Conmergence

2008 Fiber To The Home Conference & Expo September 21 - 25, 2008 Gaylord Opryland® Resort & Convention Center, Nashville, TN

<ed.note>The conference's theme is "Linking Communities at the Speed of Light" but more intriguing to me is the the scheduled appearance of Don Tapscott (The Naked Corporation: How the Age of Transparency Will Revolutionize Business, Digital Capital: Harnessing the Power of Business Webs, Creating Value in the Networked Economy, Blueprint to the Digital Economy: Creating Wealth in the Era of E-Business, Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation, The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence, Who Knows: Safeguarding Your Privacy in a Networked World, Paradigm Shift: The New Promise of Information Technology)  adreessing his latest work, Wikinomics How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. Implicit in Tapscott's writings is management's buy-in of the distrubuted digital enterprise-enabled results-only collaborative work environment. If you happen to be one of those creatures (especially if you are from Nashville), I invite you to join the Linkedin.com Project Net-Work group and Technology Nashville.</ed.note>

Sunday, September 21, 2008
1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.	Registration Opens
Monday, September 22, 2008
7:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.	Registration Opens
8:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.	Developer Panel Workshop  *Additional fee*
8:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.	Home Networking Workshop  *Additional fee*
1:00 p.m. - 1:45 p.m.	Track Session - Series 100  *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
1:00 p.m. - 1:45 p.m.	FTTH Executive Summit *By invitation only* Moderated by: Don Tapscott, Author
2:00 p.m. - 2:45 p.m.	Track Session Series 200  *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
3:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.	EXPO Grand Opening & Opening Reception *Open to all registered attendees*
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
7:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.	Registration Opens
7:00 a.m. - 8:00 a.m.	Continental Breakfast *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.	Opening General Session    *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only* Keynote Speaker - Don Tapscott, Author Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything Sponsored by: FTTH Council Awards Sponsored by: FTTxcellence Awards Sponsored by:
10:00 a.m. - 10:15 a.m.	Refreshment Break    *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
10:15 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.	Global Carrier Keynote Panel   *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
11:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.	EXPO Hall Opens   *Open to all registered attendees*
12:00 noon - 2:00 p.m.	Luncheon in EXPO Hall  *Open to all registered attendees*
3:15 p.m. - 4:45 p.m.	ITCo Panel  *Conference Pass attendees only*
3:15 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.	Track Session Series 300  *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
4:15 p.m. - 4:45 p.m.	Track Session Series 400   *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
5:00 p.m. - 5:45 p.m.	Track Session Series 500   *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.	International attendee Reception   *By invitation only*
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
7:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.	Registration Open
7:00 a.m. - 8:00 a.m.	Continental Breakfast  *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.	Government and Regulatory Panel
8:00 a.m. - 8:45 a.m.	Track Session Series 600  *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
9:00 a.m. - 9:45 a.m.	Track Session Series 700  *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
9:45 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.	Refreshment Break  *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
10:00 a.m. - 10:45 a.m.	Track Session Series 800  *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
11:00 a.m. - 12:15 a.m.	Panel Session Series 900  *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
12:15 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.	On Own for Lunch
1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.	EXPO Hall Opens
4:15 p.m. - 5:45 p.m.	Closing General Session with Keynote Speaker  *Conference Pass and Day Pass attendees only*
7:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.	EXTRAVAGANZA - Closing Reception with Entertainment *Additional fee* "Don't forget your dancing boots!"
Thursday, September 25, 2008
8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.	Post Conference Workshops

IBM Opens New 3D Virtual Healthcare Island on Second Life

Interactive environment displays IBM’s vision for consumer-driven healthcare

ORLANDO, FL - 24 Feb 2008: IBM (NYSE: IBM) debuted at HIMSS®08 its newest island in Second Life: IBM Virtual Healthcare Island.  The island is a unique, three-dimensional representation of the challenges facing today’s healthcare industry and the role information technology will play in transforming global healthcare-delivery to meet patient needs. 

