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Open Health News – Most Popular News Stories in 2013

Open Health News (OHNews) opened for business back in January 2011. Over the past three years, the OHNews web site has grown exponentially. We have now have had over 140,000 unique readers visit OHNews and have had over 7 million hits on our site – and the numbers continue to grow. As we head towards the end of the year, the global 'Open Health' movement continues to grow and strengthen.  The following is a quick review of the most popular articles, feature stories, blogs, and news clips posted on the OHN web site based on the number of readers viewing them. Read More »

Integrative Medicine for Mental Health (IMMH) Clinician Registry

Integrative Medicine for Mental Health (IMMH) strives to offer the most up-to-date information on integrative medicine in mental health, practical clinical solutions, and now provides 'open access' to a new clinician registry of healthcare professionals supportive of the integrative medicine approach. Integrative medicine for mental health involves a whole body approach utilizing multiple fields of traditional medicine, including medications, psychotherapy, nutritional sciences, dietary interventions, and more. Read More »

OpenMRS v.1.9.7 now available

OpenMRS 1.9.7 has been released. This is a maintenance release for OpenMRS 1.9.x which fixes a number of known bugs.  Over 650 downloads of OpenMRS were logged during the first week after it was released.  Approximately 20% of the downloads were from the country of Sri Lanka. For download instructions and details on this release, have a look at the release notes. Read More »

OSEHRA 2013 Presentations Now Available Online

The 2nd Annual Open Source Electronic Health Record Agent (OSEHRA) Summit & Workshop was held earlier this year in Bethesda, Maryland. All of the procedings from the Summit Conference & Workshop are now posted on the OSEHRA web site and available for viewing by OSEHRA members. Learn about the open source VistA system, open source business models, and a variety of open source tools the community has developed. Read More »

Using 'Open Source' Tools to Fight Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI)

There are 110 million sexually transmitted infections (STI) among women and men nationwide, with 20 million new STIs reported each year. CDC officials, estimate direct medical costs of STIs at a over $16 billion annually. Collaborative, 'open source' tools like 'Private Results' and 'So They Can Know' developed by Sexual Health Innovations offer help in fighting this public health battle in cities across the U.S. and around the world. Read More »

Reporting from the Defense Healthcare Management Systems Modernization (DHMSM) Project Vendor Day

For over a decade, DoD and the VA have been talking EHR collaboration, see-sawing between a possible open source oriented solution like VistA versus a proprietary option such as EPIC. At the second DoD Defense Healthcare Management Systems Modernization (DHMSM) Project Vendor Day held on December 4th  in Washington, D.C., the project’s program manager announced his management team will pursue a DoD 'core' EHR solution independent of the VA-DoD  Interagency Program Office (IPO). Read More »

OpenHatch Brings Open Source to College Campuses

A little less than a year ago, I was asked to direct OpenHatch‘s Open Source Comes to Campus event series. Open Source Comes to Campus is a workshop designed to introduce college students to open source, to teach them how to use tools like version control and issue trackers, and to guide them through making their first contributions. When I joined, OpenHatch was averaging two events a year. I was asked, hopefully, if I could run seven events in 2013.

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Masters In Counseling: Free Social Networking & Information Web Sites

Masters In Counseling.Org is a free informational web site for those who are interested in enrolling in an online degree program to obtain a Master of Counseling degree. The site now contains a list of pages on Google+, just compiled by Laura Harris, that link to social networking sites with information and resources aimed specifically at the mental health and counseling communities. Read More »

VA Marks the 10-Year Anniversary of the 'My HealtheVet' PHR System

In recognition of the 10th anniversary of the award-winning My HealtheVet system, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is urging all military veterans and active-duty service members to join the millions of others already using this online Personal Health Record (PHR) system. The VA is marking this milestone by asking everyone to help spread the word about the benefits of using My HealtheVet. The system allows veterans to access a wide variety of VA health care information and services online. Read More »

Rapidly Increasing Acceptance of 'Open Source' Software by EU Nations

The news just keeps coming about the widespread acceptance and increasingly rapid deployment and use of 'open source' software solutions by local and national government agencies across the Euriopean Union (EU). Federal, state, and local government agencies in the U.S. might want to pay close attention.For example, read about OpenEyes in the U.K., or Pentaho Business Intelligence (BI) software being used in France, or ... Read More »