Open Health News (OHN) Weekly Summary - 1/11/2014

January 11, 2014 - It's been a relatively quiet week as the artic cold front shut down large segments of the U.S.  Nevertheless, 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. We've also included links to some upcoming open source and health IT events and conferences.

Some of the key themes dominating the news this week involved:

 - Continued issues with the roll out of some EHR systems in both the public and private sector.
 - Open Access and Open Data continue to be hot topics, especially in the healthcare sector.
 - Ongoing news about a range of innovative 'Open Health' activity and solutions from across the U.S. and around the world.

Roger Maduro
Publisher & Managing Editor, Open Health News


Headlines

OHN News, Features & Blog Posts

Selected News Clips

Upcoming Open Source & eHealth Conferences

 

Brief Abstracts of Selected News Stories

 

Time to make the jump from Microsoft XP to Linux?

If you're running Microsoft XP on your personal computer (PC), after April 8, 2014 you are apparently on your own.  Actually you and 1/3 of all the PC owners in the world still running XP are on your own. So you have a lot of company - see Infographic. This is such an important issue to so many people around the globe, including many working in the healthcare industry, that OHNews decided this should be posted as a 'Hot News' item, rather than posting this as a blog. Read More »

Drones for Healthcare powered by 'Open Source'

About a week after Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines, one of the Direct Relief partnering organizations called Team Rubicon sought to determine the operational status of the Carigara District Hospital, located northwest of the city of Tacloban. Travel along damaged roads was difficult and slow. Yet, the assessment team was able to provide local officials and aid groups with a rapid and highly accurate visual analysis of damage to the Carigara District Hospital by deploying the latest in close proximity aerial imaging technology, using a Huginn X1 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or civil surveillance drone. The assessment provided enough information to allow Team Rubicon to proceed with setting up a medical relief station there to help survivors gain access to emergency care and medical supplies. Read More »

The GovLab Index - 2014

GovLab has just released “The GovLab Index: The Networked Public — January 2014”. The GovLab Index provides a concise highlight of global trends in internet use, social media, and mobile networking.  It presents some interesting findings and might be of interest to many working in the healthcare industry. Read More »

Musings at the start of the New Year - 2014

Have you noticed –

For the past decade we've been talking about electronic health records (EHR), personal health records (PHR), health information exchange (HIE), mobile health (mHealth), preventive health, genomics, robots, telemedicine, open source, open access, open data, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Read More »

Open Access Roundup

Abby Clobridge | Information Today Inc. | January 7, 2014

Over the past several weeks, we’ve witnessed a number of announcements, launches, and news stories related to open access (OA). This roundup of top stories includes the launch of a student-developed OA tool, the boycott of “luxury” journals by a Nobel Prize winner and his lab, a new national OA policy, and the debut of a long-awaited, long-planned-for initiative to support gold OA. Read More »

U.S. Health Spending Dips

Mary Mosquera | Government Health IT | January 8, 2014

The good news: the total U.S. healthcare spending in 2012 grew slightly slower than the economy, causing a dip in healthcare's share of the economy. The bad news: healthcare spending still comprises almost a fifth of the U.S. economy at 17.2 percent in 2012, down from 17.3 percent in 2011. Read More »

Hospital Takes EHR Heavyweight To Court

Erin McCann | Healthcare IT News | January 6, 2014

A rural Montana hospital has filed suit against big name electronic health record system provider NextGen Healthcare, alleging the company violated its contract by both failing to install an EHR system by the set deadline and not providing a system that meets 2014 federal meaningful use criteria. Read More »

Epic Installation Proves More Expensive

Mike Miliard | Healthcare IT News | December 27, 2013

Bringing the total cost to $200 million, the parent company of Maine Medical Center will be spending tens of millions more on training for its problematic Epic electronic health record implementation. Read More »

New Open Source Platform Allows Anyone To Hack Brain Waves

Reuven Cohen | Forbes | January 3, 2014

For most people how the human brain works remains a mystery, let alone how to hack it.  A new Kickstarter campaign created by engineers Joel Murphy and Conor Russomanno aims to change this by putting an affordable, open-source brain-computer interface kit in the hands & minds of anyone. Read More »

Tizen OS going beyond phones to smart TVs, other gadgets

Editor | GMA News | January 5, 2014

Tizen, an upcoming open-source operating system for mobile and connected devices, may go beyond the territories of iOS and Android and find its way to other consumer devices like printers, cameras and even smart TVs, Read More »

Epson Enters Fitness Monitor Market with Pulsense Band and Watch

Tom Fowler | medGadget | January 7, 2014

Epson announced its Pulsense line of watches and wristbands for fitness, health, and wellness monitoring at this year’s CES conference. Pulsense is a device worn on the wrist that can monitor heart rate, activity levels, calories burnt, and sleep patterns. Read More »

Freescale launches $149 Android wearables platform

Press Release | Freescale | January 6, 2014

To help systems designers more easily navigate the quickly evolving consumer wearables market, Freescale Semiconductor is enabling an open-source, scalable reference platform that gives OEMs the building blocks they need to rapidly develop a wide range of wearable product designs from a common platform. Read More »

Could An Android Desktop Replace Your Windows PC?

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols | ZDNet | January 6, 2014

HP and Lenovo are betting that Android PCs can convert both office and home Windows PC users to Android. Read More »

DOD Decides To Keep Legacy EHR Until At Least 2018

Jennifer Bresnick | EHR Intelligence | January 3, 2014

The Department of Defense is officially sticking with its tried-and-true AHLTA electronic health records system for at least the next four or five years according to a recently released procurement document. [...] Read More »

How A $100 3D-Printed Arm Is Saving The Children Of Sudan

Julie Bort | SF Gate | January 7, 2014

A company called Not Impossible Labs has come up with one of the best uses for 3D printer technology we've ever heard of: printing low-cost prosthetic arms for people, mainly children, who have lost limbs in the war-torn country of Sudan. Read More »

4 Reasons Companies Say Yes to Open Source

Howard Baldwin | ComputerWorld | January 6, 2014

...When companies think of open source, these days they think "business agility," a quality they increasingly value above all others in the fast-changing marketplace. Read More »

How Do You Measure Up? New Health Gadgets Can Tell You

Julia Savacool | USA Today | January 5, 2014

An array of new personal health devices aims to help you beat depression, lose weight, reduce stress or improve your fitness level. Read More »