News

Health IT Innovation? Not Without Open Platforms

The issue here is closed platforms, which enable most EHR vendors to position themselves as the single source of innovation. They also create dependent customers and glacial progress in two parallel areas of innovation—evidence-based medicine and information technology.  No one company can keep up with the natural pace of advancement in either realm, let alone both. Read More »

VistA & Open Source EHR Systems in Florida and the Caribbean

The installation and use of 'open source' electronic health record (EHR) systems have continued to spread across Florida and many other islands and nations across the Caribbean.  See the map of healthcare facilities running some variant of the open source VistA electronic health record (EHR) system in the regi Read More »

OHNews Weekly Summary - 7/20/2013

July 20, 2013  -  The following is a brief listing of some of the hot news items, selected news clips, feature stories, and blogs posted on Open Health News (OHNews) over the past week that  we believe will be of interest to our readers across the U.S. and around the world. Read More »

It's Going to be Huge! Google Glass, Open Source, & Healthcare

Earlier this month, Dr. Rafael Grossmann made the news with his his first Google Glass aided surgery. This grabbed the attention of a lot of people in healthcare. Developers associated with the healthcare industry and the global 'open source' health IT community are now starting to get very active in this arena - exploring this emerging technology and creating the first generation of medical software apps for Google Glass. This whole area is going to be huge! Read More »

HIMSS Releases "Health IT Value Suite"

On July 16, HIMSS announced the release of their Health IT Value Suite. It is a very useful and comprehensive knowledge repository that "classifies, quantifies and articulates the clinical, financial and business impact of health IT investments." It will be useful to vendors and users of both proprietary and 'open source' health IT solutions. Read More »

VistA & 'Open' EHR Systems spread across West Virginia & Appalachia

The installation and use of 'open source' electronic health record (EHR) systems have continued to spread across West Virginia and many other states across the U.S.  See the map of healthcare facilities running some variant of the open source VistA electronic health record (EHR) system in West Virginia and oth Read More »

OpenEMR v.4.1.2 - Planned Release

OpenEMR is finalizing plans for the upcoming release of version 4.1.2 of their award winning electronic medical record (EMR) software solution by September 2013. It has been estimated that there are more than 5,000 installations of OpenEMR in physician offices and other small healthcare facilities across the U.S. serving more than 30 million patients. Read More »

Latest Data on Medicare & Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs

The latest numbers have been posted on the 'open data' HealthIT.Gov  web site about the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) Electronic Health Records (EHR) Incentive Program. The 'open data' Health IT Dashboard maintained by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) provides an overview of key performance measures, facts, figures, graphs, maps, and data tables that enable real-time monitoring of the status and impact related to federal health IT programs and the modernization of the U.S. health care system. Read More »

OHNews Weekly Summary - 7/13/2013

July 13, 2013  -  The following is a brief listing of some of the hot news items, selected news clips, feature stories, and blogs posted on Open Health News (OHNews) over the past week that  we believe will be of interest to our readers across the U.S. and around the world. Read More »

Overview of Open Source and VistA in the UK's NHS

There is much widely publicised interest from NHS England in encouraging the development and implementation of open-source software in the National Health System (NHS) with the debate raging in a number of forums, notably on EHI where this article and the comments it has generated are vital reading for anyone interested in this issue. This debate has been fueled by the availability of NHS England’s £260 million Technology Fund which is actively soliciting open source projects include bids to implement an NHS VistA... Read More »