NIH to offer $20 billion health IT contract
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has issued a draft request for proposals on a 10-year, $20 billion health information technology reform contract it hopes to award in early 2010. The “Chief Information Officer-Solutions and Partners (CIO-SP3)” project will help agencies with issues considered vital to the health IT reform, including health and biomedical-related IT services, according to NIH Deputy Program Director Robert Coen. The contract's 10 functional areas include CIO support, outsourcing, IT operations and maintenance, integration services, critical infrastructure protection and information assurance, digital government, enterprise management systems, healthcare and biomedical research, software development and imaging. Contract information may be found at www.fbo.gov. http://fcw.com/articles/2009/...    https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode...   https://www.fbo.gov/download/cc3/...

Strategic exercises could predict EHR future
A war game developed by a competitive intelligence firm may help forecast the future of electronic health records in the health information technology industry. “The Battle for Healthcare Information,” conducted by Cambridge, MA-based Fuld & Co. and played recently by healthcare-experienced business school teams from Columbia, Kellogg, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Wharton universities, stress-tested company EHR strategies. The teams represented key EHR system operators: Allscripts, Kaiser Permanente, McKesson and Microsoft. The war game's results, while strictly simulated, predict a slower-than-expected EHR adoption, a shortage of technical personnel, increased merger activity among “pure players” such as Allscripts, Cerner, Eclypsis and Epic, and a banding together of small medical practices over the next few years – all of which are feasible outcomes, according to industry experts. http://www.ihealthbeat.org/Perspectives/...    http://www.fuld.com/Services/HMLWG0904.html

Verizon extends IT security services to healthcare
Verizon Business is expanding its Security Management Program (SMP) service to the healthcare industry in an effort to help providers maintain customer privacy while encouraging them to safely digitize medical records. The new SMP-H service analyzes a provider's security policies and gives them a graded, compliance scorecard that identifies strengths and problem areas. Such a program might, for example, identify how a company is in compliance with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requirements, but not be completely in line with FDA regulations, according to Kerry Bailey, senior vice president of global services for Verizon Business. Verizon is also offering information technology consulting services to help healthcare providers design and implement safe security practices for sharing of information and storage of data. http://www.verizonbusiness.com/about/news/...

Patient monitoring tool for BlackBerry ready by fall
Remote patient monitoring product maker AirStrip Technologies L.P. will have its signature AirStrip OB application ready for most versions of the BlackBerry by this fall. Support for the program, which delivers vital patient waveform data in virtual real time directly from the hospital to a doctor's Smart phone, is now available for BlackBerry's Bold, Tour, Curve and 8800 series units and will be available for the Pearl and Storm phones by fall, according to AirStrip Technologies President and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Cameron Powell. Used by more than 100 hospitals across the U.S., AirStrip OB is also available for the iPhone and various Windows Mobile Smart phones. The company is also seeking U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance for a forthcoming patient monitoring application for the intensive care unit. http://www.airstriptech.com/Portals/0/...

AHRQ to award $48 million for patient registries
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) plans to award $48 million in grants to develop national patient registries to study the long-term effects of health information technology treatment strategies for health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and health and blood vessel disorders. AHRQ expects grant and contract solicitations to be published beginning this fall, and hopes to fund the comparative effectiveness projects in spring 2010. Interested parties may sign up to receive updates at http://effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov/. The grants are part of a $300 million package the agency will fund through the federal economic stimulus program. http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/...

U.S. Army funding for portable ICU
Medical technology systems developer Integrated Medical Systems Inc. (IMS) will receive $3.25 million in funding from the U.S. Army's Medical Research Material Command for further development of the Signal Hill, CA firm's “suitcase” intensive care unit. According to IMS President and Chief Executive Officer Todd Kneale, the MedEx 1000 is a portable device that supplies ICU functionality for adult and pediatric patients. The system was developed to help support continuous patient care during transport from outside the hospital or within the hospital environment. Funding from the U.S. Army will allow further product enhancements and demonstrates the Army's commitment to continuously improving healthcare, Kneale said. MedEx 1000 was cleared for marketing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in July, and the company expects to obtain similar clearance in Europe by the end of this month. http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent...

