PerkinElmer has acquired Dexela, a London-based provider of flat-panel complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor x-ray detection technologies and services.

BOSTONThere are several approaches to meaningful use, said Reid Coleman, MD, medical director of information (MIO) at Lifespan, a multi-hospital organization in Rhode Island. You can duck and cover; you can do one and done; or you can take the money and run. None of these options is necessarily the right approach, he added, during a CMIO Summit Clinical IT Leadership Forum presentation titled Meaningful Use: The Right Way and Breaking Through the Confusion.

EMRs and EHRs appear to have structural and process benefits for primary care outpatient practices, but the impact on clinical outcomes is less clear, according to a review published online first on March 9 in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

BOSTONBuilding an health information exchange (HIE) and integrating to an HIE is very different from an EHR implementation, said Ben Stein, MD, president and CEO of the Long Island Patient Information eXchange (LIPIX) during a presentation entitled Health Information Exchange: How to Play, What to Gain at the CMIO Summit Clinical IT Leadership Forum on June 10.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has answered several additional frequently asked questions (FAQs) regarding meaningful use. Some of the new FAQs and answers include:

The Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has asked for 30 additional days for the comment period on a previously announced information collection project, Barriers to Meaningful Use in Medicaid.

CMIO presents a weekly update of the EHR products certified by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT Authorized Testing and Certification Bodies (ONC-ATCBs). The following EHR certifications were announced recently:

The Minnesota Department of Health has certified Ability Network as the state's first Health Data Intermediary (HDI), and charged it with providing the infrastructure to streamline the exchange of healthcare data for the benefit of patients, providers and payers.