In conjunction with the Health Datapalooza annual conference this week in Washington, D.C., the Department of Health and Human Services has released new data and tools tailored to increase transparency.

EHR 2.0 is the idea that once certified EHR technology is implemented, a healthcare delivery organization can begin to reap the kind of knowledge and actionable information from its vast stores of data that bend the cost curve and make a real impact on patient outcomes.

It’s been used in other industries for years, and now healthcare is using data mining to identify high-cost patients with similar characteristics, improve quality and manage costs. Growing efforts to dig into big data are yielding more insight into one of the most challenging and complex diseases: cancer.

After three years of defending the Ashland, Kentucky, hospital against the government’s allegations that it had submitted Medicare and Kentucky Medicaid claims for medically unnecessary cardiology procedures and paid cardiologists kickbacks to perform more procedures at King’s Daughters Medical Center, the hospital negotiated a $40.9 million settlement — roughly double the amount of the alleged false claims.

Dashboards are emerging as valuable tools for tracking performance measures and other efforts related to quality of care. 

Ambulatory surgery center operator Amsurg Corp., Nashville, Tennessee, is making a big play to expand into the fast-growing physician outsourcing market with its purchase of Sheridan Healthcare based in Sunrise, Florida.

In its quarterly analysis of healthcare merger and acquisition activity, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, concludes that compared to the first quarter of last year, 2014 so far is fairly soft in announced deals for hospitals and physician practices even thought the incentives to merge are still strong.

If regulatory approval is given, AtlantiCare, southern New Jersey’s largest healthcare organization, will become a part of the Geisinger Health System sometime next year. The two organizations have signed a definitive agreement for AtlantiCare to become a member of the Geisinger Health System, and expect the regulatory approval phase to take 9 to 12 months to complete.