Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker recently announced a $5 million matching grant from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MassTech) to Worcester Polytechnic Institute to will help support the launch of a new health care research initiative called PracticePoint at WPI.

The American Telemedicine Association released its 2017 Telemedicine Executive Leadership Survey results, finding that more than 83 percent of executives say they are likely to invest in telehealth this year.

The Department of Health and Human Services should re-assess the effectiveness of its efforts to increase patient access to electronic health records, according to a recently released Government Accountability Office report.

The Government Accountability Office this month released a report indicating that the Department of Veterans Affairs had made limited progress to improve its health care since being added to the high-risk list in 2015. This limited progress led GAO to keep the VA health care system on the 2017 list for concerns over timeliness, quality, and safety of veterans’ health care.

The RAND Corporation released a study on the costs of direct-to-consumer telehealth services. The study found that direct-to-consumer telehealth may actually drive up medical spending rather than reduce costs, due to the increased convenience.

Health IT has a positive impact on the U.S. economy, according to the new HIMSS Leadership and Workforce Survey unveiled last week at the 2017 Conference.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services gave approximately $20 million to 11 organizations for the first year of a five-year training and education program on the Quality Payment Program. CMS intends to invest an additional $80 million over the last four years of the program.

Online patient portals and access to digital health records have driven a significant increase in patient engagement, a new study by CDW Healthcare shows.

The American Telemedicine Association released two new reports looking at telemedicine coverage, reimbursement, and physician standards across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The reports identified gaps in coverage and reimbursement by comparing telemedicine adoption across all states, and looked at physician practice standards and licensure by reviewing state laws and medical board standards.

In Denver, neighborhoods that are two miles apart can have a difference of 10 years in life span. Contributing factors are higher rates of depression, childhood obesity, and tobacco use in certain areas of the city.