Obama health IT guru leaving his post (Morning Read)

Among today's current medical news: Washington's electronic medical records czar departs, a cap in whistleblower payments, a future with robotic nurses, Washington's guidance on trimming Medicaid and obesity's rapid increase.

Current medical news and unique business news for anyone who cares about the healthcare industry.

Health IT change in Washington. Dr. David Blumenthal, who has overseen President’s Obama’s health IT around the adoption of electronic medical records, is leaving to return to Harvard. “He’s helped bring the industry back to life when it seemed to be failing, and he gave the industry a jolt of energy it lacked,”  Betty Otter-Nickerson, president of Sage Health, told Kaiser Health News. Some are concerned about the impact of changing leaders in the midst of the national EMR adoption.

Cap whistleblower payouts? Instead of paying tens of millions in whistleblower payments, a new report suggests capping the payouts at $2 million.

Shoring up state Medicaid. The Obama administration spent Thursday offering guidance to states on ways they can keep Medicaid costs down — a tactic that would hope to maintain coverage as well as support for healthcare reform. But the administration dodged the issue of using standards that would remove low-income citizens from Medicaid rolls and cut their insurance coverage.

Robot nurses? New technology would allow surgeons to use hand signals to display images during a surgery or command a robotic scrub nurse. The goal would be to cut the length of a surgery.

It’s a healthier obesity. Obesity doubled since 1980 but, on the plus side, high blood pressure and high cholesterol rates have declined.

Health reform Egyptian style? Via The Health Care Blog.

Maybe the uninsured could learn something from Egyptians and the Arab street. At a time when landmark health reform granting most of the uninsured access to medical care for the first time in their lives is being seriously threatened, protests by the uninsured themselves are nowhere to be seen.

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