The U.S. Senate approved a delay on the HIPAA deadline on November 27th. If this makes it through the House of Reps the deadline could be pushed back to Oct 2003. Story is here…
Monthly Archives: November 2001
Scientists push to open source code for genetic research
There is an interesting debate regarding the need for opening software source code used in genetic research when publicly funded. This as opposed to exclusive licensing agreements made with private companies: a double bill for tax payers, says Harry Mangalam, of tacg Informatics in Irvine, Calif.
Georgia to move to paperless claims
The Atlanta Business Chronicle (registration required) is reporting: ‘…Leaders from Georgia hospitals and managed-care companies have found something to agree on for a change.
They’re developing a broad, new paperless system designed to speed up insurance claims processing, reduce medical errors and save money for the entire health-care community…So far such a system is mostly talk. But with new regulations looming under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability (HIPAA) act, which will require health systems to do many functions electronically, plans are moving forward…’ I wonder if the resulting software will be public domain?
IBM to Build Mammogram Linux/AIX/Windows Grid
IBM is announcing an initiative with the University of Pennsylvania to build a grid of computers running Linux, AIX, and Windows for breast cancer screening and detection: “Once a patient’s mammograms are loaded into the system, they can be evaluated with powerful tools that isolate abnormalities very quickly by comparing current X-rays with those from previous years,” said Dr. Robert Hollebeek, director of the university’s National Scalable Cluster Lab. From the article, it appears that Linux will be doing the heavy lifting at the ‘regional hub’ level.
Live from the AMIA conference in Wash. D.C.
We are reporting live from the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA)fall conference. The conference this year is being held in the Marriott Wardman Park in Washington D.C. I’ll be giving the first annual Linux Medical News Open Source Medical Achievement Award as well as sending updates to this article as they occur.
This is the first time I’ve flown since 9/11 and I was flying into Reagan National airport as well. As you can imagine, security was heavy at Bush International in Houston. My id was checked 3 times, laptop was scanned separately and I didn’t think about taking my Palm V out of my pocket. This set off the scanner and earned me a wand and frisk search. Two soldiers carrying rifles were in evidence which was a first for me to see them in a US airport.
I arrived in Washington late Saturday night and took Washington’s excellent Metro to the hotel and spent the night. Today I received a phone call from Dan Johnson, MD. Many of the open source medical software people will be getting together at 5:00pm in the lobby as well as at 7:30pm for dinner.
Johnson is something of the patriarch of open source software, realizing its potential long before just about anyone else. His son also happens to be kernel manager for RedHat. He is going to be taking over David Pepper, MD’s role as moderator of the open source medical software panel Monday. Dr. Pepper was held up in Arizona and may not be able to make it because of ticket confusion.
That’s it for now.