News

Seventh Annual "Future of Open Source Survey" Results

North Bridge Venture Partners and Black Duck Software today announced the results of the seventh annual Future of Open Source Survey. The 2013 survey represents the insights of more than 800 respondents – the largest in the survey's history - from both non-vendor and vendor communities. Survey results reveal the cultural impact of open source software and its influence on everything from innovation, to collaboration among competitors, to hiring practices, is revolutionizing the way organizations work and do business. Read More »

House Republicans and Democrats Find Rare Bipartisan Agreement on Open Source IT Procurement

In these politically polarized times, Americans expect Republicans and Democrats to disagree on every detail right down to what day of the week it is...So it’s remarkable and unexpected when any legislation exits a House committee with unanimous bipartisan support. It’s even more surprising when the legislation potentially threatens the status quo for established corporate interests—in this case information technology companies. The Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITAR) —sponsored by California Republican Darrell Issa along with Virginia Democrat Gerry Connolly, and supported by every member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee—threatens to put open-source software on par with proprietary by labeling it a “commercial item” in federal procurement policies. Read More »

Petition to have DoD adopt the EHR used by the VA posted on the White House web site

Members of the WorldVistA organization have just posted a petition at the "We The People" White House website asking for President Barack Obama to instruct the Department of Defense (DoD) to quit dragging their feet and adopt the world-renowned electronic health record system (EHR) developed and successfully deployed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) over the past 35 years. Read More »

Individuals & Organizations continue migration to LibreOffice

The Document Foundation (TDF) just released a white paper to help individuals and organizations migrate to use of LibreOffice -  a high quality, free and open source personal productivity and office software suite. This is an alternative many healthcare organizations ought to seriously consider.  See Migrating to LibreOffice to promote software and document freedom. Read More »

Mobile Health IT Solutions for Healthier Aging

A report entitled "Using Mobile Technologies for Healthier Aging" was released in March 2013. The report, written by Ada Kwan, was co-sponsored by the mHealth Alliance , United Nations Foundation, and Pfizer. The stated objective of this report was to provide momentum and spur further conversation on ways mobile technologies can help people age better and remain in reasonably good health. Read More »

'Open' InfoButton Solution for EHR Systems

In the last two decades, researchers have investigated solutions to enable seamless access to online health knowledge resources within the context of electronic health record (EHR) systems. Information on the development and use of an open source InfoButton solution for use within EHR systems was presented in the latest issue of the open access OSEHRA Technical Journal. Read More »

NHS & VHA: Transatlantic Exchange of Ideas and 'Lessons Learned' on Adoption of Health IT Solutions

Britain's 2020Health.Org has just released a major report outlining how the United Kingdom can transform its healthcare system by enhancing its existing collaboration effort with the U.S. Veteran's Health Administration (VHA) and by sharing technology, knowledge and lessons learned on the effective use of Telehealth, PHR, and EHR systems. Entitled "Making connections - A transatlantic exchange to support the adoption of digital health between the US VHA and England’s NHS", the report lays out step by step how Britain's National Health Service (NHS) can create a digital revolution that can significantly enhance its ability to provide health care. Read More »

Open Health Tools (OHT): Latest News & Activities

Open Health Tools (OHT) just released the minutes of their latest Board Meeting from March 8, 2013, held in New Orleans, Louisianna. OHT is dedicated to improving the health of people through the transformation of health information technologies (HIT). The following is a brief summary of the meeting. Read More »

Beyond HIT Interoperability: Open Platforms are the Key

Open platforms in health IT are inevitable. Exactly when OPEN becomes health IT’s de facto reality is impossible to determine. But we can be certain that it will happen because healthcare businesses focused on quality improvement and cost-effective care will demand it Read More »

Open source VistA System offers Major Benefits for Small Community & Critical Access Hospitals (CAH)

Almost one fifth of the U.S. population lives in a rural areas. Critical Access Hospitals (CAH) and other small, rural community hospitals provide vital services to over 60 million people living in these areas.Many of these small  rural hospitals cannot afford to acquire and implement costly commercial EHR systems.  There is an alternative - the high quality, low cost 'open source' VistA system supported by a growing number of health IT vendors. Read More »