Latest Blog Posts

There are a lot of opinion pieces and blogs about the open source, open access, and open data marketplace, which is great – but most managers want to simply know what the facts are. Looking back over the past year, a number of surveys and reports have been issued by various organizations providing hard data about the growing 'open' movement. For example: Read More »

We have some great news for our readers. Virginia ("Ginger") Price has joined Open Health News (OHNews) as a partner and senior editor. Ginger is one of the most respected and well recognized health IT expets in the US. She has over 30 years experience in designing, building, implementing, and managing complex standards-based Health IT solutions, including driving adoption strategies to increase clinician and person centered use of those solutions. Read More »

Health Care for everyone...  On the whole, it sounds like a wonderful idea, doesn't it?  It's the  right thing to do.  Seems there's a funny little thing called the Law of Unintended Consequences, where  an intervention in a complex system tends to create unanticipated and often undesirable outcomes.  So the intended solution makes a problem worse, it actually has a perverse incentive that causes actions opposite to what was intended.

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Time is passing and like everyone, I'm trying to keep pace with the ever changing field of computer technology. Nowadays, my trusty desktop computer sits quietly in an out of the way corner of my house functioning primarily as a backup system and LAN server – providing access to shared files and my printer. Read More »

A Strategic Plan for the U.S. to Succeed in this 21st Century 'Information Age'

In this final blog in my series on the 'Open Revolution', my focus has shifted to 'solutions.'  What can we do in the U.S. to restore the American Dream and guide our country through this transition from the 'Industrial Age' of the 1900's into the 21st century 'Information Age'. Read More »

There are now a tremendous number of high quality 'Open' Education & Training resources and tools that major healthcare provider organizations, universities, colleges, and medical schools ought to seriously consider exploring. These include 'open source' software, 'open access' materials (textbooks, journals, etc.), 'open data', 'open communities', and much more. Read More »

The global 'Open Data' movement continues to grow and strengthen. Each month, the number of new 'open data' web sites and resources increases. Based on the number of hits by Open Health News (OHN) readers on links to 'open data' sources of health information, the following are their top choices:  Read More »

Do you remember taking health class in junior high or high school? I remember it vaguely A series of very boring classes with lessons about the food pyramid and some other stuff that I really can't recall. I'm not sure I ever did anything with what I was taught. Read More »

I ran across this recent report entitled "Economic Impact of Open Source on Small Business: A Case Study" and thought you might also find it of interest. It was written by Mike Hendrickson, Roger Magoulas, Tim O'Reilly and released in July 2012. You can download this free report at Read More »

I was involved with both the initial design of the VA VistA EHR system and the DoD CHCS system.  My goal was to create an interoperable, common infrastructure that would support local customization as well as inter-agency sharing of information. VA took an open source, evolutionary approach with VistA.  It has won awards, enjoyed tremendous user acceptance, and saved lives through improved health care delivery.  It was a key technology to the remarkable organizational transformation documented in Philip Longman's Best Care Anywhere.  Today, a complete VistA EHR stack is available as FOSS software.

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I have had some major issues with IT Architects over the years and the many prolific and useless dissertations they produce that are usually of little real value or practical use to senior IT managers responsible for day-to-day operations.  That does not mean that I don't appreciate the need for a good, practical IT architectural blueprint or roadmap that will help one make better decisions about the technology to acquire and implement to best meet the operational business needs of the organization for the future. What follows is a high level management introduction to 'Open' Health IT Architecture for those who are new to this whole arena. Read More »