NEW YORK & BLOOMFIELD, Conn.-- Cigna (NYSE: CI) and NYUPN Clinically Integrated Network, LLC, an organization comprising all clinical faculty affiliated with NYU Langone Medical Center and the University Physicians Network (UPN), have launched a collaborative accountable care initiative to improve patient access to health care and enhance care coordination. The program is effective July 1, 2013.

SYDNEY-- The majority of Australian doctors (77 per cent) say sharing health records electronically had a positive impact on reducing medical errors in 2012, according to a survey by Accenture (NYSE:ACN). The survey of 3,700 doctors in eight countries – Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, Singapore, Spain and the United States – also found that 83 per cent of Australian doctors are actively using electronic medical records (EMR) and roughly 70 per cent reported improved quality of diagnostic and treatment decisions as a result of their use of shared electronic health records.

The Department of Health & Human Services has issued its Health IT Patient Safety Action and Surveillance Plan, which addresses the role of health IT in helping to eliminate medical errors, protect patients and improve the quality and safety of healthcare.

The Joint Commission has received a sole source contract from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) to address one of the key recommendations made in the Institute of Medicine report, “Health IT and Patient Safety: Building Safer Systems for Better Care.”  The report called for an independent entity to help identify unsafe health IT conditions that have been associated with serious patient safety events, develop a process for preventing health IT-related adverse events and educate the healthcare field and others about this work.

Several witnesses discussed how the drop in providers combined with the increase in the aging population and chronic disease are driving innovations in mobile health during a Congressional Committee on Small Business hearing focused on mobile health apps.

MADISON, N.J., June 26, 2013 -- Quest Diagnostics (NYSE:DGX), the world's leading provider of diagnostic information services, today announced an agreement with AT&T* to provide the Quest Diagnostics Care360® Solution Suite, including the Care360 electronic health record (EHR) and eprescribing and laboratory order/results services, through AT&T Healthcare Community Online.

The Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) unveiled a proposed rule governing the financial integrity and oversight standards of health insurance exchanges.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) ranks number one in overall performance among U.S. health insurers based on a review of 2012 claims-payment data conducted by athenahealth, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATHN), a leading provider of cloud-based practice-management, Electronic Health Record and care-coordination services to medical groups.