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 -

The Prospects Of The HTML5-Based Firefox OS

Staff Writer | DigiTimes | February 21, 2014

With the fast expanding reach of the Internet and the approaching of the era of cloud computing, the HTML5 open platform enables quick development of cross-platform applications, easing concerns that there may be different user experience on different connected devices. [...] Read More »

The Public Domain Still Needs Idealism

Anna Wiener | New Republic | January 15, 2016

In the current startup universe, there’s still a lot of chatter about changing the world, an objective that has become so cliché—and ridiculed—that it’s easy to forget that those voicing this desire genuinely, vehemently believe it. From the outside, the prospect of a world-changing software product is either very exciting or completely delusional, depending on who’s talking...Idealism about technology as a democratizing force currently looks a lot like defense: protecting digital civil liberties, and fighting against further erosion. This is the side that Justin Peters is most committed to documenting in his book The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet, a partial biography of the late activist and Open Access advocate...

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The Public Intelligence Project: Creating A Culture Of Democracy

Michael J. Oghia | Ushahidi | October 15, 2013

Freedom of expression is a fundamental civil liberty imperative to democracy. However, in societies throughout the world, it is at risk, and George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty Four is increasingly becoming more of a prediction of the future instead of far–fetched, fictional hyperbole... Read More »

The Quality of Open Source Code Increases Adoption

Jason Hibbets | OpenSource.com | June 19, 2012

Open Source Business Conference (OSBC) attendees are not only learning about new trends in open source, but also hearing the results of the Future of Open Source Software Survey. The survey results were announced during a panel discussion of experts led by Michael Skok, General Partner, North Bridge Venture Partners. Read More »

The Quest For Population Health Management

David F. Carr | InformationWeek | March 4, 2014

Vendors large and small seek to prove they have the right tools for proactively managing patient health, coordinating care across providers, and supporting accountable-care models. Read More »

The Question Your Healthcare Provider Will Ask At Your Next Visit

Press Release | American Academy of Nursing (AAN) | September 12, 2013

56% of community providers don’t routinely ask their patients about being a current or former member of the armed forces or a family member. The American Academy of Nursing starts a new campaign, “Have you ever served in the military?,” encourages healthcare providers to ask about their patients’ military background to raise the quality of health assessments and appropriate diagnosis and treatment of the military members. Read More »

The Questions Open Source Answers

Jack Gates | GovLoop | July 5, 2012

When you buy technology, do you expect it to be the latest version, up-to-date and complete, or do you expect to have access to changes and improvements? Which expectation is most realistic? ... The choice is open or complete. Read More »

The Race To Contain West Africa's Ebola Outbreak

Liat Clark | Wired | April 11, 2014

Digital volunteers are racing to map regions in West Africa where the Ebola virus, which has a 90 percent fatality rate, continues to spread Read More »

The Race To Manage Government Records Begins

Joseph Marks | Nextgov | July 22, 2013

As federal agencies crawl toward deadlines to permanently store their records in digital formats, the National Archives and Records Administration is bringing together vendors that want a piece of that business. Read More »

The Radical Potential Of Open Source Programming In Healthcare

Nicholas Filler | Healthcare IT News | May 21, 2015

...electronic health records pose interesting problems related to sorting through vast amounts of patient data. This is where open source programming languages come in, and they have the ability to radically change the medical landscape. So why aren’t EHRs receiving the same care that patients expect from their doctor? There are a variety of answers, but primarily it comes down to how the software interprets certain types of data within each record. There are a variety of software languages designed to calculate and sort through large amounts of data that have been out for years, and one of the most prominent language is referred to as “R”.

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The RAND Report: Are healthcare and health IT in a dysfunctional relationship?

Edmund Billings | Medsphere Blog | January 22, 2013

What’s that? You don’t feel like the recent RAND report, which basically says that a 2005 RAND study financed by GE and Cerner was wildly optimistic in predicting about $81 billion in potential health care cost savings through widespread adoption of electronic health records, qualifies as a genuine hoax, controversy, scandal? Me neither.

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The Real Reasons Insurers Are Canceling Policies

Wendell Potter | Huffington Post | November 18, 2013

Now that President Obama has said it's OK with him if insurance companies keep their policyholders in health plans that don't meet the standards established by the Affordable Care Act, at least for another year, the big question is whether insurers will take him up on the offer. Read More »

The Real Story About COTS for the VA

Deanne Clark | FCW | March 14, 2017

There has been a tremendous amount of news coverage of recent congressional hearings about the need for the Department of Veterans Affairs to replace its existing electronic health record technology. What's even more remarkable is how one-sided the discussions and the reporting have been. For anyone without a background in healthcare IT, it would seem like a slam dunk that moving to a commercial off the shelf electronic health record solution is the best way forward for the VA...

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The REAL X-Ray Spex: New 'Terahertz' Scanner Lets Mobile Phones See Through Walls - And Through Clothes

Rob Waugh | Daily Mail | April 19, 2012

A hi-tech chip allows a phone to 'see through' walls, wood and plastics - and (although the researchers are coy about this) through fabrics such as clothing. Doctors could also use the imagers to look inside the body for cancer tumours without damaging X-Rays or large, expensive MRI scanners. Read More »

The Really Big One

Kathryn Schulz | The New Yorker | July 20, 2016

An earthquake will destroy a sizable portion of the coastal Northwest. The question is when. Most people in the United States know just one fault line by name: the San Andreas, which runs nearly the length of California and is perpetually rumored to be on the verge of unleashing “the big one.” That rumor is misleading, no matter what the San Andreas ever does...Just north of the San Andreas, however, lies another fault line. Known as the Cascadia subduction zone, it runs for seven hundred miles off the coast of the Pacific Northwest, beginning near Cape Mendocino, California, continuing along Oregon and Washington, and terminating around Vancouver Island, Canada. The “Cascadia” part of its name comes from the Cascade Range, a chain of volcanic mountains that follow the same course a hundred or so miles inland...

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