More than 200 community-based organizations that provide various health services across the 14-county area around Rochester, New York, are teaming up to identify ways to reduce the state’s Medicaid costs while improving care quality. Along the way, they also hope to win some of the state’s Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment program, or DSRIP, $8-billion waiver from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Detroit Medical Center and Vanguard Health have won a $9,966,608 Department of Health an Human Services (HHS) Health Care Innovation Award to test what might happen to emergency department utilization if patient-centered medical home clinics are established next to four major inner-city emergency departments (EDs) and used to make primary care immediately available to individuals who arrive at the EDs for non-urgent care.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced this week that it will put nearly $200 million toward community health center expansion funding and primary care physician training, as well as funding new health innovation projects that address primary care. But it is unlikely to make a sizeable dent in the primary care shortage, notes the grassroots advocacy group Primary Care Progress.

BOSTON, July 8, 2014--Plexus Information Systems, Inc. (Plexus IS), a market-leading provider of Anesthesia Information Management Systems (AIMS), announced today that Tufts Medical Center went live with Anesthesia Touch™, a full-featured AIMS that automates the anesthesia documentation process.

HORSHAM, Pa.--NextGen Healthcare Information Systems, LLC., a wholly owned subsidiary of Quality Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: QSII) and a leading provider of healthcare information systems and connectivity solutions, announced today it has forged an agreement with HMC/CAH Consolidated, Inc. (HMC). NextGen’s solutions will be deployed at five of HMC’s wholly owned Critical Access Hospitals; bringing 10 of HMC’s 12 rural community-based hospitals onto the NextGen Healthcare platform.

The Accountable Care Workgroup’s draft recommendations presented to the Health IT Policy Committee during its July 8 meeting focused on four key areas.

Exactly how ready is the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to begin processing International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, (ICD-10) coded claims now, and how much more does it need to do before October 1, 2015, the mandatory implementation deadline? Six of Congress’ most powerful legislators are demanding to know.

The state of Massachusetts is pouring $23 million in funding into 61 hospitals and community centers to help them establish more effective and cost-efficient integrated delivery systems.