News Clips
Software Licensing: The current situation is utter nonsense
Good opinion piece in Information Week on commercial software licensing by John McGreavey. I've been in this industry for many years, and with the changes in platforms, virtualization, hosted solutions, accounting treatments, and remote usage options, I understand that pricing models must evolve. But the current situation is utter nonsense. Read More »
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World TB Day – Kalpana Palkhiwala
The world is observing World TB (Tuberculosis) Day, to commemorate the day in 1882 when Dr. Robert Koch announced the discovery of the cause of Tuberculosis, the bacillus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This day is meant to focus attention on TB and generate public awareness that TB still today remains a global epidemic causing the deaths of several million people each year, mostly in developing countries. TB is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide as over 1.7 million people die due to TB every year which amounts to one death every 20 seconds.
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Continua’s Chuck Parker on Connected Health (transcript)
This is David Williams, co-founder of MedPharma Partners and author of the Health Business Blog. I’m speaking today with Chuck Parker, Executive Director of the Continua Health Alliance. This is the transcript of my recent podcast interview with Continua Health Alliance Executive Director Chuck Parker. Continua Health Alliance is a non-profit, open industry alliance of more than 200 of the world’s finest healthcare and technology companies joining together in collaboration to improve the quality of personal healthcare.
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Who’s Going to Pay for Future Drug Development?
In the first part of this article, the author detailed how pharma and biotech companies, along with the federal government, provide the majority of funding for biomedical research in the U.S. In this second part, he turns his attention to a number of other sources, both for-profit and nonprofit, that also provide the capital that drives drug discovery and development work. Read More »
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CSIR to Provide Affordable Healthcare with Global Partnership
March 24 is the World TB Day. India has the world’s largest TB epidemic in terms of incidence and mortality and the disease remains the largest killer of Indians between the ages of 15 and 45. In order to find new drugs for TB, CSIR had initiated the Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) project which was launched on 15th September, 2008.
Following the Epic Systems Money
I reported yesterday that five members of the Wisconsin congressional delegation asked the Veterans Affairs and Defense departments to consider using a single commercial system for their new electronic health records, a move that could benefit one of the state's largest employers, software company Epic Systems Corp.
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SMART Challenge and P4: Open Source Projects Look Toward the Broader Use of Health Records
In a country where doctors are still struggling to transfer basic patient information (such as continuity of care records) from one clinic to another, it may seem premature to think about seamless data exchange between a patient and multiple care organizations to support such things as real-time interventions in patient behavior and better clinical decision support. But this is precisely what medicine will need for the next breakthrough in making patients better and reducing costs.
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India to Help World Protect Ancient Medicines
On Tuesday, India offered to share its expertise with other countries on effectively protecting the commercially valuable traditional systems of medicine such as Ayurveda from being patented by individuals and companies. The 34-million page digital database India created in five global languages on Ayurveda, Sidhha, and Unani systems of medicine and Yoga, has helped India prevent individuals and companies from patenting medicines derived from these traditional medicines.
A Mad Scientist's 50 Tools for Sustainable Communities
In the middle of rural Missouri there is a physicist-turned-farmer looking to redefine the way we build the world. Marcin Jakubowski is the mastermind behind a group of DIY enthusiasts known as Open Source Ecology and their main project, the Global Village Construction Set. The network of engineers, tinkerers, and farmers is working to fabricate 50 different low-cost industrial machines. Read More »
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EMRs Help Boost HIV Care In Developing Countries
Electronic medical records improve the quality of care in developing countries, according to a new study conducted by researchers from the Regenstrief Institute and the schools of medicine at Indiana University and Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya. The study is one of the first to explore and demonstrate the impact of electronic record systems on quality of medical care in a developing country.
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Open-Source Software Designed to Minimize Synthetic Biology Risks
According to a report from Virginia Tech, a software package designed to minimize the potential risks of synthetic biology for the nation's defence and security is now available to the gene synthesis industry and synthetic biology community in an open-source format.Virginia Tech has licensed GenoTHREAT, a software tool that helps detect the use of synthetic DNA as bioterrorism agents. Developed as an open-source project by a team led by Jean Peccoud, associate professor at Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech, it is being released using the Apache License Version 2.0 to ensure broad accessibility.
The Direct Project: Accelerating Government Innovation in Health IT
In February 2011, two pilots of a new standard for sending health information securely over the Internet were launched. The pilots -- one in Minnesota and one in Rhode Island -- are the first tests of the Direct Project, a U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) initiative designed to simplify the exchange of information within the health care industry. The Direct Project represents an unusual experiment in accelerating the creation of the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN). The project has demonstrated how rapidly a "lightweight" open process can yield useful results compared with typical government-sponsored IT development projects.
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Wisconsin Political Peace?
There's still not a lot of amity between the two parties in the Wisconsin Statehouse following a bruising budget battle this past month. Read More »
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Open Source in Health Care Explored at HC 2011 - Book Now
HC2011 is one of the UK's largest, most powerful and rewarding industry events for health & social care informaticians, ICT professionals & clinicians. Since open source development based on standards seems likely to re-emerge as a key mechanism for cost-effective delivery, HC2011 will feature a set of workshops and presentations on the final day of the conference to explore current thinking and developments.
E-Health Records Can Boost Care in Developing Countries, Study Finds
Computer-generated reminders in electronic health record systems can help improve care in developing countries, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA), the International Business Times reports. The study focused on an open-source EHR system, called OpenMRS, that is widely used in developing countries.