Latest News
For Hospitals on the Edge, Health IT is the Tipping Point
Without question, massive health IT expense and the predominant proprietary IT model are threats to a hospital or health system’s financial viability, to its solvency. We’re seeing some examples even now. Michigan’s Henry Ford Health System recently reported a 15 percent decrease in net income as a result of uncompensated care and $36 million spent on a proprietary EHR system. According to health system CEO Nancy Schlichting, “We knew that 2012 and 2013 would not be easy years for the system because of the Epic costs.” Read More »
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Emerging GIS Map of Healthcare Sites Using VistA EHR Systems
Open Health News has been building a database of all healthcare sites that have installed or are using any of the variants of the open source VistA Electronic Health Record (EHR) System, e.g. VA VistA, Medsphere OpenVistA, vxVistA, WorldVistA, RPMS, etc. Using the growing database, OHNews has created a GIS map of the sites. There are still about 400+ sites yet to be added from India, Jordan, Mexico, the USA, and other countries. The emerging GIS Map of healthcare facilities that have installed or are using the VistA System is quite impressive. Just a quick look at the USA shows that the family of VistA EHR systems is becoming the de facto national solution for federal, state, and local community hospitals and clinics. Read More »
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Open Source EHR Systems Spreading Across Hawaii and the Pacific Rim
Slowly but surely, the installation and use of 'open source' electronic health record (EHR) systems continue to spread across Hawaii and the Pacific Rim, e.g. VistA, RPMS, OpenMRS, OpenEMR. Read More »
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Government Agencies at all levels starting to use OpenStreetMap
There is a growing interest by the U.S. government in OpenStreetMap. The free availability of the rapidly maturing OpenStreetMap data and software makes this GIS mapping solution a more attractive option for the public sector than ever before, given the steep cuts in federal and local government budgets. Read More »
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KPMG Healthcare Report, Open Data & Consumer Comparison Shopping
KPMG’s recently released report "Something to Teach, Something to Learn" revealed that while nearly all healthcare leaders accept that the way the industry works will change over the next five years, only a quarter of them are preparing to overhaul their business models. Read More »
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OpenEMR & Ophthalmologist's Meaningful Use Attestation
Check out the "2013 Ophthalmologist's Meaningful Use Attestation" that was recently posted on the OpenEMR site. Understand how OpenEMR generates and tracks the data that you will need for attestation and where this information can be found. OpenEMR is one of the most popular 'open source' electronic medical record (EMR) and practice management (PM) systems on the market today. Read More »
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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 »
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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 »
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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 »
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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 »
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