Patient Care

This page includes news coverage of various aspects of patient healthcare, including new technology innovations, what is working, what is not, personalized medicine and remote and telemedicine delivery. Find specific news in the areas of Care DeliveryDigital TransformationPrecision MedicineRemote Monitoring and Telehealth.

Vangent releases HIE software tool

Vangent is releasing an open-source software tool, known as Health Information Exchange Open Source, for the secure exchange of health information from multiple and disparate system and data sources.

HIT Policy Committee frames flexible meaningful use measures

George Hripcsak, MD, co-chair of the HIT Policy Committee's Meaningful Use Workgroup, presented an approximate timeline for meaningful use measurements yesterday during a meeting of the HIT Policy Committee, held to discuss pending meaningful use definitions in relation to specialty practices and small providers. In laying out the timeline, Hripsak noted that not all potential objectives and measures will be appropriate for all U.S. healthcare facilities.

Medicaid payor could have exposed data on nearly 70K patients

CalOptima, a Medicaid managed care plan serving Orange County, Calif., has identified the potential loss of past medical claims information for approximately 68,000 of its members that was stored on electronic media devices.

RSNA: Agfa to showcase portfolio of products

Agfa HealthCare (Booth #8324) is presenting a series of solutions for both computed radiography and direct radiography, as well as for imaging informatics and mammography at the 2009 Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) conference.

RSNA: AccelaRAD to debut expanded SaaS platform

AccelaRAD (Booth #2643) will unveil its expanded SeeMyRadiology.com platform to provide universal access to medical images through a Web portal for hospitals, radiologists, physicians and patients at the 2009 Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) meeting.

Report: Little improvement in healthcare quality measures in 2008

A decade of improvement in the quality of healthcare provided in the United States came to a halt in 2008, according to a report issued last week by the National Committee for Quality Assurance.

Panel: Medicare Demo Program survivors share success stories

Representatives of two of the three data and disease management Medicare Demonstration Programs that did not get cancelled discussed their programs' success strategies at the sixth annual Connected Health Symposium last week in Boston.

Panel: Health IT professional shortfall underestimated

BOSTON--A projected shortage of some 50,000 health IT professionals in the United States is most likely an underestimate by the federal government, according to a panel discussion at the Connected Health Symposium on Thursday.

Around the web

RBMA President Peter Moffatt discusses declining reimbursement rates, recruiting challenges and the role of artificial intelligence in transforming the industry.

Deepak Bhatt, MD, director of the Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital and principal investigator of the TRANSFORM trial, explains an emerging technique for cardiac screening: combining coronary CT angiography with artificial intelligence for plaque analysis to create an approach similar to mammography.

A total of 16 cardiology practices from 12 states settled with the DOJ to resolve allegations they overbilled Medicare for imaging agents used to diagnose cardiovascular disease.