Patient-centered outcomes research is trending this week, along with data transparency and payment adjustment.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation are partnering to lead a cross-departmental effort to identify strategic opportunities for building a comprehensive, interoperable and sustainable data infrastructure for patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR).

“What we are doing wouldn’t have been thought of if Meaningful Use (MU) hadn’t made the progress that it had,” Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Executive Director Joe Selby, MD, MPH, said in a report to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s (ONC’s) Health IT Policy Committee on June 5.

ATLANTA, June 4, 2013 --  Streamline Health Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ: STRM), a leading provider of SaaS-based enterprise content management, business analytics, computer assisted coding (CAC) and clinical documentation improvement (CDI) solutions for healthcare providers, announced today that it has entered into a joint marketing agreement with Patientco, the industry's most innovative provider of patient financial engagement solutions, with the intention to increase net revenue for healthcare providers by accelerating patient payments.

To spur innovative health apps, Kaiser Permanente announced the upcoming launch of an application programming interface (API) program—Interchange by Kaiser Permanente—which will contain secure, public datasets for third-party developers, according to the company’s June 3 press release.

Continua Health Alliance, a non-profit, open-industry organization of healthcare and technology companies, has announced new additions to its open source clearinghouse to encourage innovation by entrepreneurs, small businesses, students and universities working on health IT projects.

One in five Americans reported visiting an emergency department (ED) at least once in the past year, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The findings show America’s increasing reliance on emergency care, according to Andrew E. Sama, MD, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP).  

BATON ROUGE, LA, June 03, 2013 - Louisiana residents enrolled in UnitedHealthcare’s employer-sponsored, MedicareDirect and Evercare/SecureHorizons Medicare Advantage health plans now have access to care provided by Medistar Home Health.