Stacy Lawrence

The health care IT market is in for annual double-digit increases, and by 2011 is expected to reach almost twice the size it was in 2005, according to a new report from market analyst firm BCC Research. Hospital information systems have traditionally made up the bulk of the health IT market. In 2005, $8.5 billion […]

With health care organizations investing millions into IT, it may seem a little strange to find that most nurses receive little or no IT training. But thats exactly the result of one of the most comprehensive surveys to date about nurses and their IT work environment, conducted by health IT provider CDW Healthcare. One of […]

Premier, a health alliance of more than 200 nonprofit hospitals and health care systems, recently released results from its pay-for-performance demonstration project with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The new data suggests that implementing pay-for-performance measures could result in saving thousands of lives and hundreds of millions of dollars. Pay-for-performance requires that health […]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the University of Colorado at Boulder have developed a microchip-based test that distinguishes between flu strains and can even help trace the strains back to their origins. The FluChip can be used to identify 72 influenza strains—including the H5N1 avian influenza strain that is currently of such […]

With the creation of a new academic genomic research site and additional funding to continue the work of two others, the NIH rolls out $54 million in grants. At top universities around the country, the National Institutes of Health supports nine major genomic research centers. It recently announced it would be adding a 10th, at […]

According to recent figures released by research group Health Industry Insights, the life sciences RFID market will experience blistering growth over the next few years and be worth an estimated $15 billion by 2009. Pharmaceutical company adoption of item-level RFID tagging, which constitutes the bulk of the life sciences RFID market, will continue to drive […]

After an initial three-month pilot phase and subsequent approval by an international panel of scientists, UK Biobank has announced it will start collecting physical samples and health information by the end of 2006. By the end of 2010, the Biobank project, based in Cheshire, England, is slated to have collected about 10 million samples of […]

A leader in genomic analysis since it was founded in 1992, the non-profit Institute for Genomic Research started looking to upgrade its server system several years ago. TIGR conducts computing-intensive research involving the structural, functional and comparative analysis of genomes and gene products in viruses, bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes. TIGR recently announced that it has […]

At a recent conference held by Massachusetts Institute of Technologys Center for Biomedical Innovation, the university and the Food and Drug Administration announced that they have an agreement to collaborate on the development of a real-time drug safety monitoring system. Currently, the FDA relies entirely on reporting through its MedWatch program, which receives more than […]

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Harvard Medical School, Albany Medical Center and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are collaborating to develop a new approach to surgical training—a virtual simulator that will allow surgeons to handle computer-generated organs with actual tools used in minimally invasive surgery. Based on haptics, a science focused on the sense of […]

The Food and Drug Administration offered a reminder to the pharmaceutical industry that by December companies will be required to provide pedigree tracking for prescription drugs all the way along the supply chain from manufacture to consumer sale. Along that route, drugs can change hands as many as 10 times. To aid in compliance, the […]

Blue Cross Blue Shield Association is creating a database of health insurance claims from 79 million of its clients. The data will have no personal identifiers and is intended to be a resource for evaluating health care trends, treatments, practices and providers. Dubbed BHI (Blue Health Intelligence), the database is currently being pilot-tested and is […]