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Execs hope deal will turn system developed for UPMC into one that could be adapted for other health systems and hospitals.

To help clinicians understand when palliative care orders might be most appropriate, Ascension Health is participating in an National Institutes of Health-funded study run by University of Pennsylvania researchers to evaluate electronic health record-prompted automation of palliative care consult orders in the acute care setting.

Brian Yeaman, MD, founder and president of Norman, Oklahoma-based Yeaman and Associates and Yeaman Signature Health Clinic has been named the recipient of the 2015 HIMSS Physician IT Leadership Award for his work in meaningful use and health information exchange. Yeaman previously served as chief medical information officer at Norman Regional Health System for 10 years, where he guided both inpatient and outpatient EHR implementations and Stage 1 and 2 meaningful use attestation. Watch the full video. Yeaman is also a leader in health information exchange. As chief administrative officer for Coordinated Care Oklahoma, his service area includes about 4 million patients with data received from facilities in five states. HIMSS called it “a model for sustainable HIE conducted under private funding and governance.” "I'm thankful for the opportunity to practice medicine as well as serve on the front lines of defining a new healthcare,” Yeaman said in a statement. “I feel that we are still early in our journey of realizing the potential we have to improve care delivery with interoperability and health IT across the board.” Yeaman will be honored at the HIMSS16 Awards Gala on, Thursday, March 3 at the 2016 HIMSS Conference & Exhibition. Learn more about HIMSS16 and the Physicians' IT Symposium. Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN

Picture archiving and communication systems may be one of the most tried-and-true technologies at work in clinical settings today, but there's still big room for growth, according to the 2015 Imaging Technology Study just published by HIMSS Analytics.

A staggering 73 percent of health information management professionals work on mitigating duplicates at least weekly at their organizations, according to a recent AHIMA survey. The survey confirmed the importance of information governance policies within an organization to address accurate matching patient information needs. The results also indicated the importance of quality assurance initiatives to improve care quality. “Accurately matching the right information with the right patient is crucial to reducing potential patient safety risks,” said AHIMA CEO Lynne Thomas Gordon, in a statement. “At the very foundation of patient care is the ability to accurately match a patient with his or her health information.” AHIMA surveyed 815 members using 12 different EHRs and assessed their experience with patient matching and linking patient records. Less than half of respondents said there's a quality assurance step during the registration or post-registration process. There's also a lack of resources to adequately correct duplicate records. [Also: AHIMA takes on patient identifier] Forty-three percent of respondents said they measure data quality in relationship to patient matching, while less than half have a quality assurance step in the registration or post-registration process. Although  55 percent of respondents had communication policies for duplicate patient records, there is  a lack of standardization in regards to how the rate of duplicates are calculated. And less than half of respondents understood how duplicate rates were factored in their organization. “Reliable and accurate calculation of the duplicate rate is foundational to developing trusted data, reducing potential patient safety risks and measuring return on investments for strategic healthcare initiatives,” the survey authors said. Fifty-seven percent of respondents work possible duplicates regularly, while most respondents said data integrity issues require consistent management and timely cleanup. Patient matching initiatives are crucial for the success of patient-centric care, health information exchange, population health, analytics and financial goals, the report said. Respondents reported five major daily challenges with master patient index or enterprise master patient index management: registration staff turnover; record matching/patient search terminology and or algorithms; a lack of resources to fix duplicates; and inadequate governance, policy or support. [Like Healthcare IT News on Facebook] “We cannot sit around and wait for others to correct this problem,” the survey authors said. “Improving patient matching efforts is a challenge we can meet,” Gordon said. “The healthcare community must come together to embrace it so that accurate patient information is available when and where it is needed.” The authors said the survey was a critical step in future patient matching planning and collaboration with healthcare experts to develop solutions. AHIMA plans to use data from the survey to shape future advocacy efforts. Twitter: @JessiefDavis

Biotech firm will purchase a number of Flatiron’s life science offerings and the companies.

