The declining global economy is impacting the IT industry, according to a forecast from market research firm Gartner, worldwide IT spending will total $3.2 trillion in 2009, a 3.8 percent decline from 2008 revenue of nearly $3.4 trillion.

Digital pathology solutions provider BioImagene has released a new Ki-67 prostate image analysis algorithm, which is used to detect and provide quantitative measurement of the protein biomarker Ki-67, as part of Virtuoso, a suite of web-based software applications for digital pathology.

Digisonics, an image management and reporting systems provider, has received orders from four U.S. healthcare providers.

Royal Philips Electronics will equip its dictation microphone SpeechMike with SpeechControl, allowing SpeechMike to be used with its Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition program.

InSight Health Services Holdings, through a subsidiary, has entered into a seven-year agreement with Perot Systems to provide revenue cycle services, technology upgrade implementation and IT services.

Even when their products are implicated in harm to patients, manufacturers of health IT have contractual and legal protection that renders them virtually "liability-free," according to a March 25 commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Ninety-seven percent of healthcare organizations in the U.S. rely on remote patient monitoring to improve clinical outcomes for critically ill patients, according to an end-user market study from Spyglass Consulting Group.

eRAD, a developer of web-based RIS, PACS and teleradiology software, has deployed its RIS/PACS at Northern Ohio Medical Specialists in Sandusky, Ohio.