Pharmacy

Surescripts is expanding its nationwide e-prescribing network with a new service that will allow for the exchange of clinical health information, officials announced Monday at the MGMA 2010 annual conference in New Orleans.

Emdeon, a provider of healthcare revenue and payment cycle management solutions, has been awarded a subcontract from CSC to provide IT services on behalf of the U.S. Department of Defense Pharmacy Operations Directorate for the Pharmacy Data Transaction Service (PDTS).

Taconic Health Information Network and Community (THINC) has been awarded an $8.7 million grant for a project that aims to boost mental health care coordination among six medical home practices through the use of health IT.

Massachusetts ranks first in the nation when it comes to the use of electronic prescribing, announced officials Tuesday at the Fifth Annual Safe-Rx Awards held on Capitol Hill. Nationwide the number of physicians using e-prescribing has grown to 200,000.

U.S. hospitals have a lot of work to do to transform the current paper-based healthcare system to an electronic one, say the authors of a new Harvard study.

The electronic prescribing rate in upstate New York increased from 12 percent in 2009 to 17 percent in the first quarter of 2010, representing 3.6 million new and renewed prescriptions on an annual basis, according to a new report. The report suggests that this number will grow significantly as the result of the technology becoming more affordable, due in part to the government's incentives for health IT adoption.

Cegedim, a global technology and services company specializing in the healthcare field, announced on Wednesday its acquisition of Wichita, Kan.-based Pulse Systems, Inc., a leading U.S. healthcare software and services supplier.

The 12-year agreement, representing more than $9.5 billion in annual drug spending, allows Aetna to apply its IT capabilities to delivering point-of-care clinical guidance.

GE Healthcare IT has announced the availability of its meaningful use-ready software release for Centricity Enterprise – the integrated cross-continuum clinical, financial and administrative software solution for hospitals.

As they work to consummate the merger between them first announced in June, Chicago-based Allscripts and Atlanta-based Eclipsys have announced investor meetings next month in their respective cities.