Even as the final privacy rule impacts healthcare providers across the U.S., states are developing and advancing on their own in specific areas, such as patient safety and telemedicine.

Oncology patients represent less than 1 percent of the patient population, but they consume 10 to 12 percent of overall medical costs, according to John D. Sprandio, MD, president of Consultants in Medical Oncology and Hematology (CMOH), a Philadelphia oncology practice which is recognized by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) as a Level III Medical Home.

Nearly 400 California hospitals have joined together in support of a public-private partnership aimed at enhancing the quality of care provided to patients, according to the California Hospital Association (CHA) and its patient safety partner organizations.

As a high-cost, high-revenue environment, cardiovascular patient management is fertile ground for a range of improvements driven through IT innovations. Advances in electronic tools, increasing focus on patient engagement, improvements in information sharing, financial incentives and more are converging to set the scene for a perfect storm of innovation in cardiac care.

Georgia is on its way to establishing the most sophisticated telemedicine network in the nation. The Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) plans are driven by DPH Commissioner Brenda Fitzgerald, MD's vision to expand the network to all of the state's health districts and county health departments.

Central line associated bloodstream infections in newborns were reduced by 58 percent in less than a year in hospital neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) participating in an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) patient safety program. Frontline caregivers in 100 NICUs in nine states relied on the program's prevention practice checklists and better communication to prevent an estimated 131 infections and up to 41 deaths and to avoid more than $2 million in healthcare costs.

Checklists help to keep many on task during their normal routines. In the operating room, where adherence to standardized sets of evidence-based guidelines is critical, checklists can be life saving, according to research published Jan. 17 by the New England Journal of Medicine. 

Dollars committed to the healthcare merger, acquisition and takeover market declined 38 percent from $231 billion in 2011 to $143.3 billion in 2012, according to a report from Irving Levin Associates.