Lawmakers in Rhode Island this week introduced legislation that wouldcreate a set of patient safeguards that go beyond existing state andfederal privacy and data security protections for shared information inpreparation for the launch of a statewide health information exchange.

United States Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., last week urged his colleagues during a speech on the Senate floor to act quickly to implement healthcare IT legislation, calling for more federal support of healthcare IT adoption, coupled with quality measure improvements and supportive reimbursement policies.

Medical technology is a relatively small and constant share of totalU.S. health expenditures with an overall slow rate of growth, accordingto a new study released by AdvaMed, the Advanced Medical TechnologyAssociation.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Tuesday published aproposed rule to implement certain aspects of the Patient Safety andQuality Improvement Act of 2005 (Patient Safety Act).

Nuance Communications posted increased revenue and losses in financialresults for its 2008 first fiscal quarter, which ended Dec. 31, 2007.

Dictaphone Healthcare Solutions, a division of Nuance Communications,has released a new version of its Enterprise Express Speech System, aspeech-assisted transcription solution, designed to reducetranscription costs and speed report turnaround time in creating anddistributing medical reports.

SecureCare Technologies is launching its digital signature andannotation features for its flagship product, Sfax, an electronic faxrecord for the healthcare industry.

New Hampshire government might tighten health information privacyregulations that that would not replace, but rather go beyond HIPAA andpertain specifically to all entities handling health information.