The Colorado Health Foundation has awarded $2 million in grants to 12 organizations to promote the adoption of EHRs and related technologies.

If it's good to feel wanted, then advanced visualization technology developers must feel like pop stars with the top positions on the song charts. Seemingly every clinician from every medical specialty that uses diagnostic images wants to have the capability to display and perform image reconstruction. A group of researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston looked at the deployment of thin-client advanced visualization technology in the healthcare enterprise and found that it provides for greater collaboration among other clinical specialties and radiology. Their work, presented at this week's 2009 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in Chicago, also holds that there is still a place for workstation-based, thick-client systems in diagnostic imaging workflow.

Thin may be in when it comes to deployment strategies for advanced visualization clients, but dedicated technology workstations still have a place in the clinical continuum. Although developers are resolutely focused on streamlining delivery of 3D diagnostic imaging tools to the desktop, standalone systems that can deliver the capabilities of the technology are remaining a viable practice partner.

Interoperability and integration solution provider Compressus has begun strategic partnerships with Avnet HealthPath reseller partners, Software Information Systems and Micro Solutions.

TeraRecon, a provider of imaging processing technology and advanced decision support and 3D visualization solutions, elected a new board of directors at its annual meeting of the shareholders on March 31.

CHICAGO--The healthcare delivery landscape in the United States has seen a steady uptick in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) of facilities over the past decade; in these tough economic times M&A activity will likely increase as institutions deal with operating margins that are consistently leaner.

Health Level Seven (HL7) and the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization (IHTSDO), the provider of standardized clinical terminology, are working together to eliminate gaps and overlaps between the HL7 and IHTSDO standards.

CHICAGOThe U.S. healthcare system needs to quickly implement widespread, systematic reform to improve patient outcomes and reduce massive costs, which are currently approaching 20 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), according to George C. Halvorson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals.