Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Avera Health plans to implement clinical decision support software at birthing units systemwide, software developer PeriGen confirmed July 10.  By Jessica Kim Cohen - 7/10/18

InstaMed's patient payment integration solution is now available in the Epic App Orchard.  By Anuja Vaidya - 7/10/18

Englewood, Colo.-based Catholic Health Initiatives plans on implementing the Epic EHR system in all the facilities in its CHI Memorial market with assistance from CTG.  By Anuja Vaidya - 7/10/18

Cerner recently invested $266 million in the parent company of Lumeris, a value-based care management provider, as part of a 10-year agreement to combine the companies' technologies and services to aid hospitals in the transition to value-based contracts.  By Julie Spitzer - 7/10/18

Federal regulations have mandated hospitals adopt the EHR — and nearly all hospitals have — but determining whether EHR use has actually led to better patient outcomes is a challenge; however, a new study published in Health Affairs found a way to quantify that relationship.  By Julie Spitzer - 7/10/18

Meditech opted to shut down Harrisonville, Mo.-based Cass Regional Medical Center's EHR July 9 after hospital officials discovered ransomware on its IT infrastructure around 11 a.m., according to a notice on the hospital's website.  By Julie Spitzer - 7/10/18

Speech recognition software may lessen physicians' documentation load, but the errors that frequently occur when using this tool, including clinically significant errors, could affect patient care, a study published in JAMA Network Open found.  By Megan Knowles - 7/10/18

Manitowoc County in Wisconsin recently notified an undisclosed number of residents about a breach the agency discovered in April that may have left their protected health information exposed for up to three months.  By Jessica Kim Cohen - 7/10/18

There were 748,883 patients affected in hacking or IT incidents reported to the HHS Office for Civil Rights in May, marking the month as the most dangerous for healthcare hacks so far in 2018.  By Jessica Kim Cohen - 7/10/18

Online communities on Reddit and Twitter are discussing how they monitor or review their heart rates during and after cocaine and alcohol use with their Fitbits and Apple Watches, according to a CNBC report by Christina Farr.  By Julie Spitzer - 7/10/18

It's been a full decade since Apple introduced its App Store on July 10, 2008.  By Jessica Kim Cohen - 7/10/18

The American Hospital Association penned a letter to the House May 31 detailing how the FDA can help keep medical devices, including legacy devices, secure.  By Jessica Kim Cohen - 7/9/18

The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services and the Pennsylvania eHealth Partnership Program awarded nearly $8 million in grant funds to help health information organizations connect to the state's health information exchange.  By Jessica Kim Cohen - 7/9/18

The CMO, CIO and chief medical information officer at New Haven, Conn.-based Yale Medicine launched a set of successful initiatives across the health system to improve user experience with EHRs, according to a blog post on the AMA Wire.  By Jessica Kim Cohen - 7/9/18

NHS Digital, the information and technology arm of the U.K. National Health Service, said July 2 a "coding error" made by clinical systems supplier The Phoenix Partnership breached the medical information of an estimated 150,000 patients in the U.K., GovInfoSecurity reports.  By Jessica Kim Cohen - 7/9/18

Did you know one in four Americans die each year from heart disease? 1  By Jason Bottiglieri, President and CEO, Infraredx - 7/9/18

Many companies are engaging in large transformation initiatives with the goal of not only modernizing their technology but also creating a more efficient workflow that is powered with better technology to tackle new challenges and growth.  By Priyanga Manoharan, X by 2 - 7/9/18

As the buzz of digital transformation builds at a frenetic pace all around us, it’s easy to be distracted from the real challenges that surface.  By Bang Chau - 7/9/18

Ideally, IT will augment the care clinicians deliver to patients — providing information at their fingertips, saving them time, making processes simpler — all while keeping patient data safe. Unfortunately, data security and user experience are not always in equilibrium. A simple query can quickly turn into repeated password entry, denied access, help desk phone calls and delayed care.   By Emily Rappleye - 7/9/18

With advances in cloud computing, accurate patient identification doesn’t have to take a backseat to time and money  By Gevik Nalbandian, Vice President of Software Engineering, NextGate - 7/9/18