Most Americans -- myself included -- think we live in the greatest country on earth. After all, we have the biggest economy, the most powerful military, the most pervasive popular culture, and, of course, the American Dream. We've got Wall Street and Silicon Valley, Walmart and Amazon, Hollywood and Nashville. We have -- well, we used to have -- the biggest city, the tallest building, and the largest manufacturing output. But when it comes to some of the basics, we're not doing so well. Take health care, for example. If you listen to politicians, we have the best health care in the world. And, indeed, if you have enough money (or really good insurance), happen to live in the right zip code, and manage to stumble upon the right doctors/hospitals, that's true. You can get the best health care in the world here. But fail any one of those qualifiers, maybe not...
Introducing the 1% Open Digital Platform Challenge Fund push
The 1% Open Digital Platform Challenge Fund has been proposed by Dr Tony Shannon and Ewan Davis as a means to harness 1% of NHS IT funding towards this end. Thus far the 1% fund has received 48 Expressions of Interest from across the 5 Nations of the UK & Ireland totalling £60m in value. The team behind this push will use the Digital Health webinar to update the CCIO and CIO communities as they work to generate community, support and funding to ensure the #1PerCentFund movement gathers pace and momentum across health and care in UK , Ireland and beyond. Read More »
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America's Dismal International Rankings - Time to Innovate Our Way Out of Our Messes
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Petya: The Poison Behind the Latest Ransomware Attack
First thing is first: If you're running Windows, patch your systems! The latest variant of Petya, GoldenEye, can attack if, and only if, one of your Windows PCs still hasn't been patched with Microsoft's March MS17-010. Microsoft thought patching this bug was important enough that it even patched it on its unsupported Windows XP operating system...
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How to Fix the EHR Mess We’re In
Computers, more specifically, electronic health records (EHRs), will someday revolutionize the practice of medicine. In fact, successful computerization of medical care is the most critical step necessary to transform the American health care system from its current sorry state to the 21st-century system of our dreams. It is ironic, then, that today EHRs represent one of the worst problems plaguing medical professionals. At this point, many physicians would say that EHRs have created more problems than they have fixed. The most important question is how do we get from where we are to where we need to be?...
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Read How 3D Printing Can Save Your Life
The three innovations relate to discoveries in tumor identification in MS patients, open-source prosthetics and jaw replacement surgery. With each 3D printing can deliver precise measurements to medical production facilities saving time critical to patient prognosis. 3D printing (or additive manufacturing) is the process by which digital 3D design data is used to build up a component in layers by depositing material...
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It's the Ecosystem, Stupid
I've been writing for a while on topics related to product and supply chain management in the context of open source communities, and I've noticed a few consistent themes in my articles and blog posts. Most notable is the call for companies to move from the "not invented here" syndrome to a more externally focused view. After all, if so much innovation is taking place in open source projects, why not take advantage of it to the fullest extent possible? You can see this theme manifested in the following ways:
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Ubuntu 'Weaponised' to Cure NHS of Its Addiction to Microsoft Windows
A quiet revolution has been rumbling in Leeds, in the north of England. It may not seem revolutionary: a gathering of software developers is scarcely going to get people taking to the barricades in these uncertain times, but the results of this particular meetup could shape access to NHS PCs in the coming years...
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Amazon Is Trying to Control the Underlying Infrastructure of Our Economy
We often talk about Amazon as though it were a retailer. It's an understandable mistake. After all, Amazon sells more clothing, electronics, toys, and books than any other company. Last year, Amazon captured nearly $1 of every $2 Americans spent online. As recently as 2015, most people looking to buy something online started at a search engine. Today, a majority go straight to Amazon. But to describe Amazon as a retailer is to misunderstand what the company actually is, and to miss the depth of the threat that it poses to our liberty and the very idea of an open, competitive market...
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Is the American Heart Association a Terrorist Organization?
A few days ago, the AHA stole the attention of headlines across the globe with a report that sounded like it was straight out of the 1990s: Dietary Fats and Cardiovascular Disease: A Presidential Advisory From the American Heart Association. In this report, the AHA doubled down on their attacks against coconut oil and saturated fat. Frank Sacks, lead author on the report, reportedly said that he has no idea why people think coconut oil is healthy...
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The Challenges of Bringing Health Care to Everyone, Everywhere
Around the world right now, more than one billion people don’t have access to basic health care. That means no checkups, no vaccinations, no medications, all because of the environment in which people live. They might be too poor to visit a clinic, or they might live too far from one, but the result is the same, and often fatal. It’s a problem that troubles many. Take physician Raj Panjabi, TED Prize winner and co-founder of Last Mile Health, who trains community health workers to bring care door-to-door in remote communities in Liberia (TED Talk: No one should die because they live too far from a doctor)...
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