This week witnessed a stolen hospital computer, a pointed call for changes to the governance of the Nationwide Health Information Network and a hair-raising report from a federal office on adverse-event reporting (or, more to the point, the lack thereof).

BOSTONInstitutions responsible for regulating mobile health (mHealth) products are hustling to keep up with the pace of technological innovation. While mobile devices like smartphones and tablets have cleared new paths to providing healthcare and encouraging wellness, the current regulations guiding the development of mHealth tools can be burdensome and unclear, according to a July 25 panel discussion at the 4th annual mHealth World Congress.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has issued two new interoperability standards and revised another. Additions to the New York City-based associations family of 11073 standards, the three standards are intended to help expand the market for medical equipment that has device-to-device communications capabilities.

One of the key goals of healthcare reform is to boost quality while cutting cost. Its a tall order, and success will hinge on thoughtful deployment of imaging informatics systems.

CHS Health Services (CHS), a workforce health management company, has created a strategic partnership with Boston-based Center for Connected Health, a division of Partners HealthCare. The two will jointly market their services to deliver specialty care from Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston using IT to help patients access specialty healthcare providers in the Partners network.

Many EHRs automated functions do not account for the unique characteristics of pediatric providers, necessitating a redesign of EHR user interfaces to allow for accommodation, according to a June National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) report.

The National Center for Health Statistics released encouraging numbers for physician adoption of EHR systems and Farzad Mostashari, MD, ScM, the national coordinator for health IT, was quick to comment on the high satisfaction rate and "tangible benefits" available today for patients, in his post on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' HealthITBuzz blog.

The ambulatory EHR market is still growing. As larger healthcare organizations look to replace their current systems and smaller organizations continue boarding the EHR train with their first systems, vendors are juggling resources to meet a diverse set of provider needs, according to a recently published KLAS report.