An intensive care unit telemedicine intervention program at eight Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals made no impact on reducing patient mortality rates or length of stay, according to a study appearing in JAMA Internal Medicine.

BOSTON—The first step to population health management is knowing your patients, said Adrian Zai, MD, PhD, MPH, clinical director of population informatics at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Laboratory of Computer Science and instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School. Zai, who developed population health tools that later were purchased by Partners Healthcare, spoke during the iHT2 Health IT Summit on May 13.

Chicago, IL—May 15, 2014—Axial Exchange, Inc., a pioneer in using mobile apps to deepen the patient’s role in improving outcomes, and Becker’s Hospital Review, a leading healthcare trade publication, today announced the results of the first National Patient Engagement Ranking  at the Becker’s Hospital Review 5th Annual Meeting, in Chicago. The national ranking evaluated provider organizations across the United States, ranking hospitals’ patient engagement efforts based on an analysis of publicly available data. In the inaugural national ranking, Mayo Clinic hospitals (Eau Claire Hospital, Albert Lee and Rochester St. Mary’s Hospital), Medical Center of the Rockies and Roper Hospital received the highest scores of all 3,077 U.S. hospitals assessed.

Three of the nation’s largest health insurance companies--Aetna, Humana and UnitedHealthcare--will work with the Health Care Cost Institute to develop and provide consumers free access to an online tool that will offer comprehensive information about the price and quality of healthcare services.

The Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation issued a report this week that highlighted important regulatory and policy changes that need to be made to fully realize the potential cost savings of telehealth services.

BOSTON--Only 20 percent of providers will manage to achieve Meaningful Use Stage 2 this year, John D. Halamka, MD, CIO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, predicted during his talk on federal mandates at the iHT2 Health IT Summit.

Congress should adopt national telehealth regulations and penalize states that do not make telehealth accessible to providers and patients, according to a report from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation.

It may not always seem like it but numerous organizations including the federal government are plugging away at interoperability issues.