Bernie Monegain

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it will donate $80 million to help close the gender gap and advance pay equality. "We cannot close the gender gap if we do not close the data gap," Melinda Gates, who co-chairs the foundation with her husband Bill Gates, said in a statement. "If advocacy for women and girls is about giving voice to the voiceless – gathering and analyzing data is about making the invisible visible." To that end, Gates said the funding will be used to collect data in areas such as time use, unpaid work, and economic empowerment. Gates revealed the three-year initiative last week at the 4th Women Deliver Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. “There are two reasons why it is absolutely fundamental that women go into technology: One is that they are some of the highest-paying jobs in the United States, so that should be open to women," Gates told New York Magazine after the announcement. "Secondly, that’s where all the new innovations are coming from.” Gates also said that the technology industry needs to arm more women with the capital necessary to create apps innovations.  Twitter: @Bernie_HITN Email the writer: bernie.monegain@himssmedia.com Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook and LinkedIn

Lake Health, with 14 facilities, staffed by more than 600 physicians and 2,700 healthcare professionals, will be rolling out a Cerner EHR. The goal: support the Lake Health system and its employed providers, as well as create greater integration with its community physician network and to provide the best patient experience possible. Also, patients will benefit from a single health record accessible from a patient portal. “A strong relationship with our medical staff is the cornerstone of who we are, evidenced by their role in our mission and vision statements and in working with us to provide high-quality patient and family-centered health care in Lake County,” Jerry Peters, VP and CIO for Lake Health, said in a statement. The EHR will enable the health system to share and receive patient health records with affiliated providers, other area hospitals and participating healthcare entities nationally. Patient data is produced, managed and stored across multiple care organizations in Lake County, Peters noted, and Lake Health was focused on selecting an IT platform that could collect and analyze data from multiple disparate systems. “Lake Health determined that Cerner’s EHR and Healthelntent population health management platforms were the best choice to support its future initiatives and business model,” Peters said. “Understanding that this investment would most likely shape the future of Lake Health and the care we provide to patients, we completed a thorough evaluation of leading health IT suppliers and collaborated with our physicians and ultimately determined that Cerner was the right choice to support our needs now and into the future.” Peters did not reveal the anticipated cost of the technology. Cerner’s Healthelntent platform aggregates and normalizes data from various sources in near real time, regardless of EHR supplier and is designed to provide physicians and mid-level providers with meaningful data to identify and stratify populations to locate gaps in care.

Decisio Health, a startup that aims to help acute-care provider organizations continually improve their clinical processes, launched the Decisio Health Clinical Intelligence Platform Tuesday and also announced $4.5M in Series A funding.

Jeffrey Carr, most recently the entrepreneur-in-residence at a startup incubator, has joined Mercy Health as the health system's first chief innovation officer, the health system announced Tuesday. Mercy Health, a Catholic healthcare system, serves Ohio and Kentucky with 21 hospitals in Ohio and two in Kentucky. In his new role, Carr will be responsible for fostering a culture of innovation and investment throughout the system, officials said. "With more than 18 years of technology, consulting and executive experience, Jeff Carr understands the importance of developing strategic, innovative approaches to strengthen an organization," said Drew Banks, Mercy Health's chief strategy officer and Carr's boss, in a statement. [See also: Running list: 2016 notable hires, promotions in health IT.] Before joining Mercy Health, Carr worked as entrepreneur-in-residence at Cintrifuse, which provides services to Cincinnati's burgeoning start-up community. He mentored start-ups, led the effort to create a digital health venture studio and also supported a number of the region's leading organizations working with innovative startups. Carr was one of the founders of the startup Intelemage, which was acquired in April by Medidata, the SaaS technology company that specializes in developing and marketing a cloud-based platform of applications and data analytics to address operations throughout clinical trials. Early in his career, he was one of the leaders at Zoomtown, the high-speed internet access company and startup incubator whose model closely mirrors the open innovation approach he will take at Mercy Health. He has also served as a senior vice president and chief technology officer at Cincinnati Bell, where he led the sale of Cincinnati Bell Wireless to Verizon. Other positions included chief information security officer at GE Aviation, and senior executive at Accenture.

King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital pointed to the implementation of InterSystems’ TrakCare health information system in helping it move from Stage 6 to Stage 7 in less than two years.

The center deployed predictive clinical decision support to save diabetic patients’ lives as part of a move to become a data-driven healthcare organization. 

Valita Fredland most recently served as chief privacy officer and counsel at IU Health. In her new post, Fredland will serve as vice president, general counsel and privacy officer.

The Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities states that women must be treated equally to men and bans discrimination based on race, color, national origin, age or disability and, for the first time, gender.

Heritage Group announced this month the closing of its latest Healthcare Innovation Fund, backed by 15 leading healthcare organizations, at $220 million.

The HIMSS Innovation Center is presenting a display to Florence Nightingale on the anniversary of her birthday, May 12, which is also Nursing Informatics Awareness Day. She was born in 1820. Nightingale is considered to be the founder of modern nursing, and many people in the field of healthcare look to her as having built the foundation for nursing informatics. The display features a letter signed by Florence Nightingale, as well as a book she owned, donated by Maureen Mitchell, RN, associate professor, graduate program director, School of Nursing, Cleveland State University. The items are on loan to HIMSS for two years. Learn more about Nighingale’s life and contributions to nursing: "Florence Nightingale’s focus on hygiene and cleanliness was vital to patient safety," said Joyce Sensmeier, RN, vice president, informatics, HIMSS North America. "Her methods resulted in drastically lowered mortality rates, and improved overall hospital performance. Her ideas and reforms changed healthcare on a global scale. HIMSS strives to emulate Nightingale’s dedication to patient care and the advancement of healthcare." Learn more about the background of the artifacts donated by Mitchell. Listen to Mitchell’s discussion about Florence Nightingale and nursing informatics.