Monday morning musings

For some, weekends are a good time to sit around and relax. I tend to do that in the early morning hours of the weekends because the house is quiet and it doesn’t take away from any of the activities that happen during the “normal hours”. It gives me time to catch up on things that I like to do; surf the net and read articles.

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Speaking of healthcare data, is Microsoft the elephant in the room?

In a previous blog I discussed the need for a uniformed data structure in healthcare. The concept got me thinking about how to accomplish such a monumental task, and make no mistake, it would be a monumental task. There aren’t many “people” out there that could develop the hardware and software infrastructure solid enough to handle the needs of the complex data stream coming out of the healthcare industry.

Then I noticed a trend at a lot of the web sites that I frequent: Microsoft has slowly, and quietly, been positioning itself to jump into the healthcare market.

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What we need is a system-neutral data structure for healthcare

During a web browsing session the other day I came across a very interesting blog post by Louis Gray titled “The Future: Operating System And Application-Neutral Data”. I enjoy reading Louis’ posts because I think he has a great vision for the future of personal computing, data, and “the cloud”

The blog speaks specifically to the ownership of personal data versus allowing companies to sit on it and possibly hold it hostage secondary to a lack of compatibility with other systems. The information you throw onto the internet defines who and what you are, more now than ever before, and you need to be able to move it around anytime from anywhere.

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Time for a new model of data storage and software distribution in pharmacy

There was a time when I thought all a pharmacist needed to do his job was a pen and a calculator. It was just so cumbersome to carry anything else. If you wanted to have mobile drug information it meant carrying a drug reference book with you everywhere. Who can forget being in pharmacy school where every self respecting pharmacy student had a Drug Information Handbook stuffed in their lab coat pocket along with all the other stuff they carried like a homemade peripheral brain scribbled on the pages of a notebook or on those neat little 3×5 cards.

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SaaS and speech recognition for EHRs

CMIO: “In the past, major barriers to EHR adoption included high upfront costs and lack of IT resources to implement and maintain the technology,” the report stated. “A SaaS model solves both of these issues and Ovum believes it is the best approach for physician offices and small hospitals. With a predictable, monthly expense, a … Read more

SaaS and pharmacy

Software as a service (SaaS) has recently been popping up in healthcare related news, from Fujitsu’s SaaS solution for drug trials to the host of web-based applications from Pharmacy OnceSource. SaaS is different than the traditional enterprise software model because the provider of the software licenses it to the customer as an on-demand service. The … Read more

The “cloud” gets a black eye

InformationWeek: “Think of the one million T-Mobile Sidekick customers that may have lost important data last week. Think of the dozens of CIOs that anxiously waited for Workday to restore its SaaS service on Sept 24. Cloud computing has created a new era of accountability, and we must demand that tech vendors work harder than … Read more