PointRight Inc., the leader in data-driven analytics for health care and insurance, announces the combined launch of its new iPad App, which now enables providers to have mobile and flexible access to all of PointRight's data analytics services and reports via their iPad. The iPad app is available for free download via the Apple® iTunes® Store.

There is a new kid in town and his name is population health. While accountable care organizations (ACOs) are the risk-sharing, value-based reimbursement model that people are talking about, it will be population health management which helps fuel the innovative care models of the future and allow organizations to be successful as reimbursement evolves.

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) has completed a prototype of CancerLinQ, its health IT initiative designed to achieve higher quality, higher value cancer care with better outcomes for patients.

While governance structures vary in nursing informatics departments across the U.S., these informaticians are tasked with keeping a dual focus on patient safety and quality considerations, as well as IT implementation and optimization. As a result, to whom these individuals report affects the focus of the department.

Patient engagement is the catch-phrase right now, as providers incorporate more and more health IT tools to put patients behind the wheel of their healthcare while the government paves the road to get there.

To help put a dent in the billions spent annually on 30-day hospital readmissions, researchers at Boston-based Partners HealthCare developed a prediction model that identifies seven factors linked to avoidable hospital readmissions. 

Orthopedic procedures are particularly vulnerable in the shift to payment bundling as they are highly customizable, yet physicians and orthopedic service line administrators do not have a real-time view of the effectiveness of the specific implants being used in each procedure.

Interest in health insurance exchanges is rising among health plan members, according to J.D. Power and Associates’ 2013 Member Health Plan Study published on March 11. Health plan members who purchase their own insurance, and those who have high deductibles or are unsatisfied with their current plans, expressed the most willingness to explore insurance exchanges, according to the study.