Here are 11 recent news updates on health IT companies:
1. More than 500 groups — including 23andMe, Amazon and Microsoft —have registered to build apps using Blue Button 2.0, an open application programming interface tool developed by CMS.
2. Allscripts has reached a new milestone, reporting more than 4 billion data shares through its application programming interfaces since the company began counting these exchanges in 2013.
3. Apple wants to build its own custom processor chips that could better understand health information collected from sensors, ultimately prolonging battery life and enhancing performance of its products.
4. Ricky Bloomfield, MD, clinical and health informatics lead at Apple, said third-party developers working with Apple's health records feature will introduce apps later this year.
5. Telehealth vendors like Doctor on Demand, MDLive and Teladoc have stepped up to provide free healthcare services to individuals affected by recent California wildfires.
6. Epic is planning its first Un-Users Group Meeting, which targets healthcare executives and strategic leaders who don't use Epic but want to exchange data with providers on Epic in their communities.
7. Garmin teamed up with app developer Cardiogram to integrate new heart health services into its wearables, building on Garmin's ongoing pivot toward the medical market.
8. Alphabet's artificial intelligence arm DeepMind published results of the first phase of its research partnership with Moorfields Eye Hospital in London in Nature Medicine.
9. IBM said it is "setting the record straight" on its work with Watson Health after several recent media reports claimed the division's products recommend flawed advice and aren't based on real patient data.
10. Intel Corp. said it sold at least $1 billion in artificial intelligence processor chips during 2017.
11. Meditech released its earnings results for the second quarter of 2018, posting $125 million in revenue.