As a high-cost, high-revenue environment, cardiovascular patient management is fertile ground for a range of improvements driven through IT innovations. Advances in electronic tools, increasing focus on patient engagement, improvements in information sharing, financial incentives and more are converging to set the scene for a perfect storm of innovation in cardiac care.

Georgia is on its way to establishing the most sophisticated telemedicine network in the nation. The Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) plans are driven by DPH Commissioner Brenda Fitzgerald, MD's vision to expand the network to all of the state's health districts and county health departments.

Central line associated bloodstream infections in newborns were reduced by 58 percent in less than a year in hospital neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) participating in an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) patient safety program. Frontline caregivers in 100 NICUs in nine states relied on the program's prevention practice checklists and better communication to prevent an estimated 131 infections and up to 41 deaths and to avoid more than $2 million in healthcare costs.

Providers are increasingly clamoring for clinical decision support tools, but simple plug-and-play products don’t exist yet, and CDS tools developed locally often have similar problems, according to a report from KLAS. 

Checklists help to keep many on task during their normal routines. In the operating room, where adherence to standardized sets of evidence-based guidelines is critical, checklists can be life saving, according to research published Jan. 17 by the New England Journal of Medicine. 

Dollars committed to the healthcare merger, acquisition and takeover market declined 38 percent from $231 billion in 2011 to $143.3 billion in 2012, according to a report from Irving Levin Associates.

Physician leaders view online physician ratings as inaccurate, unreliable and not widely used among patients, according to the results of a survey conducted by the American College of Physician Executives (ACPE), which found that physicians much prefer internal organizational ratings based on actual performance, as opposed to the consumer websites that many physicians consider to be nothing more than “popularity contests.”

CampusMD, which provides college students with around-the-clock mobile access to U.S.-licensed physicians, has launched a nationwide telehealth service available either directly to students and their parents or through wholesale arrangements with partner colleges and universities.