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.

At least a dozen major drug and device makers, including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly are being investigated by federal prosecutors and securities regulators for whether the companies made illegal payments to doctors and health officials in foreign countries, the New York Times reports. It’s legal in the United States to hire doctors as consultants to market drugs and devices to their colleagues, as long as the companies don’t pay doctors to write prescriptions for their products. Not so in much of the rest of the world.

UnitedHealth Group’s (NYSE: UNH) health information technology subsidiary Ingenix has reached an agreement to acquire a Pennsylvania-based compliance consulting company for hospitals.Ingenix didn’t disclose the price for Newton Square, Pennsylvania-based Executive Health Resources in a statement, but a Bloomberg report last week put the figure at about $1.5 billion.The deal fits with UnitedHealth’s strategy of [...]

United HealthGroup‘s (NYSE: UNH) health information technology subsidiary Ingenix has acquired a Massachusetts-based hospital software provider for an undisclosed amount.Wakefield, Massachusetts-based Picis provides enterprise software to hospitals’ emergency departments, surgical suites and intensive care units, according to a statement from Ingenix.Ingenix, which provides consulting, technology and outsourcing services to nearly 6,000 hospitals in the U.S., [...]

For MedHub Inc., less is most certainly not more.The company, which sells software to help hospitals manage their residency programs, has made its mark by offering a more robust, far-reaching system than its competitors. With those added features comes a bigger price tag, but that still hasn’t deterred a number of big-name hospitals from ditching [...]

Highlights of the important and the interesting from the world of healthcare:Indian biotech’s prominence grows: Five years ago, big biotechnology firm collaborations in India were restricted to fee-for-service deals, but that’s changing as more and more co-development deals are struck. Indian biotechs look poised to capitalize as Big Pharma companies not only move more of [...]

Often, healthcare isn’t all that complicated.When it comes to routine ailments–like sore throats, bladder infections, sinus infections and seasonal allergies– diagnosis and treatment are fairly standard.So why should patients suffering from one of those ordinary conditions take time off from work, drive to the doctor’s office and sit in the waiting room when the outcome [...]

Billions of federal stimulus dollars are beginning to flow to organizations that are getting hospitals and doctors’ offices ready to adopt electronic medical record technologies.Once adopted, those technologies are expected to form the backbone of state health information exchanges, eventually creating a nationwide exchange so that any doctor or hospital could get information [...]

I recently planned a speaking engagement and was warned to avoid healthcare reform commentary – too controversial and too emotionally charged.Regardless of your politics, some aspects of healthcare reform are not controversial. Here’s a list of health information technology tactics included in healthcare reform.Accountable Care Organizations (ACO)- No later than January 1, 2012, the Secretary [...]

MedVentive revealed the names of two of the investors that took its over-subscribed Series C round to $10 million: Clarian Health Ventures and previous backer Core Capital Partners.The Waltham, Mass.-based healthcare information technology provider closed the C round in February, according to regulatory filings that, at the time, didn’t name the [...]