Duke Medicine claims to be the first Epic-based health system to implement the Fast Health Information Resources application programming interface in conjunction with Apple's HealthKit within a live environment. FHIR is an emerging interoperability protocol that was all the rage at HIMSS15 and appears to be even hotter going into HIMSS16 – where Duke’s director of mobile technology strategy Ricky Bloomfield, MD intends to discuss accomplishments and lessons learned during the Monday morning keynote titled “A leap forward in healthcare.” Bloomfield’s talk will touch on recent innovations that help Duke’s physicians and patients connect in meaningful ways. Using HealthKit and FHIR, for instance, “enables us to integrate standards-based apps without significant configuration or effort,” Bloomfield said. [Also at HIMSS16: Biometrics a crucial next step for patient safety] On top of that foundation Duke can “liberate electronic health records data by using standardized application programming interfaces so data can be consumed by innovators.” Duke is among an elite corps of cutting-edge hospital systems already using Apple’s HealthKit in a pilot to integrate with Epic MyChart. Ochsner Health System and Stanford Health are also using HealthKit with Epic. As the physician leading Duke’s HealthKit charge, Bloomfield has seen interest in a range of Duke’s practices areas, most notably endocrinologists, obstetrics and gynecology, even oncologists. Whether at Duke, Ochsner, Stanford or elsewhere, hospitals and other provider organizations must understand the digital needs of their patients and create tools that help both patient and provider fulfill the goals of mobile and connected health: improved care and lower costs. “Connected health is a means to an end — that end is to improve the health of all people, and to do so at lower cost,” Bloomfield said. “The greatest promise of connected health is that it enables and empowers patients to be more involved in their own care, which will hopefully decrease the emphasis on direct contact with healthcare organizations.” For patients with chronic or otherwise severe disease, Bloomfield added, connected health will equip providers to monitor and treat them from afar, reducing the time and financial burden on these patients while keeping them away from other sick patients in a clinical setting. Duke Medicine is out front in the move to improve care through mobile and connected health initiatives. For instance, it is an early adopter of Apple Inc.’s HealthKit software, piloting it with a small number of patients with an eye on integrating it with Duke’s implementation of the Epic MyChart electronic health record. Bloomfield’s keynote session is schedule for Monday, Feb. 29, 2016 at the Sands Expo Convention Center in Galileo 901. HIMSS16 runs from Feb. 29-Mar. 4. Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT

Healthcare businesses added 39,000 jobs in December, finishing out a banner 2015 that saw the industry add an average of 40,000 jobs a month, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Friday. Overall, the U.S. economy added 292,000 jobs in the month and the unemployment held flat at 5 percent. Healthcare’s 40,000-a-month job gains in 2015 were almost double 2014, which saw the industry add 26,000 a month. Ambulatory health services led the hiring, adding 23,400 jobs in the month. Hospitals also saw big gains in the month, adding, 12,300 jobs. No healthcare sector lost jobs in December. Here's the seasonally adjusted breakdown for the healthcare sector. All numbers are in thousands: Industry Dec. 2014 Oct. 2015 Nov. 2015 Dec. 2015 Change Industry Dec. 2014 Oct. 2015 Nov. 2015 Dec. 2015 Change Healthcare 14,863.70 15,269.70 15,299.00 15,338.40 39.4 Ambulatory healthcare services 6,766.90 6,992.70 7,001.50 7,024.90 23.4 Offices of physicians 2,501.80 2,583.30 2,587.50 2,591.30 3.8 Outpatient care centers 726.5 752.6 755.3 758.8 3.5 Home healthcare services 1,289.60 1,344.10 1,344.40 1,348.10 3.7 Hospitals 4,815.60 4,960.50 4,975.50 4,987.80 12.3 Nursing and residential care facilities 3,281.20 3,316.50 3,322.00 3,325.70 3.7 Nursing care facilities 1,653.40 1,662.30 1,664.40 1,666.90 2.5 Twitter: @HenryPowderly

Court rules makers of the memory sharpening app preyed on consumers’ fears about age-related cognitive decline.

Director of informatics at the University of Southern California says better patient identification tools can reduce risk of incorrect diagnoses and, in certain cases, death.