Columbus Regional Hospital in Columbus, Ind., has joined the Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE), linking to more than 65 hospitals, long-term care facilities and other healthcare providers to access information for patient care.   Read more...

EMR-based data, used across institutions in a structured way, offer great potential for diverse research studies, including those related to understanding the genetic bases of common diseases, according to new research published in this month's Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.   Read more...

Delivering improved healthcare through nationwide EHRs will be a long, complex and iterative process requiring flexibility and local adaptability both with respect to the systems and the implementation strategy, according to research published online Sept. 2 in the British Medical Journal.   Read more...

The Raymond G. Murphy VA Medical Center in Albuquerque, N.M., has purchased Digisonics’ DigiView CVIS/PACS and structured reporting system to provide image analysis and structured reporting with measurement options for vascular studies.   Read more...

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Sept. 2 that Cincinnati and Detroit are the two final pilot communities selected under the new Beacon Community Program that is using health IT to help tackle leading health problems in communities across the U.S.   Read more...

Caspio has made available new chart applications to create visual web-based charts and dashboards for any database and assist users' understanding of large data sets.   Read more...

The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) has launched a non-profit, wholly owned subsidiary organization, called the Global Health Informatics Partnership, to serve as an international center for collaborative initiatives on healthcare informatics.   Read more...

Greenway Medical Technologies has added four health information exchange (HIE) programs, independent physician associations (IPAs) and regional medical centers to its client roster using PrimeSuite, the company’s EHR practice management and interoperability system, to connect group practices using clinical, financial and administrative functions.   Read more...

The adoption of basic or comprehensive EHR systems by U.S. hospitals increased from 8.7 percent in 2008 to 11.9 percent in 2009, but only 2 percent of hospitals met the federal meaningful use standards needed to qualify for government financial incentives, according to an article published Aug. 26 in an advance online edition of Health Affairs.   Read more...

While Agfa-Gevaert posted 8.7 percent increase in revenues in the 2010 second quarter compared with the previous year’s second quarter, its Agfa HealthCare unit only posted slightly higher revenues—0.3 percent—over the 2009 second quarter.   Read more...

OakBend Medical Center, of Richmond, Texas, has implemented Corepoint Health’s Corepoint Integration Engine to integrate its information systems.   Read more...

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) has employed Lockheed Martin for two contracts to advance EHRs and secure health information exchanges to support the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN), for a total of $9 million over two years.   Read more...

The Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center in Indianapolis will partner with the Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE) to exchange EHR information using the Nationwide Health Information Network.   Read more...

 NovaRad has installed its NovaRIS and NovaPACS technology at Park Avenue Radiologists, a New York City-based imaging center.   Read more...

Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, of Monterey, Calif., has selected RelayHealth's health information exchange (HIE) connectivity tool.   Read more...

iSalus Healthcare, a web-based EMR and practice management software company, has released an iPhone mobile application that allows doctors to access patient records and office information.   Read more...

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT predicts 50,000 additional health IT workers will be needed during the next five years to satisfy EHR meaningful use criteria. Thus, providers, payors and other stakeholders need to fill in workforce gaps with skill sets from other staff and focus on alternative ways to install and operate systems that realize economies of scale and therefore reduce health IT staff demands, according to a study from IT company CSC.
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Patients receiving care from hospitals with the most advanced type of EMRs spend 22.4 percent less time in the emergency room (ER) than at other hospitals, but providers with basic EMRs were associated with longer wait times on average, especially for patients arriving at the ER with truly urgent medical needs, according to research published online in Medical Care Research and Review.   Read more...

While RIS purchases traditionally have taken a back seat to EMR and PACS decisions, new products entering the RIS market and vendors expanding their EMR and PACS client bases with integrated technologies suggest that RIS are taking a renewed priority in purchasing decisions and being included in discussions surrounding meaningful use’s electronic information exchange requirements, according to a report from market research firm KLAS.   Read more...

When the Northern Virginia Regional Health Information Organization (NoVaRHIO) goes live with its first step towards an eHealth Information Exchange connecting patients and physicians across the region, it will leverage GE Healthcare as an infrastructure partner.   Read more...