The 7th Collaborative Communications Summit is scheduled for October 27-28 in Los Angeles. The Collaborative Communications Summit is designed to help top-level executives, legislators, physicians, regulators and technologists come to grips with the swirling forces of health information technology change, policy development and changing business models, according to organizers.
Terason has advanced its handheld laptop ultrasound system with the release of IMPACT 2008. With the release, "Terason focuses on bringing a superior cost-effective patient care solution through its Windows(R) based architecture to our customers. IMPACT 2008 advances the overall performance and functionality of ultrasound across various applications," according to a release.
An IT consultant and two employees of a Boston hospital holding company face bribery charges in connection with the way the healthcare concern funneled software, hardware, and consulting contracts to his company. Brian Colpak, owner of Lynnfield, MA-based Future Techologies Inc., allegedly won "several hundred thousand dollars" in contracts by agreeing to pay kickbacks to the employees of Partners Healthcare, which owns Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, according to a statement from the Massachusetts attorney general's office.
California has become the second state to pass a law making it illegal to steal data from radio frequency identification cards. The law sets a penalty that includes a maximum fine of $1,500 and up to a year in prison for someone convicted of surreptitiously reading information from an RFID card. The bill makes exceptions for certain emergency situations, such as permitting a healthcare worker to scan someone's RFID-enabled health card in order to help the person.
California-based physician groups that scored the highest in a recent set of pay-for-performance awards were consistently the most sophisticated users of health IT, according to an analysis by the Integrated Healthcare Association. When the clinical scores of groups were compared, those who rated the highest for the depth of an organization's use of health IT had over 40% higher clinical performance scores than those with the lowest systemness levels, according to the IHA's findings.
A delegation from Envita Asia Hospital Corp. has signed a joint venture with Phoenix-based John C. Lincoln North Mountain Hospital. This was the first time either hospital signed an international agreement. The joint venture will provide the Vietnamese hospital's most seriously ill and injured patients access to American healthcare expertise and technology. An estimated 60% of the population in Vietnam has no access to medical treatment.