The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, collaborating with federal and state health agencies, has launched a new incentive program, specifically geared toward small- to mid-size physician practices, to drive the adoption of EHRs.

OASIS, an international open standards consortium, has formed a new group to standardize the way healthcare providers, hospitals, pharmacies and insurance companies exchange privacy policies, consent directives and authorizations within and between healthcare organizations.

Twelve countries in Europe are participating in a large scale project, supported by the European Commission, to exchange healthcare data to ensure the interoperability of national e-health systems across the European Union.

The FDA has selected 10 contractors to receive up to a total of $2.5 billion for IT and data center management services over the next 10 years.

Dell, Intel and Motion Computing have jointly launched a new service to assess, design and validate the quality and coverage of wireless networks for healthcare information workflow.

Dossia has deployed its personal health record (PHR) to Wal-Mart associates as part of its open enrollment period to connect the employees with their health information, in a collaboration between Dossia, Wal-Mart and WebMD.

HP has signed a definitive agreement to acquire LeftHand Networks, a provider of storage virtualization and iSCSI storage area network solutions, for $360 million, subject to certain purchase price adjustments.

GE Healthcare has acquired MicroCal, a provider of instruments for the study of molecular interactions in pharmaceutical, biomedical and life science research, as well as Agility Healthcare Solutions, which focuses on hospital workflow and patient care management.