Agfa-Gevaert NV this week announced it is splitting the company intothree independent businesses: HealthCare, Graphics and Materials. The move is aimed at creating flexibility within in each division to push growth, and also to reduce costs, the company said.

Paperless health IT system provider Medima Solutions has inked adistribution agreement with iMedIT Imaging & Medical InformationTechnology based in Turkey.

The health IT bill that was approved last week by the House Energy andCommerce and Ways and Means committees has been put on hold overconcerns that it could increase overall federal spending and decreaserevenues.

Last week The House Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means committeesvoted in favor of two versions of the same health IT related bill (HR4157). The bill sets out to empower the HHS’s Office of the NationalCoordinator for Health IT to oversee standards for storing medicalrelated data and standards development relating to interoperability ina timely fashion. However, this week the bill was put on hold overconcerns that it could increase overall federal spending and decreaserevenues.

Physician access to health IT systems for their practices is growing, according to a recent national study by non-partisan research firm the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) which looked at the period between 2000-01 and 2004-05.

Last week both a House of Representatives and Senate version of a newbill dubbed the “Independent Health Record Bank Act of 2006” wereintroduced that look to provide electronic health record accounts toindividuals in a fashion similar to ATM and online banking.

The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA), which was signed into law inearly February by President Bush, has the now booming imaging centerindustry reeling and fearful that not only is the fun over, but thatthe new rules might very well spell doom.