08/27/2010
Brief reports on business deals and developments from the past week: Lockheed Martin has won contracts from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT for work on the Nationwide Health Information Network, and drugmaker Roche will acquire Biolmagene, a software provider.
08/25/2010
State and local health IT spending is expected to increase by 19% across the next five years to reach nearly $10 billion, a new report finds. Researchers attribute the escalation to funding from the economic stimulus package and other health care trends. Federal Computer Week.
08/20/2010
Brief reports on business deals and developments from the past week: UnitedHealth Group subsidiary Ingenix plans to acquire Axolotl for an undisclosed sum. CMS has awarded a contract worth up to $200 million to HP Enterprise Services to improve Medicare claims processing.
08/16/2010
Missouri health officials have purged a website containing hospital infection rates from 2005 to 2008, saying the information is too costly and sensitive to maintain. Consumer advocates say the information is necessary to assess hospital performance. St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
08/13/2010
Brief reports on business deals and developments from the past week: IBM has acquired document imaging and management technology vendor Datacap for an undisclosed amount, and CliniComp's Essentris EHR has been chosen by seven Air Force, Army and Navy facilities.
08/13/2010
National Government Services, a Medicare contractor, has secured a CMS contract to help prepare and process "meaningful use" incentive payments. Meanwhile, HHS has awarded contracts for work on the Nationwide Health Information Network. Government Health IT, Washington Technology.
08/13/2010
More than 100 entities that have reported data breaches affecting at least 500 individuals could pay about $834 million in total costs to address the violations, according to a new report. Since September of last year, there have been 130 reported security breaches involving patient data. HealthLeaders Media.
08/12/2010
More than 40 health care providers have received grants from the Cardinal Health Foundation to improve care quality and efficiency. Several grants apply to health IT-related projects in hospital operating rooms and for medication management. Healthcare IT News.
08/06/2010
Google will stop development of its Google Wave application as a stand-alone product, raising questions as to whether the company will use the technology for an electronic health record platform. Healthcare IT News, InformationWeek.
08/06/2010
Brief reports on business deals and developments from the past week: The Indiana Health IT Extension Center has selected athenahealth, iSALUS Healthcare and MDLand as its EHR vendors, and Ingenix has announced plans to acquire Executive Health Resources.
08/03/2010
Intel and General Electric have announced plans to form a jointly owned health care technologies firm to advance the use of telemedicine. The new company intends to offer programs to assist in chronic disease management and independent living. The joint venture is expected to build on an alliance the two companies created last year. Wall Street Journal et al.
07/30/2010
Brief reports on business deals and developments from the past week: A unit of Best Buy has partnered with Cardiac Science to promote technology use among physicians, and Samsung has joined with Telehealth Services to develop LCD TVs specifically for hospital rooms.
07/29/2010
General Electric has requested federal permission to use bandwidth to transmit data through remote patient monitoring devices. Aircraft maker Boeing says use of the bandwidth would jeopardize airplane passenger safety. Bloomberg, NPR's "Shots."
07/29/2010
Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic has created a Center for Social Media to encourage member facilities to connect doctors and patients using social networking websites. An estimated 15% to 20% of U.S. hospitals use social media. Minneapolis Star Tribune et al.
07/26/2010
California's insurance commissioner recently announced that state residents can sign up to receive e-mails notifying them when health insurance companies file rate increases for individual health insurance plans. Modern Healthcare, California Department of Insurance release.