The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health IT is seeking public comment on a proposed plan to award contracts to establish regional health IT extension centers, according to a draft plan published Thursday in the Federal Register.

A team of computer security experts at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a working definition for cloud computing--a computer technique with potential for achieving "significant cost savings and IT agility."

MxSecure is planning to incorporate M*Modal's Conversational Documentation Services and speech recognition technology into its client offerings.

UnitedHealthcare, a UnitedHealth Group company, is collaborating with the California Regional Health Information Organization (CalRHIO) to support California's statewide electronic health information exchange (HIE) initiative.

The Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT) has approved the final 2009-2010 criteria for certification of ambulatory, inpatient and emergency department EHRs, and for its newly developed stand-alone e-prescribing certification.

HealthLINC, a health information exchange (HIE) in Southern Indiana, is using Axolotl's Elysium Exchange solutions to keep the medical community informed and updated on the H1N1 virus, or swine flu.

New technology allows student doctors to practice operations and other procedures on simulators before trying them out on real patients, just as pilots practice for emergencies on aircraft simulators, according to a plenary paper session at the 2009 Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) annual meeting in New Orleans on May 14.

The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) has certified MedHost's product, MedHost emergency department information system (EDIS) version 4.2, as a CCHIT Certified 08 emergency department EHR.