News

Summaries of open source, health care, or health IT news and information from various sources on the web selected by Open Health News (OHNews) staff. Links are provided to the original news or information source, e.g. news article, web site, journal,blog, video, etc.

See the following -

Hagel mulls putting Defense Dept. on VistA

Joe Conn | Modern Healthcare | April 19, 2013

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told Congress this week that he is investigating the possibility of switching the military's health records to the Veteran Administration's VistA to deal with long-running interoperability issues between the two systems. Read More »

Hagel Opts for Commercial Electronic Health Record Software

Bob Brewin | NextGov | May 21, 2013

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel opted to run procurements for commercial electronic health record software, which will “likely” include software based on the system used by the Veterans Affairs Department. The move is considered a blow to VA and a boon to the healthcare information technology industry, multiple sources said. Read More »

Hagel Orders DoD To 'Restructure' Path Toward Integrated Health Record

Jared Serbu | Federal News Radio | April 17, 2013

The Defense Department is "way behind" the Department of Veterans Affairs as the government's two largest bureaucracies push toward the longstanding objective of achieving interoperable health record systems, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday. Read More »

Hagel Promises Plan In 30 Days For DOD-VA Health Records Sharing

Chris Carroll and Leo Shane III | Stars and Stripes | April 16, 2013

Faced with tough questions from legislators, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Tuesday said he would decide on a plan within 30 days to work through the tangled process to seamlessly share medical records between the Department of Defense and the VA. Read More »

Hagel Says DoD To Adopt Commercial EHR

Bernie Monegain | Government Health IT | May 22, 2013

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has notified the Department of Defense that it will look for an electronic health record system available on the commercial market rather than develop its own based on the Department of Veterans Affairs VistA system. Read More »

Hagel Takes Personal Responsibility For Electronic Health Records

Bob Brewin | Nextgov | April 17, 2013

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has said he is personally taking responsibility for resolving problems that have plagued the exchange of electronic health records between Defense and the Veterans Affairs Department. Read More »

Hagel Urged To Move On ‘Game-Changer’ Agreement

Camille Tuutti | FedScoop | April 16, 2013

A House panel is calling on Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to follow through on a recent plan to improve disability benefits claims processing for transitioning service members and veterans. Read More »

Halamka: Next ONC Chief Faces Small Budgets, Big Challenges

Jennifer Bresnick | EHR Intelligence | October 9, 2013

The next National Coordinator for Health IT has some big shoes to fill, says Beth Israel Deaconess CIO John Halamka, and will face an era of shrinking IT budgets, converging deadlines, and hard choices. [...] Read More »

Halamka: Stage 2 Meaningful Use, ICD-10 Timelines Unrealistic

Jennifer Bresnick | EHR Intelligence | November 20, 2013

The current slew of health IT initiatives slated to hit the healthcare industry over the next year or so place unrealistic expectations on beleaguered providers [...]. Between Stage 2 of meaningful use, ICD-10 implementation, the HIPAA Omnibus rule, and the Affordable Care Act, providers simply have too much to handle in too short a timeframe to make everything work the way rule makers hope it will. [...] Read More »

Halamka: What Keeps Me Up At Night - Fall 2013

John Halamka | Life As A Healthcare CIO | September 3, 2013

All of these challenges can be conquered. For nearly 20 years, I've led an IT organization that has continuously delivered miracles with 1.9% of the operating budget.  I am ready for the challenges ahead but wonder if mergers/acquisitions, regulatory uncertainty, MU2 certification challenges, resource constraints, and real time demands will create a set of constraints that are impossible to optimize.
Read More »

Half Of 2011 Papers Now Free To Read

Richard Van Noorden | Nature | August 20, 2013

Search the Internet for any research article published in 2011, and you have a 50–50 chance of downloading it for free. [...] The finding, released on 21 August, is heartening news for advocates of open access. But some experts are raising their eyebrows at the high numbers. Read More »

Half Of Taxpayer Funded Research Will Soon Be Available To The Public

Andrea Peterson | Washington Post | January 17, 2014

Proponents of the open access model for academic research notched a huge victory Thursday night when Congress passed a budget that will make about half of taxpayer-funded research available to the public. Read More »

HANDI Health Apps Looking for Workshop Speakers/Panelists

Just got an email from Jill Riley from HANDI Health calling for speakers and panelists for their upcoming conference on November 4th and 5th in Birmingham, UK. HANDI Health is a non-profit organization focused on the development of open source health IT solutions. They have had a series of very successful conferences and workshops and many senior members of UK's National Health System believe that HANDI has contributed more usable code than what they got from the $19.6 billion failure of their previous Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) effort. Read More »

HANDI support For Apps

Chris Thorne | E-Health Insider | May 31, 2012

A Healthcare App Network for Development and Innovation has been set up by developers, clinicians, and others with an interest in developing health and care apps. Read More »

HANDI Update – Three Months Old Today

Ewan Davis | HANDI | June 21, 2012

HANDI has just completed three initial launch events and is three months old today so this seem a good time to update you on progress and future plans. We have now got just under 550 people registered with HANDI of which about 210 attended one of our workshops. Read More »