Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina is investing $15 million and partnering with Allscripts (NASDAQ:MDRX) in a program intended to make electronic health records more widely available to physicians in the state.That investment will help physicians leap over the biggest hurdle for EHR technology adoption: cost. Over the next five years, the money will [...]

Universal Health Services Inc. in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, has acquired rival Psychiatric Solutions Inc. for $3.1 billion, making the now $7 billion company the country’s largest owner of freestanding inpatient psychiatric facilities, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The Ohio Senate joined the House in unanimously approving a bill that would establish 44 patient-centered medical homes in the state.An increasingly popular concept in healthcare, medical homes are seen by advocates as a way of providing more comprehensive care at lower costs. In a medical home, patients are cared for by a primary care [...]

Where do specialty doctors like cardiologists, endocrinologists and urologists fit in the “medical home” concept? Or do they at all?A paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that such physicians may be the odd doc out in healthcare reform. That’s because in the medical home, a popular reform concept that seeks to [...]

Last winter, as the country bickered over death panels, Tea Parties and socialized medicine, a woman quietly observed life in Austin, Minn. She visited community centers, hung out with pastors and interviewed workers at Hormel, Austin’s main employer and maker of SPAM.What that cultural anthropologist at Mayo Clinic’s Center for Innovation found is the basis [...]

US Endoscopy, the endoscopy device design and manufacturing company in Mentor, has released the Entrada colonic overtube, which offers more control during colonoscopy in patients with tortuous sigmoid looping.

Among the advice from Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel: reshape the physician-patient relationship by moving from a high-tech medical model to one incorporating both high tech and high touch.

Claire Zangerle is restructuring the Visiting Nurse Association of Ohio to run more like a business. “We’re such a from-the-heart business,” said Zangerle, who took over in July as chief executive of the non-profit community health association. “The reality is that without being smart at business and thinking with your head, then you’re not able to give with your heart.”

St. Vincent Charity Hospital has spent the last year on a focused, narrow experiment to foster the concept of a medical home. Early results show the promise, but the project also highlights the challenges of making a medical home. Medical residents are considered a detriment, and much of the up-front effort required to create a medical home are expensive — so much so that St. Vincent’s may simply take the best parts of its experiment and give up on receiving accreditation as a full medical home.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan plans soon to designate about 1,000 doctors in primary-care practices as part of its medical homes program. It’s likely the largest medical homes effort nationwide and one of hte first to go beyond the pilot stage.