25 per share, or a total equity value of approximately $2.97 billion and a total enterprise value of approximately $3.09 billion (including convertible notes)

Stem cell scientists have revealed the origins of a common ovarian cancer by modeling fallopian tube tissues, allowing them to characterize how a genetic mutation puts women at high risk for this cancer.

This year the medical and research advancements from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Mount Sinai Health System ranged from COVID-19, to PTSD, to the first ever successful trachea transplant surgery.

Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine announced that CORBEVAX, a protein sub-unit COVID-19 Vaccine, whose technology was created and engineered at its Center for Vaccine Development (CVD), has received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) to launch in India with other underserved countries to follow.

The Biden-Harris Administration has brought two new over-the-counter, at-home COVID-19 tests to the U.S. market. The tests, one manufactured by SD Biosensor and distributed by Roche and the other manufactured by Siemens, have received emergency use authorization (EUA) by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) after being evaluated through the Administration’s new accelerated pathway to support FDA review of tests with potential for large-scale manufacturing that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced just two months ago.