Healthcare services and IT developer McKesson has revealed a plan to integrate Horizon Connect--a component of its Horizon product suite--with its business platform RelayHealth in order to facilitate health information exchange (HIE).

Look at recent health IT financial news and you might feel a moment of go-go '90s optimism. That's understandable. Health IT spending is up, and growth is expected to continue ashospitalsworldwide harness more technology to improve patient care.

Prism Clinical Imaging and the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee are the recipients of a three-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the development and clinical validation of medical imaging software to aid in the diagnosis and treatment of brain cancer.

Southwest Hospitals MRI Center in Oak Lawn, Ill. has installed eRADs latest PACS technology.

I first grew interested in the possibilities and potential of integrated healthcare information systems when I heard a proposal for a Community Health Information Network (CHIN) in the late 1990s. Weve come a long way since those early efforts at interoperable health ITthere are currently approximately 190 regional health information organization (RHIO)/health information exchange (HIE) initiatives in various forms of development in the United States.

Although the entire healthcare IT universe is waiting on a final definition of meaningful use of electronic health records, the July draft circulated for public consumption gives plenty of clues as to what the rules ultimately will look like for the Medicare and Medicaid health IT subsidy program.

Clinicians are in data overload and the potential exists for this information excess to stall decision-making, thereby negatively impacting patient care. The solution is to provide the right information at the right time to the right caregiver. Advanced wireless technologies are at the forefront of helping physicians and allied staff better handle the enormous amount of continually flowing patient data, as well as to communicate throughout the enterprise with patients and staff.

Hospitals and health systems are beginning to more carefully craft care plans for patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes, depression, heart disease, lung disease and cancer that seek to engage the patient in his or her own care as well as readying themselves for pending changes in reimbursement that looks to tie the achievement of care goals to payment.