Innovation, influence and business in America's medical cities.

Nonprofit health information exchange HealthBridge has received $13.8 million in federal funding to help area health providers better utilize information technology.

Increasingly the question becomes – if we choose future doctors on their willingness to sacrifice for others without expectation of appropriate boundaries and compensation – will we be drawing from the same pool of people as the ones who will make the best technically-skilled clinicians? What type of person will enter medicine if they know that their personal life will always take second place to patient care? For the doctors who accept this choice, what are the risks to patients when they interact with doctors who are “crackberry” addicts without personal or family boundaries?

Updated: 2:49 p.m., Aug. 24, 2010.Problem: 50 premature or sick newborns to feed up to eight times a day with their own mothers’ breast milk.Solution: SafeBaby BMT.AdvertisementFor Paragon Data Systems Inc. in Cleveland, Ohio, keeping track of breast milk was a complex inventory problem, said Larry Laurenzi, Paragon’s president.So two years ago, the bar code [...]

To help all stakeholders who want to better understand the latest HIT regulations:1. Here’s a quick summary of the Meaningful Use Core and Menu Set Objectives and Measures complied by Robin Raiford.2. Here’s a quick summary of the Standards cross referenced to the Code of Federal Regulations Citations compiled by Robin Raiford.3. [...]

During congressional hearings July 20, the department of Health and Human Services’ so-called “meaningful use” rules for the adoption of electronic health records came under fire from Republicans angling for stricter rules.Despite industrial groups and experts praising the new regulations, including the American Medical Assn. saying the rules are impractically [...]

Akron Children’s Hospital has hired a chief information officer to oversee information technology for its growing system.Tom Ogg comes to Akron Children’s from Oakwood Healthcare Systems in Dearborn, Michigan where he was corporate director and chief technology officer. The Oakwood system includes four acute teaching hospitals and 40 primary care/specialty care sites.Prior to that, Ogg [...]

Akron General Health System has agreed to deploy MyChoice — the subscription health information service of My LifePlan Inc. — at its four emergency departments in Northeast Ohio.It’s the first hospital system to adopt the service designed to speak for subscribers during medical emergencies launched by My LifePlan soon after it started in 2006. Based [...]

Epocrates, a developer of mobile drug reference tools, registers for a $75 million initial public offering — again.Epocrates Inc. plans to go public — again.The company last week filed for an initial public offering that could bring in as much as $75 million, according to a Securities & Exchange Commission filing. [...]

Since the Final Meaningful Use and Standards Rules were released last week, many people have emailed me questions, which I’d like to share generally. My blog is not reviewed by ONC or CMS, so these answers are my own opinion.1. The Meaningful Use Rule identifies 15 Core Set required criteria and 10 Menu Set optional [...]

New government regulations covering meaningful use of electronic medical records are winning kudos from EMR and healthcare providers alike, with few naysayers piping up.New regulations governing how healthcare providers can prove meaningful use of electronic medical records technology, a hallmark of President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law, are winning praise from both EMR and healthcare [...]