The Boston Globe, December 31, 2012 — Chelsea Conaboy
Plenty has been written this year about the history of medicine through the lens of the New England Journal of Medicine, which celebrated its 200th anniversary.
The journal created a website chronicling medical advancements through the past two centuries, many of which were highlighted during a symposium held in June.
In an editorial published Thursday on the journal’s website, two top editors join Dr. Isaac Kohane of…
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Category: News Etc
Better Systems for Clinical Data Collaboration: Innovation in Systems and Software
Koa Lab, November 19, 2012 — Andy Palmer
In my last two posts, I wrote about the need for more liquidity in clinical research data. As a foundation for sharing this new more-liquid clinical research data, we need more patient-centric systems, where patients can create, consume and maintain relevant medical information…
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AMIA 2012 Proceedings
AMIA members, if you missed the symposium in Chicago but want to learn more about the SMART team’s presentations, our materials are now published in the Proceedings. (If you are not an AMIA member, you will have access to a limited number of pages.)
Apps to display patient data, making SMART available in the i2b2 platform
Building the SMART Platforms Ecosystem: Toward an Apps-Based Health Information Economy
Supporting Population Queries and Clinical Trials in i2b2 with SMART
Integrating Substitutable Medical Apps, Reusable Technologies (SMART) in the i2b2 Platform
Did policymakers choose the wrong path?
EHRWatch, November 13, 2012 — Jeff Rowe
How’s that country song go? “Looking for love in all the wrong places”?
If you don’t mind us channeling our inner Waylon Jennings, that’s what came to mind when we read an article about one health IT observer, who has argued that “Healthcare quality and efficiency could move forward 20 years in a matter of months if only there were true interoperability of…
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Interoperability: Quick Route To Better Care
InformationWeek Healthcare, November 12, 2012 — Neil Versel
Critic chides policymakers for downplaying standards and usability in Meaningful Use Stage 1 at American Medical Informatics Association meeting.
Healthcare quality and efficiency could move forward 20 years in a matter of months if only there were true interoperability of electronic health information, according to a noted critic of the health IT industry.
In the opinion of University of Pennsylvania sociologist Ross Koppel, interoperability would help unlock…
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AMIA: Why interoperability is ‘taking so darn long’
Healthcare IT News, November 8, 2012 — Neil Versel
CHICAGO – Hospitals can have hundreds of IT systems. Vendors have built proprietary databases. Not everyone follows the same standards. Health systems fear sharing data with competitors. Policymakers have not focused on health information exchange or EHR usability.
These are just a few of the reasons why true interoperability of health information remains so elusive, according to a panel of informatics luminaries….
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Spotlight on OSEHRA
We recently posted about Ken Mandl’s participation in a panel at the OSEHRA 1st Annual Open Source EHR Summit and Workshop. Audio and slides are now available to those with OSEHRA user accounts; scroll to Day One, 3pm, “Open Source Best Practice and Business Models.”
Now we’d like to back up and talk briefly about OSEHRA itself, and share links that highlight its relationship to SMART.
Late-Breaking AMIA 2012 Session on Interoperability
Follow the AMIA 2012 Twitter feed in their chat room – no account necessary. Or use hashtag #AMIA2012.
SMART Lead Architect Josh Mandel and Evaluator Ross Koppel will speak in the following late-breaking session.
LB05: Interoperability: Why is it Taking so Darn Long?
Tuesday, November 6 3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. Room: Continental A
Gil Kuperman, New York Presbyterian Hospital; Harry Solomon, GE Healthcare; Ross Koppel, University of Pennsylvania; Charles Jaffe, HL7, Joshua Mandel, Children’s Hospital Boston, Douglas B. Fridsma, Office of the National Coordinator for HIT
Questions abound around why it’s taking so long to achieve practical interoperability in the US health system? Patients and their advocates wonder why can’t the records of care at one institution easily be merged with the records of care somewhere else? Or why can’t health information interoperate on the Internet the way that so many other types of industries do? Those in the industry debate the level of difficulty around technical problems and standards.
AMIA 2012 SPC Chair Bill Hersh, MD, asked recently “is it something inherent in the nature of clinical data, such as concern for privacy or the economic aspects of healthcare that lead to organizations not wanting to share data?”
This panel will examine the potential for interoperability to improve care, the role of standards organizations in advancing interoperability and what is needed beyond standards per se to support interoperability-based use cases. Whoever or whatever is at fault, the problem is that in the eyes of many, including AMIA members, interoperability is not happening fast enough. In other words “why is it taking so darn long?”
SMART on the Agenda at AMIA 2012
The AMIA 2012 Annual Symposium begins today in Chicago, where it is currently “Informatics Week” as declared by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
SMART will be highlighted in Scientific Sessions S27 & S33 on Monday and S94 & S99 on Wednesday, as well as in Poster Session 2 on Tuesday.
“ITdotHealth II” 2012 Materials Now Posted
A section of our site is now devoted to coverage of the meeting held on September 10-11, including video and slides from keynotes, talks and panels, and a summary report from the meeting.
The meeting brought together over 100 thought leaders and affirmed the importance of developing and maintaining a standard programming interface to underpin an “app store” for health. We began to outline the actions required to create an ecosystem of health IT apps that use EHR data and enable a nimble and constantly evolving health system. Collaborations will soon be underway to define the technical approach and governance for supporting an API standard similar to the SMART Platforms alpha releases.