HHS rolls out cyber center successor (to criticism)

With help from Arthur Allen (@arthurallen202), Mohana Ravindranath (@ravindranize) and Rachel Roubein (@rachel_roubein)

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HHS ROLLS OUT REBRANDED CYBER CENTER, CYBER POLICIES — TO CRITICISM: HHS has finally tipped its hands on its cybersecurity policy, rolling out a rebranded Healthcare Cybersecurity and Communications Center and promising to publish updates of its digital defense strategy.

The descriptions come in an Oct. 4 letter, a long-delayed response by the department to requests from the HELP and Energy and Commerce committees’ leadership.

In the letter, the department said it would roll out updates to its cybersecurity strategy document and promised a report detailing best practices in digital defenses by the end of the year.

The response letter contains no explicit reference to the beleaguered HCCIC — the center intended as a clearing hub for cyber threat information — instead referring to a “Healthcare Cybersecurity Command Center,” which a department spokeswoman confirmed is the center’s successor. The department also issued a press release announcing the center, but the release called it the “Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center.”

The letter did not satisfy HELP ranking member Sen. Patty Murray. “After stalling for months, the Department’s shameful lack of action to seriously address increasing cyber threats in the health care sector is more evidence that the Trump Administration has so far ignored Congress’ efforts to strengthen cybersecurity in health care and is moving far too slowly to secure health care data for millions of patients,” she said.

A spokesman for the GOP leadership of Energy and Commerce, however, said that the committee was “pleased that HHS has recognized the needs of their stakeholders for additional clarity and communication, as outlined in our letter.”

The center, which has been roiled by bureaucratic infighting, has seen its founding leadership cleared out; the situation — first reported by POLITICO — is the subject of an investigation by HHS’s Office for the Inspector General. Besides the name change, the letter offers a clue about the center’s evolution, referring to its utilization of Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response resources. In its first iteration, the center was organized under the department’s Office of the CIO.

eHealth tweet of the day: Stuart Blitz @StuartBlitz “Have seen a lot of new, interesting clinical trial recruitment startups recently. But I just learned our clinical team finds Craigslist to be most effective”

WEDNESDAY: Moths! Not the delightful storytelling events, but the insects who rend your sweaters to ribbons. Give tips about seeking revenge or at least defending your clothing at [email protected]. (But mostly revenge, please.) Discuss moths on Twitter at @arthurallen202, @dariustahir, @ravindranize, @POLITICOPro and @Morning_eHealth.

Election Day is almost here. Have you made your POLITICO Playbook Election Challenge picks yet? Don’t miss your chance to compete against the nation’s top political minds in the POLITICO Playbook Election Challenge by correctly picking the winning candidates in some of the most competitive House, Senate and gubernatorial races in the country . Win awesome prizes and eternal bragging rights. The contest closes at 6 a.m. on Nov. 6. Sign up today. Visit politico.com/playbookelectionchallenge to play.

BIG BUSINESS WITH TECH ROLLOUTS: Big business is rolling out a couple new interesting new technical updates:

— United Healthcare: The insurer has unveiled several new online resources that the company says could help employers and employees manage their health benefits, just in time for open enrollment. Among the new products are an interactive health plan manager for employers with self-funded plans and their employees, a digital enrollment service for specific wellness programs, and a prescription management tool that lets patients obtain prior authorization and see medication costs in real-time. The latter feature, called PreCheck MyScript, has been around since 2017 but will be accessible by more care providers in the fall.

— LabCorp and iPhone: The lab giant is now supporting Apple’s Health Records app, which will allow users to access the company’s lab test results through their phones. For the Cupertino tech company, it’s the latest announcement in what seems like a constant drip-drip of new partners working with the company’s app.

Meanwhile, commentators rushed to put it all in context. Connecting Apple’s service to LabCorp means continuing triumph of the FHIR standard. “For health policy wonks there’s much more to this than a ‘tech success,’” tweeted ONC’s Steve Posnack. “After years in the works HHS issued a unique tri-agency rule in 2014 to better enable direct patient access to lab info.”

VA/DOD UPDATES: Here’s the latest in the health IT affairs of the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs:

— Interop is good!: Interoperability really keeps the VA’s and DOD’s patients happy, a new study shows.

The study found the Joint Legacy Viewer, the tool created by VA and DoD informaticists as a stopgap to improve record sharing, significantly increased patient satisfaction.

The viewer was the main piece of technology to emerge from a $564 million, two-year effort from 2011 to 2013 to create a single DoD-VA electronic health record system. The tech, which is now used extensively by VA doctors, allows a VA clinician to view parts of a patient’s DoD record, and vice-versa. It does not allow the records from another system to be imported or merged. However, the study of about 200,000 outpatients seen for primary care found a 14 percent increase in patients’ perception that their provider understood their medical history. The study controlled for the duration of the patient-doctor relationship. It was led by VA scientists in Salt Lake City, Los Angeles and Boston.

— Cerner blog update: Tuesday, the Kansas City vendor published a blog post responding to reports by the DoD’s Joint Interoperable Test Command of early problems at the four initial sites in the Pacific Northwest.

“We’re well accustomed to the initial hurdles that come with a technology implementation,” Cerner Government Services President Travis Dalton said in the post. “Though some have portrayed the report findings as a setback for the program, these reports accomplished exactly what we intended. We welcome the feedback … as well as direct feedback from end-users and leadership at the [sites]. We will continue to work with them to optimize and improve the system throughout the lifespan of the program.”

WORTHWHILE AMA INITIATIVE: The American Medical Association is investing $15 million over five years into a new grant program to transform residency, the group announced Tuesday.

“These innovations will help ensure future physicians are prepared for and safely transition from medical school to residency, develop needed skills to enhance their readiness for practice and train in an environment that promotes their well-being,” said Susan Skochelak, AMA’s group vice president for medical education.

The effort comes on the heels of the AMA’s work over the past five years to retool medical schools for the 21st century’s emphasis on data, technology, chronic disease management and more.

PERSONNEL WATCH: CAQH, a not-for-profit group working on standardizing business transactions and other health care skunkwork, added two new senior executives: Mark Pratt, senior vice president of public affairs; and April Todd, senior vice president of the organization’s CORE and Explorations initiatives.

ELECTIONS UPDATE: The midterms will have sweeping effects on health care. A couple of notes to share:

— Medicaid: As our Health colleague Alice Miranda Ollstein notes in an article Tuesday, at least a half-dozen states may choose to expand Medicaid based on the results of the governors’ race, with rising Democratic party stars Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum backing the initiative in Georgia and Florida, respectively. (Legislatures would have to approve.)

— House race to watch: One poll of note: late Monday, new pollsters Change Research found Fred Upton in a tightly contested race with former Y chief medical officer Matt Longjohn in Michigan’s Sixth Congressional District. Ordinarily, it wouldn’t be worth getting too excited over one poll, especially concerning a race with such a long-entrenched incumbent as Upton, who helped steer the mammoth 21st Century Cures Act to passage.

But Longjohn, who championed the diabetes prevention program during his time at the Y, may be drawing closer. Per 538’s projections, another October poll — albeit an internal one — showed Longjohn within 3 points. The numbers gurus are still very bullish about Upton’s chances, giving him seven in eight odds at triumphing as of Tuesday afternoon. Still, it caught our eye.

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