The island supports the strategic healthcare vision that IBM released in October 2006, entitled, Healthcare 2015: Win-Win or Lose-Lose, A Portrait and a Path to Successful Transformation.  The paper paints a picture of a Healthcare Industry in crisis – of health systems in the United States and many other countries that will become unsustainable by the year 2015.  To avoid “lose-lose” scenarios in which global healthcare systems “hit the wall” and require immediate and forced restructuring, IBM calls for what it defines as a “win-win” option: new levels of accountability, tough decisions, hard work and focus on the consumer.

The IBM Virtual Healthcare Island is designed with a futuristic atmosphere and provides visitors with an interactive demonstration of IBM’s open-standards-based Health Information Exchange (HIE) architecture.  Working with project leads in the U.S., the island was designed and built by an all-IBM-India team.

Starting from the patient’s home, they create their own Personal Health Records (PHRs) in a secure and private environment and watch as it is incorporated into an array of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems that can be used at various medical facilities.  As they move from one island station to the next, they experience how the development of a totally integrated and interoperable longitudinal Electronic Health Record (EHR) is used within a highly secured network that allows access only by patient-authorized providers and family members.

Patient avatars arrive and are welcomed at the Central Park and then visit a Central Information Hub, where IBM’s view of the healthcare industry and the power of information technology to transform it are presented.  An amphitheater on the Hub’s second floor provides an area that can support virtual meetings, complete with a large video screen and accompanying slide presentation on IBM’s HIE architecture and the positive impact that this technology can have in the transformation of the Healthcare Industry.

Visitors can then walk, fly or use transporters to visit the various island stations:

• The Patient’s Home:  In the secure environment of a private home, patient avatars can initiate a PHR and populate it with their personal health characteristics and clinical history, accessed and downloaded from physician EMR data.  They can also establish privacy and security preferences as well as health directives.  The ground floor demonstrates secure messaging with providers and activates the initial PHR.  Using a transporter to move upstairs, patients use home health devices to take weight, blood pressure and blood sugar readings in the privacy of a bedroom, further incorporating this information into the PHR, which is shown on presentation screens. 
• The Laboratory: This stop offers laboratory and radiology suites to help avatars extend their understanding of the benefits of  HIE.  Here, patients can check in at a Patient Kiosk and have blood work and radiology tests performed. The use of EHRs – revealing only appropriate portions of the PHRs -- shows how consumers can also benefit through cost and time savings.
• The Clinic: Patient avatars transport or walk from the Lab to the Clinic, where a welcome from their primary-care physician awaits.  A combination of scripting and information screens supports simulation of a patient exam, after which an electronic prescription is generated, and the continued development of the EHR is explained on nearby screens. 
• The Pharmacy: Here, avatars can check in at a Patient Kiosk that simulates the verifying of drug information.  They then receive their prescriptions and update their PHRs/EHRs with new medication data.  The HIE architecture demonstrates how use of PHR/EHR technology can prevent consumers from purchasing medications that are contra-indicated given the medicines they presently require, as well as alerting them about potential drug-to-drug interactions.  The PHR/EHR is again updated.
• The Hospital: In this futuristic, three story structure, avatars arrive for a scheduled visit with a specialist.  Physicians’ offices, patient rooms and exam rooms are all simulated here. 
• The Emergency Room: Avatars can chose to experience a virtual emergency by “touching” a specially scripted control.  This engages a medical episode and a ride on a fast gurney directly into the private and secure emergency treatment area, where a special screen is programmed to reveal the full incorporation of the PHR to ensure proper treatment.

“We are pleased to offer our IBM Virtual Health Island as a tool for our healthcare customers and our worldwide sales force.  The island allows each healthcare stakeholder to envision how the total system can be affected by intercession at each juncture of the healthcare delivery process,” said Dan Pelino, General Manager, IBM Global Healthcare & Life Sciences Industry.  “We believe that the use of our new virtual world provides an important, next-generation Internet-based resource to show how standards; business planning; the use of a secured, extensible and expandable architecture; HIE interoperability; and data use for healthcare analytics, quality, wellness and disease management are all helping to transform our industry. “

IBM’s Healthcare & Life Sciences (HCLS) Industry will continue to develop the new island in months to come.  The island can perform as a virtually “always on” demonstration tool for IBM’s sales personnel.  A video version of the island is also under production.

IBM believes in the significant promise of virtual-worlds technologies far beyond today's usage: the next evolutionary phase of the Internet. IBM is helping clients and partners to conduct business inside virtual worlds and to connect the virtual world with the real world through a richer, more immersive Web environment. 

