Andy Oram

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Vocera Aims For More Intelligent Hospital Interventions

Andy Oram | EMR & HIPPA | October 14, 2016

Vocera Communications’ and Extension Healthcare’s solutions blend to take pressures off clinicians in hospitals and improve their responses to patient needs. According to Brent Lang, President and CEO of Vocera Communications, the two companies partnered together on 40 customers before the acquisition. They take data from multiple sources–such as patient monitors and electronic health records–to make intelligent decisions about “when to send alarms, whom to send them to, and what information to include” so the responding nurse or doctor has the information needed to make a quick and effective intervention.

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What Economists Don’t Know About the Health Care Industry

Andy Oram | EMR & EHR | October 7, 2015

Recently, I resorted to a rare economic argument in a health IT article, pointing out that it’s unfair to put the burden of high health care costs on the patients. Now 101 economists have come out publicly recommending that very injustice. Their analysis shows the deep reluctance of those who are supposed to guide our health care policy to admit how distorted the current system is, and how entrenched are the powerful forces that keep it from reforming...But in this case, the average patient has knowledge that these economists lack. The problems are also well known to anyone in the health care industry who has the courage and clarity of vision to acknowledge what’s going on. If we want the system to change, let’s put public pressure on the people who are actually responsible for the problems–not the hapless patient.

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What the IoT can learn from the health care industry

After a short period of excitement and rosy prospects in the movement we’ve come to call the Internet of Things (IoT), designers are coming to realize that it will survive or implode around the twin issues of security and user control: a few electrical failures could scare people away for decades, while a nagging sense that someone is exploiting our data without our consent could sour our enthusiasm. Early indicators already point to a heightened level of scrutiny — Senator Ed Markey’s office, for example, recently put the automobile industry under the microscope for computer and network security. Read More »

Where HIMSS Can Take Health 2.0

Andy Oram | EMR and HIPAA | March 16, 2017

I was quite privileged to talk to the leaders of Health 2.0, Dr. Indu Subaiya and Matthew Holt, in the busy days after their announced merger with HIMSS. I was revving to talk to them because the Health 2.0 events I have attended have always been stimulating and challenging. I wanted to make sure that after their incorporation into the HIMSS empire they would continue to push clinicians as well as technologists to re-evaluate their workflows, goals, and philosophies...

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ZibdyHealth Sub-Optimal Data Exchange Standards

Andy Oram | EMR & EHR | May 10, 2016

Reformers in the health care field, quite properly, emphasize new payment models and culture changes to drive improvements in outcomes. But we can’t ignore the barriers that current technology puts in the way of well-meaning reformers. This article discusses one of the many companies offering a patient health record (PHR) and the ways they’ve adapted to a very flawed model for data storage and exchange. I had the honor to be contacted by Dr. Hirdey Bhathal, CEO/Founder of ZibdyHealth. Like many companies angling to develop a market for PHRs, ZibdyHealth offers a wide range of services to patients...

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