Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius has released more than $25.7 million in grants to increase support services at U.S. health centers.

Abbott has expanded its XIENCE V USA post-approval study designed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of its Xience V everolimus-eluting coronary stent in a real-world clinical setting out to five years. The expansion allows for more than 2,000 patients from the XIENCE V trial to cross over into the Dual Anti-Platelet Therapy (DAPT) trial.

With its deleterious impact on employment and health insurance, the recession has put emergency departments (EDs) across the United States under a tremendous amount of pressure, according to a report issued by the Kaiser Family Foundations Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.

Boston Scientific has reported positive financial earnings for its fiscal 2009 second quarter, which ended June 30. The Natick, Mass.-based medical device company booked a net income of $158 million this quarter, compared with $98 million in the second quarter of 2008.

Health IT developer Merge Healthcare has shown an uptick in revenue and a sharp turnaround in net income for the Milwaukee-based firms fiscal 2009 second quarter, which ended June 30.

Health IT systems developer QuadraMed has appointed Duncan W. James as its CEO and a member of the board of directors.

The American College of Cardiology (ACC) published its vision for U.S. healthcare reform, describing both existing initiatives and plans for the future, and called for cardiologists to play an active role in shaping healthcare reform, in the Aug. 4 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Abbott today settled all outstanding intellectual property litigation with Medtronic. Under the terms of the settlement, Medtronic will pay Abbott $400 million and $42 million to evYsio Medical Devices, based in Vancouver, British Columbia.