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Jonathan Bush, the high-octane, no-holds-barred co-founder and CEO of athenahealth, became Johnny-on-the-spot on Wednesday. While in San Francisco to attend the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Bush took a few minutes to perform CPR on a man he found lying on the sidewalk. The man appeared to not be breathing, possibly suffering from a heart attack, according to an account of the incident published in Bush's hometown newspaper, The Boston Globe. The incident occurred near the corner of Mission and 1st Street in San Francisco's downtown. According to the Globe, Bush had been to a nearby Walgreens drugstore to buy an ice pack (he recently hurt his knee skiing). He was on his way to a meeting at the J.P. Morgan event when he saw the man lying on the sidewalk, turned him over, saw his face was blue and he seemed to not be breathing. After Bush performed CPR, the man started breathing again. Bush, who has long been critical of inefficiencies in American healthcare, is quoted by the Globe as saying, "It was like the U.S. healthcare system. Everybody was standing there, nobody was helping." Long before he and former U.S. CTO Todd Park started athenahealth, Bush worked as an emergency medical technician in New Orleans. He writes about it in his book, Where Does It Hurt?: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Fixing Health Care. [See also: Jonathan Bush on where it hurts most.] Bush writes in his book that he was looking for a summer job when a family acquaintance told him that, to save lives, the best thing he could do was to work on an ambulance and get to know a crack trauma unit. That's how Bush ended up that summer working with the trauma unit at Charity Hospital in the Big Easy. He and the crew did save lives, he writes. New Orleans gave him hands-on training in urgent care, "and, just as important, a primer on American society." A spokeswoman for Bush told Healthcare IT News on Thursday that athenahealth could confirm the event in San Francisco happened, but would not comment at this time because Bush and his staff are still working to understand how the man is doing. [See also: Newsmaker interview: Jonathan Bush.]

Microsoft has been building health-centric features into its stable of products and heading into HIMSS16 is also hoping to tap into the show’s overarching trends: patient engagement, telehealth and wearables. Acknowledging that Microsoft has historically been known as the Windows and Office company, Microsoft communications manager Greg Ormsby said the company is looking to build on those platforms in healthcare. "What’s changing are the emerging care scenarios," Ormsby said. "We’re looking to augment that shift." See all of our HIMSS16 previews At the upcoming HIMSS16, for instance, Ormsby said Team Redmond will be showcasing demonstrations of a partnership that will see MDLive using Skype for Business to conduct telehealth consults between doctors and patients as well as physicians and specialists. That’s one example. Ormsby said that Microsoft is set to release the Surface Hub this quarter and that collaboration tool will be a key piece of the company’s aim to "transform the hospital room." "Patient engagement really rests on helping doctors do their jobs more efficiently so they can help patients during the visit," Ormsby said. On the back end, Microsoft is girding to make the doctor’s experience with any EHR fluid so they can take notes, change apps naturally within a tablet, PC or phone, and access information they need in what Ormsby said should be an unburdensome way. [What healthcare organizations need to know about Windows 10 and Office 16.]  And while much work remains, by Microsoft and other wearable providers, to determine how endpoint devices can be integrated with healthcare organizations other data sources, Ormsby said Microsoft is seeing partners and customers looking into use cases, such as chronic care — and the devices evolving as well.  "Microsoft Band is a fitness and wellness wearable, we target that stay-fit crowd," Ormsby said.  "But one would argue it has the ability to do a lot, like a mobile health app — but that’s to be determined still." Microsoft will be in booth 3832. Twitter: @SullyHIT

Orlando-based Florida Hospital installed surgical real-time location systems to quickly assess patient and facility status in 2013 and has since seen immediate improvements.

Health Level 7 and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT kicked off a new challenge that aims to alleviate provider frustrations with the usability of HL7's consolidated clinical document architecture standard. 

MedStar Health, the largest not-for-profit healthcare organization in the Maryland and Washington, D.C., region, is collaborating with Uber to increase access to health appointments.

The Department of Health and Human Services is not doing enough to manage its workforce programs, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office, the federal government's watchdog agency.

Whether meaningful use triggered a desperately-needed onslaught of healthcare digitization or effectively stifled innovation by incentivizing the deployment of kludgy electronic health records software -- or both -- is likely to be a matter of some debate for years to come.

A portfolio management office just might be essential for healthcare providers trying to navigate away from fee-for-service and toward value-based care.

A new report shows 84 percent of U.S. FDA-approved health apps tested by IT security vendor Arxan Technologies did not adequately address at least two of the Open Web Application Security Project top 10 risks. 

President Barack Obama laid out some aggressive healthcare goals in his final State of the Union address on Tuesday night, including a broader focus on precision medicine and the appointment of Vice President Joe Biden to lead what he called a “moonshot” effort to cure cancer.