Innovation and health insurance exchange were the top stories in health IT this week.

The Oct. 1 launch of the new health insurance exchanges has been met with a range of technical glitches across the country. Angela Sherwin, program director of the Brown University executive master of healthcare leadership program and former employee involved in Rhode Island's insuranc exchange, spoke with Clinical Innovation + Technology about the situation.

Medical practices are cautious about the new health insurance exchanges, with 40 percent of physician practices reporting that they are weighing their options about participation.

A federal initiative to improve how scientific advances and discoveries are translated into commercially viable products that improve patient care and advance public health led to funding to speed innovations in public health.

TriZetto Provider Solutions, which encompasses Gateway EDI, ClaimLogic and NHXS, announced that clients can begin testing their 5010 professional claims for ICD-10 readiness beginning on October 15, 2013, nearly a year in advance of the ICD-10 implementation deadline.

Farzad Mostashari, MD, ScM, outgoing national coordinator for health IT, will join the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform as a visiting fellow.

With legislators failing to reach a last-minute compromise on budget legislation to avoid a shutdown, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for health IT (ONC) in particular, are forced to furlough a significant percentage of staff unless the impasse is broken. In all, this first government shutdown in 17 years is affecting 800,000 federal workers.

BOSTON--“There is no major shift in technology that hasn’t been galvanized by consumers. The same will be true for healthcare,” predicted Claudia Williams, director of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT's state health information exchange program, at Strata Rx 2013.