News Clips
Kitware Tapped by National Alliance for Medical Image Computing to Continue Development of its Advanced Biomedical Imaging Toolkit
Kitware, developers of open source and advanced research solutions, today announced the renewal of a contract with the National Alliance for Medical Image Computing (NA-MIC) to continue with its development of the NA-MIC Kit, a high-quality software for solving medical image analysis and visualization challenges in bio-medical research. Read More »
Veterans Affairs CIO sees another year of no growth in IT spending
In his prepared testimony, Baker said he wanted to create an open source model for VISTA, "bringing back the innovation that made VISTA the best electronic health record system in the country." In August, VA said it was evaluating an open source model that a technology industry advisory groupproposed in May. Read More »
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Statement of Kenneth W. Kizer, MD, to the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs
The modernization and repurposing of VistA for both the government and private sectors makes sound financial and clinical sense, and perhaps especially so today given the realities of the economic environment. Building on VistA's legacy in the ways suggested in these comments offers the opportunity to continue to improve health care for veterans as well as to substantially and affordably improve health care for millions of other Americans.
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Statement of Kenneth W. Kizer, MD, to the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs
The following testimony by Medsphere Chairman Kenneth W. Kizer, MD, MPH, was given on October 6, 2010.
Thank you Chairman Akaka, Ranking Member Burr, and Members of the Committee for inviting me to present this testimony about the future of information technology (IT) in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Read More »
Roger Baker, Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology, Gives Statement on VA at Sub-Hearing
While I am proud of the accomplishments of the VA IT organization over the last 16 months, I also recognize that much, much more work remains to be done. As the only Department-level consolidated IT organization, I believe that VA IT must strive to be a leader both inside and outside of government. To that end, I would tell you what my goals are for us in the coming years:
4. Create an Open Source model for the VistA electronic health record system, bringing back the innovation that made VistA the best electronic health record system in the country.
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Baker: No increase in VA IT spend in fiscal 2012
The Veterans Affairs Department will likely not request additional information technology funding for fiscal 2012, its chief information officer told a Senate panel Oct. 6. The VA is the only cabinet department in which the CIO has authority over the entire department's IT spend--approximately $3.3 billion in fiscal 2010, which ended on Sept. 30. The department requested a similar amount for fiscal 2011, but Congress has yet to approve any federal agency spending bill and is keeping the government funds only via a continuing resolution.
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Anonymized health IT data still traceable, House panel warned
As electronic health records start to become pervasive in physician practices--thanks in no small measure to federal incentives--there's a growing worry that electronically-collected health data could violate individual privacy, even when the data has been stripped of personally identifiable information. Read More »
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Surfing As a Business Model
...In the open-source world, part of the broader peer production movement, analogous situations occur. As we all know communities collaborate to create some form of "gift", which in our case is a useful piece of software. These systems are created for a variety of reasons including commercial (make money, develop a reputation), altruistic (benefit society, foster open science, help fellow developers), practical (scalable software process, ease of collaboration) and fun (community engagement, personal growth). Read More »
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World War II Vets Visit D.C. Memorial Through Efforts by DSS, Inc., S.E. Florida Honor Flight and Local Community
DSS looks to continue momentum by helping coordinate a spring 2010 Honor Flight
Juno Beach, FL – December 16, 2010 – As part of the Honor Flight Network, a non-profit organization that facilitates trips for veterans to visit their respective memorials, DSS, Inc., in collaboration with the Southeast Florida Honor Flight chapter, West Palm Beach VA and local community raised money and coordinated details so that 27 World War II veterans could fly to Washington, D.C., in November to visit the WWII Memorial. Read More »
Political Rhetoric Gives Medsphere an Opening
It seemed at first like a standard bit of political rhetoric from Epic CEO Judy Faulkner, at a policy committee meeting on the meaningful use standards.
“I am nervous that the government is going to get into the EHR design business,” she said.
Sounds perfectly reasonable, unless you know that the government has been in that business for 30 years, with the VA’s VistA system.
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Josh Cohen: Mobile Development Meets Design Thinking
Joshua Cohen, Professor of Political Science, Philosophy and Law at Stanford University, began the first session of this quarter's Seminar on Liberation Technologies by posing a big question: are information and communication technologies able to advance human well-being for development? Read More »
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Healthcare IT: How Reform Is Giving CIOs A More Strategic Role in Delivering Patient Care
CIOs haven’t had much authority, historically, over the medical side of healthcare, but “meaningful use” of IT—the centerpiece of the estimated $27 billion earmarked for health IT in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)—is shifting more responsibility to IT departments at hospitals and other healthcare organizations and giving technology executives a more strategic role. Read More »
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EHR War: Open vs. Proprietary
When members of a federal advisory group suggested recently that the government shouldn't be in the business of designing electronic health records, Rick Jung nearly fell out of his chair.
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VA Launches Fourth Data Exchange Pilot on NHIN
The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense have launched their fourth virtual lifetime electronic record (VLER) data sharing pilot in Spokane, Wash., the latest in a program aimed at testing the exchange of patient information over the nationwide health information network (NHIN).
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Guest Commentary: Tom Munnecke on VistA Lessons Learned
I fear that many of the lessons learned from the development of the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture aren't sufficiently counted in planning tomorrow's VistA.
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