BOSTON--When it comes to quality improvements, you’ve got to start with data integrity, Dirk Stanley, MD, MPH, CMIO at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, Mass., said at the iHT2 Health IT Summit on May 13.

Contradicting other analysts’ findings, as well as popular expectations, Irving Levin Associates of Norwalk, Connecticut, has concluded that merger and acquisition activity in the healthcare sector was actually down last year.

Moody's Investors Service has downgraded the bond rating of Good Samaritan Hospital in Vincennes, Indiana, to Baa1 from A3 on $82.1 million of outstanding debt, and it is considering also downgrading the Detroit-area’s Henry Ford Health System’s $831 million of debt. It currently has an A2 rating.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has posted new quality reporting document architecture resources on its website.

CHICAGO--FIGMD, Inc. is excited to announce the launch of its Clinical Data Registry Platform on Google Glass. A first in the health care quality measurement space, FIGMD’s innovative approach enables Doctors and other health care providers across the country to leverage the power data at the point of care.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.-- As part of its continued efforts to strengthen and expand its service capabilities across the healthcare continuum, Quintiles today announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Encore Health Resources (Encore). Encore is a leader in the health-information analytics and technology services industry focused on healthcare providers. Through its consulting services and solutions, Encore assists customers with a wide range of strategy, advisory, implementation, process-redesign, optimization, analytics and performance-improvement initiatives.

With 65 percent of Community Health Systems’ (CHS’s) entire portfolio of hospitals severely impacted by the severe winter weather seen in the Midwest, East Coast and Southeast states, its first financials since its blockbuster merger with Health Management Associates (HMA) was completed was below its previous expectations and pushed its stock price down.

Florida-based Baptist Health System Inc. has agreed to pay the government $2.5 million to settle allegations that its subsidiaries violated the False Claims Act by submitting claims to federal health care programs for medically unnecessary services and drugs.