Consumers fueling outpatient construction.

Construction leaders continue to see their biggest opportunities in outpatient care, but providers still face challenges delivering levels of customer service that patients have come to expect.

Genomic medicine goes mainstream.

While the cost of genome sequencing has come way down and the uses of that information to improve patient care have taken an enormous leap forward, only a few pioneering healthcare systems are putting that knowledge to work.

Questions and uncertainty cloud normally sunny HIMSS.

Interoperability remains elusive and top of mind for all healthcare folks because health data are so difficult to standardize.

Future space: Harnessing the power of big data.

With the federal government spending tens of billions of dollars to push healthcare providers to install electronic health record systems, health information technology has been at the forefront of innovation in the healthcare industry for most of the past decade.

Genome sequencing rated top advance of past 40 years.

The sequencing of the human genome represents the most significant breakthrough in healthcare over the past 40 years, according to Modern Healthcare readers. That achievement, capping a 13-year, $3 billion international effort funded by the federal government, drew the most votes from the 728 respondents to a survey that listed 60 healthcare milestones achieved since Modern Healthcare was founded in 1976. The survey asked readers to pick their top five choices from each of three categories: science and technology; healthcare delivery; and politics and policy.

Creating new Medicare ID raises concerns for health data handlers.

Congress told Medicare to stop putting Social Security numbers on beneficiary cards. But some industry experts question whether it's wise to go through the trouble to replace them with a new Medicare-specific ID.