Erin McCann

In a recent federal court decision that went quietly under the radar but further opened the door for healthcare cost transparency, a U.S. district judge ruled to vacate a 33-year-old injunction that prevented the release of Medicare claims data.

In the biggest HIPAA privacy breach of 2013 -- and among the largest to date -- Texas Health Harris Methodist Fort Worth is notifying some 277,000 patients that their protected health information has been compromised after several hospital microfilms, which were supposed to be destroyed, were found in various public locations.

Jonathan Bush, CEO of athenahealth, treated the audience to an energetic keynote at Healthcare Datapalooza IV, offering up a great deal of humor and perspective on the state of data exchange, policy and the healthcare system at large.

Developing an effective framework for driving healthcare quality improvements proves a multifaceted, complex endeavor, and although EHR systems can play a positive role in the task, much of the technology still misses the mark. This was just one of several concerns put before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance June 26.

Deloitte and Intermountain Healthcare are teaming up to launch a new data analytics tool for researchers and healthcare companies that extracts electronic health record data to better determine clinical treatment options for patients.

Citing insufficient training, system shortfalls and the hospital's failure to involve direct-care nurses in the implementation process, RNs at the 266-bed Affinity Medical Center in northern Ohio have asked hospital officials to delay the rollout of its new Cerner electronic medical records system.

Atul Gawande, MD, professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and staff writer at The New Yorker, offered a reflective presentation earlier this month at Health Datapalooza IV, taking the audience back through what the healthcare system used to look like, and showing and how data innovations have helped set the stage for big transformations.

Officials at Stanford University's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital are notifying nearly 13,000 patients that their protected health information has been compromised following the theft of a hospital laptop.

Michael Elley, CIO of Cox Medical Center Branson, describes the system his hospital is using to redirect patients from the emergency room to primary care.

The Fourth Annual Health Datapalooza stayed true to its name. It was, indeed, all about data -- how to liberate data, the need to liberate data, structuring data, promising new data apps, and how data scientists just might have the sexiest career of the 21st century.