News Clips

Can the Government Really Move to Open Source IT? [UK]

Kathleen Hall | ComputerWeekly.com | February 25, 2011

The government has started making serious noises about using open source products. Bill McCluggage, deputy government CIO, held a meeting on Monday with suppliers to discuss the desire for much wider use of open source in public sector IT.

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Bringing Information Sharing to Healthcare

Lori Mehen | OpenSource.com | February 25, 2011

The Direct Project took a page from the open source community by bringing together several dozen organizations to collaborate to create "a simple, secure, scalable, standards-based way for participants to send authenticated, encrypted health information directly to known, trusted recipients over the Internet." 

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How to Improve Security? Centralize IT Management, VA CIO Says

William Jackson | Government Computer News | February 24, 2011

Government lags behind private sector because of a lack of central operational authority, Baker tells summit.

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UK Government Defines Open Standards as Royalty Free

Editors | H-Open | February 24, 2011

New procurement guidance from the UK government has defined open standards as having "intellectual property made irrevocably available on a royalty free basis." The document, which has been published by the Cabinet Office, applies to all government departments and says that, when purchasing software, technology infrastructure, security or other goods and services, departments should "wherever possible deploy open standards."

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DOD, VA prepare recommendation on joint EHR for late March, official says

Alice Lipowicz | Federal Computer Week | February 24, 2011

The Veterans Affairs and Defense departments are preparing to make a recommendation by late March on a joint strategy for managing their electronic health records, a senior VA official said today.

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VA's RFI Seeks Open-Source VistA Development Ecosystem

Alice Lipowicz | Washington Technology | February 24, 2011

If the Veterans Affairs Department chooses to update its legacy VistA  electronic health records system with open source development, the VA still would retain certification authority of any applications for its medical centers, Roger Baker, VA chief information officer and assistant secretary for information and technology, said today.

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Can Health Care 2.0 Be as Easy as Craigslist? Craig Thinks So

Gregory Ferenstein | Fast Company | February 24, 2011

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark is optimistic about the health care industry’s 21st-century makeover: mobile electronic health records, remote patient monitoring, and a new corporate culture, friendly to the open-source systems and workplace democracy in which tech innovation thrives.

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Transparency Launches as Linux of Drug Development

Arlene Weintraub | Crowdsourcing.org | February 23, 2011

Then Sablinski read an article about the open-source operating system Linux and he had an epiphany. “If said, ‘If computer coders can do open source, so can drug developers,” he recalls. “You have to add patients to the mix, because they’re really the reason you’re doing drug development.”

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The Open Source Tsunami to Hit UK in 2012

Malcolm Newbrie | IHE UK | February 23, 2011

In 2013, every procurement executive will be asking the question: "So why isn't your product using open source software?" Quite an assertion given that open source software is practically excluded from most public and private procurement by its lack of license model. Lets look the rationale to support this assertion. Read More »

Village Telco: Addressing the Issue of Rural Connectivity

Erik Hersman | memeburn | February 23, 2011

In the words of African telecommunications expert Steve Song, Village Telco is “an easy-to-use, scalable, standards-based, wireless, local, do-it-yourself, telephone company toolkit”. He’s just put out a new video making it very clear just how useful this system is. Read More »

MIT OpenCourseWare Turns 10: What's Next for Open Education?

Audrey Watters | ReadWriteWeb | February 23, 2011

April will mark the 10th anniversary of MIT OpenCourseWare, the university's initiative to provide free and open access to its core academic content - the syllabi, lecture notes, problem sets and solutions, exams, reading lists, and even a selection of video lectures from over MIT 2,000 courses. Read More »

Health Care Projects Could Yield Templates for Tackling Big Problems

Brian Ahier | O'Reilly Radar | February 23, 2011

There was an excellent panel discussion Sunday at HIMSS that looked at innovation in health care with Aneesh Chopra, CTO of the United States, Peter Levin, CTO at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and Farzad Mostashari, Deputy National Coordinator at the ONC. They discussed a three-pronged approach to health care innovation.

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Wi-Fi Alliance, Continua Health Alliance Team on Wi-Fi-enabled Health Applications

Lynnette Luna | Fierce Broadband Wireless | February 23, 2011

The Wi-Fi Alliance and Continua Health Alliance have entered into an agreement that calls for the two to promote the adoption of Wi-Fi networking technology in connected health applications.

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VA Plans for an Open Source VistA

David Perera | FierceGovernmentIT | February 23, 2011

The Veterans Affairs Department envisions a moderated "open source ecosystem" forming around its electronic health record, known as VistA.

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The Future of Connected Medical Devices (Part 1)

David Niewolny | Medical by Design | February 23, 2011

The emergence of new, low-cost devices – such as briefcase-sized ultrasound scanners and cell phone-sized monitors for vital signs – are giving the medical profession greater power to deliver better, most cost-effective patient care from virtually any location.

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