IBM strengthens cloud computing with $34B purchase of Red Hat
IBM has agreed to buy a leading provider of open source cloud software for $34 billion.
The tech giant's purchase of Red Hat makes it the “world’s #1 hybrid cloud provider” according to IBM President and CEO Ginni Rometty.
"The acquisition of Red Hat is a game-changer,” she said. “It changes everything about the cloud market.”
Red Hat will operate as a distinct unit in IBM’s Hybrid Cloud team. IBM is among the six big tech companies that recently pledged to support interoperability in healthcare. (Release)
41% of hospitals fully interoperable
Though interoperability still lags across healthcare, a new snapshot shows significant growth in the number of hospitals that can send, receive, find and integrate healthcare data.
More than 40% of acute care hospitals can perform all four interoperability domains, up from 29% last year. Much of those gains have come from hospitals that can find data (61%) or integrate data (53%).
“In 2017, 83% of hospitals that could send, receive, find, and integrate outside information also reported having information electronically available at the point of care,” officials with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) wrote in a recent blog post. “This is at least 20% higher than hospitals that engage in three domains and almost seven times higher than hospitals that don’t engage in any domain.” (Blog post)
Health IT experts hope API rule meets expectations
Leaders of SMART on FHIR are hopeful that ONC’s pending rule on interoperability and APIs will including provisions that allow patients to obtain a complete copy of their EHR and allow widespread use of apps in healthcare.
SMART standards have already been used in Apple’s health app and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Blue Button 2.0 initiative. By using existing standards, providing flexibility to fill the gap between core data and other data elements, and standardizing APIs for apps, the three Boston Children’s Hospital experts said the rule could have huge implications for the industry.
“We are on the precipice of creating a national-scale apps model for health, based on an API that promotes interoperability and data exchange via substitutable apps,” they wrote. (Post)