Natural language processing (NLP) applications could become a powerful aid to clinical researchers, according to a study published July 21 in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. At Kaiser Permanente Southern California (KPSC), researchers built a SAS-based NLP tool that was able to successfully identify primary and recurrent cancer diagnoses in data from the healthcare systems EHRs.

Less than one year after it was discovered that almost 20,000 patient names and diagnoses were published on a public website where they remained for a full year, Stanford Hospitals & Clinics and the School of Medicine has suffered another data breach. A password-protected computer containing 2,500 patients' information was stolen from a physician's locked office.

The cost of telemedicine intensive care unit (tele-ICU) program implementation is substantial and the impact of these programs on hospital costs or profits is unclear, according to a study in the July issue of the CHEST Journal. Thus, the study authors cautioned administrators to carefully weigh the clinical and economic aspects of tele-ICU programs when considering investment in this technology.

GE Healthcare has appointed two new company officers. Randy A. Fox, MBA, has been appointed vice president and chief information officer (CIO), and Karim Karti has been appointed vice president and chief marketing officer.

BOSTONPrivacy and security regulations protecting personal health information are undoubtedly necessary and important to maintain patient safety, but they are outdated and preventing providers from unleashing the power of mobile devices. These regulations require rethinking to meet the realities of modern healthcare delivery, according to presenters at the 4th annual mHealth World Congress.

A data outage at Cerner during the week of July 23 caused an undisclosed number of hospitals and providers to lose access to remotely hosted EHR information, forcing them to revert back to pen and paper.

Covidien has opened a $45 million, 100,000-square-foot R&D facility in Shanghai, China. The investment reflects the companys strategy for expansion into developing markets, among which China is key, according to a statement from Jos E. Almeida, the companys president and CEO.

BOSTONThe United Arab Emirates (UAE) is currently experiencing a number of public health epidemics including a rise in obesity and diabetes, but without the resources to treat the onslaught of patients requiring care, some are pushing mobile health tools as a potential solution. Santanu Kunal Biswas, BE, spoke at the 4th annual Mobile Health Conference to tell how DU, a mobile services company, is stepping up to the challenge.