Certification to the health information exchange marketplace should be extended to advance interoperability, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) recommended in April 19 comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC). The two agencies had issued a joint request on March 7 for information on potential policy and program changes to foster interoperability.

CHARLOTTE, N.C.--The Premier healthcare alliance has partnered with Phytel to automate population health services, helping health systems deliver safer and lower-cost care across the continuum.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and Healthdata.gov is offering $25,000 in prizes in its most recent Apps4TotsHealth Challenge, according to an online announcement.

If health data are a valuable resource, why not donate it like blood?, Amy Abernethy, MD, director of the Center for Learning Health Care, Duke Clinical Research Institute, asked an audience at the TEDMED conference on April 17.

Schaumburg, IL & Oakville, ON  April 18, 2013 -- For more than 80 years, Acclaim Health has been providing client-based care to individuals in their community. Acclaim Health Nursing professionals offer an array of services that provide quality care and support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Their approach to healthcare puts clients first by ensuring their staff has access to client health information, medical orders and clinical best practices at the point of care, the client’s home.

The digital traces consumers leave behind in their mobile technology interactions offer clues to their well-being and can inform their healthcare, Deborah Estrin, computer science professor at Cornell Tech in New York City and co-founder of Open mHealth, said at the TEDMED conference on April 17.

Not surprisingly, the HIT Policy Committee’s most recent meeting had considerable focus on interoperability efforts.

BRENTWOOD, Tenn., April 16, 2013 -- Change Healthcare® clients nationwide can now offer their members and employees cost transparency tools and health benefits education in multiple languages.  The leader in consumer engagement and cost transparency recently launched a Spanish-language version of its flagship platform, Transparency Messenger™, and will leverage the functionality of its enhanced platform to expand into other languages as the market demands, says Clayton Nicholas, Change Healthcare's vice president of strategy and marketing.