Second Life is a 3D online world created by Linden Lab, a company founded in 1999 by Philip Rosedale, to create a revolutionary new form of shared 3D experience.  Last October, IBM and Linden Lab announced their intent to jointly develop new technologies and methodologies based on open standards that will help advance the future of 3D virtual worlds.

Wireless Healthcares Take on the "Wired for Health Care Quality Act"

CEOs representing America’s top companies have joined forces with U.S. Senate health leaders to urge swift passage of the “Wired for Health Care Quality Act,” a measure to bring the power of information technology to the health care sector.

“We can save thousands of lives and conserve billions of dollars for health care with this one stroke – and we can do it this year,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee and sponsor of the legislation.

“The healthcare and business communities, including small businesses, are clamoring for Congress to take action and establish uniform health IT standards,” said Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), ranking member of the HELP committee and original co-sponsor of the legislation. “This bill will eliminate duplicative tests and reduce medical errors. Moving from a paper-based health care system to secure electronic medical records will save lives and reduce skyrocketing health care costs.”

Joining the Senate leaders were Business Roundtable members Ivan Seidenberg, chairman and CEO of Verizon Communications Inc., and Ronald A. Williams, chairman and CEO of Aetna Inc. The four called for speedy passage of the bill, which seeks to replace the current system of paper records with secure, protected electronic records. More here.

American Telemedicine Association’s Global Forum on Telemedicine Report: Connecting the World through Partnerships

The American Telemedicine Association (ATA) in sponsorship with the USAMRMC TATRC held the Global Forum on Telemedicine: Connecting the World through Partnerships in Las Vegas in September 2007. The goal of the forum was to bring together key stakeholders in global healthcare outreach. This report was generated as a result of this meeting and an International Roadmap for Action was developed that establishes a set of priorities and recommendations for action to improve healthcare using telemedicine and information technology (IT).

Letter from Hon S. Pak M.D., President ATA

On behalf of the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) leadership, I am pleased to share with you the results of the Global Forum on Telemedicine: Connecting the World through Partnerships. Although there is a great deal of healthcare outreach efforts globally, there is a need to share resources and to leverage information technology to broaden their impact. The goal of the forum was to bring together key stakeholders in global healthcare outreach to explore a flexible framework and a sustainable business model to leverage telemedicine and information technology to extend outreach efforts. The forum resulted in an International Roadmap for Action that was developed by the authors based on the presentations and interactions from the 335 attendees and establishing a set of priorities and actions to improve healthcare using telemedicine and IT. This document is meant to be a start of an evolving dialogue to explore how the telemedicine community can be leveraged to improve the global disparity in healthcare. This report recommends a set of priorities and actions for improving health and healthcare through telemedicine and information technology (IT).

Recommendations fall into 6 categories: (1) Continue dialogue to create the telemedicine framework for multiple stakeholders; (2) Provide stakeholders with a way to identify and leverage existing resources; (3) Educate Grantors on the value of telemedicine as an enabler of medical outreach programs and to expand training programs and build competency in the healthcare workforce; (4) Alignment of international policy to support integration of telemedicine into country plans and support cross-country partnerships; (5) Development of communication infrastructure; (6) Integration of telemedicine programs for disaster relief.

We recognize the need for close collaboration and coordination with our partners, and we encourage continued international dialogue in creating a framework to broaden medical outreach using telemedicine.

Hon S. Pak, M.D.
President, American Telemedicine Association

Is That A Chip In Your Arm or Are You Just Happy To See Me? [or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Telecommuting"]

<ed.note>One of the most influential guys in HIT, CareGroup CIO John Halamka, gives his take on the policies and technologies necessary for supporting flexible work arrangements (ROWE) at CIO.com. RE: the chip reference, see this.</ed.note>

eHealth, Ubiquity Linkpourri

Health Identity Management SIG [Liberty Alliance], openehealth, openhealthtools, Road to 100G Alliance, The Economic Impact of Stimulating Broadband Nationally [Tennessee], Broadband Services: Economic and Environmental Benefits, States get help expanding telemedicine, Tata and Telsima WiMax India

Project MedSend Nashville Host Committee Announces Informational Dinner, February 28, 2008

