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Every technology has an adoption journey. The classic Gartner hype curve travels from a Technology Trigger  to the Peak of Inflated Expectations followed by the Trough of Disillusionment. It often takes years before organizations reach the Slope of Enlightenment and finally achieve a Plateau of Productivity. Have you noticed that Congress and the popular press have entered the Trough of Disillusionment for EHRs and interoperability over the past month? Congressional staffers writing the 21st Century Cures bill (which is not yet law) seem to have concluded...

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While trade agreements may seem to be another, albeit international species of wonkery, these agreements could have major effects on patients' and the public's health.  Since these concerns have been essentially ignored by the US medical and health care literature, (although they have appeared in UK journals, Australian, and New Zealand journals in English), they I will discuss them below. Worthy of further discussion is the possibility that these potential threats to health care and public health may arise not just from ideological disagreements, but also from health care corporations' increasing capture of government, facilitated by the conflicts of interest generated by the revolving door. Read More »

After more than a year since the Ebola pandemic appeared in West Africa, Liberia – one of the worst hit countries – has been declared free of the virus. However, the initial global response was not encouraging. Despite having the knowledge and technology needed to contain the outbreak, help was initially sluggish and poorly effective. This situation illustrates one of the major lessons from the history of pandemics: that they are strongly influenced by health inequalities. Pandemics are epidemics that spread widely and cross borders. In many respects, the world is a safer place for those concerned about these emerging infectious diseases – advances in science, particularly molecular biology, information technology, and epidemiology give us unprecedented tools for understanding, tracking and managing emerging threats...

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Fred Trotter is easy to recognize; he's a tall man with an equally big presence. Whether he's sporting his signature wild shock of blond hair or has shaved it bald as he does once a year or so, he can't be missed in a crowd. Any place where open source, big data, and healthcare-oriented people are gathered, you are likely to find him and his crew. Fred Trotter headshotHe's a frequent speaker at OSCON and was recently a panelist at the SXSW MedTech Conference, which is where I caught up with him to ask about his passion for open source and health care related data...

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