Crossing into new markets, Calif.-based Humetrix showed off its mobile health information exchange app iBlueButton at the UK National Health Service Innovation Expo 2013 last week. The event, which took place on March 13 and 14 in London, was geared to European health IT professionals.

“Stage 3 rulemaking is not happening until next year. Let’s spend 2013 on implementation of Stage 2 capabilities,” recommended Farzad Mostashari, MD, ScM, national coordinator of health IT during the March 14 Health IT Policy Committee meeting. “We need to learn from what’s working and what’s not working.”

Community Health Systems (CHS) and Cleveland Clinic are teaming up in a strategic alliance to improve patient access, enhance quality of care and reduce costs, according to a March 11 announcement.

The Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society promised a big show this year in the Crescent City and they delivered. HIMSS13 included keynotes from powerhouses such as Mostashari, Topol and Clinton and well over 200 education sessions, e-sessions, symposia and more. More than 34,000 people attended the conference and 1,158 vendors exhibited in a hall that covered 17 football fields.

Researchers at the Intermountain Heart Institute at the Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, Utah, unveiled a tool designed to eliminate 30-day hospital readmissions for heart failure patients at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session in San Francisco on March 9.

NEW ORLEANS—The proliferation of mobile medical devices and apps haven’t come without considerable scrutiny from various federal agencies. Scott A. Edelstein, JD, MPA, partner and Mark D. Johnson, JD, senior attorney both at Squire Sanders, discussed the legal issues in the converge of healthcare and mobile telecommunications during an educational session at the Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual convention.

NEW ORLEANS—“Currently, our payments in the U.S. are incredibly siloed, even though our patients aren’t in siloes, as they move from hospitals to outpatient facilities to nursing homes to home health. Therefore, we need to re-orient the payment to match the patient cycle,” said Craig D. Schneider, PhD, in a March 6 session at the Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual convention. The IMPACT program in Massachusetts has attempted just that.

Andrew R. Watson, MD, spoke on the topic of telemedicine at the Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual conference in New Orleans. Here, he shares his thoughts on the growing importance of leveraging telemedicine.