Traci Warner writes:

On behalf of the Nashville Host Committee for Project MedSend, we would like to invite you and your missions-minded friends to be our guests for dinner and an exciting account of God's strategy to bring the gospel of Christ, by medical missionaries, to those in other cultures. Your attendance at this dinner will help to increase the awareness of health professionals, students and churches in the Nashville community of ways to serve the Lord free of the burden of their educational indebtedness. You will enjoy a complimentary dinner held on Thursday, February 28, 2008 at 6:30 p.m. at the Hillwood Country Club in Nashville 6201 Hickory Valley Road (615) 352-6591.

Dr. Tracy Goen will tell how God has used him and his wife, Patty, a pediatrician, to bring the gospel to a settlement of Fulani cattle herders in Southwest Nigeria. A series of miraculous cures -- the result of much prayer and divinely directed medical interventions -- has opened the hearts of these people to the good news of Jesus Christ.

Randy Carey, Midwest Regional Director of Project MedSend, will bring you up-to-date on the role of the project in freeing medical missionaries for service by service by removing the major barrier they face -- the high cost of education for health professionals and resulting educational loans. To date, 329 physicians, dentists, nurses, physicians assistants and veterinarians have been freed to serve the underserved years earlier than they had dreamed possible.

We hope you can join us for what has proved to be a delightful evening for people across the country. Please RSVP by Monday, February 25th with your name, phone number, and the number in your party to: Ms. Traci Warner (615) 243-7529 (you may leave a message on the answering machine), psalm6201@yahoo.com 

Directions from downtown Nashville: South on Broadway to West End Avenue which turns into Harding Road at St. Thomas Hospital. Beyond St. Thomas Hospital will be the intersection of Woodmont Blvd. (left) and White Bridge Rd. (right) At the 4th stop light after this intersection turn right onto Davidson Rd. Cross over the the railroad tracks and go approximately 8/10 of a mile beyond the 4-way stop at Post Rd. Turn right onto Hickory Valley Rd. Entrance to Hillwood Country Cluy is on the right at 6201.

Proceedings: Ontolog Panel Discussion - Semantic Interoperability in Health Informatics: Lessons Learned

Peter Yim writes:

We had, on Thursday 10-January-2008, another one of our best attended panel sessions.

Mr. Marc Wine (co-chair), Mr. Rex Brooks (co-chair), Dr. Michael Cummens and Professor Saul Rosenberg were on the panel to join the community in a discussion around the topic "Semantic Interoperability in Health Informatics, Lessons Learned." Sharing their insights and experience, the panelists called upon the government, industry and the ontology community to collaborate toward better healthcare through better health informatics through improved semantic interoperability.

Thank you very much, Marc and Rex, for organizing the session, and to Mike and Saul as well for sharing your insights with the rest of the community. The wonderful turnout today (and more importantly, who it was that came) really, as Rex put it, "underscored the extent to which the topic resonates and reflected the fact that [the session was] addressing a very key concern that the industry is facing and is looking for guidance and solution. Appreciations, as always, go to those who joined us at the event in real time; and for their contributions to the rich discussion we had during the last segment of the session.

Proceedings of the session are captured on our wiki page, at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2008_01_10

In particular, full audio recording of the session (as well as the podcast of it) is now on our archives and is available - see: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2008_01_10#nid16RV

Thank you again, Mr. Wine, Mr. Brooks, Dr. Cummens and Professor Rosenberg!

Best regards. =ppy

P.S.  Watch our [ontolog-invitation] list for further announcements of Ontolog events that may be of interest, or browse the listing under the "News & Announcements" section at our Ontolog WikiHomePage (at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nidW ) for our upcoming events.

The archives of noteworthy past Ontolog events can be found at:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nidZ

Tx. =ppy

World's next outsourcing hub: Kenya?

The Kenyan government is pumping millions of dollars into improving the nation's outdated telecom industry.

<ed.note>I reiterate my harrangue for the Kenya Call Center Industry -- driving in to a call center to access the wiki and VOIP is missing the point. Rural telehealth and disease management will never reach its full potential if you can't develop a management structure which can trust remote workers -- or develop enough tech monitoring tools savvy to fake it. Just because the US keeps talking "green" but refuses to adopt ROWE doesn't mean the rest of the world has to repeat the mistake.</ed.note>

The World of Health IT 2007 Conference & Exhibition Vodcasts

here.

