News Clips
New Research Estimates Value of Removing DRM Locks
My co-authors and I at the University of Glasgow are investigating how restrictions on interoperability imposed by Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems might impact the market for goods. We are doing this as part of a larger project to better understand the economics of DRM and to figure out what changes would likely occur if the laws were reformed. Our recent working paper is titled ‘How much do consumers value interoperability: Evidence from the price of DVD players’...
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The Problem of “Copy and Paste” in Electronic Records
A study of 23,630 internal medicine progress notes written by 460 different hospitalists, residents, and medical students found that a mean of only 18% of the text was created by hand with 46% copied and pasted from previous note or somewhere else and 36% imported from another part of the record such as a medication list. The analysis, done at the University of California San Francisco*, was possible because the Epic electronic medical record used there can provide the provenance of every character entered in a progress note...
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How Fledgling Start-Ups Can Benefit from Accelerator Programmes
Start-ups in the life science sector are a source of invaluable innovation, entrepreneurial spirit and ultimately, important developments that could improve patient health. It is through new ideas that the sector can face current and future challenges, such as an ageing population, the need to invest in new-generation, digitalised technology, and a rise in patient demand of service and value for money. But data shows that 90% of all start-ups fail within the first year, a worrying statistic considering the wealth of advantages that innovation can bring to the life sciences industry...
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Social Medicine 2.0—Can You Use Crowdsourcing to Give Your Medical Device a Leg Up?
Online crowdsourcing communities are a game changer. These platforms allow anyone to appeal to the entire connected world for support or participation. They get many of us to participate—Kickstarter processed just shy of $500 million dollars in 2014. Most interesting, at least to me, are platforms for crowdsourcing information. These make up the next generation of online forums, ranging from chat forums to open source hardware development...
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OpenEMR Consortium Unveils Proposal for an Open Source U.S. Coast Guard EHR
...a consortium of OpenEMR vendors united as one to propose an open source solution for a modern, customizable, and cost effective EHR to the USCG. The OpenEMR Consortium submitted their proposal to the USCG on June 2nd, 2017 and it was released to the public on July 5th, 2017. The proposal is based on the EHR software package, OpenEMR. OpenEMR is an open source, fully functional EHR software package that is ONC Certified as a Complete EHR.
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Four Takeaways from EHRA’s Health IT Usability Summit
On June 21, the Electronic Health Records Association held its second annual Shaping Usability of Health IT Summit. The event brought together more than 70 individuals, including physicians, EHR developers and even ONC Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Technology Reform John Fleming. Mandy Long, chair of the EHRA Clinician Experience Workgroup and vice president of corporate operations at Modernizing Medicine, co-hosted the summit. In a recent phone interview, Long outlined a few key highlights of the event...
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The Medicare Machine: Patient Details of 'Any Australian' for Sale on Darknet
A darknet trader is illegally selling the Medicare patient details of any Australian on request by “exploiting a vulnerability” in a government system, raising concerns that a health agency may be seriously compromised. An investigation by Guardian Australia can reveal that a darknet vendor on a popular auction site for illegal products claims to have access to any Australian’s Medicare card details and can supply them on request...
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ThoughtWorks' Bahmni Helps Small, Low-Cost Hospitals Improve Patient Care
Hundreds of patients at the Jan Swasthya Sahyog (JSS) hospital in Chhattisgarh’s Bilaspur used to spend hours carrying documents to different windows. ThoughtWorks’ Bahmni, an open source medical record system, has attempted to put an end to that. The open source software platform was developed by engineers of software firm ThoughtWorks in Bengaluru and Hyderabad to help doctors keep medical records, lab reports and other related information and treat their patients better...
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Good News, Despite What You've Heard
Cheer up: Despite the gloom, the world truly is becoming a better place. Indeed, 2017 is likely to be the best year in the history of humanity. To explain why, let me start with a story. I’m on my annual win-a-trip journey with a university student, who this year is Aneri Pattani, a newly minted graduate of Northeastern University. One of the people we met is John Brimah, who caught leprosy as a boy...
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OSEHRA 2017 Leadership Award Recipients Announced
The Open Source Electronic Health Record Alliance (OSEHRA) is pleased to announce this year’s OSEHRA Leadership Award winners. Numerous individuals were nominated this year and three were chosen through a vote by the OSEHRA community based on their outstanding achievements in health information technology and innovative health care. They were honored in a special ceremony during the 6th Annual OSEHRA Open Source Summit June 13-15, 2017 in Bethesda, MD...
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Read How 3D Printing Can Save Your Life
The three innovations relate to discoveries in tumor identification in MS patients, open-source prosthetics and jaw replacement surgery. With each 3D printing can deliver precise measurements to medical production facilities saving time critical to patient prognosis. 3D printing (or additive manufacturing) is the process by which digital 3D design data is used to build up a component in layers by depositing material...
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Ubuntu 'Weaponised' to Cure NHS of Its Addiction to Microsoft Windows
A quiet revolution has been rumbling in Leeds, in the north of England. It may not seem revolutionary: a gathering of software developers is scarcely going to get people taking to the barricades in these uncertain times, but the results of this particular meetup could shape access to NHS PCs in the coming years...
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Business Is Higher Education Just About Money?
If one were solely reading/hearing what appears in the news and in social media and on the US Department of Education website called College Scorecard, one would think that higher education was all about money. There are a plethora of articles about the costs of education and the difficulties students have in repaying their student loans. For students who do not complete their education, they end up in the unenviable position of having debt with no diploma – the worst of both worlds. Thinking through student borrowing and repayment has occupied center stage in debates about whether higher education is “worth it” or whether the price exceeds value. In business terms, folks are questioning the ROI on education...
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Open Source University Collaboration Platform Set to Spark Breakthroughs in Human, Animal Health
Human and animal health research is receiving a shot of adrenaline thanks to a collaboration with Kansas State University's Olathe and Manhattan campuses and the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The project — 1Data — is designed to accelerate breakthroughs in human and animal health by establishing a new standard for analyzing cross-species health information...
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Africa’s First Humanitarian Drone Testing Corridor Launched in Malawi
The Government of Malawi and UNICEF today launched an air corridor to test potential humanitarian use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones. The corridor is the first in Africa and one of the first globally with a focus on humanitarian and development use. It is centred on Kasungu Aerodrome, in central Malawi, with a 40km radius (80km diameter) and is designed to provide a controlled platform for the private sector, universities and other partners to explore how UAVs can be used to help deliver services that will benefit communities...
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