Recently ComputerWorld released an otherwise good article entitled: Old code proves key to modern IT at Midland Memorial Hospital. The first paragraph reads in part: For Midland Memorial Hospital, this came in the form of 1970s-era code unearthed via the Freedom of Information Act. This is really frustrating. VistA is old. But it is not […]
Category: Values
Trust but Verify and Trust but Fork
I have enjoyed participating in the National Dialogue about Health IT. One of the challenges put forward to my suggestion that decision makers should insist on FOSS in Health IT, was the following comment: in terms of privacy, there’s nothing inherent in FOSS that makes it superior to all proprietary products. I have discussed this […]
A National Dialogue is a site for proposing and commenting on ideas in Health IT created by the National Academy of Public Administration. (among others) The site is only open for a few days, and I have put forward my basic thesis: Insist on Open Source in Health IT that my readers are used to […]
HIMSS a lobby for proprietary Health IT vendors
Today, I recieved a letter in my mailbox regarding HIMSS take on the recent legislation proposed by Stark. HIMSS Stephen Lieber and Charles E. Christian, president and chairman of HIMSS respectively, write: However, HIMSS believes the legislation has negative consequences, including discounting the current efforts of “AHIC 2.0” and the development of an open source […]
Peter Bodtke taking a VistA tour
Peter Bodtke, the current vice president of WorldVistA, is doing a VistA tour. He is planning on touring Central and South America to raise awareness for VistA. Maybe they should make a shirt that says “It was an EHR before it was an Operating System”. They might be able to find a more pithy wording. […]
Meeting Mike Doyle
Apparently, the people at Medsphere still read my posts. Mike Doyle noticed my comment that I had not meet him in my last post, and he made an appointment to have a phone call with me. I just got off the phone with him and… I was impressed. He seemed willing to reach out to […]
Vindicated
I must admit. I love the feeling of being proven right. Granted, it appeals to my egotistic streak. (which despite my attempts to suppress it, my wife remains keenly annoyed by). A few weeks ago, at TEPR, I did my regular talk the Health of the Source, which is basically an update on the whole […]
FUD From Dr Peel
FUD stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. You should probably take a moment and read the wiki-page, otherwise the rest of this post might be lost on you. In the United States, FUD seems to be a legitimate marketing strategy for many institutions. Microsoft uses FUD regarding the coverage of their patents on the Linux […]
FOSS Sin: Pointless Duplication of Effort
Duplication of effort is viewed as a sin in the Free and Open Source software (FOSS) development community. The whole ethos of FOSS dictates that developers should work together, sharing the improvements they make to software between them. For this reason forking, or starting a redundant project, is often viewed as an attack against the […]
Buying paint and vendor lock-in
An article I wrote about Vendor Lock-in in health software has been published in the recent Fall 07 edition of EHR Scope. From the article: You can fire your paint store, your dentist, your lawyer, your mechanic and even your doctor. You can fire them for any reason. Yet you cannot fire your proprietary EHR […]