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

Ohio is one of 45 states to receive a $1 million federal grant designed to improve regulatory oversight of health insurance premium hikes.The funding, part of this year’s controversial health reform package, will enable state regulators to hire more people to review health insurers’ proposed rate increases.State regulators have the authority to review insurers’ proposed [...]

Updated 3:16 p.m.Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland signed an executive order Friday morning creating the Ohio Prescription Drug Task Force–a group that will include doctors and pharmacists from which he hopes to begin getting answers in six weeks on how to manage the state’s growing problem.AdvertisementThe order expands the state’s role and establishes a more comprehensive, [...]

News and notes from the day in MedCity, Ohio:University Hospitals Case Medical Center’s first spinoff company Fluence Therapeutics Inc. recently opened in the downtown Akron Global Business Accelerator on South Main Street, the Akron Beacon Journal reported. The start-up comes from more than 20 years of research on a psoriasis treatment known as photodynamic therapy [...]

Four Ohio organizations will receive a total of $19 million in federal funding to train workers for jobs in the health care industry. The funding comes from last year’s federal stimulus act and will be distributed by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Home health care equipment maker Invacare Corp. could send jobs abroad if a new tax on medical device manufacturers in the U.S. Senate’s health insurance reform bill is implemented.

Northeast Ohio’s largest grocery store chain — Giant Eagle of Pittsburgh, Penn. — is teaming up with Akron’s biggest health system — Summa Health System — to operate walk-in clinics inside its supermarkets in Wadsworth and on Kent Road in Stow. Giant Eagle also confirmed it has a deal with University Hospitals to staff retail clinics in its Cleveland-area stores.

Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Case Medical Center will participate in a consortium of national experts investigating why unexplained anemia is common in older adults. The consortium, called the Partnership for Anemia: Clinical and Translational Trials in the Elderly, is the result of a $16 million grant awarded by the National Institute on Aging.

The Senate Finance Committee will vote Tuesday on its $829 billion health-care reform bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday.

STERIS Corp. in Mentor and Sherwin-Williams Co. in Cleveland will receive funding from the Defense Department for research on military-related biological technologies.