The U. S. Department of Health and Human Services has announced the awarding of $83.9 in grants to help health centers adopt electronic health records and other health information technology systems.

AdvancedMD Software has announced significant performance improvements to its AdvancedMD medical practice optimization software platform, including the addition of Akamai's Web Application Accelerator service to speed access to its web-based solution, according to an AdvancedMD news release.

Minnesota-based American Medical Systems has won a U.S. patent for covering the surgical methodology for implanting the AMS AdVance Male Sling, including broad patent coverage on transobturator surgical procedures to treat male incontinence, according to an AMS news release.

The University of Missouri has received a $6.8 million grant from the Department of Health and Human Services to create the Missouri Health Information Technology Assistance Center, which would help physicians set up electronic medical records systems, according to a…

A computer containing 500 surgical patients' medical records was stolen from Loma Linda (Calif.) University Medical Center in April, according to a report by the Mercury News.

Vishal Mehta, MD, a Chicago-area orthopedic surgeon, has developed and launched a new web-based tool designed to alert patients of physician office wait times, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A study of 326 short-term, acute-care California hospitals found that use of an electronic medical records system increased costs per discharge for medical-surgical cases by 6-10 percent, according to a report from American Medical News.

As Dallas-area hospitals and health systems complete installation of electronic medical record systems, there is a risk that patient data in EMRs could get into the wrong hands, according to a report by the Dallas Morning News.

Andrew VanZee has been appointed as Indiana's first coordinator for overseeing statewide efforts to convert state hospital and clinics from paper medical records to electronic ones, according to an Associated Press report in the Indianapolis Star.

Researchers from the University of Vienna in Austria found that single-use paraffin earplugs were successful in reducing intraoperative awareness recall in patients undergoing elective orthopedic surgery, according to an article in Minerva Anesthesiologica.