News & Updates

Clinician-to-clinician Direct Messaging is now available across New York as part of the Statewide Health Information Network of New York (SHIN-NY). Albany Medical Center, a busy trauma center in upstate New York, will be the state’s first provider to use the service, which integrates into providers’ electronic health record systems. Albany’s Direct service runs through the Healthcare Information Xchange of New York (HIXNY), northern New York’s regional HIE.

M*Modal, a provider of clinical documentation and speech understanding solutions, announced an agreement with 3M Health Information Systems enabling the M*Modal clinical documentation platform to work in conjunction with the 3M 360 Encompass System. The partnership allows 3M’s computer-assisted coding (CAC), clinical documentation improvement (CDI), quality metrics, and analytics tools to more quickly access documents generated by M*Modal’s speech recognition engine.

Switftkey, the intuitive typing interface for smartphones, announced that it is launching an iPad typing app aimed at the health care market. UK-based Swiftkey claims use of its keyboard can halve the time it takes for clinicians to make notes on patients. The artificially intelligent keyboard incorporates medical terminology and predicts what you are going to type based on what you start to type and what it already knows about your writing. It both corrects words and suggests the next word.

Physicians Interactive CEO, Donato Tramuto will receive the H.I.T. Men & Women Award at HIMSS 2013. The award recognizes Tramuto’s contribution to advancement of health care technology between life science companies and health care professionals. Physicians Interactive provides resource for health care information, medication samples and mobile decision support tools to medical professionals.

CVS will pay $650,000 to fund a public education campaign for consumers to double-check their prescriptions after the wrong medications found their way into bottles at five of its pharmacies last year. On 15 occasions over two months, pill bottles of children’s chewable fluoride also included tamoxifen, a breast cancer treatment drug. Consumers will see posters and pamphlets at CVS pharmacies, while the CVS website will provide color images of medications and offer a personalized prescription profile of each customer.

Happtique, makers of the mRx Mobile Platform that allows providers to prescribe mobile health apps, announced the publication of the final standards it will use to certify apps under the Happtique Health App Certification Program (HACP). The HACP will help health care providers and consumers easily identify medical, health, and fitness apps that deliver credible content, contain safeguards for user data, and function as described. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), CGFNS International, and Intertek will serve as HACP Partners responsible for the evaluation of health apps against the Certification Standards.

According to a study by the Journal of American Medical Informatics Association, users of self monitoring apps lose more weight as opposed tradional tracking methods. This study showed increased adherence among users and points to potential benefits of mobile monitoring methods. A similar study by Archives of Internal Medicine reported that weight loss treatments combined with mobile technology are more affective than same treatment without mobile support.

100Plus, a startup using data analytics and game mechanics for healthy behavioral changes, was acquired by Practice Fusion, a free EHR provider. Practice Fusion’s founder, Ryan Howard, was a part of the group of venture capitalists who invested $1.2 million in 100Plus in 2011.

Kansas Health Information Network (KHIN) and Informatics Corporation of America (ICA), a health information exchange platform, launched a pilot for sharing immunization data with Kansas State Immunization Registry (KSWebIZ), a web-based statewide immunization registry for consolidation of immunization information for all Kansas residents. The pilot electronically sends immunizations from the health care facility to KSWebIZ and will soon allow health care providers to search and retrieve patient immunization information.

NewCrop, an EHR vendor is joining Surescripts‘ e-prescription network that allows clinical information exchange between physicians and care providers. The collaboration will enable NewCrop users to exchange vital clinical information securely with their peers. Other partners of Surecripts include Epic, NextGen and GE Healthcare.

Health Catalyst, a health care data warehouse, increased its Series B funding by $8 million. This extension was sponsored by Kaiser Permanente Ventures and CHV Capital, a venture capital fund by Indiana’s largest health care system, bringing their total funding to $41 million. The previous round of $33 million was concluded in December 2012.