News Clips

Advocates who helped shape a major US government department's policy paper on using open-source in IT projects are stepping up their lobby.  Open Source for America plans to push for clear statements on the rules around using open source in government IT across a number of federal departments next year.

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Medsphere Systems Corporation, the leading provider of open-source healthcare enterprise solutions, today announced that Kern Medical Center of Bakersfield, Calif., will fully and meaningfully deploy the OpenVista® electronic health record (EHR) by the end of 2010. This significant health IT initiative, which will eventually touch every KMC clinician and patient, is designed to help KMC achieve dramatic and swift clinical transformation and maximize health IT financial incentives available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Read More »

These days, it seems, there is no shortage of recommendations for fixing the way bonuses are paid to executives at big public companies. Well, I have my own recommendation: Scrap the whole thing. Read More »

Jenny Aker an Assistant Professor in the Economics Department and Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, provided an overview of the welfare impacts of mobile technologies and how current research is testing our assumptions about the benefits of mobile phones for individuals in developing countries. Read More »

Back in 2005, Phillip Longman wrote an article in the Washington Monthly, touting the strides the Veterans Administration had made in improving quality.  Since then, it has become the model for a fair number of reformers, who frequently cite its ability to control costs and coordinate care as proof that we should move towards such a system nationwide. Read More »

Pundits and politicians from both sides of the fence have been hollering themselves blue about a potential public health care option. Instead of relying on private insurers, the government would insure people itself...Two of the three health care reform bills in Congress have a public option. What might a public option look like in practice? One way to find out is to look at what's already out there. Read More »

Open source in the government and military isn't a new thing; governance is one of open source's biggest target markets, so to speak. It's still all the more heartening to hear the Department of Defense come out strongly in favor of open source, and to recommend using more of it whenever possible.

The recommendation comes in the form of a memorandum (PDF) issued back on October 16th by David M. Wennergren, deputy CIO for the DoD. Wennergren notes that the "positive aspects of OSS [open source software]" should be considered when performing research for its use in the DoD. Read More »