Ingram Micro has entered into a new distribution agreement with EHR/practice management company NextGen Healthcare Information Systems to recruit, train and support new partners who help providers take advantage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 stimulus payments for health IT adoption.

Siemens Healthcare will supply diagnostics imaging equipment to all Ministry of Health hospitals (approximately 100) across Iraq.

William Denman, MD, has been appointed chief medical officer (CMO) at GE Healthcare.

Apple's announcement of the iPad made headlines last week. Shortly after the announcement, vendors began announcing applications that might help make the device a game-changer for healthcare IT--or not. At press time, the ayes still held a narrow lead in our poll of CMIO.net readers about whether or not the technology has the functionality to be widely adopted within healthcare. Among respondents, the affirmative responses held a 51-45 edge.

A combined technique utilizing functional MRI and mental-imagery tasks have proven that a small proportion of patients diagnosed as being in a vegetative or minimally conscious state may have brain activity reflecting some awareness and cognition, according to the results of a study published online Feb. 3 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Boston Scientific has settled three patent disputes with Johnson & Johnson (J&J) for $1.73 billion.

IBM has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Initiate Systems, a provider of data integrity software for information sharing among healthcare and government organizations. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently approved three organizations as designated accrediting bodies for non-hospital providers of advanced medical imaging. Stephen Green, MD, chief of cardiology at North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, N.Y., said that such accreditation standardization makes sense.