The Healthcare IT Interoperability Blog

January 21

Why Compare Apples to Guanabanas?
I always tend to “cringe” when I read about comparisons between Health IT, medical devices and other healthcare related software with respect to other verticals (e.g., finance, insurance, retail). Why compare? Saying that the financial industry is many “light years” ahead is extremely inaccurate. Comparing the processing of debits, credits, interests, etc. with medical information [...]

8:25 AM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

January 20

Response from Senator Sherrod Brown Regarding SOPA and PIPA
Dear Mr. Planchart: Thank you for sharing your thoughts about legislation to combat online infringement and digital theft. Last Congress, the Senate considered, but did not pass, legislation entitled the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA). The aim of this legislation was to assist the Department of Justice in tracking and shutting down “rogue [...]

10:40 AM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

July 04

5 Things a Healthcare CIO Must do Right Now
Healthcare IT is in fierce flux, it’s evolving and at lightning speed and losing track isn’t something you can afford at this moment unless you want many fingers to be pointed at you for being the culprit of hefty penalties and lost incentives within a couple of years from now.  Two years is very little time to straighten things out in [...]

12:02 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

July 01

Midwest Interoperability Crusade, HL7 CCOW, EMPI, and Single Sign-On (SSO)
It’s been a great week!  I also have to admit that I am happy that it’s coming to an end by tomorrow. Yes, I said tomorrow since I’m heading back to Arizona to celebrate the 4th of July with my family and friends. But I still have pending 2 more stops: one more in Detroit and another one in [...]

12:05 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

June 30

The Open Source Software Dilemma in Healthcare IT
I have nothing against open source software, as a matter of a fact I am a fan of it, and I use many applications developed under this paradigm for my daily activities, I even enjoy them as weekend projects (e.g. ClearCanvas, PatientOS, Mirth Project, OpenDICOM, etcetera), but I just don’t see them fit for the demanding and critical healthcare IT domain.  VistA is [...]

11:36 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

5 Attributes of a Successful Healthcare Solutions Architect
During HIMSS 2009, and lately as well, I have been asked by several people what qualities or attributes would help a healthcare solutions architect be successful, so I decided to initially list at least five key attributes that I consider extremely valuable: 1. Be technology agnostic: The Healthcare IT scenario is plagued with a myriad [...]

4:51 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)