For six weeks in late 2005, UMass Memorial Medical Center voluntarily stopped performing elective cardiac surgery after Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) data indicated that the medical center's CABG mortality was above the state average. Things have since turned around and UMass is now a recognized national leader in quality and cardiovascular outcomes, according to a commentary from Robert Phillips, MD, senior vice president at UMass.

Group purchasing organizations (GPOs) can save the U.S. healthcare industry $36 billion dollars annually in price savings and more than $2 billion dollars in savings associated with human resources uncommitted to the purchasing process, according to Eugene S. Schneller, PhD, principal at Health Care Sector Advances and professor at the Arizona State University School of Health Management and Policy.

As American author and philosopher Eric Hoffer adeptly points out, if irregularity becomes commonplace, then people become numb to its effects. Many have expressed this sentiment in reponse to reports about the vast undulations in the current worldwide financial markets, and cardiovascular (CV) medical device makers and pharmaceutical companies have not been immune to these fickle trends.Medical imaging and health IT leviathan GE performed better than market expectations, despite a 22 percent decline in profit from within its healthcare segment. However, the company's CEO expressed optimism in these results due to the challenging "economic environment."

Several hospitals in California, Nevada and Arizona have engaged the services of an outside independent auditing firm to impartially evaluate whether recent cardiovascular procedures were medically necessary and appropriate.

GE's Technology Infrastructure division reported a 6 percent increase in profit for its preliminary results of the 2009 first quarter, despite a 22 percent decline in profit from within its healthcare segment.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that the number of hospital jobs declined by 700 in March 2008 for the first time since 2004, against the total hospital work force of 4.71 million.

CHICAGOAlthough health IT professionals agree that the utilization of data standards can enhance business operations, allow interoperability of systems and improve patient care, their adoption can be challenging due to legacy data and a lack of consensus as to which standards should be implemented, according to Geraldine Wade, MD, principal and managing director of Atlanta-based Clinical Informatics Consulting.

GE and Intel have formed an alliance to market and develop home-based health technologies to remotely monitor seniors and patients with chronic conditions, according to an announcement made at a joint press conference in New York City today, hosted by Intel's CEO and President Paul Otellini and GE's CEO and Board Chairman Jeffrey Immelt.