As the ICD-10 compliance deadline edges closer and Meaningful Use lurches forward, providers have a heap of IT challenges on their plate, according to a January report from KLAS.

James Turnbull, CIO at University of Utah Health Care in Salt Lake City, was selected by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives and the Health Information and Management Systems Society to receive the 2012 CIO of the Year award. 

The Agency for Health Research and Quality called on the Office of Management and Budget to approve a pilot program aimed at increasing awareness among clinicians of the monetary value derived through treatment they deliver in a notice published in the Federal Register.

Mobile device use will keep climbing in the foreseeable future and healthcare is expected to play a large part in that growth, according to a January report published by Deloitte.

athenahealth, a developer of cloud-based EHR, practice management and care coordination services, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Epocrates, a mobile health firm that develops point-of-care medical applications. The board of directors of both athenahealth and Epocrates has agreed to a price of $11.75 per share, in cash, for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $293 million.

Convenience and the ease of integration that comes from having an established relationship with an EMR vendor are the primary factors providers use to choose a patient portal, based on a report from market research firm KLAS. The research examined the patient portal market, which is on the verge of a growth spurt due to Stage 2 Meaningful Use requirements.

Approximately 157,000 Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries in up to 15 U.S. health systems and providers will begin participating in a patient-centered medical neighborhood demonstration project as part of a collaboration among TransforMED, Phytel and VHA. Funded by a three-year, $20.75 million cooperative agreement awarded by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, the PCMN project is scheduled to begin implementation this month.

TriZetto has acquired Franklin, Tenn.-based Healthcare Productivity Automation (HPA), whose healthcare workflow automation technologies will be integrated with TriZetto’s business management services unit over the coming months. Terms of the transaction, which closed on Dec. 17, 2012, were not disclosed.