HITRUST Common Security Framework

HITRUST believes that a common security framework for use by all organizations that create, access, store, or exchange personal health information is necessary to advance the goals of health information technology. Standardizing a higher level of security will build greater trust in the electronic flow of information through the healthcare system.

The HITRUST common security framework will be comprehensive, leveraging existing industry standards and best practices where appropriate. The framework also will be flexible to adjust to an evolving security environment and scale according to type, size and complexity of the organizations that create, access, store, or exchange health information. Additionally, the common security framework will:

• Reduce confusion by implementing a single framework across multiple organizations
• Increase confidence by consumers, regulators and legislators in the industry's ability to address these issues and to proactively protect sensitive information and healthcare systems
• Establish a single standard for organizations for internal and external measurement
• Reduce the number and complexity of security audits or reviews that organizations impose upon their trading partners

HITRUST provides all healthcare organizations an opportunity/OR/opportunities to influence the direction of the common trust framework by applying to participate in the development of the security standards. Participant benefits include:

Interaction with peers and industry experts

Access to work papers and background materials

Serving on working groups to develop common trust framework

Ability to comment, influence and deliberate on framework drafts and final papers

Global Health Data Standards Workshop, Nairobi, Kenya December 4-7, 2007 [Update]

<ed.note>Tim Cook comments that this was "probably the very best REAL workshop I have ever attended." If anyone has related online presentations, blog posts, etc. please make a comment or email me so I can link to them here. Thanks.</ed.note>

A great deal of effort goes into collecting health data in developing countries. However, much of this data is not used because it is not available where it could make a difference. Health systems have many decision points including direct patient care, management of health services, planning, program monitoring, and evaluation of services. Each of these can benefit from information at the decision point. The key to improving access to data is to have clear definitions and communication protocols. This workshop will build on standards experience with electronic medical records for ART care to lay the groundwork for scalable standards for global health data by extending this work to related areas such as TB, PMTCT, VCT, primary care, and national HIS indicators. It will present the state of the art in health information systems as well as health information system implementation practices.

Open source tools and applications in medical informatics [Update]

A group of open source enthusiasts and professionals from various organizations in the academia and industry are presenting a workshop at the AMIA Symposium this November. The topic is "Open source tools and applications in medical informatics". We invite all those interested in using, contributing or collaborating to open source to attend. Presentations here.

Date:   11/10/07
Time:   7:00 pm - 9:30 pm
Location: Chicago 9 (Sheraton Chicago Hotel)
Registration/Fees: Included with AMIA conference registration. No separate registration or fees required.
AMIA Info page: http://www.amia.org/meetings/f07/showDoc.asp?DiD=30

The speakers, their affiliations (and their topics and websites) are:

Senthil Nachimuthu, University of Utah: Projeny (Probabilistic Networks Generator, http://projeny.sourceforge.net)
Eishay Smith / Matt Davis, IBM: Eclipse Open Healthcare Framework (http://www.eclipse.org/ohf)
Jon Teichrow, Webreach Inc: Mirth Project (HL7 Engine, http://www.mirthproject.org)
Paul Biondich, Regenstrief Institute: Open MRS (Electronic Medical Record, http://www.openmrs.org)
Cal Collins, Akaza Research: Open Clinica (Clinical trials software, http://www.openclinica.org)
Tom Jones, Tolven: Tolven (Clinician and Personal Electronic Health Record, http://www.tolven.org)
Will Ross, Mendocino Informatics: OpenEMPI (Enterprise Master Person Index, http://www.openempi.org)

All of the above software are released under various OSI-approved open source licenses. Please attend this workshop if you are interested in using or contributing to these projects, to learn about open source technologies in biomedical informatics, or to contribute to the discussion.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Regards,

Senthil.

