UHC has released the findings of a new study that evaluated the use of medical devices based on cost and quality outcomes. The goal of the study was to uncover several trends related to high-priced physician preference items (PPIs). Utilization of PPIs — which can account for 30 to 40 percent of a hospital's supply expenses — at 10 academic medical centers, focusing on procedures utilizing orthopedic implants, coronary and peripheral stents and cardiac valves.

According to information technology (IT) company Logicalis US, managing a high volume of patient images in varying formats requires development of a comprehensive enterprise imaging strategy that addresses five core components while remaining vendor-neutral.


Congress has passed legislation that eliminates the threat of annual cuts in Medicare payments to providers that were required under the sustainable growth rate (SGR) to control skyrocketing Medicare costs. The legislation, H.R. 2, lays the framework to allow Medicare to transition from its current fee-for-service payment system to a value-based reimbursement system.


Mobile Heartbeat announced it will be demonstrating its MH-CURE communication and workflow smartphone application at the 2015 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual conference, April 13-15, 2015, in Chicago.

The physician-patient relationship still plays a primary role in the overall patient experience despite increasing use of technology, according to a survey conducted by Nuance Communications Inc. The 3,000-person survey — conducted in the United States, United Kingdom and Germany — found that 97 percent of people agreed with this sentiment.

A new KLAS report on business intelligence (BI) found that healthcare organizations are looking for BI vendors with industry expertise and content to handle the growing complexities of data management. The report — entitled Health Analytics 2015: Moving toward the Continuum of Care — stresses that in-organization data is only a part of the picture and that data aggregation capabilities are more important than ever before.

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