Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

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GSA’s Open Source First Approach Gives More Software Options, Better Savings

Billy Mitchell | fedscoop | August 6, 2014

The General Services Administration last week announced a new policy requiring open source software be given priority consideration for all new IT projects developed by the agency. And while some may question whether open source software will be as effective as its conventional, proprietary counterpart, Sonny Hashmi, GSA’s chief information officer, is confident this new IT model will put the agency in the best position to procure and develop software in the most cost-effective manner. Read More »

Hazards Tied to Medical Records Rush

Christopher Rowland | Boston Globe | July 20, 2014

Subsidies given for computerizing, but no reporting required when errors cause harm

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Health IT 2014: Interoperability, Ebola And Healthcare.gov 2.0

Billy Mitchell | FedScoop | December 18, 2014

Health IT in 2014 continued its path toward a system of interoperable and open data to improve patient care with IT systems...

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Healthcare Interoperability Research Propositions of the ONC Blockchain Challenge

Peter B. Nichol | CIO | August 18, 2016

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in partnership with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), recently launched an initiative called the ONC Blockchain Challenge and invited healthcare and technology leaders to submit research papers to explore the "use of blockchain in Health IT and Health-released Research"...

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Healthcare Needs a Big Data Infusion

Stacey Higginbotham | GigaOM | March 9, 2012

To improve medicine and health IT, we need a big heaping dose of data. That’s the takeaway from a conversation with Aneesh Chopra, the former U.S. CTO and assistant to President Obama, at South by Southwest in Austin on Friday. Read More »

Here Come Trouble: Open Source Pharmaceuticals

Admin | Third Pipe | February 23, 2012

The discussion of increasingly draconian intellectual property laws isn’t exact new at Third Pipe. Manipulation of the political process, bureaucracies and the courts has created a whole new class of oligarchies in our society. It’s one of the foremost reasons why it’s all but impossible for a new competitor to enter mature, research intensive businesses. Read More »

Heroin Taking Oxy's Place For More Addicts

Nicole Brochu | Sun Sentinel | February 19, 2013

The state's war on pill mills is making an impact, but there's a troubling byproduct: a surge in the number of people now hooked on heroin. Read More »

HHS CTO on the Power of Connection

A learning system for health is not a new concept. It is an ancient instinct to share our experiences and stories. But technology allows us to widen the network of people we can talk with, increase the velocity of those conversations, inject them with more source material, then archive and make them searchable. For patients and caregivers, building that system means connecting people who share a diagnosis so they can share insights with each other – and with researchers. For example, the FDA is now partnering with PatientsLikeMe to explore how patient-reported data can shed light on drug safety.

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HHS Publishes FDASIA Health IT Report

Brian Ahier | Advanced Health Information Exchange Resources | April 3, 2014

HHS released a draft report that includes a proposed strategy and recommendations for a health information technology (health IT) framework, which promotes product innovation while maintaining appropriate patient protections and avoiding regulatory duplication. The congressionally mandated report was developed in consultation with health IT experts and consumer representatives and proposes to clarify oversight of health IT products based on a product’s function and the potential risk to patients who use it.

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HHS Stops Short Of Calling For Safety Regulation Of Digital Records

Jay Hancock | Kaiser Health News | December 21, 2012

The Obama administration Friday urged cooperation between software companies and caregivers to prevent patient harm caused by faulty electronic records. But it stopped short of calling for regulation or a federal requirement to report computer mistakes that pose a risk to patients. Read More »

HIMSS14: Regulatory Showdown Looms Over Mobile Health

Greg Slabodkin | Health Data Management | February 25, 2014

A legislative showdown is brewing between Congress and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over the right balance between promoting innovation in a fledgling mobile health industry and protecting patient safety. 2014 could be the year that several laws are passed with significant implications for health I.T., according to a HIMSS14 panel discussion on congressional affairs. Read More »

HIMSS19: Open Source Software for Disaster Preparedness and Response

Although not officially listed as a track at the HIMSS19 conference, there are a series of very important presentations on the use of open source software for disaster preparedness and response. This is a critical topic that we have covered extensively in Open Health News. As we detailed in this article, there was a major failure in being able to provide victims of Hurricane Harvey, as well as Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria with access to their medical records. Few emergency medical responders could access their records either. The two success stories that came out of the hurricanes were two open source electronic health record (EHR) systems, OpenEMR and the VA's open source VistA EHR.

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Hospitals Align To Push For Device Interoperability

Dan Bowman | FierceHealthIT | September 25, 2013

A coalition of hospitals and health systems formed this month will push for increased medical device interoperability as a means for improving patient care and lowering costs. Read More »

Hospitals Often Don't Report Robotic Surgery Adverse Events

Ashley Gold | FierceHealth IT | January 2, 2014

While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration oversees a database that reports deaths and injuries associated with medical devices, the agency has no authority to force medical providers to contribute to the database. To that end, many hospitals fail to report adverse events associated with robotic surgery procedures, according to a recent Bloomberg investigation. Read More »

How Big Pharma Gets Away With Selling Crystal Meth To Children: By Renaming It ‘Adderall’

Staff Writer | Healthy Life and Fitness | February 19, 2016

In a recent appearance on All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC, drug abuse and addiction expert Carl Hart of Columbia University made a shocking claim: There isn’t much difference between the demonized street drug methamphetamine (also known as meth or crystal meth) and the prescription drug Adderall...

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