-----------------------------------------------
Senthil Nachimuthu, MD
PhD Candidate - Biomedical Informatics

Department of Biomedical Informatics
26S 2000E Room 5775 HSEB
Salt Lake City, UT 84112
USA

Phone: +1 801 231 8282
Fax: +1 801 992 7242
Homepage: http://tux.med.utah.edu/~senthil
Email: senthil.nachimuthu@hsc.utah.edu

Faster, Cheaper Broadband Internet Coming to Michigan Health Care Providers

<ed.note>Story here. Project site here. But will auto manufacturers and Michigan management culture still require health care workers to "drive in" to access the Infogrid as the general practice? ( vs ROWE a la  culturerx.com )</ed.note>

Open Source Tools and Applications at American Medical Informatics Association

Will Ross, linuxmednews.com

Seven Open Source projects were featured at a workshop on Open Source software at the annual AMIA Symposium in Chicago, Illinois. Despite the Saturday evening time slot, about 60 conference attendees were treated to some inspiring presentations. Senthil Nachimuthu, M.D., organized the two and a half hour workshop. This year's AMIA Symposium on Biomedical and Health Informatics features 14 Workshops, 26 full or half day Tutorials, 96 Scientific Sessions, and over 300 poster presentations. The Symposium runs from November 10 to 14. More here.

HxTI Releases Xebra Free Open Source Software Secure Radiology Transmission Software

LinuxMedNews.com

"Philadelphia – November 6, 2007 – Today Hx Technologies, Inc. (HxTI) announced the public availability and free open source licensing of the Xebra™ platform for web-based distribution and clinical review of medical imaging. The software provides healthcare organizations and software developers with all the necessary components to securely transmit and review medical images over a network such as the Internet. Unlike its closed and proprietary predecessors locked to a single vendor, Xebra is intended to work alongside any picture archiving and communication system (PACS) and to provide advanced imaging capabilities to a wide range of healthcare IT applications.

Written in Java, the software is designed to run on any operating system with an ultra-thin client that can be launched over the Web without any installation required by the end user."

Full press release

World Community Grid Call for Research Proposals

Submit a Proposal 
World Community Grid invites public and not-for-profit organizations to apply to use its powerful grid technology at no cost for projects that benefit humanity. Grid technology enables researchers to access tremendous amounts of power, exceeding that of several supercomputers, to run complex computations and to accelerate the pace of their research. Research results must be made available to the global research community and will be made available on World Community Grid's web site.

Research We Support
World Community Grid supports research that is:
Focused on solving problems to benefit humanity;
Conducted by public or nonprofit organizations;
Contributed to the public domain; and
Accelerated by grid computing technology.
Research projects that benefit from grid technology are those that perform computations that require millions of computer processing units (CPUs) and that can be divided into smaller independent computations.

Examples of potential fields of study include:
New and existing infectious disease research - development of treatments for HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), etc.
Genomics and disease - functions of proteins that are coded by human genes and how they might relate to cures for common diseases
Environmental research - meteorology and severe weather warning, pollution, remediation, climate modeling, and others
Natural disasters and hunger - earthquake warning, information on improving crop yields and livestock production, and evaluation of the supply of critical natural resources such as water
World Community Grid's Advisory Board, composed of prominent philanthropists, scientists and officials from leading public and private organizations, reviews proposals to identify those with the best potential to benefit from World Community Grid's technology and make important progress on humanitarian goals.

How to Submit a Proposal
For more information, including the proposal process, technical requirements, and selection criteria, please review our Request For Proposals (pdf).

To submit a project for consideration, please download and complete the RFP Proposal Application (doc) and return to rfp@worldcommunitygrid.org. RFP Proposal Application (doc).

The Trotter Seven Generations EMR Test

here.

Sustainable Technology Empowers Healthcare Delivery in Africa

"Palm" pilot programs in Kenya and Zambia demonstrate that open source mobile software increases countries' capacity to manage public health

Washington, D.C. (Vocus/ PRWEB ) October 10, 2007 -- The United Nations Foundation and Vodafone Group Foundation announced today the successful conclusion of two pilot mobile health data programs in Africa, and said that significant benefits to healthcare delivery in developing countries could be achieved by monitoring health data and tracking the progress of health campaigns using open source software on mobile hand-held devices.

The one-year pilot programs in Kenya and Zambia used EpiSurveyor software on Palm™ handheld devices to facilitate the supervision of public health clinics, and resulted in improved drug supply-chain management and more regular access to public health trends. Additionally, country health officials modified the EpiSurveyor software to track and contain disease outbreaks, and to identify immunization campaign coverage rates.

