NEW YORK--MedCPU, Inc., a leader in enterprise clinical decision support solutions, announced today the close of a $9.3 Million Series B funding round that will provide the company with capital to maximize its growth opportunities in the expanding market for clinical decision support solutions for healthcare providers. Investors in the B round of financing include Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, Easton Capital Investment Group and New Richmond Ventures.

It’s not quite “diversify or die,” but a new report from Moody’s Investors Service on the not-for-profit hospital sector does stress the need for hospitals to expand into outpatient services, along with making investments in efficiency and information technology.

Since Richard Gilfillan, M.D., left his post as director of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation Center last June to become CEO of newly merged CHE Trinity Health, the healthcare systems has made several strategic moves to align itself with changes driven by healthcare reform. The latest came this week when it announced a deal with Walgreens, the nation’s largest drugstore chain, to collaborate on clinical care and population health initiatives.

The annual Milliman Medical Index estimate of the projected total cost of healthcare for a hypothetical family of four is out and the good news is that the amount only increased 5.4 percent this year, the lowest rate of annual increase since Milliman first began tracking this cost in 2002. The bad news is that the cost is now up to $23,215.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley says her office has reached an agreement with Partners HealthCare that lets New England’s largest not-for-profit health system purchase an additional community hospital in the state in exchange for agreeing to adhere to certain terms that limit its ability to continue to grow and leverage its size and market dominance to raise prices.

Writing in Health Affairs, Martin Gaynor, director of the Bureau of Economics of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), in Washington, D.C., observed that given new findings on the impact of healthcare mergers on prices, it is important for the FTC to work with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and other government agencies to maintain “antitrust enforcement and consumer protection in healthcare markets.”

“The time has come for healthcare to govern its information,” said Meryl Bloomrosen, MBA, vice president of public policy for the American Health Information Management Association, speaking at the fourth annual CMS eHealth Summit on May 19. “Trust in health information depends on it.” Leaders from the association called for a greater focus across healthcare on information governance.

Quality of hospital care is improving more rapidly than quality of ambulatory care, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research Quality’s National Healthcare Quality Report 2013.