The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has announced that an enhanced set of 20 curriculum components is now available to the public at no cost, including all institutions of higher education nationwide and internationally.

An important aspect of any product is how easily someone can use it for its intended purpose, also known as usability. Electronic health records (EHR) that are usable have the potential to improve patient care, which is why the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has outlined formal procedures for evaluating the usability of EHR systems.

St. Jude Medical Center, a 384-bed hospital in Fullerton, Calif., and member of St. Joseph Health System, recently selected PerfectServe’s intelligent clinical communication platform to standardize communications between physicians and nursing, pharmacy and ancillary teams.

The Premier healthcare alliance has awarded IRadimed Corporation a three-year contract for its MRidium™ MRI Infusion Systems. Effective January 1, 2012, the agreement makes the MRidium™ Systems available to Premier members.

ClearCount Medical Solutions, a leader in patient safety solutions, announced on March 21 that it has updated its existing platform and launched the SmartSponge® Flex, a new addition to the SmartSponge family of products. The SmartSponge Flex provides ClearCount’s clinically preferred and patented RFID technology in a new cost-effective and compact package.

URAC and the Leapfrog Group have partnered to develop the Excellence in Hospital Website Transparency Best Practices Awards and Acknowledgement Program to identify outstanding hospital websites that promote transparency of quality measures in a manner that is useful and user-friendly for consumers. All hospitals that publically report their Leapfrog Hospital Survey results are eligible.

Monterey, California—Language Line Services, the world’s leading provider of translation and interpretation services, will collaborate with the Society for Healthcare Consumer Advocacy (SHCA) as a key sponsor at its 2012 Annual Conference in Austin, Texas set for April 17-20, 2012. SHCA is a nonprofit patient advocacy organization affiliated with the American Hospital Association.