Cleveland Clinic health system will implement computer-assisted coding technology from 3M Health Information Systems to automate its inpatient and outpatient code transitions to ICD-10.

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.

Data cards containing information about more than 2,200 patients were lost at Mountain View Medical Center, a 178-bed hospital in Mesa, Ariz. In a notice posted on the hospitals website Dec. 10, the hospital reported that the compact memory cards were misplaced from two endoscopy machines, and it became aware of the problem on Oct. 13.

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.

The use of transvaginal ultrasound to measure endometrial thickness may be an effective method of screening for endometrial cancer and atypical endometrial hyperplasia, according to a study published in the December edition of The Lancet.

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.