The Rhode Island Quality Institute will receive $11.28 million from two American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) grants for health IT.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Department of Labor (DOL) Secretary Hilda Solis have released a total of nearly $1 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) awards to help healthcare providers advance the adoption and meaningful use of health IT and train workers for the healthcare jobs.

Boston Scientific has rebutted a case study, published Feb. 13 in HeartRhythm, which claimed there was inappropriate shock from an uncommon cause of non-physiologic noise during a subcutaneously implantation of the companys Cognis N119 cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator (CRT-D).

The Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance (MITA), an association representing the manufacturers, innovators and developers of medical imaging and radiation therapy systems, has endorsed eight principles to reduce exposure to medical radiation.

Only a relatively small number of vendors are able to claim a proven, repeatable health information exchange (HIE) model, according to a report from KLAS, a healthcare market research firm. In total, the report highlights the commercial HIE models from 22 vendors, most of which have one, two or three validated sites.

It is impossible to imagine a high-performing U.S. health system that does not take full advantage of the computing technology that has transformed virtually every other aspect of human endeavor, wrote National Coordinator for Health IT David Blumenthal, MD, in a commentary published Feb. 4 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Inova Alexandria Hospital in Alexandria, Va., has implemented the DRX-Evolution system from health IT provider Carestream Health into the new wing of its emergency department.

Health IT company McKesson has unveiled Practice Partner Connect, a health information exchange (HIE) interoperability platform, as a part of version 9.3.3. of Practice Partner.