BOSTONThere are mountains of problems to overcome when it comes to automating systems and getting patient health records off of paper. And the HITECH Act has added urgency to the tasks at hand, said John Delaney, RN, BSN, director of IT outreach at University Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas. Its a huge job and weve got big problems, said Delaney during a session at the ANIA/CARING conference last week.

BOSTON--The Office of Nursing Services (ONS) at the Department of Veterans Affairs is developing an inter-agency standards-based catalog of terms to drive data use, re-use and sharing. And now this effort is at the tipping point, said Murielle Beene, MBA, RN, chief nursing informatics officer at the ONS; and Diane Bedecarre, MS, RN-BC, during a session at the recent ANIA/CARING conference.

The health information exchange (HIE) infrastructure will change dramatically over the next two years with enterprise HIEs potentially reaping the benefits, according to a report from health market researcher IDC Health Insights.

Radiology services provider Optimal IMX has implemented MobileMD's technology and services to establish health IT connectivity and interoperability with its client facilities and physician community.

Lawrence General Hospital (LGH), an independent community hospital in Lawrence, Mass., aims to install an all-new integrated hospital-wide information system to streamline patient care. We have been maintaining 30 to 40 interfaces trying to keep our data flowing, said Neil Meehan, DO, the newly minted CMIO at LGH.

U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, D-R.I., has introduced the HITECH Extension for Behavioral Health Services Act of 2010 in the House of Representatives to extend health IT assistance to behavioral health, mental health and substance abuse professionals and facilities.

As part of the Continuing Extension Act of 2010, passed Thursday in the Senate, the legislators voted to amend the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) definition to include a professional in an inpatient or emergency room setting.

Without a basic IT infrastructure, public health laboratories will be unable to effectively manage their laboratory data or electronically message laboratory test results, according to an article in Public Health Reports.