IBM has announced new services to help healthcare organizations implement wireless mobility solutions. IBM Enterprise Mobility Services for healthcare providers give clinicians and nursing staff wireless communications and real-time access to patient records anywhere on the facility premises, according to an IBM release.
Hewlett-Packard Co. announced five months ago it was acquiring technology-services firm Electronic Data Systems Corp., and Wall Street expected big layoffs from the combined company. But when HP announced the size of the job cuts—24,600 jobs over the next three years, nearly 8% of HP's 320,000-employee work force—it came as a shock. The surprise could provide a lift for HP's stock price because of the potential cost savings from the dramatic reduction in staff and HP Chief Executive Mark Hurd's track record for wringing more profits out of lean operations.
California Rep. Pete Stark, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, has introduced the Health-e Information Technology Act of 2008 which would require the government to create clear standards for an interoperable Health IT system. The bill would also provide the creation of an open source HIT system that will be made available at little or no cost to all providers. There would be incentives to drive the adoption of standardized, interoperable Health IT systems, and the bill includes protections for the privacy of personal health information, according to a release.
The fear of losing competitive advantage among stakeholders is slowing the development of health information exchanges beyond simple recordkeeping systems, according to Joy Grossman, a senior health researcher at the Center for Studying Health System Change. Grossman said business concerns are slowing the evolution of HIEs into sophisticated platforms capable of managing data for quality management and performance incentive programs. She reached those conclusions after leading a 2007 AHRQ study in which a team of researchers evaluated community stakeholders of four HIEs: Cincinnati-based HealthBridge: Indiana HIE; CareSpark, which serves parts of Tennessee and Virginia; and the Tampa Bay Regional Health Information Organization.
The University of California is set to move forward with a new $1.6 billion hospital complex in San Francisco that is being touted as the greenest medical center ever built in California. The university's governing Board of Regents is expected to give final approval for the six-story, 289-bed complex of hospitals. The facility will allow the UCSF Medical Center to expand and modernize its facilities for children, cancer patients and women and will enable practicing doctors and medical researchers to work more closely together in advancing cures and treatments.
Thousands of U.S. patients may face delays in getting key medical tests because of a global shortage of radioactive tracers used to perform bone scans and to assess blood flow to the heart. The radiotracer in short supply, Mo-99, is mostly used to observe blood flow to the heart and in bone scans that assess the spread of cancer. The impact on patients is "very serious," said Robert Atcher, president of the Society of Nuclear Medicine.