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

Highlights of the important and the interesting from the world of health care:The contradiction of medical technology: Technology is supposed to–and usually does–make every industry more efficient, adding productivity and reducing costs. So why doesn’t it work that way in health care? For example, a state audit in Massachusetts found that a 20 percent increase [...]

The nonprofit, state-sponsored group that has been charged with promoting electronic health records adoption in Ohio has received a $43 million federal grant. The grant to the Ohio Health Information Partnership comes from last year’s federal stimulus act and is part of $1 billion in recently announced federal funding for health information technology.

Pharos Innovations LLC has raised nearly $862,000 in equity for the company’s remote patient-monitoring technology. The company’s Tel-Assurance software guides patients through “targeted survey questions” through the phone or Web that are designed to inform providers of changes in patients’ health status.

It’s a good time to be a health care startup. For the first time on record, venture capital investment in health care topped information technology last year.

News and notes from the day in MedCity, Ohio:Watchdog lawmakerU.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley sent letters this week to 31 hospitals nationwide — including University Hospitals Case Medical Center, UH Rainbow Babies& Children’s Hospital and Kaiser Permanentein Cleveland –raising concerns that “errors” caused by the information technology systems they have adopted could endanger patients, the Cleveland [...]

Hyland Software Inc. has developed OnBase software to help small health care providers meaningfully use health information technology. The OnBase software is designed to handle paper-based content that the MEDITECH health care information system can’t.

The Milwaukee health information technology company announced plans to sell up to 9 million shares for $3 each, sending its stock price plummeting.

MetroHealth System employees and leaders are spending much of today celebrating the 10th birthday of their electronic medical record system, called Epic. Lauded by The Obama administration for its potential to lower cost and raise the quality of care in the nation’s health care system, health information technology like Epic has yet to fulfill that promise at MetroHealth.

Dr. Joseph Kim, who writes the Medicine and Technology blog (among others), summed up his experiences of attending a virtual conference of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society this week with one question: Is Health IT the root of health care reform?