Incentivized integration between EHRs and remote patient monitoring would lead to better use of patient-generated data in payment reform efforts. That’s the message sent to the House Ways & Means and Senate Finance Committees in a letter from several industry organizations.

A literature review found little to no evidence that secure messaging portals in EHR systems improve outcomes or reduce costs. The review was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine and funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

This week we brought you coverage of the 2013 Healthcare Leadership Forum which included thoughts on evidence-based medicine, decision support and patient safety from some of the healthcare industry’s top thoughtleaders.

The Consumer Partnership for eHealth, which represents advocacy organizations, released its framework for CarePlans 2.0, which the organizations describe as "the next generation" of care plans.

Best Practice Partners (BPP), a leader in health IT optimization, is pleased to announce a new division which will focus on assisting payers and providers optimize their existing Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) and assist in standing up new ACOs. The division will operate as a federated partnership, drawing on the complimentary skills and expertise of individuals and organizations representing Best Practices for each of the strategic components which go into building a successful ACO.

Advances in speech recognition have helped streamline transcription and recording of patient encounters. Most developments have been in back-end speech recognition, or systems that generate text from dictations that transcriptionists and editors correct and process. But there has been recent growth in front-end speech recognition, which involves systems that require providers to edit the transcribed text immediately after dictating.

CHICAGO—Studying people in natural clinical settings help in the development of guidelines and optimal interventions, explained Vimla L. Patel, PhD, DSc, senior research scientist at the New York Academy of Medicine, speaking during the Healthcare Leadership Forum on Nov. 14.

Innovation in wearable technology in the healthcare space continues to push boundaries.Evena Medical, based in Los Altos, Calif., has unveiled its Eyes-On Glasses System, an imaging solution that enables clinicians at the bedside to see “through” a patient’s skin to the vasculature beneath. The goal: better detection of patient veins for precise IV placement.