Academic medical centers form health IT reform coalition
Several leading academic medical centers and community health systems have formed a coalition to help establish the direction of healthcare information technology. The Academic and Community Health Technology Alliance (ACHTA) seeks to ensure that the debate over health reform includes the realities faced by academic and community hospitals that have already made significant investments in health IT. Founding members include Advocate Health Care, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the Health Network of Chester County Hospital, Continuum Health Partners, Danbury Health Systems and the Memorial Healthcare System. As a group, the founding members operate 40 hospitals with about 13,000 beds. ACHTA members have also invested more than $1.2 billion over the past five years to deploy health IT in their health systems and the community. The legal firm of Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP will serve as secretary and counsel. http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/new-healthcare-it-alliance-aims-say-reform-debate

Social Security issues RFP for $24 million in IT contracts
The Social Security Administration will fund $24 million in contracts for the use of electronic medical records in its disability programs. Through a Request for Proposals available on www.fedbizopps.gov, Social Security is looking for healthcare providers, provider networks, and health information exchanges to participate in its Medical Evidence Gathering and Analysis through Health Information Technology (IT) program. According to Social Security Commissioner Michael J. Astrue, the agency expects a 27 percent increase in disability applications in fiscal 2010, largely due to the recession. Health IT will greatly improve the agency's speed and consistency when it comes to making decisions on disability benefit claims, Astrue said. http://www.ssa.gov/pressoffice/pr/...

African nations to invest in online services
For more than 10 years, mobile phone and Internet communication in Africa has been concentrated in urban areas, but operators and governments in various nations are now moving to rural locations because markets in towns are saturated. Doing so will also allow the rural business community to get market information on mobile phones and sell products online. Zambia has set aside $10 million [USD] for nationwide cell phone service and has joined the pan-African e-network, an India-sponsored coalition of more than 30 African nations designed to provide telemedicine, videoconferencing and tele-education throughout the continent. Meanwhile, Nigeria is investing more than $150 million in the National Rural Telephone Project, designed to “ensure that no one has to walk for more than one day to reach a telephone.” Rwanda and Kenya also have programs underway. http://www.infoworld.com/d/networking/...

Alaska starts work on state HIE
Alaska's Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) has begun efforts to create a statewide clinical information-sharing system. Today is the deadline for letters of interest from qualified parties who wish to create, operate, and promote use of secure electronic health information exchange (HIE). The project requires a statewide infrastructure to support and connect HIE records, a technology plan for promotion of the HIE, and being able to interconnect the HIE with government, public and private health information reporting systems. Alaska is the latest state to begin building an HIE; Maine, Maryland, and Mississippi also recently announced contracts for similar projects. The State Alliance for e-Health also recently published a guide on how to develop HIEs and how to prepare for stimulus funding.
http://notes4.state.ak.us/pn/pubnotic.nsf/...

EHR incentives to influence few newcomers
Federal incentive payments for electronic health record (EHR) adoption will have the most influence among healthcare providers who are already motivated to make the switch, according to a report by consulting and services firm Computer Sciences Corp. According to “U.S. Health Care in the Year 2015,” the federal economic stimulus package provides Medicare and Medicaid incentives for healthcare providers who implement EHR systems by 2012. But since the payments cover only part of the system's actual implementation cost, companies or physicians already committed to EHR use are the ones most likely to view incentives as a reason to have the systems in place within the next three years, the report notes. Ultimately, healthcare providers will adopt EHRs, partially from federal penalties for non-use which begin in 2015, and greater industry demand for data exchange and EHR-based reporting of performance measures, the report adds.
http://assets1.csc.com/health_services/...

Broadband grant application deadline extended
A deadline for applying for broadband deployment grants and loans from two federal agencies has been extended to Aug. 20 because applicant demand overloaded the agencies' servers last week. Companies and organizations attempting to meet the original Aug. 14 deadline for National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and U.S. Rural Utilities Service (RUS) grants experienced server delays, according to NTIA Acting Broadband Communications Director Mark Tolbert. The extension applies to companies or groups that had online applications in progress as of Aug. 14; no new applications are being accepted, Tolbert said. NTIA and RUS are tasked with distributing $7.2 billion in broadband deployment grants and loans over the next 14 months, including $4 billion in this initial round. Recipients will be announced in November.http://www.ntia.doc.gov/frnotices/2009/FR_BroadbandExtension_090813.pdf