Time released its "100 Best Inventions of 2020" list and featured several healthcare technologies.

The pandemic has made hospital administrators more aware than ever about the need to improve their operations and care delivery via digital transformation, and many hospitals that can afford to roll out innovation programs are making that move.

Mobile health technologies including wearable sensors are viable options to monitor COVID-19 patients and predict if symptoms will escalate, according to a recent study published in IEEE Open Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology. 

A team of Durham, N.C.-based Duke University researchers partnered with Microsoft to create a ventilator splitting system to help COVID-19 patients in the wake of hospital surges and potential supply shortages, according to a Dec. 1 Microsoft blog post.

Increased digital access by patients and widespread adaptation of artificial intelligence will be some of the main drivers of digital transformation in healthcare over the next few years, according to Daniel Marchalik, MD.

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the perception of telehealth in palliative care from being a cold and crass method of communication between the physician and patient to an act of compassion, according to Jessica Nutik Zitter, MD. 

Olive, a healthcare workforce artificial intelligence startup, closed a multimillion-dollar financing round to boost its overall valuation to $1.5 billion.

Here are nine recent partnerships between healthcare organizations and big tech companies including Amazon, Google and Microsoft. 

More states are launching mobile apps to support COVID-19 contact tracing and exposure notification efforts as cases continue to surge across the country.

The pandemic accelerated Mayo Clinic's digital transformation, and it will continue to invest in virtual care and technology for its smart hospital.

Here are seven recent health IT vendor contracts and go-lives accelerating digital transformation efforts at healthcare organizations.

From their thoughts on how the digital health field will change in 2021 to how hospitals can roll out technologies to improve patient engagement, here are eight key quotes about the role of innovation in healthcare that executives from hospitals and health systems across the country shared with Becker's Hospital Review in the past 30 days:

Walmart has been deepening its presence in the healthcare industry in the past few years through various initiatives, including opening health clinics, offering diagnostic testing and expanding pharmacy programs.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is extending its 5G hospital innovation project from its Palo Alto, Calif.-based hospital to additional facilities in Florida and Seattle, NextGov reports.

Optum Ventures, Optum's venture capital arm, has grown significantly over the past four years, from investing $7.5 million in 2016 to $654 million so far in 2020.

Microsoft in 2019 began Project Breathe, an effort to develop a smartphone-based tool that can help patients manage cystic fibrosis at home that has become an even more critical research project amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

As pharma giants including Moderna and Pfizer and BioNTech make breakthroughs in their COVID-19 vaccine developments, healthcare officials are facing tech and data challenges associated with widespread distribution.

Tampa General Hospital has the goal of becoming the safest and most innovative academic medical center in America, and its executives will not let the COVID-19 pandemic stop them.

Prat Vemana, chief digital officer at Kaiser Permanente, recognizes the power of drawing on patient data to help drive the next wave of digital healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic.

John Glaser, PhD, an executive in residence at Boston-based Harvard Medical School and former CIO of Boston-based Partners Healthcare (now Mass General Brigham), developed a list of five deliberations hospitals should consider before adopting new technology.