News Clips
Open Source Is So Much More Than Free Code
In 2011, the Department of Veterans Affairs officially moved its most critical software, the VistA electronic health record system, into open source by establishing the Open Source Electronic Health Record Alliance (OSEHRA). Along the way, VA officials solicited and followed advice from numerous open source experts, including Red Hat, Carnegie Mellon University and the Industry Advisory Council...
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The Linux Foundation Announces 2017 Events Schedule
The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit advancing professional open source management for mass collaboration, today announced its 2017 events schedule. Linux Foundation events are where the creators, maintainers and practitioners of the world's most important open source projects meet. Linux Foundation events in 2016 attracted over 20,000 developers, maintainers, sysadmins, thought leaders, business executives and other industry professionals from more than 4,000 organizations across 85 countries...
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Making Sense of MACRA: A Glossary of New Medicare Terms
As John Harvey, MD, FACS, past president of the Medical Association of Georgia, has toured his state to discuss the upcoming Medicare payment transition, he has noticed a trend. “More than half the physicians I have talked to … were not aware of the terms MACRA, MIPS and APMs.” Of course, there are also QPP, ACI and numerous non-initialisms that refer to crucial elements of the law that repeals the sustainable growth rate. Following is a short list of the terms every physician should know before the new payment rules take effect Jan. 1...
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Security Experts Warn Congress That the Internet of Things Could Kill People
A growing mass of poorly secured devices on the Internet of things represents a serious risk to life and property, and the government must intervene to mitigate it. That’s essentially the message that prominent computer security experts recently delivered to Congress. The huge denial-of-service attack in October that crippled the Internet infrastructure provider Dyn and knocked out much of the Web for users in the eastern United States was “benign,” Bruce Schneier, a renowned security scholar and lecturer on public policy at Harvard, said during a hearing last month held by the House Energy and Commerce Committee...
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Verily launches clever new spoon That Compensates for Disabilities
People with physical disabilities face many challenges, such as difficulty eating, something many take for granted. But now Verily Life Sciences, formerly Google Life Sciences, has launched the Liftware Level, a handheld robotic device that compensates for erratic hand and arm movements, allowing people to eat without spilling. As part of the recent launch, the Huntington’s Disease Society of America (HDSA) and Teva Pharmaceuticals will be donating 1,000 Liftware Level Starter Kits to people who could benefit from the device...
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Open Source Malaria Helps Students with Proof of Concept Toxoplasmosis Pill
A team of Australian student researchers at Sydney Grammar School has managed to recreate the formula for Daraprim, the drug made (in)famous by the actions of Turing Pharmaceuticals last year when it increased the price substantially per pill. According to Futurism, the undertaking was helped along by an, “online research-sharing platform called Open Source Malaria [OSM], which aims to use publicly available drugs and medical techniques to treat malaria”...
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uBiome Awards Microbiome Impact Grant to Explore Effects of Heavy Drinking and Smoking on Oral Microbiome
Microbial genomics leader uBiome is awarding in-kind scientific grants to ground-breaking microbiome studies. A microbiome impact grant award has been made to Dr. Renato Polimanti of Yale University School of Medicine, who will study the effect of heavy smoking and drinking on the oral microbiome. Grant proposals have been vetted by the company’s scientific review committee. Dr. Polimanti is a genetic epidemiologist working in the Division of Human Genetics of the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine...
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Winners And Losers With The 21st Century Cures Bill
A sprawling health bill that passed the Senate Thursday by a 94 to 5 vote and is expected to gain President Obama's signature is a grab bag for industries, academic institutions and patient groups that spent oodles of time and money lobbying to advance their interests. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell calls it "the most important legislation that Congress will pass this year." Who wins and who loses? Here's the rundown of what's at stake in the 21st Century Cures Act...
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Martin Shkreli Congratulates Australian Students for Recreating Life-Saving Drug
Former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli has congratulated a group of Australian students who reproduced the active ingredient for a life-saving, anti-parasitic drug at the centre of a drug-price controversy involving his former company. The students from Sydney Grammar School drew global media attention this week after they said they had produced the drug Daraprim for about $2 a dose, a fraction of the current list price of $750 per dose. Shkreli is a former chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals, where he sparked outrage among patients and U.S. lawmakers for raising the price of Daraprim by more than 5,000%...
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Can a Hollywood Techie Grow Government's Innovation Shop?
By his own admission, Rob Cook was "failing at semi-retirement" when he was offered the top job at the Technology Transformation Service, the government innovation shop based at the General Services Administration that includes 18F. Cook, 63, left his California home behind – as well as the Oscar statuette he keeps dressed in GI Joe clothes – and moved to a rented apartment in Washington, D.C., for a three-year term appointment in the Senior Executive Service as TTS commissioner...
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Open Source Wearable Angel Shuts Down
Angel, a company that has been working since 2013 on an open source wearable tracker that could be programmed for different use cases, has shut down the project and, likely, the company. The company announced the news via a large banner on its website reading "This project is no longer active". Angel executives did not respond to MobiHealthNews's request for an interview. Bob Troia, known as "Quantified Bob" in quantified self circles, spotted the announcement and posted about it on Twitter and on the Quantified Self forum...
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First Research Programme Identifies Potential Antibiotic Resistance Breakers
Antibiotic Research UK's first research programme finds a number of drugs that can break antibiotic resistance in Gram-negative bacteria. Antibiotic resistant infections are predicted to lead to 10 million deaths per year globally by 2050 at a cost of up to $100 trillion to the world economy. In the UK at least 5,000 people per year die from resistant infections. New research by Antibiotic Research UK (ANTRUK), the world's first charity created to develop new antibiotics in the fight against superbugs, has found Antibiotic Resistance Breakers (ARBs) in its first major lab research programme...
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Healthcare Top Target for Cyberattacks in 2017, Experian Predicts
Global information services company Experian has released its 2017 data breach industry forecast, and the news is sobering. Among the report's top five predictions? "Healthcare organizations will be the most targeted sector, with new sophisticated attacks emerging." Experian sees healthcare as particularly vulnerable to cyberattacks because medical identity theft remains so lucrative and relatively easy for hackers to exploit – and they continue to find markets for reselling patient data...
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Why AMA Supports Dr. Price to Lead HHS
The AMA supports the nomination of Dr. Tom Price based on decades of interactions with him as a member of the AMA House of Delegates, Georgia state senator and as a member of the House of Representatives since 2005. Over these years, there have been important policy issues on which we agreed (medical liability reform) and others on which we disagreed (passage of the Affordable Care Act). Two things that have been consistent are his understanding of the many challenges facing patients and physicians today, and his willingness to listen directly to concerns expressed by the AMA and other physician organizations...
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More Research Volunteers Are Getting Their Medical Test Results. Should We Cheer — or Worry?
Volunteer for a clinical trial and your body will be poked, prodded, scanned, and analyzed. But you’re unlikely to get any of the results. A small but influential band of activists has been pushing hard to change that — and they’re starting to get traction. The research establishment has long opposed giving volunteers access to their data, even though that’s supposed to be part of the arrangement. Some worry that it’s too easy for laypeople to misinterpret test results, while others maintain that it’s a waste of resources to organize data for individual review...
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