Health IT Business News Wrap-up – July 6, 2012

This Week’s Health IT Business News

Today begins the start of our weekly wrap-up of business news.  Fittingly, we begin with news about military health care.

Northrop Grumman has won the TRICARE Management Activity Award to support Military health care. The multiple-award contract will generate innovative approaches to military health care delivery.

MyHealthDIRECT announced it has expanded its partnership with Amerigroup Corporation to include the organization’s Maryland provider partners as clients. Amerigroup, which manages publicly funded health programs, has successfully used MyHealthDIRECT’s online scheduling capabilities in Tennessee for two years.

Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) recently announced its place among the companies selected for an information technology services solutions contract by the National Institutes of Health Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center (NITAAC). The contract spans 10 years and is estimated at $20 billion.

EverGreen Health has partnered with Microsoft HealthVault. The Washington-based company will use Microsoft HealthVault’s free online service to help patients organize, store and share EHR information.

Accenture implements Madrid Healthcare Information Exchange. The HIE will capture all patient information into a single, integrated record for 26,000 clinicians and 15 million health records.  The system is expected to be completed within 12 months.

athenahealth launches Leadership Forum Initiative. The athenahealth Leadership Forum is an invitation-only leadership institute and online community. It is open to all medical enterprise leaders. The forum features content from Harvard Business Review and contributions from Harvard Business School faculty.

DataMotion has filed a provisional patent for secure doctor-patient email interaction. The patent will enable the effort to “drive efficiency in healthcare communications to meet the needs of every U.S. citizen.”

The New York Regional Extension Center becomes the first to receive federal funds for reaching meaningful use benchmark. More than 1,000 providers have helped the New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC) Regional Extension Center (REC) become the first and only REC to receive the federally defined “Meaningful Use” certification.

SXC Health Solutions Corporate, a leading provider of pharmacy benefit management (PBM) services and healthcare information technology  solutions has announced their merger with Catalyst Health Solutions. The transaction creates the fourth largest PBM by prescription volume.