The California Telemedicine Pilot Project, sponsored by Cisco with the assistance of health organization Molina Healthcare, two community health centers in San Diego and the state of California, will connect more than 15 locations and provide health and wellness services to underserved communities throughout the state.

St. Lukes Lakeside Hospital of the Woodlands in Texas--a new hospital within St. Luke's Episcopal Health System--has selected imaging equipment from diagnostic imaging systems and services provider Toshiba America Medical Systems for its new facility.

The House of Representatives healthcare reform bill, if passed, could reduce the number of uninsured to 24 million by 2019, a 56 percent decrease relative to the current projected trend, said a recent analysis of the Affordable Health Care for America Act by the RAND Corporation.

The American Hospital Association (AHA) has sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., urging that Congress maintain the level of insurance coverage offered in the House version of healthcare reform when it reconciles the competing Senate and House healthcare reform bills.

Anthem Blue Cross has partnered with Ideal Life to pilot the C.A.R.E. (Congestive Heart Failure Ambulatory Remote monitoring and Engagement) program to provide wireless body weight scales to in-home congestive heart failure patients for increased patient monitoring.

A partnership announced Tuesday between Philips Healthcare and Edwards Lifesciences will integrate Edwards' oximetry catheter and sensor technology with Philips IntelliVue patient monitors.

The everolimus-eluting stent is better than the second-generation paclitaxel-eluting stent (Taxus Liberte, Boston Scientific) in unselected patients undergoing PCI in terms of safety and efficacy, concluded the COMPARE trial that was published Jan. 7 in Lancet. Based on these findings, the authors suggest that paclitaxel-eluting stents should no longer be used in everyday clinical practice.

Reduced disc height and greater lumbar asymmetry and curvature can be attributed to common backpack loads for school-aged children, said a study published in the January edition of Spine.