Nominations are officially open for the 8th annual Linux Medical News Freedom Award to be presented at the November 8th-12th AMIA Fall conference at the Hilton Washington and Towers, Washington, D.C. Deadline for entries is August 31th, 2008. This is NOT a officially sponsored award or event of AMIA. This award is co-sponsored by the IMIA Open Source Working Group. Free and open source software isn’t ‘magic pixie dust’. There are people making significant personal sacrifices as well as doing difficult work to make medicine’s free software future a reality. This award is intended to honor the individual or project who has accomplished the most towards the goal of improving medical education and practice through free/open source medical software. The award winner is chosen by a panel of judges. Past recipients have been Tim Cook, K.S. Bhaskar — Fidelity Information Services, Inc., Thomas Beale — Ocean Informatics, Fred Trotter — Synseer, MirrorMed and the FreeB project, Joseph Dalmolin of WorldVistA/e-cology, Nancy Anthracite, WorldVistA, Will Ross of Mendocino Informatics, Paul Biondich of the OpenMRS project, Webreach for Mirth, WorldVistA CCHIT certification, Gerry Douglas, MD Malawi RHIO.
Monthly Archives: July 2008
Breaking News: Perot Systems Lands VistA Contract in Middle East
Modern Health Care (registration required) Joseph Conn is reporting that: ‘Perot Systems, Plano, Texas, has been awarded a contract to install a version of the Veterans Health Administration healthcare information-technology system, VistA, at 46 hospitals and about 500 healthcare clinics in the Middle East nation of Jordan, according to several sources…’ Linux Medical News sources state however that the contract has not been signed yet and that it may be for some Jordanian hospitals, with the Jordanians themselves converting the rest.
Dr. Matthew King testifies about WorldVistA EHR
Dr. Matthew King has testified before congress regarding the Clinica Adelante deployment of WorldVistA EHR. From the testimony:
VistA is the aspirin of EHRs and if it was a drug, every provider would prescribe it. But just like generic aspirin, there are no “drug representatives” or lobbyists to sell it. Its effectiveness is clearly supported in the literature, but administrators don’t have time to read the literature. So they listen to the sales pitch and the lobbyists. In the healthcare industry, that could cost lives. In healthcare, when lives are at stake, I believe we should hold ourselves to the same standard we hold our physicians and use the evidence whenever possible to evaluate and select technology solutions…not advertising or marketing hype. And that is why Clinica Adelante chose VistA EHR.
OpenEMR Live Launched
OpenEMR HQ announced the official launch of their OpenEMR Live fully hosted EMR solution earlier today in a conference call with developers, employees, and clients. The service, according to their website, removes the headache associated with running an in-house application server and the cost of keeping a full-time IT person on staff. It also reduces compliance issues, eases administrative burden, and provides data monitoring, faster response times, and full disaster recovery service should something go wrong.
“Director of Clinical Informatics”– without clinical or informatics backgrounds
I’m interested in receiving examples of “Director of Clinical Informatics”, “VP of Informatics” or similar Job Descriptions that are lacking a requirement for clinical or informatics education or experience (as opposed to traditional management information systems backgrounds).
Webreach/Medsphere Announce Strategic Partnership to Enhance Open Source Electronic Health Record
According to this press release: “Mirth Appliances Integrates OpenVista EHR With Third-Party Applications, Speeds Time to Clinical and Operational Benefits
Medsphere’s Mike Doyle meets with Harvard CIO
Mike Doyle, CEO of Medsphere has been lunch with John D. Halamka, the CIO of Harvard Medical School. John has Written a summary of the “new” Medsphere.
You’ll see that their ideology is very noble – reduce costs, improve quality, and make a difference in healthcare.
17th VistA Community Meeting at Shepherd University
WorldVistA held its 7th VistA Community Conference at Shepherd University June 27-29, 2008. Key note speakers included Dr. Kolodner, National Coordinator for Health IT, and Jessica Kahn, Medicaid Transformation Project Manager. Attendees included representatives from India, Malaysia, Puerto Rico, and many other public and private sector health care organizations across the U.S. More information about the conference, and presentations made can be found on the WorldVistA web site at www.worldvista.org . It is also recommended that individuals consider visiting the Shepherd University health IT web site at www.shepherd.edu/surc/cosi .
OpenEMR HQ Announces ‘Plug and Play’ EMR Appliance
OpenEMR HQ announced on Thursday that it will begin offering a ‘plug and play’ EMR appliance as of July 14th, 2008. This last minute announcement came as the company also announced its plans to offer a native OpenEMR client for Microsoft Windows operating system on September, 15th, 2008.
July 18th Conference: Connecting California to Improve Patient Care in 2008
The Connecting California to Improve Patient Care in 2008 conference will occur on Friday July 18, 2008 — 9:00 A.M. to 4:15 P.M. Ukiah Valley Conference Center, 200 S. School St., Ukiah, California Conference Cost – $35 (includes lunch). This looks like one of those small conferences that end up becoming very important.