Eric Wicklund

Emdeon, a Nashville-based provider of revenue and payment cycle solutions is targeting the billions of dollars lost each year in healthcare fraud by acquiring The Sentinel Group, a developer of data analytics solutions and technology designed to ferret out healthcare fraud and abuses

Apollo, a Falls Church, Va.-based developer of clinical multimedia solutions, has released Apollo Enterprise Patient Media Manager (EPMM), a so called “device-agnostic” software platform that’s designed to collect distributed patient media into one unified record.

A Chicago-based developer of personal health records and clinical support systems for the military is launching a new platform for civilian use.

Cardinal Health said last month it would cut as many as 1,300 jobs as it prepares to spin off its Clinical and Medical Products divisions into the CareFusion Corporation.

Sometimes it seems easier to heal a sick patient than it does to manage all the medical devices at his or her bedside.

A Colorado-based start-up is looking to replace the traditional PC in the hospital with a smaller, more accessible virtual desktop, allowing doctors and nurses to call up relevant data at a moment’s notice no mater where they’re located.

With new funding, new leadership and a year of positive growth on the books, Reva Systems is entering the healthcare market on a high note.

If you can make it in New Zealand, you can make it anywhere?

By Eric Wicklund, Managing Editor CHICAGO – Australia’s largest healthcare IT company is looking to make its mark in America. IBA Health Group’s iSOFT subsidiary announced its plans during HIMSS09 conference last month with the release of Lorenzo Health Studio, designed to allow healthcare providers to integrate disparate IT solutions and develop an electronic medical record without an expensive “rip-and-replace” program. “We have a transformational product that is different than that which exists in the U.S. today,” said Gary Cohen, executive chairman and CEO of iSOFT. Company officials say Lorenzo and other iSOFT solutions support the free exchange of information across diverse care settings and participant organizations.” According to Cohen, the company’s products help link disparate systems together. “It’s like a LEGO kit – it’s modular,” he said. According to published reports and Cohen, IBA plans to change the name of the company to iSOFT in May, pending shareholder approval. IBA, which trades under the iSOFT brand outside of Australia, took over iSOFT in late 2007. Lorenzo is already in use in 37 countries across five continents, and was launched globally last year. Lorenzo is now being used to support the United Kingdom’s UK National Program for IT, billed as the world’s largest civilian IT project. That project, however, has been going slower than planned. Following the departure of Fujitsu and Accenture, two IT vendors remain. CSC is handling the iSOFT Lorenzo deployment in northern and central sections of England, while BT is installing Cerner Millennium software in London and early adopter trusts formerly handled by Fujitsu in southern England. On April 15, the UK government’s Department of Health re-affirmed its confidence in both iSOFT Lorenzo and Cerner Millennium to work effectively, once development and testing are completed. Officials added that the Lorenzo deployments are at an early stage, and that any new rollouts will depend on the success of the earlier projects. Government officials also announced, on April 16, the signing of new contracts with both CSC and BT to keep the program running. In unrelated news, IBA Health announced on April 16 that its iSOFT European business unit has signed a $9.1 million deal with the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to continue supplying the teaching hospital with patient administration, care and logistics systems for another three years. The deal follows agreements signed earlier this year in the Netherlands with hospitals in Rotterdam, Leiden and Friesland. And on April 8, the company won a two-year, $3.1 million deal with German private healthcare group Damp Holding AG for an integrated radiology information system (RIS) and picture archiving and communications system (PACS) connecting six acute care hospitals in Germany and an operating center in Denmark.

A new study says hospitals' efforts to implement "meaningful" EHR systems will be affected more by the federal funding they may lose than what they may receive.