Healthcare has not caught up to other industries when it comes to business intelligence, as more than half of healthcare organizations have not implemented such systems, according to a survey conducted by TEKsystems.

The migration from volume- to value-based reimbursement in physician-compensation plans will have an impact on all health-care providers in the near future. All practice models, including small and large physician practices, as well as hospitals that employ physicians, will be compelled to reconsider physician compensation plans to account for costs, quality, and patient satisfaction.

A Mayo Clinic academic clinical team and technology entrepreneurs announced the launch of Ambient Clinical Analytics, a new company focusing on providing bedside critical decision support tools for ICU, operating room and emergency departments.

While national hospital costs have increased by 37 percent since 2008, costs for hospitals in Premier's QUEST collaborative have risen only 14 percent and remained flat for the past year.

On the fourth-quarter earnings call with investors, LifePoint hospital leaders made clear that in their review of the reasons admissions declined at their facilities, the new CMS two-midnight rule was not the primary culprit. 

Optum Labs, a collaborative research and innovation center founded by Optum and Mayo Clinic, announced the addition of seven new charter partners.

The New York Times Sunday Review notes that the health care sector has "repeatedly helped to pull the economy from recession in recent decades." However, in this recession's recovery, the health care sector has not been of much help. Health care spending is growing more slowly than the economy and health care employment is also lagging.

When the accross-the-board cuts to Medicare reimbursement mandated by the sequestration provision in the Budget Control Act of 2011 were about to go into effect, the American Hospital Association (AHA), the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Nurses Association (ANA) warned that the cuts would lead to reductions in health care employment. Now that the cuts have been in place for a year, growth in health care employment does seem to be slowing.