Healthcare reform legislation includes promoting EHRs to improve the efficiency and quality of medical care. But little attention has been paid to understanding whether patients and parents have an interest in, or have access to, electronic methods for interacting with their childrens physicians, the University of Michigan Health System reported. 

Queen Alexandra Hospital, a new facility that is part of Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust in Portsmouth, England, has installed a Somatom Definition AS+ dual-source CT scanner from Siemens Healthcare.

According to Lead Author Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD, associate professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif. and colleagues, functional MRI can be used to study impact of changes in blood flow and neural circuitry, such as ones that may underlie many neurological and psychiatric diseases in the brain.

This weeks roundup includes some news that health IT project managers can use. For example, studies showed that an external source of EHR implementation expertise can help resource-strapped organizations deploy electronic records and that hospitals should invest more in health IT. And there are advantages to using a clinical approach to assess your progress on meaningful use measures. 

Kildare, Ireland-based Health Service Executive has entered into an agreement worth $50.27 million with Healthcare IT company McKesson for the implementation of a national integrated medical imaging system.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a prototype for calibrating MRI machines that is traceable to standardized values, said the institute.

GE Healthcare and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) notified healthcare professionals of a Class I recall of certain lots of the Aisys and Avance anesthesia systems. The control board wiring harnesses have a defect which can cause the machines to unexpectedly shut down, terminating ventilation, anesthetic delivery and potentially patient monitoring.

GE Healthcare and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) notified healthcare professionals of a Class I recall of certain lots of the Aisys and Avance anesthesia systems. The control board wiring harnesses have a defect which can cause the machines to unexpectedly shut down, terminating ventilation, anesthetic delivery and potentially patient monitoring.