Open Health News (OHN) Weekly Summary - 1/4/2014

January 4, 2014 - It's a New Year! It's been a relatively quiet week, but the following is a brief listing of some of the hot news items, selected news clips, feature stories, and blogs posted on Open Health News (OHNews) over the past week that we believe will be of interest to our readers across the U.S. and around the world. We've also included links to some upcoming open source and health IT events and conferences.

Some of the key themes dominating the news this week involved:

  • Check out the compilation of end of year articles on 2013 accomplishments and predictions for 2014 related to open source, health IT, open data, open access, ...
  • Open Data is a hot topic that continues to pick up speed, especially in the healthcare sector.
  • Ongoing news about a range of innovative 'Open Health' activity and solutions from across the U.S. and around the world.

Roger Maduro
Publisher & Managing Editor, Open Health News

 

Headlines

OHN News, Features & Blog Posts

Selected News Clips

Upcoming Open Source & eHealth Conferences

Brief Abstracts of Selected News Stories

 

Precision Medicine, Genomics & 'Open Health'

The purpose of this article is to provide a brief introduction and high level overview of 'Precision Medicine' to health information technology (IT) managers and analysts, along with pointers to key resources or sources of information they might want to explore if they decide to delve deeper into the topic. Read More »

Board Certified Clinical Informaticists & 'Precision Medicine'

In January 2014, a select group of physicians are to receive the first national board certification in Clinical Informatics, including Seth Bokser, MD, medical director for information technology at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Benioff Children's Hospital.  Awarded by the American Board of Preventive Medicine, the certification recognizes the increasingly vital role that the science and practice of informatics plays in health care. Read More »

Healthcare.gov is now working, but the 'show' goes on...

For several months, the news media and GOP politicians had a ball reporting on the bungled roll out of the federal government's Health Information Exchange (HIX web site – Healthcare.gov. Several months down the road, the story has died down as 'fixes' have been applied to the site and enrollment has started to climb dramatically. Read More »

The rise of Drupal and the fall of closed source

Jared Whitehead | OpenSource.com | January 2, 2014

The story of Drupal's beginning sounds like a story ripped from the pages of a cyberpunk novel. It was in a small apartment during college that Dries Buytaert created what would become one of the most widely-used open source content management frameworks. Read More »

Windows XP - 96 Days Left And Counting - Time to switch to Linux

Mike James | iProgrammer | January 1, 2014

At the turn of the year the countdown to the end of XP support is particularly relevant. 2014 is the year that Windows XP dies. And on January 1st it has 96 days left... Read More »

Linux Makes Open Source a Software Industry Force

Sean Kerner | eWeek | December 31, 2013

From a simple hobby project in 1991, Linux evolved to become a core component of the modern digital world and helped make open source software a potent force in the IT industry. Read More »

ON World: 5 billion wireless sensing IoT devices by 2019

Editor | CIOL | December 26, 2013

Wirelessly connected Internet of Things [IoT] solutions are changing the way people live and interact with their environment, according to global technology research firm ON World. Internet of Things solutions are the result of decades of development of low power wireless radios, energy-efficient power sources as well as MEMS and nanosensors. Read More »

The Role Of Big Data In Personalizing The Healthcare Experience: Mobile

Cheaper, faster, better technology is enabling nearly one in four people around the world to connect with each other anytime, anywhere, as online social networks have changed the way we live, work and play. In healthcare, the data generated by mobile phones and sensors can give us new information about ourselves, extend the reach of our healers and help to accelerate a societal shift towards greater personal engagement in healthcare. Read More »

Open Access: A textbook case of students not having enough money

Bill Sizemore | The Virginian-Pilot | December 30, 2013

At a recent meeting of Old Dominion University’s governing Board of Visitors, a startling statistic caught board members’ attention. According to a survey, nearly one in five ODU students are attending classes without the benefit of textbooks. The reason: They can’t afford them. Read More »

Federal health market surpasses 1 million signups

Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar | Federal News Radio | December 29, 2013

A December surge propelled health care sign-ups through the government's rehabilitated website past the 1 million mark, the Obama administration said Sunday Read More »

Year-in-Review: Law hot topics on Opensource.com

Rob Tiller | OpenSource.com | December 26, 2013

The most-read posts this year on the Opensource.com 'Law' channel showed a strong interest in diverse legal issues in the open source world. Many readers were reaching out for a better understanding open source licensing and related questions, such as: Read More »

10 of the Most incredible Open Source Hardware projects born in 2013

Simone Cicero | Open Electronics | December 27, 2013

This post celebrates a few of the most incredible Open Source Hardware projects from 2013. Most of these projects were crowdfunded Read More »

Open Data Now: Hottest Contenders for 2014

Mark Boyd | Programmable Web | January 1, 2014

A book about open data, to be released in January—and the launch of a pilot website showcasing open data businesses—both forecast a big year for open data in 2014, and highlight the importance of APIs in powering this new wave of innovation. Read More »

2014: New year promises better medical care through high technology

Marika Sboros | Business Day | December 31, 2013

From smart clothes, to genome editing, cell therapy, patient-centred medical homes, virtual house calls and "benevolent bribes" — 2014 is set to usher in a new era of precise, effective, and best of all, preventative treatments for a range of health problems and diseases. Read More »

The Top 5 Government Tech Stories of 2013

Joseph Marks | NextGov | December 30, 2013

...numerous agencies are moving to open source software systems, which means the software’s basic building blocks are in the public domain and not dependent on proprietary systems owned by specific vendors. Read More »