Microsoft continued its push into healthcare through a deal with Merck to gain access to some genetic data-management software. Microsoft plans to incorporate the genetic and genomic data-management software into Microsoft Amalga Life Sciences. Amalga is part of a push by Microsoft, whose other offerings include patient health-records holder HealthVault, to become a bigger player in healthcare.
Though the number of doctors who perform wrist angioplasty remains small in the United States—just 1.3% of the one million angioplasties performed yearly in the United States, according to one study—the number is growing as practitioners tout its benefits: less pain, less bleeding, and shorter hospital stays. But surgeons who prefer to stick with the groin call the wrist procedure a ''gimmick'' that takes more time and can't be used in many critical heart procedures.
Health insurer Aetna, Inc., will offer free credit monitoring for a year to about 65,000 people after some e-mails were copied from the health insurer's job application Web site. The company said Social Security numbers of current and former employees and people who received job offers from the company were stored on the Web site, which was maintained by an outside vendor. Most of the information was from current and former employees. For people who received job offers, the site also stored phone numbers, addresses, and employment histories.
A report from Frost and Sullivan shows that advances in the Malaysian healthcare system is leading to rapid growth in the imaging industry in the region. The study covers varying levels of technology adoption, future trends, and industry challenges in the computed radiography, digital radiography, and computer aided diagnosis markets.
For more than a decade, the prevailing view of innovation has been that it bubbled up from the bottom, from upstarts and insurgents, according to this article in the New York Times. Big companies didn't innovate, and venture-backed start-up companies were cast as the nimble winners and large corporations as the sluggish losers. But a shift in thinking is under way, according to the article.
A group of health information technology vendors have formed an alliance to educate physicians about health IT incentives contained in the federal economic stimulus law. The Electronic Health Records Stimulus Alliance includes Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Citrix Systems Inc., Dell Inc., Intel Corp., Intuit Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Nuance Communications Inc. The alliance is sponsoring a touring education program for doctors to inform them about the stimulus incentives. The program includes executive briefings, discussions, trade-show presentations, Webcasts and a Web site.