IBM sees a role for business to provide the information technology infrastructure needed for the development of "personalized" medicine, or what the company calls "information-based" medicine. So says Michael Svinte, who heads IBM's information-based medicine efforts, in an interview published Feb. 14 on the Health Affairs Web site.

In the January/February Health Affairs, Molly Joel Coye and Jason Kell propose a national stakeholder forum that would help hospitals make evidence-based evaluations of emerging new technologies. The authors say hospitals are too often pushed into ill-considered decisions about technology acquisition by physician requests or the adoption of new technologies by competing hospitals. Coye and Kell also propose a federally sponsored revolving loan fund that would help hospitals make needed technology investments without unduly straining the federal budget.

In the January/February Health Affairs, Joanne Spetz and Sarah Adams recommend that hospitals allow older nurses to continue working part-time after retirement while still receiving their pensions. In a comprehensive discussion of the use of employment benefits in nurse retention, the authors also advocate flexible work schedules and the development of "grow-your-own" career ladders through tuition reimbursement and other educational benefits.