Morning Headlines 10/28/13

St. Rita’s first in country to pilot tablet technology

Lima, OH-based St. Rita’s Medical Center announces that it’s piloting a new Epic product designed for patients. The tablet-based application is an acute care-based patient portal that lets admitted patients see their care plan, review their lab results, and even see pictures and details for their entire care team.

Hundreds of thousands click on Healthcare.com after Healthcare.gov launch

The easily mistaken site healthcare.com, which sold to a Miami-based entrepreneur seven years ago for $2 million, has received millions of hits since the October 1 launch of healthcare.gov. The site owners monopolized on the traffic by putting up an official looking webpage and accepting health insurance quote requests, of which it’s already received 100,000.

Major Conflict of Interest with QSSI, the Contractor for the Health Insurance Exchange

QSSI, a general contractor working to fix healthcare.gov, is being called out on a potential conflict of interest because it is owned by parent company UnitedHealth Group which also owns United Healthcare, the largest private insurance company in the country.

GAO Appointments to Health IT Policy Committee

The Government Accountability Office names three new members to its Healthcare IT Policy Committee: David Kotz, PhD (Dartmouth College), Devin Mann, MD/MS (Boston University School of Medicine), and Troy Seagondollar, MSN (Kaiser Permanente).