If health IT innovation is a road, IBM‘s (NYSE:IBM) Harry Reynolds sees technology as a tool to help doctors reach their destination. He makes the comparison to GPS units that people use to navigate while driving.“How many people have GPS?” he asked a packed auditorium at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center in Research Triangle Park. [...]

A top Commerce Department official Tuesday vowed to unclog the country’s beleaguered patent office, linking efforts to clear hundreds of thousands of patent applications to creating jobs and reducing America’s trade deficit.In an interview with MedCity News, David Kappos, Undersecretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property who directs the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), [...]

Last November, Nasdaq threatened to delist EnteroMedics because its stock failed to trade above $1.00 for ten consecutive days. The company has until May 12, 2010 to comply with the rule or face expulsion- again.

Sam Palmisano told the attendees of the Cleveland Clinic Medical Innovation Summit that health care can barely be called a “system.” To become one, he said the medical industry must agree to universal, open and non-proprietary standards for health care records. In essence, he said, electronic medical records have to be like generic drugs and the data must flow throughout the system in which no provider owns the process.