M.L. Baker

In the latest of a series of business transformations, health services provider Emdeon has announced that it might sell off its two largest business units, which together provide billing, practice management and clinical software services. The company will retain its online health portal. Though WebMD Health accounted for just over 12 percent of the companys […]

In moves that might disappoint consultants, two prominent national agencies released resources this week to help health care providers adopt information technology. Many of the resources center on humans and workflow, rather than hardware and software. The announcements were timed to capture the attention of attendees at the annual meeting of the Healthcare Information and […]

LOS ANGELES—Not satisfied with the nations largest physician incentive program, Cisco Systems, Intel and Oracle have decided to launch their own. As part of the plan, the companies will pay Silicon Valley health care providers to adopt information technology. Executives described the plan, launched last week, at the Pay for Performance conference here Feb. 7. […]

LOS ANGELES—A diverse group descended on Los Angeles this week to change the way that doctors get paid. In a turnout that surprised the organizers, even the overflow rooms were packed. The first national Pay for Performance (P4P) Summit attracted representatives from software vendors, pharmaceutical companies, physician groups, health insurance companies and patient advocacy groups. […]

LOS ANGELES—Should your doctor get a bonus if you stop smoking and lose weight? Thats the kind of question attendees are wrestling with at the first National Pay for Performance Summit here Feb. 6-9. Pay-for-performance, or P4P, is a controversial but growing practice in which health care providers receive more money if they meet certain […]

In last years budget proposal, President George Bush called for $100 million to fund new projects in health information technology. This week, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg called for the same amount to be spent for health IT in his city. The proposal—to equip 100 city-operated clinics and doctors offices with EHR (electronic health […]

A patent dispute that threatens to cut off some mobile executives e-mails wont affect physicians who send prescriptions to pharmacies electronically. However, headlines wailing about BlackBerrys troubles may keep some physicians from adopting the technology. Few doctors use BlackBerries for e-prescribing, largely because other types of devices generally support faster connections with office networks. Neither […]

As Medicare struggles to work out snafus behind its new drug coverage, government and business leaders are working to make sure the next big change goes smoothly. The Medicare Modernization Act requires standards for doctors to submit prescriptions to pharmacies electronically. To make sure that goes off without a hitch, the Department of Health and […]

Drug companies spend a lot of money trying to get patients attention. To tap into this cash flow, technology startup Phreesia launched this week plans to deliver targeted messages in physicians waiting rooms. Phreesia gives doctors free wireless WebPads (a modified tablet PC). Patients waiting for appointments use the device to describe their symptoms and […]

Theres a lot of scientific data going to waste. Much of it has been painstakingly gathered through timely and costly experiments and is freely available in public databases. But researchers have been hard-pressed to use existing data to ask new questions, because they lack reliable descriptions and computational tools. Now, scientists at Harvard and Stanford […]