Massachusetts is doing a good job in leading efforts in pioneeringadvances in health IT, said Senator Richard Moore, Senate Chair of theJoint Legislative Committee on Health Care Financing, at the “Buildingthe Connected Health Community: Innovation, Implementation &Investment” on Monday.

The Department of Defense has 9.2 million beneficiaries, said Lt.Col. Hon Pak, MD, president of the American Telemedicine Associationand director of the advanced IT group, U.S. Army’s Telemedicine andAdvanced Technology Research Center.

Chronic conditions account for about half of all healthcare dollarsspent so it’s worthwhile to consider how to better manage them. Having one chronic disease predisposes patients to have another, saidJeff Rideout, MD, managing partner of Ziegler HealthVest Venture Fund.But, “the system is designed for acute care.”

In 2003, Kaiser Permanente developed a vision called Blue Sky—by 2015,home would be the hub of care, said Naomi Fried, PhD, director ofinnovation and advanced technology for Kaiser.

Healthcare information technology provider Argole Systems of Rockville,Md., has released a free beta version of Akessa Oncology, the firstoffering of its Akessa electronic medical record (EMR) and practiceworkflow suite.

Healthcare enterprise applications developer Initiate Systems haslaunched its Initiate Provider and Initiate Patient applications, bothmaster data management tools, according to the Chicago-based firm.

Medsphere Systems, an Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based developer of EMRsystems and Keane, a San Ramon, Calif.-based developer of revenue-cyclemanagement software, have formed a strategic partnership to providehealthcare enterprises with integrated clinical and financial software.

Philips Medical Systems introduced CliniScape, a new mobile clinicalassistant (MCA) device, at the World of Health IT annual congress inVienna, Austria, this week.