Haldor Advanced Technologies’ ORLocate, which tracks instruments and sponges during surgical procedures, has received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration, according to a Haldor Advanced Technologies news release.

Catholic Health Initiatives is taking a step toward accountable care organizations and integrating inpatient and outpatient healthcare with its recent purchase of a regional home healthcare company.

EMH Regional Healthcare, which operates EMH Regional Medical Center in Elyria, Ohio, will merge with Ohio Heart Center and Ohio Medical Group, according to a Morning Journal report.

Hospitals are increasingly looking to more closely align with physicians for a variety of reasons, including the likely evolution of the healthcare industry from a fee-for-service to a global payment model. Establishing accountable care organizations are one way hospitals and…

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has announced more than $32 million in funds have been released to increase access to healthcare in rural areas.

As the federal government prepares to launch accountable care organizations in Jan. 2012, private payors are already setting up limited ACO pilots in preparation for launching their own ACOs.These preparations are causing some anxiety in the provider community, says Richard…

In February, The Nebraska Medical Center and Methodist Health System, both based in Omaha, announced they would come together, along with their physicians, to create an accountable care organization to better coordinate care, improve quality and reduce costs to patients.

Historically, hospital administrators and physicians have had adversarial relations with each other, but greater demands on both groups to align with each other will require hospital administrators to pay more attention to improving physician relations, says Nick A. Fabrizio, a…

Proposed federal rules on accountable care organizations are expected in December and Donald Berwick, MD, the new CMS administrator, is personally involved in the process, according to a CMS spokesman.

When group practices join a hospital or system, some of them prefer a quasi-independent status, says Ronald Bremer, president of Formation Strategies, a Kansas City, Mo.-based company that specializes in healthcare transactions, including hospitals buying up physician practices.