The term "innovation" has been so overused and abused because entrepreneurs and marketing executives realize that the word catches people's attention. Unfortunately, such overuse dulls our senses, making it harder to recognize the real deal.

The 10 healthcare organizations featured in our slideshow are the real deal. Centene, for instance, has developed a unique program that uses advanced analytics and algorithms to identify high-risk members in its insurance plans so they can get the medical attention they need before their conditions get out of hand -- and a lot more expensive to manage.

NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital has combined Amalga, HealthVault, and a variety of other tools to give clinicians faster access to patient data from disparate hospital systems, a "cure" that reduces the likelihood of duplicate medical testing.

When Trinity Health devised its Genesis Platform, it concentrated on a tightly integrated combination of new and legacy applications, an integration that produced impressive improvements in clinical outcomes, as we outline in the slide summary. Detroit Medical Center, on the other hand, invested a good portion of its IT budget in Smart Rooms, in which data from electronic health records and bedside medical devices talk to one another in ways only dreamed of a decade ago.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is focused on, among other things, safety. It is creating a health information exchange that includes the patient summaries needed when a hospital patient is transferred to a skilled nursing facility or home, for example. In situations like this, BIDMC produces a Continuity of Care Document with discharge instructions for patients via a multidisciplinary Web application used by doctors, nurses, social workers, and case managers.

To take a deeper dive into these genuine innovations, read on.

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