Hurricane Katrina

Unfortunately, we don’t yet have technology that can prevent a storm of the magnitude of Hurricane Harvey from devastating our cities and towns. But it can help in the response, and even provide valuable information for citizens trying to survive a catastrophic event. One key is properly locating backup and recovery systems for government agencies. Typically, most cities and towns with a backup plan for their data rely on nearby data centers. That’s fine if there is a fire at the local office building or something that forces the temporary closure of government buildings...

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The Statewide Health Information Network of New York (SHIN-NY) sees itself as a "public utility" as much as an HIE. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, as patients bounce between hospitals (and as other public utilities, such as electricity and transportation, are compromised), it has enabled critical continuity of care. The images of dozens of red-flashing ambulances, evacuating as many as 200 patients – some of them in critical condition, some of them infants – from NYU Langone Medical Center, whose backup generator had failed, to hospitals such as Sloan-Kettering and NewYork-Presbyterian, will be some of the most enduring images from the super storm. The harrowing process was made much smoother by the fact that those patients' electronic health records were secure and readily accessible at the hospitals to which they were thanks to New York's statewide HIE... Read More »

Karen DeSalvo, MD, current health commissioner of New Orleans, will be taking the ONC reins Jan. 13, replacing acting national coordinator Jacob Reider. She is the first woman to serve in this role. Read More »

Cities in southeastern Texas finally saw dry weather on Wednesday, after days of unprecedented rainfall from Hurricane Harvey. But while floodwaters started receding from many Houston neighborhoods, explosions at a Crosby chemical plant and Beaumont’s lost water supply showed how vulnerable the area remains to health and safety threats. Among these post-Harvey issues, storm-related flooding could increase risk for diseases spread by mosquitoes, which breed in standing water...

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At the corner where East North Street meets North Cherry Street in the small Ohio town of Kenton, the Immaculate Conception Church keeps a handwritten record of major ceremonies. Over the last decade, according to these sacramental registries, the church has held twice as many funerals as baptisms. In tiny communities like Kenton, an unprecedented shift is under way. Federal and other data show that in 2013, in the majority of sparsely populated U.S. counties, more people died than were born—the first time that’s happened since the dawn of universal birth registration in the 1930s...

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