Mike Miliard

Premier Inc. is joining forces with America's Essential Hospitals, which champions care for vulnerable populations, in a bid to improve quality, cost and population health at essential hospitals.

HIMSS Analytics' eighth annual study sees room for more turnover as practices look for partners to help with clinical practice improvement activities.

HHS and VA have made huge investments in infrastructure and cybersecurity. With its massive EHR modernization project the DHA is also opening its purse strings.

The Consumer Health Data Aggregator and Provider User Experience challenges focus on easing access to information for patients and clinicians, using open APIs and the FHIR interoperability standard.  

Imprivata, the Lexington, Massachusetts-based developer of health IT security tools, has agreed to be acquired by an affiliate of Thoma Bravo, a San Francisco private equity firm. The deal is valued at approximately $544 million.

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT is looking for ways that blockchain could be put to work in healthcare scenarios.

As cybersecurity threats proliferate so do the promises and proposed easy fixes from technology companies, the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology said. And in a market with more than 1,200 competitors, vendors don’t always live up to their claims.

Healthcare providers typically spend less than 6 percent of their IT budget on security, according to HIMSS Analytics data. Financial institutions, by way of comparison, invest between 12 and 15 percent on average.

Coordinated Care Oklahoma, working with technology partners Cerner and Browsersoft, has connected with the U.S. Department of Defense, and it's being billed as the first time an agency using Cerner is providing electronic health records to the DoD. Military personnel at bases in the Sooner State can now have their EHRs available at providers who subscribe to CCO’s exchange, which spans Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Texas and Kansas. "Up until this point, military personnel and their families were covered as it pertains to electronic health records in a sort of duplicate system and then only within base medical installations," said Brian Yeaman, MD, chief administrative officer at CCO, in a statement. [Also: Brian Yeaman wins HIMSS Physician IT Leadership Award for meaningful use, HIE work] Currently there are 22,000 active duty personnel in Oklahoma, supported by 23,000 civilians at military installations statewide. Their medical records are now available to CCO members. Initial talks and implementation were made possible through the work of team members at CCO, Cerner, Browsersoft and Fort Sill, according to CCO, Oklahoma’s largest HIE. Alongside health IT giant Cerner, Browsersoft - which develops open source technology to enable exchange of data among disparate systems - is helping the HIE connect with Oklahoma providers with the DoD in a cost effective way. "What’s exciting and unique about this implementation is the collaborative effort that went into it" said Yeaman. "This involved high level talks, but started locally more than a year ago, and the end results will very much be felt in local impact."   Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook and LinkedIn

At the Cancer Moonshot Summit in Washington on June 29, Biden announced a long list of federal and health industry initiatives meant to harness technological and clinical advances to make significant headway in the fight against the disease.