Artificial intelligence has attracted significant attention recently, and yet many of the most popular examples we’ve seen demonstrating its potential benefits have been esoteric proof-of-concepts, such as mastering chess or finding cat videos on the internet. While these developments have helped pave the way for further breakthroughs, they’ve also left many people asking where the tangible benefits are and what the era of machine intelligence really means to the real world...

Read More »

One hundred fifteen years ago, an archeologist was sifting through objects found in the wreck of a 2,000-year-old vessel off the Greek island Antikythera. Among the wreck’s treasures — beautiful vases and pots, jewelry, a bronze statue of an ancient philosopher — was the most peculiar thing: a series of brass gears and dials mounted in a case the size of a mantel clock. Archeologists dubbed the instrument the Antikythera mechanism. The genius — and mystery — of this piece of ancient Greek technology, arguably the world’s first computer, is why Google is highlighting it today in a Google Doodle...

Read More »

Open data has immense potential to catalyze creative problem solving by practitioners and policymakers, but troves of vaguely-labeled spreadsheets will do little to inspire interest or facilitate innovative solutions. To unlock the value of open data, governments have begun to launch open datasets in themed releases, which contain data and additional context about a specific policy area. These open datasets have two distinct advantages: a more useful and navigable platform for users and better marketing appeal to practitioners focused on the policy area...

Read More »

The American health care system is broken, but it is not really “health care” that is the problem. The science of medicine, the tests, and the treatments available are better than ever. It is health care bureaucracy that is the problem. But doctors, nurses, and patients bear the brunt of the dysfunction. Medical professionals are unable to practice, and patients are denied the care they need, even though it is readily available. Careers are being ruined, and lives lost along the way. It is time to fight back...

Read More »

The announcement last week that ONC will be launching a Patient Matching Algorithm Challenge is the next big step in the health IT community’s efforts to ensure patient safety through advancements in interoperability. As a community, we’ve been working on the patient data matching issue for many years.  HIMSS has worked very closely with our friends across the healthcare community to understand the barriers to accurate, efficient matching of patients to their health information...

Read More »

It happens every day, in exam rooms across the country, something that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago: Doctors and nurses turn away from their patients and focus their attention elsewhere — on their computer screens. Read More »

The mission for Family Medicine for America’s Health (FMAHealth) is to help people live healthier. To support this, a goal of the FMAHealth Technology Tactic Team is to envision a future state that involves the principled redesign and implementation of health information technology (IT) that optimally supports the health and health care of the US populace. Compared to other nations, the US health care system offers higher cost, lower quality health care to its people...

Read More »

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price says improving health information technology is a key priority for the department. The former Georgia representative spoke at HHS’ annual Health Datapalooza event last week, where he sketched out plans to help physicians do their jobs better by helping improve the technological backbone of hospitals, including electronic medical records...

Read More »

How long does it take to buy a new handgun? More than a decade, if you’re the U.S. Army. What sounds like the set up to a bad joke is all too real in the world of Defense acquisition. It took the Army 10 years to develop and rewrite requirements for a new handgun when, in 2005, the service set out to replace the M9 Beretta pistol soldiers had carried for decades. The first draft of the Army’s 350-page request for proposals (not counting 23 attachments) issued in 2015 somehow neglected to identify key requirements, such as the caliber of the weapon. As chronicled in a new report on Defense acquisition, “the paperwork alone added an estimated $15 million or 20 percent to procurement cost”...

Read More »

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) have come a long way. Over 80 percent of physicians use them in their offices, and nearly all hospitals have implemented EHRs as well. Spurred by the HITECH portion of the 2009 Recovery act, Meaningful Use has put money on the table for physicians and hospitals to adopt and use EHRs. It also defined what kinds of features an EHR must have in order to be Certified. Legacy systems took on these new requirements by adding to their offerings (sometimes referred to as “bolt-on solutions”)...

Read More »