VA hospital in Colorado to share patient data with private physicians: The Veterans Health Administration hopes this is the first of many projects in the U.S. to help streamline coordination of care. The Veterans Health Administration will begin testing a health information exchange between the Grand Junction (Colo.) VA Medical Center and Moab (Utah) Regional Hospital and surrounding physician practices.

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The Veterans Affairs Department literally ran into a wall with an ambitious plan kicked off in 2008 to install upgraded Wi-Fi networks at 236 hospitals and clinics nationwide, according to internal probes, top agency officials and contractors. Read More »

The modernization of health care through information technology calls for a much larger workforce than the one we currently have that will be required to help providers and hospitals make meaningful use of health information technology (health IT) including electronic health records (EHRs). Read More »

ONC has several programs and resources to help providers and hospitals that do not happen to be eligible for incentive payments nevertheless use health IT to improve their patients’ care. Read More »

After doing some reading and talking to some colleagues in the disease management industry, here are ten insights that can help other health care organizations such as accountable care organizations, integrated delivery systems, medical homes or other provider organizations build followers, tweeps, and friends the opt-in world of social media.
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More than half of all software purchases made over the next five years will be open source, according to half of all respondents in a significant survey released today. Read More »

State health information exchanges, which hold and collate electronic medical records, are vital to the federal government's ability to rapidly respond to a public health emergency, a Health and Human Services Department official told a Senate panel Tuesday. Read More »

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 »

It is time to ask all health care professionals to put aside the debate about whether social problems fall within their domain and just ask them to think about what's good for the nation's health. Read More »

The Veterans Affairs Department is turning to open-source solutions to modernize its electronic health records system partly to avoid the estimated expense of $16 billion to buy a commercial system, said Roger Baker, VA's CIO and assistant secretary for information and technology. Read More »