Congress could spend $20 billion on healthcare IT over the next few years, according to an economic recovery bill released last week by the House Appropriations Committee.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released two final rules Thursday: one for the adoption of the next generation of diagnosis and procedure codes, ICD-10, and another that updates standards for electronic healthcare and pharmacy transactions.

The House of Representatives this week voted 289-139 to approve a bill renewing and expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to about four million additional children in the United States.

The Chinese regulatory body, the State FDA (SFDA), has granted Elekta permission to sell its linear accelerator, Elekta Compact, in China.

The Humanitas Clinic in Milan, Italy, has deployed RapidArc radiotherapy technology from Varian Medical Systems.

A first-degree family history of prostate cancer has no impact on the treatment outcomes of prostate cancer patients treated with brachytherapy, and patients with this type of family history have clinical and pathologic characteristics similar to men with no family history at all, according to a study published Jan. 1 in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics.

The $775 billion economic stimulus plan being organized by President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats could pump more than $100 billion into the U.S. healthcare sector, modernizing its delivery system and providing care to those who lost health insurance along with their jobs.

A jury in U.S. District Court in Lafayette has found Louisianan cardiologist Mehmood M. Patel guilty on 51 of 91 counts of healthcare fraud, which stemmed from allegations he billed government and private insurers for unnecessary heart procedures.