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 -

Obama Administration Cites 'National Security' More Than Ever To Censor, Deny Records

Jack Gillium and Ted Bridis | Huffington Post | March 17, 2014

The Obama administration more often than ever censored government files or outright denied access to them last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, according to a new analysis of federal data by The Associated Press.

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Obama Administration Decides NSA Spying Is ‘Essential,’ But Oversight Of NSA Is Not

Andrea Peterson | The Washington Post | October 7, 2013

While the National Security Agency (NSA) has largely escaped the government shutdown, the panel investigating NSA spying practices has effectively been frozen. Politico reports that as of Friday, the five-member Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies lost its staff to the furlough associated with the government shutdown. Read More »

Obama Backs 15 of 18 VA Commission Recommendations

Aisha Chowdhry | FCW | September 6, 2016

President Barack Obama is backing 15 of the 18 recommendations made by the Commission on Care to improve service delivery at the Department of Veterans Affairs. However, he is resisting a bid to revise the way the VA's health care system is run. The recommendations are included in the commission's final report...

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Obama Budget Includes New Fee For EHR Vendors

Joseph Conn | ModernHealthcare.com | April 11, 2013

Once again, the federal electronic health-record incentive payment program could take a financial hit due to government budget cutting. This time, EHR developers are being asked to take one for the team. Read More »

Obama Calls For IT Procurement Reform

Tom Shoop | Nextgov | November 5, 2013

President Obama on Monday called for an overhaul of the way the federal government purchases information technology in the wake of the troubled launch of the Healthcare.gov website. Read More »

Obama Campaigns For Veterans' Mental Health

Scott Horsley | NPR | September 1, 2012

On Friday, President Obama was at Fort Bliss, Texas, where he spoke to troops and met with military families, including some who lost loved ones in Afghanistan. As that war winds down, the president is ordering additional help for those with invisible battle scars. A rash of suicides has shown mental injuries can be just as deadly as a roadside bomb. Read More »

Obama Eyes $2B Increase In IT Budget

Nicole Blake Johnson | Federal Times | April 17, 2013

The president’s budget proposes nearly $2 billion in additional information technology funding for 2014, which would raise overall IT spending to $82 billion. Read More »

Obama Nomine Makes her Case to Take Over Tech at VA

Adam Mazmanian | Adam Mazmanian | May 19, 2015

LaVerne H. Council, the private-sector IT consultant and former Fortune 50 CIO who is President Barack Obama's pick to take over the Office of Information and Technology at the Department of Veterans Affairs, told lawmakers May 5 how she planned to manage the VA's technology team and its $4.2 billion in annual tech spending. Read More »

Obama orders agencies to make data open, machine-readable by default

Sean Gallagher | ArsTechnica | May 9, 2013

President Barack Obama issued an executive order today that aims to make "open and machine-readable" data formats a requirement for all new government IT systems. The order would also apply to existing systems that are being modernized or upgraded. If implemented, the mandate would bring new life to efforts started by the Obama administration with the launch of Data.gov four years ago. Read More »

Obama Reelection Doesn't Alter Complexity Of EHR Adoption

Mary Mosquera | Government Health IT | November 8, 2012

The reelection of President Barack Obama won’t change the intricate realities underway in the trenches as physicians and practices perform the difficult task of replacing paper with electronic health records (EHRs). Read More »

Obama Win Means Continued Technology Focus At The Pentagon

Bob Brewin | Nextgov | November 7, 2012

Defense Department cyber, space and network systems will help anchor development of leaner and more agile forces powered by technology during the next four years if President Obama sticks to Pentagon plans unveiled early this year and follows his campaign rhetoric with action. Read More »

Obama's Apology For A Tech Meltdown Is A Major Letdown

Ashlee Vance | Bloomberg | October 21, 2013

Back in June, the Atlantic wrote a gushing article about HealthCare.gov. The website was fast, clean, and built on the cheap. [...]. As most people now know, any good feelings around HealthCare.gov have evaporated. People trying to use the site to sign up for health care under the Affordable Care Act have met with an experience that even dial-up users circa 1995 would abhor... Read More »

Obama's Electronic Medical Records Scam

Michelle Malkin | Michellemalkin.com | December 14, 2012

Here’s more evidence that government “cures” are inevitably worse than the “diseases” they seek to wipe out. Buried in the trillion-dollar stimulus law of 2009 was an electronic medical records “incentive” program. Like most of President Obama’s health care rules, this top-down electronic record-sharing scheme is a big fat bust. Oversight is lax. Cronyism is rife. The job-killing and privacy-undermining consequences have only just begun.

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Obama's Second-Term Management Agenda To Focus On People Power

Jack Moore | Federal News Radio | September 12, 2013

The architects of President Barack Obama's second-term management agenda say changing the culture of the federal workforce — not just technology — is driving the administration's efforts to make government more innovative. Read More »

Obama's Technology Guru On Opening The Data Vault: Todd Park On 6 Ways Non-Secret Government Data Has Been Put To Work

Jessica Yellin | CNN | July 9, 2013

Just back from a foreign trip and a holiday vacation, the president returned to work Monday by talking about government efficiency. Read More »