Meaningful Use incentives to Kansas providers more than $25M; Blue Button contest winners unveiled;

> More than 460 eligible providers and 31 hospitals in Kansas have received roughly $25 million in the first six months of the Medicaid electronic health record incentive program, according to the state's Department of Health and Environment. Kansas' first set of payments was issued March 22, and the second set was issued Sept. 27. Announcement

> The winners of dual contests to improve access to and use of Blue Button technology were announced this week by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT and The Advisory Board Co., respectively, at the Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco, Government Health IT reports. Del Mar, Calif.-based Humetrix took first prize in ONC's contest for developing the iBlueButton, a mobile tool that enables access to Medicare Blue Button text files on a smartphone. Vienna, Va.-based Kinergy Health won The Advisory Board's contest for its MyKinergy web portal, which connects family members and doctors to care for family members. Article

> Physicians were more likely to click on a hyperlink for more information contained in a patient's electronic test report than to type in that link from a paper letter, according to a new study from Denmark. As part of a regional breast cancer screening program, doctors were sent a link to a website about the program and breast cancer in general. In all, 108 (45 percent) reported using the link--22 percent from the paper letter and 37 percent from the hyperlink in the electronic test results. FierceHealthIT

And Finally… If crappy service were against the law, most people would have a criminal record. Article