News Clips

Axial Exchange Presents Open Source Health Record Sharing at 2010 Life Sciences & Healthcare Venture Summit

Press Release | Axial Exchange | October 15, 2010

Axial Exchange, Inc. -- the open source solution to sharing health care information -- for hospitals and doctors, payers, pharma and researchers -- has been invited to present at the 2010 Life Sciences & Healthcare Venture Summit in New York City on October 21st. Read More »

Air Force Lab Finds a Simple Way to Support Telework

William Jackson | Government Computer News | October 15, 2010

Lightweight Portable Security. LPS is a simple, inexpensive tool to create trusted endpoints for government and the public. It is bootable, open-source software that can be used with most Windows, Macintosh or Linux computers to create a nonpersistent trusted end node for secure browsing, cloud computing or network access.

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IT Everything: Found in Translation

Joseph Conn | Modern Healthcare | October 15, 2010

[...] Late last month, Kaiser officials announced their gift made to the International Healthcare Terminology Standards Development Organisation, the Denmark-based organization that took over work on the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine, or SNOMED, code family from the College of American Pathologists in 2007.

To new users, the CMT will be licensed under the Apache Version 2 open source license. Copies should be available by November from the National Library of Medicine. Read More »

Lies and Medical Science

David H. Freedman | The Atlantic | October 15, 2010

Much of what medical researchers conclude in their studies is misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong. So why are doctors—to a striking extent—still drawing upon misinformation in their everyday practice? Dr. John Ioannidis has spent his career challenging his peers by exposing their bad science.

What's New With Open Source for America?

Savio Rodriguez | InformationWeek | October 14, 2010

Open Source for America (OSFA) was announced as a coalition to encourage U.S. federal government support of and participation in open source projects and technologies. If that sounds like a broad-reaching goal, it is. Nearly three months after the group's debut, I was interested to learn what progress OSFA has made toward this goal.

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HHS Covets Role as 'Data Sugar Daddy' to App Developers

Mary Mosquera | Government Health IT | October 13, 2010

The Health & Human Services Department plans in December to release significantly more health-related data to spur commercial development of new software applications designed to help patients, providers and policymakers make better health care decisions.

Webcast Transcript: New Rounds for Nurses? A Look at Expanded Roles Proposed for Advanced Practice Nurses

Transcript | Modern Healthcare | October 12, 2010

A recent report from the Institute of Medicine and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation recommends that giving nurses new leadership roles and care-giving authority will be the right prescription under healthcare reform as demand for services is expected to surge, especially in primary care.

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Open Health Data: Spurring Better Decisions and New Businesses

Alex Howard | O'Reilly Radar | October 12, 2010

As Network World reported this week, iPhone apps that could save your life have come to an App Store near you.

"A growing number of developers are tapping into a treasure trove of U.S. government healthcare data and coming up with innovative iPhone apps that help consumers make better medical decisions," wrote Carolyn Duffy Marsan. She was reporting on a trend that started at the National Institute of Medicine in May when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched its Community Health Data Initiative.

Network World covered Medwatcher, Asthmapolis, and iTriage -- the latter two also showed up here on Radar back in May.

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Africa is Saving Lives By Turning Mobile Phones into Hospitals

Rupert Neate | The Telegraph | October 11, 2010

Mobile phone manufacturers, networks and software developers have joined forces with the United Nations to place the mobiles at the heart of a multi-million pound drive to tackle HIV/AIDS, malaria and deaths during childbirth. Read More »

VA's VistA Health IT System Could Be National Model

Christopher J. Dorobeck | Federal News Radio | October 11, 2010

The Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) program is "a huge success story," said James Herbsleb, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, in an interview with the DorobekINSIDER.

Herbsleb refers to Phillip Longman's book "Best Care Anywhere" that explores how the VA's system could be a model to help save the U.S. Health care system.

Webcast Transcript: When Nurses Lead the Way on Quality Improvement and Patient Safety

Interview Transcript | Modern Healthcare | October 10, 2010

Recent studies have concluded that promoting patient safety in the hospital setting will require dramatic cultural shifts, less hierarchy and more collaboration among nurses, physicians and other caregivers. 

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VA Wants to Bring Innovation to VistA

Jason Miller | Federal News Radio | October 10, 2010

Roger Baker, VA's assistant secretary for information and technology and chief information officer, said he will lead an effort to move VistA into the open source community.

Baker's decision to move VistA to open source comes after a working group from IAC/ACT submitted a report on May 4 recommending ten areas where VA could improve the program. The first was to move VistA to an open source platform.

DOD's EHR Failure Due to Poor Planning, Says GAO

John Commins | Health Leaders Media | October 8, 2010

Shortcomings in the Department of Defense's failed 13-year, $2 billion transition to electronic medical records were largely due to poor planning and execution, and a failure to appreciate the "significant complexity" of the program, the Government Accountability Office said. Read More »

VA Eyes Open-Source Model for Modernizing VistA EHR Technology

Report | iHealthBeat | October 7, 2010

The Department of Veterans Affairs is prioritizing efforts to develop an open-source method to modernize its VistA electronic health record system, VA CIO Roger Baker said during a Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday, Government Health IT reports (Mosquera, Government Health IT, 10/6).

Open-Source Software: Could This Be The Glue That Holds The NHS Together?

Geraint Lewis | Nuffield Trust | October 6, 2010

Good news stories don’t come around that often for Connecting for Health [...]. But I think I might have found one in the making.  This month marks the mid-way point in a two-year project to build an “open-source community” for the NHS. Read More »