By Susan Carr

Diane Shannon, MD, stopped practicing medicine 17 years ago and recently wrote a blog post to describe her feelings about being a doctor, her daily experience as an internist, and her decision to focus instead on medical writing.

Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading global provider of information and point-of-care solutions for the healthcare industry, has announced availability of professional development eCourses for nurses that were developed in collaboration with Joint Commission Resources (JCR), official publisher and educator of The Joint Commission.

LiveData, Inc. has announced that the Department of Veterans Affairs Healthcare Facility in Miami is installing LiveData PeriOp Manager, the company’s operational intelligence solution for healthcare, throughout its full perioperative environment.

The Cardinal Health Foundation is currently accepting applications for grant funding to help U.S., Canadian and Puerto Rican hospitals, health systems, community health clinics and other non-profit health care institutions improve the efficiency and quality of patient care.

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) has announced its 16^th Annual Cheers Awards winners. The annual awards dinner will be held on December 10, 2013, at the Cuba Libre restaurant in Orlando.

Saint Luke’s Health System (SLHS), one of the largest not-for-profit health systems in the Midwest, has signed an agreement to implement PeriGen’s PeriCALM^® fetal surveillance system  in its seven metro and regional birthing hospitals in northwest Missouri and northeast Kansas. Celebrating 100 years of delivering babies, SLHS hospitals collectively deliver 6,000 newborns annually.

MagMutual Insurance Company, the Southeast’s foremost medical professional liability insurer, has announced the establishment of the MagMutual Patient Safety Institute. Underscoring its commitment to improving quality across care delivery settings, MagMutual’s $50 million investment offers physicians a wide range of resources and practical tools that facilitate the adoption of best practices to improve safety and decrease exposure to risk.

The cost of medical malpractice is growing at the slowest rate in the 14 year history of the Aon/ASHRM Hospital and Physician Professional Liability Benchmark report.

I-Flow, LLC, a Kimberly-Clark Health Care Company and manufacturer of the ON-Q Pain Relief System, has announced a new service for hospitals designed to reduce reliance on narcotics for post-surgical pain management and improve both the quality of care and financial outcomes.

The National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) has announced an agreement with the American Board of Medical Specialties® (ABMS®) to bring patient safety education to physicians participating in the ABMS Program for Maintenance of Certification (ABMS MOC®).