Molly Merrill

Michael J. Kussman MD, the Under Secretary for Health for the Department of Veterans Affairs plans to retire from federal service.

Microsoft Health Users Group (Microsoft HUG) and Microsoft Corp. have announced the winners of the 12th annual Microsoft HUG 2009 Innovation Awards, which recognizes organizations, vendors and systems integrators that demonstrate advancements and success using Microsoft technology in the healthcare industry.

Surescripts has named Harry Totonis, as president and chief executive officer, effective immediately.

The National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting (NASPER) bill, designed to coordinate a prescription monitoring program in all 50 states, has received preliminary funding to begin implementation.

Biomedical informatics researchers at the Mayo Clinic and IBM have launched a Web site for the newly founded Open Health Natural Language Processing (NLP) Consortium, which will facilitate an open-source space to promote past and current development efforts, including participation in information extraction from electronic medical records.

Pamela J. Pure, executive vice president of McKesson and president of McKesson Technology Solutions, left the company on Monday, officials said.

Researchers have successfully created a computer simulated system for evaluating an investigational artificial pancreas.

Google, Inc. has formed a new venture capital fund that seeks to discover and grow innovative companies.

The West Wireless Health Institute, one of world's first medical research organizations dedicated to advancing health and well-being through the use of wireless technologies, has received a $45 million contribution from the Gary and Mary West Foundation.

The Lahey Clinic, a physician-led, nonprofit healthcare organization based in Burlington, Mass., is preparing to implement an enterprise-wide electronic medical record.