HIT Market

One day after the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based CHIME named Russell P. Branzell its incoming chief executive officer, Branzell spoke with HCI Editor-in-Chief Mark Hagland regarding his acceptance of the CHIME CEO position, and his aspirations for CHIME as an organization going forward.

In a blog post, the director of federal health architecture at the Office for the National Coordinator of Health IT (ONC), Lauren Thompson, announced the arrival of version 4.0 of the government's CONNECT software. CONNECT, which is an open source health information exchange (HIE) platform, has been a joint effort between ONC, the Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, the Social Security Administration, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

In the process of conducting research for my most recent feature, I came to realize one thing about how hospitals across this country are trying to improve the patient-centered culture. It’s not about high-definition TVs, better food, temperature-controlled rooms, and a quiet night’s rest. It’s about better communication.

From the minute any clinician steps into their professional environment, they know the importance of hand hygiene. Yet, for some reason, gaps in hygiene compliance remain a problem at many medical facilities across the country, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reporting that 90,000 die in the U.S. each year from hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). For this reason, Shannon Medical Center, a 400-bed hospital in San Angelo, Texas, implemented an automated radio-frequency identification (RFID)-based hand-hygiene monitoring system.

McKesson, the San Francisco-based health IT giant, has announced that MED3OOO and Pioneer Medical Group have signed a definitive agreement to jointly own and operate a new advanced management services joint venture.