Blog

By John Halamka 07:06 am February 11, 2009
Today’s economic crisis has highlighted our need for breakthrough improvements in the quality, safety and efficiency of health care. The nation’s business competitiveness is threatened by growing health care costs, while at the same time our citizens risk losing access to care because of unemployment and the decreasing affordability of coverage.
By Will Weider 03:29 pm February 09, 2009
Annually I work with Ministry’s IT Customer Advisory Board (our IT Steering committee) to identify the IT projects for the coming year.
By David Kibbe 09:44 am February 09, 2009
Clinical Groupware is a departure from the client-server and physician-centric EHR technology of the past 25 years, a fixed database technology that never really became popular.
By Matthew Holt 01:59 pm February 05, 2009
When I read a headline like "Privacy advocates hail stimulus bills," I immediately wonder which privacy advocates.
By John Halamka 03:46 pm February 04, 2009
Last week, I wrote about the effort to proactively protect BIDMC and Harvard from the Conficker virus. Our efforts continue with the following...
By Joseph C. Kvedar 05:13 pm February 03, 2009
I finally got on Facebook, despite my teenage daughters' fear that I would 'creep on them' and interrupt their respective networks. Shortly thereafter, I began to post on Twitter. These two experiences have caused me to reflect on the power that these tools bring to communication and how they could fit into the connected health landscape.
By Adrian Gropper, MD 04:49 pm January 29, 2009
Transparency, in the form of a complete, patient-centered and accessible health record is a policy principle that can drive the next wave of health care innovation. Investing exclusively in institutional EHRs will further stifle efficiency, innovation and improvement.
By Jack Beaudoin 09:52 am January 27, 2009
I woke up at 2:30 a.m. eastern this morning with a single thought -- what the American health system needs is an X Prize. Had it not been so cold (it's hard to keep a Maine country house warm when it's 20 below zero), I might have written my blog immediately. I'm glad I didn't.
By John Halamka 09:17 am January 26, 2009
In recent weeks, a worm called Conficker has infected 9 million Microsoft Windows desktops and servers throughout the world via a Windows security flaw identified in October 2008. The BIDMC Security team has provided me with several briefings that I'd like to share with you.
By David Kibbe 09:10 am January 26, 2009
Now that the Obama administration and Congress have committed to spending billions of tax payers’ money on health IT as part of the economic stimulus package, it’s important to be clear about what consumers and patients ought to expect in return -- better decision-making by doctors and patients.