Morning Headlines 5/13/15

Health Information Companies HealthPort and IOD Incorporated to Merge

HealthPort and IOD, both health information management vendors, will merge, creating a single company with a combined revenue of $450 million and a customer base of 18,000 health care facilities in the US.

McKesson Reports Fiscal 2015 Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year Results

McKesson reports Q4 and FY2015 year end results: full-year revenue up 30 percent  to $179 billion. Q4 revenue up 19 percent to $4 billion, adjusted Q4EPS $2.94 vs. $2.71, beating expectation on both.

New machine could one day replace anesthesiologists

The Washington Post reports on an FDA-approved anesthesia machine that can automate sedation and could one day replace the need for an anesthesiologist when performing routine procedures.  An Anesthesiologists’ fee for sedation during a colonoscopy averages $2,000, but the machine can perform the same task for just $200.

An end-to-end hybrid algorithm for automated medication discrepancy detection

A study evaluating the use of natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to support medication reconciliation processes found that by analyzing notes and prior prescription lists within the patient chart, the algorithms were able to increase accuracy and reduce manual labor.