The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced positive and promising results from the first performance year of the Pioneer Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Model, including higher quality care and lower Medicare expenditures. But, seven of the ACOs will switch to a different ACO model and two will drop out entirely.

More Pioneer accountable care organizations (ACOs) improved quality than lowered costs, according to first-year results.

Hospitals enrolled in the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP) experienced significantly lower mortality rates for surgical patients compared to non-ACS NSQIP hospitals, according to a recent study.

The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) will work together on two timely and critically important issues--information governance and standards--to advance health information management and health IT.

Universities and many governments will now have free access to 2011 data from the HIMSS Analytics database, the Dorenfest Institute for Health Information Technology, Research and Education, managed by the HIMSS Foundation.

Weymouth, MA, July 10, 2013 -- Beacon Partners, a leading healthcare management consulting firm, and Information Builders, a leader in business intelligence (BI) and analytics, information integrity, and integration solutions, today announced the formation of a strategic business partnership. Information Builders provides healthcare organizations with a complete BI and analytics solution – and has now added Beacon Partners as an integral component in this effort. Beacon Partners will help its customers leverage Information Builders software to meet the integration, intelligence, and data integrity challenges of electronic medical records (EMR), clinical transformation, and consumer engagement.

It doesn’t seem that the federal government took off much time for the 4th of July holiday—at least when it comes to health IT. From cybersecurity to a health IT safety plan, there is plenty to consider.

The annual list of the Most Wired U.S. hospitals from Hospitals & Health Networks, numbering 289 this year, offers both reason to cheer and evidence of roadblocks in the nation’s effort to tech-up its health-care system.