In comments submitted to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) largely supported the agency’s plans to play a coordinating role in support of health IT safety.

A new report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality highlights findings and lessons from the experiences of grantees funded by the Enabling Patient-Centered Care through Health IT (PCC) Initiative. Grantees were selected to study different approaches for using health IT to create or enhance the delivery of patient-centered care in ambulatory care settings.

McKesson has reported a 1 percent drop in net income for the fiscal third quarter, which ended Dec. 31, 2012, even though the revenues were up 1 percent. The company also lowered fiscal year expectations slightly.

Pulmonary researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore and University of Washington have expanded the Early Intervention in Cystic Fibrosis Exacerbation (eICE) study, including an additional 12 investigative sites that are now enrolling patients to the randomized study, which was initiated in February 2012.

The application of advances in health IT that can be used to triage decisions in intensive care units (ICUs) could be a “most promising approach” to counteracting some problems with ICU processes, according to a perspective published Jan. 31 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released its final rule seeking to increase public awareness of financial relationships between drug and device manufacturers and certain healthcare providers. Called the “National Physician Payment Transparency Program: Open Payments,” this is one of the steps in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act designed to create greater transparency in the healthcare market, according to the agency.

Physicians who use their EHR's clinical decision support tools are viewed more negatively by patients, according to a study published January in Medical Decision Making.

Recently, I published a book, titled Innovation with Information Technology in Healthcare, which contains the stories of almost 20 organizations that have been innovative in their approach to using health IT. I wanted to share some of the lessons from these stories to help guide your journey of using clinical innovation and technology to deliver better, faster and more cost-effective care at your organization.