Last week, the Presidents Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST) called for a universal language for health IT standards, a single information-sharing infrastructure that facilitates data exchange among institutions. Such an infrastructure would help bring about a transition from traditional EHRs to a more medically useful and secure system, PCAST said.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued its new Strategic Framework on Multiple Chronic Conditions -- a private-public sector collaboration to coordinate responses to mulitple chronic conditions.

As organizations prepare for Stage 1 meaningful use requirements, the standards community is hammering out an end-to-end process for quality measure reporting, said Robert H. Dolin, MD, chair of Health Level 7. Dolin, who is also principle at Semantically Yours, discussed two key elements of this effort during a recent HIMSS-sponsored webinar, titled Quality Measure Electronic Specifications for EHRs: A CMS perspective.

In a matter of eight months the possible clinical applications of the iPad have sprung from the imaginations of physicians and healthcare IT professionals to operating room trials and accompanying physicians on rounds, according to a column published in the January 2011 issue of the Journal of Surgical Radiology.

U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson declared Section 1501 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act unconstitutional Dec. 13, in a lawsuit pitting Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli against the Department of Health and Human Services on the constitutionality of requiring Americans to buy health insurance.

The FDA has approved Medtronics CareLink Pro 3.0 Therapy Management Software, a software program that offers decision support to healthcare professionals managing diabetes. The company announced a market launch in the U.S.

Inclusive of equipment, software, services, training time and potential lost revenue, physician practices may face total EHR adoption costs of $120,000 per physician, according to a report from CDW Healthcare.

Of 3.6 million adults visiting an acute care site during a five-year period, almost a third sought care at two or more hospitals, according to an article in the Dec. 13/27 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.