The proposed program to certify EHR technology will create challenges for the government in ensuring the process has sufficient capacity to handle demand in the early months of the program while achieving consistent results from the various organizations that will be certifying systems, according to a letter by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME).

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that several states and Puerto Rico will receive a total of $8.2 million in federal matching funds for planning activities necessary to implement the EHR incentive program established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).

Premier healthcare alliance, which consists of more than 2,300 U.S. hospitals and 66,000 healthcare sites, has launched a new health IT plan that will seek to leverage its hospitals performance improvement data and knowledge sharing.

The Department of Health and Human Services will issue a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) in May to modify the HIPAA privacy and security rules as necessary to enforce provisions of the HITECH Act, according to a semi-annual regulatory agenda in the April 26 Federal Register.

The tender offer for all of the outstanding shares of Amicas common stock by Project Ready, a wholly owned subsidiary of Merge Healthcare, expired on April 23, according to health IT company Merge.

Teleradiology services provider NightHawk Radiology Services has created a customer advisory board designed to provide input and feedback to its customers.

CD/DVD technologies developer Rimage has reported net income of $695,000 in the first quarter of 2010, down from the $1.19 million posted in the same quarter in 2009.

Despite new regulations in the HITECH Act, data breaches and medical identity theft remains at critical levels throughout hospitals in the U.S., where 83.6 percent of providers have data breaches every year, according to a report from identity theft prevention contractor Identity Force.