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 -

Why Can’t All My Sensors Get Along?

Michael Essany | MedCity News | August 29, 2013

From wearable fitness-trackers to sleep-monitoring applications, mobile is the place to go for those looking to improve their health and well-being. Read More »

Why Chemotherapy That Costs $70,000 In The U.S. Costs $2,500 In India

Thomas Bollyky | The Atlantic | April 10, 2013

By rejecting patent applications, developing countries have kept down the costs of much-needed medications. Can they continue to do so without harming efforts to develop new drugs? Read More »

Why CISPA Is Worse Than SOPA

Rebecca Greenfield | The Atlantic Wire | April 27, 2013

Following the SOPA/PIPA uproar that splashed across the Internet earlier this year, we now have another cyber-security bill that threatens American Web browsing privacy, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, otherwise known as CISPA. Read More »

Why Civil Rights Groups Are Warning Against ‘Big Data’

Brian Fung | The Washington Post | February 27, 2014

The backlash against the government's use of bulk phone records for intelligence purposes has been led mostly by technologists used to speaking the language of privacy. But a new push by civil rights organizations to challenge "big data" — both in the public and private sectors — is highlighting how the abuse of data can uniquely affect disadvantaged minorities. Read More »

Why Delaying Obamacare Has Insurers Freaking Out

Sam Baker | Nextgov | October 31, 2013

The health insurance industry already had plenty to freak out about with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Simply complying with the law is a massive undertaking, never mind the terrible HealthCare.gov debut. But the botched rollout has produced a new source of anxiety for insurers: the growing bipartisan support for delaying parts of the act’s implementation. Read More »

Why Did Healthcare.gov's Source Code Mysteriously Vanish From Public View?

Greg Sandoval | The Verge | October 14, 2013

One of the few trouble-free areas on Healthcare.gov is the site's front end — the information pages where visitors can learn about health plans available under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In contrast to the glitchy backend systems that have prevented many of the more than 14 million visitors from shopping for health insurance the past two weeks, [these pages...] were built on open-source code. Now, that code doesn't appear to be so open. Read More »

Why Didn't The White House Use WordPress?

Dylan Byers | POLITICO | October 24, 2013

HealthCare.gov is "a disaster," "a failure" and "excruciatingly embarrassing" for the Obama administration. Why didn't they just use WordPress? Read More »

Why Do Female Scientists Receive Less Funding?

Jeremy Farrar | The Independent | December 11, 2013

Yesterday in Stockholm, eight scientists received their Nobel prizes, for medicine, physics and chemistry. All of them are men. At the same time – and by complete coincidence – this newspaper ran a story 'Women scientists less likely to receive funding', based on a study published in the journal BMJ Open Access. The connection is not too difficult to make. Read More »

Why Do Medicare, Medicaid And Veterans Affairs Deal With Drug Costs Differently?

David Sell | Philly.com | April 9, 2013

Countries sometimes do things differently from other countries or gain reputations for doing certain things well or poorly. But within a country, within the same federal government, does it make sense to do things differently among departments or programs that are providing essentially the same service? Read More »

Why Do So Many American ‘Journalists’ Appear To Hate Actual Journalism?

Nicole Hemmer | The Conversation | July 7, 2013

The question was directed at Glenn Greenwald, the American journalist who broke the story of NSA surveillance using material provided by on-the-lam leaker Edward Snowden. The person grilling Greenwald wasn’t a government prosecutor [...]. Read More »

Why Do We Settle in Healthcare?

Monica Stout | EMR and HIPAA | August 22, 2017

[I]magine it’s the middle of winter and you’ve caught the latest bug du jour. You call your doctor for an appointment. When you arrive, you’re handed a clipboard and asked to fill out the same repetitive paper form with your health information that you fill out every time you visit. You’re certain they have this information already, but you’re required to fill it out yet again. You might wait 30, 40, or 60 minutes past your appointment time before you’re called back to a room...

Read More »

Why Doesn’t Apple Enable Sustainable Businesses On The App Store?

Ben Thompson | stratechery | July 1, 2013

Unfortunately, productivity apps are a terrible match for [Apple] app store economics. The app store favors... Read More »

Why Duplication In Federal IT Happens: ‘We Lack Transparency And Good Metrics’

Colby Hochmuth | FedScoop | June 11, 2013

Sen. Tom Coburn came out swinging at today’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on reducing duplication and improving results in federal IT. Read More »

Why EHR Interoperability Requires Health IT Infrastructure

Elizabeth O'Dowd | HIT Infrastructure | June 20, 2017

Healthcare organizations are still challenged by EHR interoperability, and are seeking health IT infrastructure tools to ensure data is accurately, efficiently, and securely shared. Eagle Physicians and Associates and Cone Health announced the successful exchange between the eClinicalWorks cloud-based EHR and the Epic EHR for improved EHR interoperability among multiple locations and health systems. Eagle Physicians needed a way to provide better quality care to patients as those individuals move among locations...