The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has launched a medical appointment scheduling system contest, challenging software developers to create open-source tools for scheduling appointments within the VA EHR system.

The Federal Communications Commission announced it will make up to $400 million available through the Healthcare Connect Fund, a new program to support telemedicine links between urban medical centers and rural clinics.

Wireless technologies have proliferated quickly over a short period of time across the healthcare landscape, and wireless technology managers are now reaching a tipping point. A group of 75 wireless health technology experts met in October 2012 for an Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation workshop to discuss the future of the field. The result was five themes for consideration as wireless technologies play an ever larger role in healthcare.

The Agency for Health Research and Quality called on the Office of Management and Budget to approve a pilot program aimed at increasing awareness among clinicians of the monetary value derived through treatment they deliver in a notice published in the Federal Register.

Mobile device use will keep climbing in the foreseeable future and healthcare is expected to play a large part in that growth, according to a January report published by Deloitte.

athenahealth, a developer of cloud-based EHR, practice management and care coordination services, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Epocrates, a mobile health firm that develops point-of-care medical applications. The board of directors of both athenahealth and Epocrates has agreed to a price of $11.75 per share, in cash, for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $293 million.

Convenience and the ease of integration that comes from having an established relationship with an EMR vendor are the primary factors providers use to choose a patient portal, based on a report from market research firm KLAS. The research examined the patient portal market, which is on the verge of a growth spurt due to Stage 2 Meaningful Use requirements.

Approximately 157,000 Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries in up to 15 U.S. health systems and providers will begin participating in a patient-centered medical neighborhood demonstration project as part of a collaboration among TransforMED, Phytel and VHA. Funded by a three-year, $20.75 million cooperative agreement awarded by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, the PCMN project is scheduled to begin implementation this month.