The Virginia State Legislature this week approved a bill mandating health insurers, healthcare subscription plans and health maintenance organizations (HMOs) to fully cover the cost of healthcare services provided through telemedicine services.

At the recent HIMSS10 conference in Atlanta, Intel announced its patient monitoring study with Mayo Clinic and introduced its Start Now initiative, a web portal that contains text and video statements by healthcare leaders about what they are doing to change the future of healthcare today.

HIMSS10 attendance was pegged at 27,500 as of March 3--this is not the final count--but it was up slightly from 2009 and about 1,600 short of the 2008 tally. For anyone who was there, 27,500 probably seems like an undercount: The Georgia World Congress Center, which is bigger than many city airports, was filled with enthusiastic attendees and vendors packed two halls. 

Royal Philips Electronics is collaborating with Microsoft to build on Philips Healthcares foundation of healthcare informatics and clinical decision support offerings at the point of care.

Setred introduced its 3D visualization solution developed for the medical industry, the Setred MD20-3D display and Samurai 3D medical imaging software, at the European Congress of Radiology (ECR) 2010, in Vienna, from March 48.

For patients with high-risk, potentially operable rectal cancer, therapy with preoperative chemotherapy prior to standard chemoradiation and surgical resection is a reasonable treatment with acceptable safety and promising long-term outcomes, based on a study published in the March issue of the Lancet Oncology.

This week at HIMSS10 in Atlanta, during a roundtable with two dozen CMIOs and later in a keynote speech addressed to an audience of thousands, National Coordinator for Health IT Chairman David Blumenthal, MD, repeated this message: His office wants to hear from you about the proposed regulations governing the meaningful use of EHRs.

ATLANTA--Verizon Wireless showcased its telehealth and mobility solutions for healthcare organizations, as well as its new IT platform, aimed at aiding EHR adoption, at HIMSS10 this week.