A pair of studies came out this week that hinted at the untapped value of EHR data.

The Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia, is this year’s American Hospital Association (AHA)-McKesson Quest for Quality Prize winner for its “impressive culture of safety and focus on effectiveness.”

The largest U.S. for-profit and publically traded hospital operator, Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), based in Nashville, Tennessee, is having such a good year so far, that it updated its second quarter and full year guidance for investors to reflect expectations of even higher earnings than it had initially anticipated for 2014.

Adam O'Neal, the Republican mayor of the town of Belhaven, North Carolina (population 1,639), is walking 273 miles from Belhaven to Washington, D.C., to draw attention to the July 1 closing of Vidant Pungo Hospital, the town’s only hospital.

ROCHESTER, MN (July 15th, 2014) - Ambient Clinical Analytics, Inc., the provider of powerful bedside real-time critical decision support tools for ICU, Operating Room and Emergency Departments, was precisely chosen by the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management to be the focus of their case study in the annual Business School Alliance for Health Management competition. The Carlson School earned first place by showcasing the technology from AmbientClinical Analytics.

Noting that by their estimates, billions in disputed claims are tied up in the current appeals process for denied Medicare claims and this is causing severe harm to hospitals, the American Hospital Association along with the hospital operators Baxter Regional Medical Center, Covenant Health, and Rutland Regional Medical Center, have asked a Washington, D.C., court to issue a summary judgment in their favor and compel the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to honor the law’s requirement that disputed claims be heard by an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) within 90 days.

Community Health Systems subsidiaries have executed a definitive agreement to acquire substantially all of the assets of 179-bed Natchez Regional Medical Center in Natchez, Mississippi, which voluntarily filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy in March 2014.

The annual ranking of U.S. hospitals by the news magazine U.S. News & World Report has long stirred controversy, particularly by the heavy weight it gives to hospital reputation as measured by the votes of just a few hundred American Medical Association member physicians. However, its influence in hospital marketing is undeniable.