Reform to bring health M&A, open data

Now that the confetti has settled from the Democratic party's presidential win, the healthcare industry is asking what comes next after Obama's win last week. Analysts predict more mergers and acquisitions will come, particularly around health IT innovations, according to The Wall Street Journal Health IT Report. "[S]ize will allow healthcare companies to make the necessary investments and cope with increasing regulation," Kent Bottles, senior fellow at the Thomas Jefferson University School of Population Health and FierceHealthcare advisory board member, wrote in Hospital Impact this week. The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have particularly encouraged "liberating healthcare data" into open national data, such as Blue Button and Section 10332 of the Affordable Care Act, Bottles noted. --Read the full blog post on Hospital Impact