Research and Development (R&D)

Newfangled social media and evolving business models have completely changed job recruitment, according to Dan DeMaioNewton, director of strategy and business development at Monster Worldwide. Getting the best healthcare IT talent in the 21st century will force employers to adapt to a completely new talent landscape.

Lancaster General Hospital in Pennsylvania has seen significant results since it began an intravenous interoperability pilot study with Cerner in July 2008. Auto programming supported with bar code technology is generating a large amount of electronic data on patients, clinicians, drugs and warnings to analyze for quality improvement, according to a Health Data Management report. And analysis of the data is exposing data and pump programming practices that previously were concealed within the technology or by a lack of end-user awareness.

Jeffrey Shuren, director of FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, says health IT malfunctions have been linked to several cases of patient harm and some deaths. Shuren is expected to testify about health IT-related adverse events during a government hearing on Thursday.

Revolution Health's exodus doesn't necessarily mean the PHR market is ready for life support, but it probably does mean the world isn't yet ready for a do-it-yourself version for consumers, according to industry observers.

A Harvard University study published today in the American Journal of Medicine finds that EHR systems have not dramatically reduced administrative costs in U.S. hospitals.

Mobile health monitoring ranks fifth among the top 10 consumer mobile applications for 2012 identified by Gartner as likely to have an impact on consumers and industry players. Analysts weighed revenue, loyalty, business model, consumer value and estimated market penetration in developing their list.

Implantable chips that regulate insulin in people with Type 1 diabetes and digital ‘plasters’ that help doctors to remotely monitor their patients are among the innovative technologies that have helped researchers at Imperial College London win a major award this month.

A new survey released by the Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council (MassMEDIC) and Cambridge Consultants, a technology product design and development firm, finds that a patient-centered and coordinated approach to healthcare could save billions of dollars. The survey also indicates care coordination will reduce wasteful spending in defensive medicine, inefficient claims processing, medical errors and emergency room services.

A Wisconsin Hospital Association survey of 125 acute care hospitals found that by the end of fiscal year 2008, some 50 percent of Wisconsin hospitals were identified as "high" users of health IT, up 25 percent from 2007.