Empowered with sustainable open source technologies, developing-country public health professionals can get more critical health information that can be used to improve lives, fight disease, and reduce deaths all without expensive technology or outside consultants.

The pilots, part of the Foundations' Health Data Systems program, involved health experts from country governments, the World Health Organization (WHO) and DataDyne.org, and supported faster and broader access to in-country health data. In announcing the completion of the pilot programs today, the Foundations said they were pleased by the initial results and the demonstrated effectiveness of the vital role of mobile technology in improving healthcare delivery and battling disease.

"These programs build off our prior investments in integrated healthcare campaigns in Africa, where we've seen that successful Measles immunization campaigns rely on timely and accurate information from the field," said Tim Wirth, president of the UN Foundation. "Such information had been hard to come by in many countries, but now sustainable mobile technologies are addressing this challenge."

"By making information technology portable, simple and affordable we can effectively support public health programs - even in resource restrictive environments," said Andrew Dunnett, director of The Vodafone Group Foundation. "This project effectively lowers the barriers to public health management, and puts access to health data collection and management tools squarely in the hands of developing-country public health officials."

Designed to facilitate the supervision of health data in public clinics using handheld computers, the initiative broke ground when country officials modified the open source EpiSurveyor data-gathering software to meet other public health needs as they arose. In Kenya health officials modified EpiSurveyor to investigate and contain a polio outbreak, and in Zambia health officials modified the software to conduct a post-measles-immunization campaign coverage survey to identify which children had not been vaccinated. Because the EpiSurveyor application is open source, its application was owned and controlled entirely by WHO and country health officials without depending on outside consultants.

"Empowered with sustainable open source technologies, developing-country public health professionals can get more critical health information that can be used to improve lives, fight disease, and reduce deaths all without expensive technology or outside consultants," said Joel Selanikio, co-founder of DataDyne.org, the non-profit organization that developed the fee-free EpiSurveyor software.

Following completion of the pilot programs, the Foundations are continuing their work with DataDyne.org, the WHO, and national ministries of health to expand the Health Data Systems program. The WHO has announced that it intends to make EpiSurveyor a standard for data collection in sub-Saharan Africa, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has downloaded the free EpiSurveyor software and is using it to collect integrated health data in Sierra Leone.

Note to editors
For more information about how EpiSurveyor was used to fight polio in Kenya, visit http://www.unfoundation.org/files/pdf/2007/EpiSurveyor_Polio_Kenya.pdf . And to learn more about the Zambia pilot, see http://www.undispatch.com/archives/2007/09/how_pdas_are_sa.php#more . EpiSurveyor is available for download at http://www.datadyne.org/?q=episurveyor/home. Photos and interviews with health experts participating in the pilot programs are available through the press contacts provided below. 'Open source' software refers to software that is intended to be freely shared, improved, and redistributed.

About the UN Foundation and The Vodafone Group Foundation Partnership
The UN Foundation-Vodafone Group Foundation (VGF) alliance strives to be the leading public-private partnership using strategic technology programs to strengthen the UN's humanitarian efforts worldwide. Created in October 2005, with a £10 million commitment from VGF matched by £5 million from the UN Foundation, the Partnership has three core commitments: (1) to develop rapid response telecoms teams to aid disaster relief; (2) to develop health data systems that improve access to health data thereby helping to combat disease; and (3) to promote research and innovative initiatives using technology as an agent and tool for international development. Further information can be found on: www.unfoundation.org/vodafone.

About DataDyne and Episurveyor
DataDyne was formed in 2003 by physician/epidemiologist Joel Selanikio, formerly of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and technologist Rose Donna, formerly of the American Red Cross, to increase the quantity and quality of data available for worldwide public health. DataDyne works with mobile information technologies including handheld computers, smartphones, the Internet, and GPS, to break down the barriers to data utilization and create sustainable data flows in developing countries. DataDyne's premier product is the award-winning EpiSurveyor, a free, open-source data-gathering software suite for handheld computers and smartphones. Based on the success of the pilot programs in Kenya and Zambia, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control is now using EpiSurveyor software in Sierra Leone.

