News Clips

Vendors Adopt Direct Project

Press Release | Medicity, Inc., UNIVAL, Inc. | May 5, 2011

Two software vendors have announced products that support the Direct Project, a federally funded initiative that produced free, downloadable secure e-mail software for exchanging clinical information. Read More »

The Million Veteran Program: VA’s Genomics Game-Changer Launches Nationwide

Press Release | Veterans Affairs | May 5, 2011

An unprecedented Veterans Affairs (VA) research program that promises to advance the sophisticated science of genomics goes national today....The Million Veteran Program is a trailblazing VA effort to consolidate genetic, military exposure, health, and lifestyle information together in one single database.

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DoD-VA Joint Electronic Health Record to be Housed in DISA Cloud

Molly Bernhart Walker | FierceGovernmentIT | May 5, 2011

The Defense and Veterans Affairs departments' integrated electronic health record--or iEHR, as it's being called--will be housed in a cloud computing environment hosted by the Defense Information Systems Agency, said VA Chief Information Officer Roger Baker. Read More »

DoD, VA Making Steps Toward Joint EHRs--For Now

Janice Simmons | FierceEMR | May 5, 2011

The Defense and Veterans Affairs departments appear to be moving toward finally creating an integrated electronic health record--or iEHR--that will house a cloud computing environment hosted by the Defense Information Systems Agency, the VA's Chief Information Officer Roger Baker, announced Wednesday at a Washington, D.C. meeting.

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Can VA Spend $500M on New Contracts in Five Months? '

Alice Lipowicz | Washington Technology | May 5, 2011

"Clock is ticking" on rolling out large volume of contracts for Secretary Initiatives program. Within the next five months the Veterans Affairs Department intends to award IT contracts collectively worth $500 million to help reach the next milestones for Secretary Eric Shinseki’s 16 major initiatives, officials said today. Read More »

Interoperability Still Key to Effective Electronic Medical Records

Lora Bentley | IT Business Edge | May 5, 2011

Lora Bentley spoke with Rick Kneipper, co-founder and chief strategy officer forAnthelio Healthcare, about the state of electronic medical records adoption.

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VA-Army Agreement Helping Transform Health Care for Patients

Press Release | SimLEARN, PEO STRI | May 5, 2011

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Department of the Army are working together to provide cutting-edge simulation-based training for medical staff to enhance the quality of patient care at VA medical facilities across the nation. The $5 million agreement utilizes the expertise of the Army's Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation (PEO STRI) to provide support and services in support of VA's Simulation Learning, Education and Research Network (SimLEARN) Program.

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HRSA Announces $12 million in Grants for Rural Health Care Providers

Press Release | Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) | May 5, 2011

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) announced that it will provide as many as 40 grants totaling $12 million to help rural health care providers achieve meaningful use of electronic health records. These grants will be distributed through the Rural Health IT Network Program.

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The Use of Twitter to Track Levels of Disease Activity and Public Concern in the U.S. during the Influenza A H1N1 Pandemic

Alessio Signorini, Alberto Maria Segre, Philip M. Polgreen | PLOS one | May 4, 2011

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its millions of users to send and read each other's “tweets,” or short, 140-character messages. The service has more than 190 million registered users and processes about 55 million tweets per day. Read More »

Open Source Technology in Healthcare

Mike Miliard | Healthcare IT News | May 4, 2011

Professor Jeremy Wyatt of the Institute for Digital Healthcare at the UK-based University of Warwick, speaks with Managing Editor Mike Miliard about open source technology in healthcare; how it affects data security, the challenges of software development and what open source means for the future of healthcare IT. Read More »

Tim O'Reilly On What OpenCourseWare Can Learn From the Open Source Movement

Audrey Watters | ReadWriteWeb | May 4, 2011

This week the OCW Consortium is holding its annual meeting, celebrating 10 years of opencourseware.

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When Poverty and Unemployment Are Misdiagnosed . . . The Limits of “Medicine”

Maggie Mahar | Health Beat | May 4, 2011

The poor need more than access to medicine; they need jobs, healthy food, and a good education. Without these, their health inevitably will suffer, no matter how many doctors they see. Read More »

CIO Says VA Must Become iPad Friendly

Joseph Marks | NextGov | May 4, 2011

The Veterans Affairs Department must find a way to allow VA doctors and other field employees to use iPads and other popular electronic devices or those employees will use the devices anyway and find a way to work around VA procedures, the department's chief information officer told a conference audience Wednesday.

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More Family Physicians Could Mean Lower Readmissions

Janice Simmons | Fierce Healthcare | May 4, 2011

Adding family physicians could lower 30-day readmission rates related to pneumonia, heart attack and heart failure, say Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center researchers in a new report in the current American Family Physician.

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CMS Eases 'Burdensome' IT Rules

John Pulley | NextGov | May 4, 2011

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency known as CMS, is streamlining the telemedicine physician-credentialing process to end "burdensome" regulatory requirements that might have hampered innovation in health-care delivery.

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