WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and other unauthorised instant messaging (IM) apps are being used by approximately 500,000 NHS staff at work, as a growing number turn to consumer tools to communicate with colleagues and even patients, a new report has revealed. 
Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has laid the foundations for an ambitious digitisation programme, by deploying IMS MAXIMS technology in its emergency department. The go-live is already helping staff to better manage patients over the busy winter period. 
Mayo Clinic and IBM Watson Health (NYSE: IBM) have unveiled results from early use of the Watson for Clinical Trial Matching, an IBM cognitive computing system. Use of this system in the Mayo Clinic oncology practice has been associated with more patients enrolled in Mayo’s breast cancer clinical trials. 
By early 2019, clinicians across the North of Scotland will have access to an integrated digital view of a patient's health and social care data through a new web-based portal provided by Orion Health. Jointly commissioned by four boards in the North of Scotland, the new health and social care portal will see information shared from providers in NHS Highland, NHS Grampian, NHS Orkney and NHS Shetland. 
Elsevier, the information analytics company specialising in science and health, and HIMSS, the Healthcare Information and Management System Society, jointly announced that nominations are open for the second HIMSS-Elsevier Digital Healthcare Award in Europe. 
Novartis has announced an additional strategic alliance with Science 37, a leader in decentralized clinical trial technology and design, to initiate up to 10 new clinical trials over the next three years. The studies will blend virtual and traditional models, with increasing degrees of decentralization towards a mostly "site-less" model.