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Information technology

Senate passes bipartisan Medicare reform bill | The Hill

The Senate unanimously passed the CHRONIC Care Act, which would broaden how Medicare covers telemedicine, allowing accountable care organizations to use telemedicine and paying for telestroke care.

Johns Hopkins develops electronic triage tool to better prioritize ED patients | Health Data Management

With an algorithm, Johns Hopkins' e-triage tool gives priority treatment levels to patients, identifying who are the sickest. The tool is integrated into the EHR.

Apple, Fitbit, Samsung, and Verily among FDA's picks for precertification pilot | Mobihealthnews

Apple, Johnson & Johnson, Fitbit, and six other companies will participate in the FDA's pre-certification program pilot, the agency announced Tuesday. The program would have it so if a company overall is deemed safe and responsible, then each of the company's products wouldn't need to be individually deemed safe.

Pharmaceuticals

Another Alzheimer's failure: Axovant's drug flops in late-stage trial | Stat News

A drug developed by startup Axovant Sciences failed to dull Alzheimer's symptoms, a result that caused the company to lose 70% of its value in early trading Tuesday.

Right after Trump blamed high drug prices on campaign cash, drugmakers gave more | Kaiser Health News

The day after Trump complained about the cost of medicine in the U.S., drug manufacturers gave $279,400 to political campaigns, more than they'd donated on any other day of the year.

In other news

FDA halts monkey research denounced by Jane Goodall as 'shameful' | The Washington Post

The FDA has stepped experimenting on monkeys to research th effects of nicotine. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb paused the study after Jane Goodall wrote him a letter asking him to end research she called "cruel and unnecessary" and "shameful."