The passage of health care reform last year has given all the players in the health care field a new set of hurdles, albeit with many opportunities, that now must be negotiated, and Nancy-Ann DeParle, counselor to the president and director of the White House Office of Health Reform, discussed those issues as a luncheon keynote speaker during last week's J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference in San Francisco.

SAN FRANCISCO — A topic that has been of interest for some time, but has not come close to reaching its potential is healthcare information technology (HIT). The coming federally mandated adoption of HIT technology by hospitals and physicians may finally give this sector wings, and more importantly for investors, a pathway to profitability.(Medical Device Daily)

SAN FRANCISCO – The passage of healthcare reform last year has given all the players in the healthcare field a new set of hurdles, albeit with many opportunities, that now must be negotiated. Making her case for the reforms to a largely skeptical audience as a luncheon keynote speaker was Nancy-Ann DeParle, counselor to the President and director of the White House Office of Health Reform. (Medical Device Daily)

SAN FRANCISCO — In his opening remarks at this, the 29th edition of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Doug Braunstein, chief financial officer for the firm, briefly waxed nostalgic with a look back at the first edition of the conference back in 1983. He noted that first edition of the conference had only 21 presenting companies and the U.S. spent about $350 million on healthcare. Of that original list, he noted that only four companies remain independent entities. (Medical Device Daily)

ATLANTA — Only a few miles from the office where Medical Device Daily is published, a unique new model for preclinical research was opened last July called the Saint Joseph's Translational Research Institute (SJTRI). The SJTRI lab works with a dynamic portfolio of preclinical studies for medical device, biotech and pharmaceutical companies. (Medical Device Daily)