Morning Headlines 1/30/13

Medecision Completes Acquisition of Cerecons

Medecision announces the acquisition of California-based Cerecons, a software provider specializing in population management and quality outcomes tools. The acquisition will result in a care management entity that supports more than 90 healthcare organizations nationally.

University of Virginia Health System Selects MModal’s Speech Understanding Solutions

The University of Virginia (UVA) Health System will implement MModal’s speech recognition and natural language processing solutions to speech-enable its EHR across UVA’s 604-bed hospital, level I trauma center, cancer and heart centers, and primary and specialty clinics throughout Central Virginia.

HealthTech Names Tom Mitchell Vice President of Marketing

HealthTech Holdings, parent company of Healthcare Management Systems (HMS), MEDHOST and PatientLogic, hires Tom Mitchell (MModal) as vice president of marketing.

HL7 Names Two New Advisory Council Members

HL7’s Board of Directors names Joyce Sensmeier, RN-BC, Vice President of Informatics for HIMSS, and Walter Suarez, M.D., PhD, Director of Health IT Strategy of Kaiser Permanente, to serve a two-year term on HL7’s Advisory Council.

6 ways AHRQ will explore EHRs and workflow redesign

AHRQ will interview focus groups with clinical, non-clinical, and management staff about their experiences with electronic health records, stemming from a groundswell of complaints that EHRs create more work, new work, excessive system demands, and inefficient workflow.