The federal health information technology community plans a significant upgrade to its NHIN Connect software in the coming year, including adding tools to manage patient identification and health documents via the Nationwide Health Information Network.

New enterprise services planned for Connect, a software gateway that gives federal health agencies access to the NHIN, include a master index for managing patient identities, policy engine to handle health records authorizations and registry to organize patient health documents.

In April the Federal Health Architecture released an open-source version of the Connect gateway software that included core NHIN services, including patient look-up and record retrieval.

Vish Sankaran, FHA program director, said the new services would help move the project a step closer to becoming a tool that would “make a real impact on the lives of ordinary Americans.” He spoke at a panel discussion on federal heath information sharing at the Government Health IT conference yesterday.

Stamford, CONN. – June 4, 2009 – IVANS, Inc., a leading provider of healthcare connectivity solutions and services, announced results from a recent survey that showed healthcare providers believe in the importance of reform, but are concerned about the toll proposed approaches could take on their businesses and patients. According to the IVANS survey, 72% of healthcare providers believe a pay-for-performance model could lead to improved patient outcomes, but 79% said it would increase their costs of doing business, most likely due to increased reporting and record-keeping requirements. Providers believe a national health insurance plan would be even less effective, with 60% saying it would either increase costs or have no affect at all.

Scriptnetics, the leader in Tablet computer mobile healthcare applications, announced today its release of the proprietary source code for the Medscribbler electronic medical record, EMR, to the open source community. Installable components and the code for programmers are available at the globally recognized open source portal, Sourceforge.net.

BELLEVUE, Wash. - Edifecs, Inc., the leader in B2B solutions for transaction interoperability, announced that CNSI has selected the Edifecs Healthcare Accelerator Suite to support the development and implementation of a new Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) for the South Dakota Department of Social Services (DSS). The Edifecs Healthcare Accelerator Suite will help automate data validation in both real-time and batch modes for CNSI's next-generation Healthcare payer platform, eCAMS 2.0®. This platform will assist the State of South Dakota in building a robust healthcare IT infrastructure, providing end-to-end business process automation and real-time actionable data to eliminate inefficiencies.

QUEBEC - Medical Intelligence Technologies Inc. (TSX-V: MIZ), a provider of innovative monitoring solutions for the mobile telecare industry, today announced that it has granted a full non-exclusive commercial license for its products and services - Vega GPS Bracelet, PERSmobile GPS Emergency System and Urgentys GPS Lone Worker - to Bjorn Steiger Stiftung Service of Germany ("BSSS"). BSSS is a for-profit division of Bjorn Steiger Stiftung, a private foundation in Germany dedicated to diminishing the response time of emergency services in Germany. BSSS will distribute all Medical Intelligence's devices and will also offer the accompanying tele-security services. After-sales service will be provided by one of its local partners. Initial deployment is expected in first quarter of 2009.