With help from Arthur Allen (@arthurallen202) and Mohana Ravindranath (@ravindranize)

APPLE DEFINITIVELY ENTERING THE EHR GAME: Some vendors and clinicians are enthusiastic about Wednesday’s announcement of a partnership between Apple and a number of tony hospitals allowing iPhone users to download their medical records to their devices, but others are preoccupied with the safety implications of storing sensitive personal information on a device that could be stolen or hacked.

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Patients at about a dozen hospital systems can have their records sent directly to their iPhones and receive notifications of lab results and other updates. It’s a pilot feature in Apple’s latest software upgrade, which adds a new “Health Records” tab to the Health app.

The new capability could mean that patients can more readily ask clinicians about their care, Cedars-Sinai chief information officer Darren Dworkin told POLITICO. While the hospital will continue supporting its own patient portals for payments and messaging clinicians, the agreement with Apple gives “patients choice for how they want to see their data.”

University of Rochester Medical Center neurology professor Ray Dorsey said the platform could eventually integrate real-time information about patient’s behavior outside the doctor’s office — sleep and exercise patterns, for instance. (Dorsey developed a system for tracking Parkinson’s symptoms that was featured in the app store.)

Integrating real-time patient data could be useful to patients and clinicians but it “all [has] to be done in the context of patient privacy,” Cerner president Zane Burke told POLITICO. “Everybody’s got to decide for themselves how they want to share their data ... our view is that if people want their information available, they should be able to store it.”

Former ONC privacy officer Lucia Savage, currently an executive with Omada Health, took an optimistic view of the privacy challenges. "There has been a lot of talk about how the open API will be insecure or otherwise not work. This could disprove that," she said. More for Pros here.

AZAR CONFIRMED: After a months-long wait, HHS has a new secretary: Alex Azar. The former Lilly executive and HHS official now is confirmed in the top spot of the Hubert H. Humphrey Building, following the Senate’s approval Wednesday afternoon, by a 55-43 vote. Seven Democratic-caucusing Senators backed Azar: Tom Carper, Chris Coons, Joe Donnelly, Doug Jones, Joe Manchin, Heidi Heitkamp and Angus King. One Republican, Rand Paul, voted against the nominee.

What do we expect from Azar? As we noted in Wednesday’s Morning eHealth, after reviewing his answers to Sen. Patty Murray’s questions for the record, Azar is non-committal but generally bullish on health IT and some of the adjacent issues.

Our health care colleague, Adam Cancryn, asked around to get a sense of Azar’s planned trajectory. Who’s the model? Scott Gottlieb, says one source. The FDA commissioner is, of course, a very popular figure in digital health circles these days.

— Other reactions: Our inboxes are stuffed with reactions from various interested groups. We heard a lot of slams from leftier groups, denouncing him as a pharma profiteer and so on and so forth. Others signaled their priorities: the American Society of Clinical Oncology said Azar has the chance to address issues like “increasing access to high-quality care, addressing the high cost of care, and supporting the development and dissemination of innovative treatments.”

Some mentioned specific health IT priorities. The Association for Behavioral Health and Wellness, a group of behavioral health payers, noted expansion of telehealth in Medicare as an issue they’d like to work with him on.

eHealth tweet of the day: Loy Lobo @4LoyLobo Did Apple figure out why they will succeed where others have failed? Brave — certainly. Naive — perhaps. Actually, the solution is not to have one, but to embrace many.

THURSDAY: Your correspondent’s favorite headline of the week is, without doubt: “Saudi Arabia bans botox from camel beauty pageant.” Who knew unrealistic beauty standards extended even to humped creatures? Comment on why at dtahir@politico.com. Discuss dromedary dust-ups socially at @ravindranize, @athurallen202, @DariusTahir, @POLITICOPro, @Morning_eHealth.

PDMP AND OPIOIDS UPDATE: Some updates worth tracking on the opioid crisis, and health IT’s response to it:

— First in Morning eHealth: Health IT Now is launching a new group today, called the Opioid Safety Alliance, intended to explore technology solutions to the opioid crisis. The group’s members include IBM, McKesson, and the Association of Behavioral Health and Wellness, among others.

Legislatively, the Alliance wants greater funding for prescription drug monitoring programs, expanded telehealth, and bills expanding data-sharing and stricter requirements for PDMPs.

They’ll be testifying Jan. 30 before the FDA’s Opioid Policy Steering Committee.

— New Pew data viz: Pew Charitable Trusts has put out a new interactive data visualization of the different states’ provider PDMP mandates. Take a look here.

— Alabama: The state’s Opioid Overdose and Addiction Council publicly released a report containing policy recommendations Wednesday.

The report had several PDMP recommendations. Besides a concrete request for $1.1 million in new funding, the authors think that not enough providers are signing up for the state’s program — and suggests a redesign to make the PDMP more attractive and useful as an enticement. They also recommend the state open up the program’s data, on a de-identified basis, to interested researchers.

— Maryland: Anne Arundel County Executive Steve Schuh, a Republican, wants to broaden law enforcement access to the state’s PDMP, local media reports from a hearing earlier this week. Currently, Maryland allows law enforcement access only to support ongoing investigations.

Law enforcement access to PDMPs is a sensitive subject for doctors and privacy advocates, who prefer the programs be used for strictly clinical purposes.

NEW NQF REPORT ON MEDICAID AND SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH: The National Quality Forum released a report this morning describing how Medicaid and its partners can help address certain social determinants of health, such as hunger and housing.

Of course, these problems require a variety of approaches — some of which, the report’s authors argue, include data policy. The report recommends refining the use of social determinant measures to ensure providers aren’t documenting redundant ones; creating standards for inputting and extracting relevant data from the EHR; and making sure various governmental agencies, health- and non-health, share information with each other.

EYE ON THE JOURNALS: What’s going on with the journals these days?:

— Health Affairs: The publication’s editor-in-chief, Alan Weil, named his top articles of 2017 on Wednesday. Among them was a March article describing Los Angeles County’s implementation of eConsults.

— New England Journal of Medicine: The journal’s latest issue has a perspective piece on physician burnout, which — no prizes for guessing — begins with familiar brickbats about electronic health records. The authors argue that redesigning workflows and personnel usage around efficiency can reduce burnout.

WHAT WE’RE CLICKING ON:

—Cleveland Clinic and Oscar describe their use of FHIR to create a better service.

—After the Allscripts acquisition, Practice Fusion’s executives made out well – their employees, not so much, CNBC reports.

—There’s a proliferation of Chinese startups offering telemedicine-driven second opinions for patients wanting American doctors’ expertise, the LA Times reports.

—It’s very easy to get access to fentanyl online, Vox writes.