Health technology companies are increasingly taking legal action against tech firms after experiencing often costly outages, but these lawsuits face significant challenges. Proving direct damages and the responsibility of tech providers can be arduous due to complex service level agreements and potential loopholes. Companies must navigate the intricacies of proving financial loss directly resulting from these disruptions, which adds to the difficulty of achieving successful legal outcomes.

Companies Sue Tech Firms After Outages, but It’s an Uphill Battle The Wall Street Journal

As interest in AI grows within healthcare, its implementation has shown success predominantly in administrative tasks with fewer clinical applications due to concerns about model transparency and explainability. Neeraj Mainkar, a software engineering expert at Proprio, discusses the critical need for understanding AI decision-making processes in the healthcare sector to ensure patient safety and foster trust. Explainable AI is necessary to trace decision paths, identify and rectify errors, mitigate bias, maintain regulatory compliance, and uphold ethical standards. This approach ensures AI systems are transparent, reliable, and compliant with healthcare regulations like HIPAA, thereby promoting fair and effective patient care.

As the rush toward AI in healthcare continues, explainability is crucial Healthcare IT News

Microsoft is introducing mandatory multifactor authentication (MFA) for all Azure sign-ins starting in the second half of 2024. This move is part of its $20 billion investment in security and the Secure Future Initiative to protect identities and digital assets from increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks. The phased rollout aims to provide customers with time to implement the changes and will involve notifications via email, Azure portals, and the Microsoft 365 message center. Customers will also have various MFA options, including Microsoft Authenticator, FIDO2 security keys, and certificate-based authentication, with extended timeframes available for complex environments. More details can be found in Microsoft's documentation.

Announcing mandatory multi-factor authentication for Azure sign-in | Microsoft Azure Blog azure.microsoft.com

Epic Systems will transition its customers to the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), an initiative mandated by the 21st Century Cures Act to enhance nationwide health information interoperability, by the end of 2024. TEFCA offers a unified governance and technical standard framework, and Epic Nexus has been designated as a Qualified Health Information Network to facilitate this transition. Carequality, which currently connects a vast network of healthcare providers and is used by Epic’s community, has also announced plans to align with TEFCA. Despite past controversies over record requests, Epic assures continued support for Carequality during the transition to ensure successful interoperability.

Epic plans nationwide transition by 2025 Becker's Hospital Review