News Clips

Behavioral Health and the EMR: Why One Psychiatric Hospital Went Open-Source

Mark Hagland | Healthcare Informatics | February 8, 2011

...this time, I came upon the fact that there were now a couple of companies that had gotten the Vista system from the VA [the federal Veterans Administration health system], through Freedom of Information.

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Leveraging the Organizational Network: Series on Technology Trends for the Life Sciences Industry

Joseph Gaspero | Center for Healthcare Innovation | February 7, 2011

Technology and the internet offer a unique opportunity for some of the world’s top pharmaceutical companies to look beyond their walls or internal networks for solutions to their business challenges.

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VA Awards Contracts for Healthcare Innovations

Mary Mosquera | Government Health IT | February 7, 2011

The Veterans Affairs Department has awarded a contract to enable providers to share elements of a patient's electronic health record on mobile devices in addition to three other contracts under its latest VA Innovation Initiative (VAi2) competition to use new technologies in the agency's facilities to improve the quality of veterans' patient care.

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NHS Must Adopt Open Systems to Address 'Failure' Say Academics

Anthony Savvas | CIO | February 7, 2011

City University's Centre for Health Informatics (CHI) has launched a research programme and policy challenge paper to explore how NHS IT services can be improved and made more cost-effective in the face of "past failure". The challenge paper calls for new NHS systems to be based on a combination of open standards, open source software, open system interfaces and agile development. Read More »

UC Davis names director of new Institute for Population Health Improvement

UC Health | UC Health | February 7, 2011

Kenneth W. Kizer, one of the nation’s pre-eminent authorities on public health and health care quality improvement, has been named the director of the new Institute for Population Health Improvement (IPHI) at UC Davis Health System, and a Target of Excellence professor at the School of Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing. Read More »

Institute for Population Health Improvement's New Chief

Carole Gan | University of California Newsroom | February 7, 2011

Kenneth W. Kizer, one of the nation's preeminent authorities on public health and health care quality improvement, has been named the director of the new Institute for Population Health Improvement (IPHI) at UC Davis Health System, and a Target of Excellence professor at the School of Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing. Read More »

Collaborative Genetics, Part 1: The Ambitious Goals of Sage Commons Congress

Andy Oram | O'Reilly Radar | February 5, 2011

In a field rife with drug-addicted industries that derive billions of dollars from a single product, and stocked with researchers who scramble for government grants (sadly cut back by the recent US federal budget), the open sharing of genetic data and tools may seem a dream. Read More »

Report from Massachusetts Health IT forum

Andy Oram | O'Reilly Radar | February 5, 2011

The conflation of out-of-control health care costs, fancy new technologies, and various government mandates (not only from the US government, but from many states including Massachusetts) have forced doctors, vendors, and other people in the heath care field to scramble and order changes throughout their organizations. A couple hundred of these people came to the "Tools for Meaningful and Accountable Care" conference held yesterday by the Massachusetts Health Data Consortium.

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Only one-third of agencies pass the Federal Open Technology Report Card

Savio Rodriguez | InfoWorld | February 4, 2011

Open Source for America (OSFA) recently published a report card on open technology and open government across several U.S. federal government departments and agencies. The results: One-third of agencies received a passing grade

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VA Announces Award of First Industry Innovation Competition Projects

Press Release | Veterans Affairs | February 4, 2011

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki officially announced today the first VA Innovation Initiative (VAi2) awards under the agency’s Industry Innovation Competition, its third competition since it began in early 2010.  

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Global Health Corps Expands to 70 Fellowships; Applications Now Open

Press Release | Global Health Corps | February 4, 2011

Global Health Corps is expanding this year to support 70 emerging leaders in their 2011-2012 fellowship class. Applications for placements in Burundi, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda and the USA are now open at www.apply.ghcorps.org. GHC is seeking applicants with diverse skill-sets from areas that are often viewed as outside of the traditional health workforce--managers, communicators, architects, computer scientists, supply chain analysts and other exceptional young people from disciplines important to building strong health systems.

"The complexity and scope of today's challenges requires people with diverse skills from a wide range of fields beyond medicine. To truly shift the tide of global health challenges, we need to engage young leaders from all backgrounds," Barbara Bush, co-founder and CEO said.

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Cranston Doctor Becomes Medical Records Pioneer

Felice J. Freyer | Projo.com | February 4, 2011

Cheers went up on Monday night, moments after Dr. Albert J. Puerini Jr. hit the “send” button on his computer in Cranston, transferring some of a patient’s medical information to a gastroenterologist in Providence. Puerini could hear the huzzahs in the background when he called to confirm receipt. Read More »

GAO: Despite Commonalities, DoD and VA Lack Health IT Jointness

David Perera | FierceGovernmentIT | February 3, 2011

The Defense and Veterans Affairs departments continue to pursue individual health information technology systems rather than determine a common best approach, says a new Government Accountability Office report.

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DOD, VA Not Working Well Together on Digital Medical Records, GAO Says

Alice Lipowicz | Federal Computer Week | February 3, 2011

The Defense and Veterans Affairs departments aren't working effectively together to create a joint health architecture, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. Read More »

A New Challenge Looks for a Smarter Algorithm to Improve Healthcare

Alex Howard | O'Reilly Radar | February 3, 2011

Starting on April 4, the Heritage Health Prize (@HPNHealthPrize) competition, funded by the Heritage Provider Network (HPN), will ask the world's scientists to submit an algorithm that will help them to identify patients at risk of hospitalization before they need to go to the emergency room.

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