Mike Miliard

As many had predicted, 2010 was a year of mergers and acquisitions. Industry insiders expect this reshaping and consolidation will continue apace into 2011 and beyond.

In August, rush begins to certify EHRs.

In September, Healthcare IT News explained how one lawsuit against a nascent health information exchange could be a sign of things to come as states get their own HIEs up and running.

In June, one of the biggest mergers of EHR vendors in quite some time was the talk of the healthcare IT world.

In June, Healthcare IT News reported on a burgeoning trend – a wider embracing of the flexibility and collaboration afforded by open source technology.

In January, a provocative survey sponsored jointly by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and Dell, found that data centers of small and medium-sized hospitals in North America, Europe and China are not prepared for the "wave of data" that will soon be inundating them.

In March, with Detroit feeling the acute pain of the Great Recession even worse than many cities, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan tried a novel approach to staffing it hoped would help.

IBM and American Well announced Wednesday an expanded partnership to further embed security into the latter's online care system in an effort to further safeguard patient information that is collected and exchanged as part of live Web-based consultations with healthcare providers.

In a move execs say will save money and headaches - and will be especially useful in the healthcare industry - HP on Tuesday introduced the first unified system to accelerate the reliable, secure delivery of software applications and services across heterogeneous environments.

As it aims to strengthen its position in the point-of-care market, information services firm Wolters Kluwer Health announced Monday that one of its wholly-owned subsidiaries has entered into an agreement to acquire Pharmacy OneSource, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider to hospitals.