CMS on track to pay out $1B in MU incentives in 2011; 3 phases of e-prescribing success;

> Robert Anthony, of the CMS Office of E-Health Standards and Services, announced at this week's meeting of the HIT Policy Committee that in the month of September alone, close to $90 million in Meaningful Use incentive payments were made to providers, reports Healthcare IT News. "We are well on track to pay out $1 billion by the end of this year," Anthony said.

> Despite the long-term benefits of greater efficiency and potentially better patient safety, physician practices adopting e-prescribing systems face daunting challenges in incorporating the new technology into their workflow. Fortunately, a new study led by Jesse Crosson at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School identified a few common threads that make "exemplary" physician practices successful e-prescribers. FiercePracticeManagement

> Morton County Health System in Elkhart, Kan., recently became the first hospital in the Sunflower State to receive a Medicare incentive payment under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Announcement

> The Direct Project, the secure clinical messaging protocol introduced earlier this year, has advanced to the next level with the announcement that a workgroup of the Direct Project consortium has reached agreement on a key component of the "trust framework" that will be required for Direct messaging. FierceHealthIT

And Finally... Remind me not to go swimming in Oregon. Article