Press contacts:

In Washington:
Adele Waugaman
United Nations Foundation
(t) + 1 202 778 1635
(e) awaugaman (at) unfoundation.org
(w) www.unfoundation.org/vodafone

In London:
Darren Milner
Four Communications
(t) + 44 (0)870 444 4568
(e) darren.milner (at) fourcommunications.com

In Newbury:
Katherine Danby
Vodafone Group Foundation
(t): +44 (0) 7795047 471
(f): +44 (0)1635 686484
(e) katherine.danby (at) vodafone.com
(w) http://www.vodafonefoundation.org

"Expanding Africa’s Broadband Capacity", Connect Africa Summit in Kigali, 29-30 October 2007

Where: Kigali, Rwanda

Why: The main goal of the Summit is to help bring connectivity to Africa and promote "Connect Africa", a new partnership that seeks to expand the information and communication technology infrastructure of the continent, especially Internet broadband.

Who: Some 500 participants are expected to attend the Connect Africa Summit. Participants include the patrons of the initiative, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and Ghana’s President John Kufuor, who is also the African Union Chairman. High-level participants include International Telecommunication Union Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré; President of the African Development Bank Donald Kaberuka; and Intel Corporation Chairman Craig Barrett, who is also the Chair of the UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development. Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank Group, will make a contribution by video link. The Presidents of several African nations are expected to participate.

The event will bring together political leaders, including Ministers and Heads of State, CEOs and senior executives of global and African IT companies, leaders from civil society and heads of international and regional development banks. Industry leaders including Cisco, GSM Association, Ericsson, Huawei, British Telecom, Qualcomm, NTT DoCoMo, Neustar, Safaricom, Nokia-Siemens and Microsoft will attend and announce new initiatives to help bring connectivity to Africa.

The Summit sessions are designed for television to encourage interactive participation and key sessions will be moderated by Stephen Cole, a renowned TV anchor with Al Jazeera International. The event’s press conferences will be webcast live, and time slots for telephone interviews with prominent participants will be allocated for those journalists who cannot attend.

The event is organized by the International Telecommunication Union, the African Union, the World Bank Group and the Global Alliance for ICT and Development, in partnership with the African Development Bank, the African Telecommunication Union, the UN Economic Commission for Africa, and the Global Digital Solidarity Fund.

For further information, click here or contact:

Sanjay Acharya
Chief, Media Relations and Public Information
ITU
Tel: +41 22 730 5046
Mobile: +41 79 249 4861
Fax: +41 22 730 5939
E-mail

Contact: in New York Enrica Murmura, Tel: +1 212 963-5913, E-mail murmura@un.org; in Washington, DC Henny Rahardja, Tel. +1 202 473 4857, E-mail HRahardja@worldbank.org; in Tunis, Emmanuel K. Ngwainmbi, Tel: +216 71 10 26 27, E-mail e.ngwainmbi@afdb.org.

About ITU

Mobile Banking: Using Data to Determine Strategy & Increase Adoption Webinar, October 9, 2007

Javelin Strategy & Research Webinar at 10:00 a.m. PST/1:00 p.m.

Dossia and Boston's CHIP Go Free/Open Source LGPL License

Ignacio Valdes writes:

"Dossia a consortium of companies for "Lifelong Personally-Controlled Health Record" has announced that they will be using the LGPL (a FOSS license) licensed Indivo personally controlled health record software for Boston's Childrens Hospital Information Program (CHIP) "Since the inception of the Indivo system in 1998, we have firmly held that the best way to get vital and private medical information to the point of care is under the strictest control of the individual," said Kenneth Mandl, MD, MPH, CHIP researcher at HST and physician in Emergency Medicine at Children's Hospital Boston. "Dossia and Children's share a common vision of promoting widespread adoption of personally controlled health records and are excited to be working together to make this vision a reality." Original posting with links.

Smart Phone Electronic Medical Record / Mobile Contactless Payment / Remote Monitoring, Developments Toward...

<ed.note>Since vendors are looking at remote monitoring for disease management I should list those as well. I'll also be on the look out for sensors which are car-based now that wi-fi is available in automobiles. There are some parallel developments which I guess I should mention: Major League Baseball and other event vendors as well as transportation providers and social networks are putting the cell phone closer to the center of their business models. ( Robert Neelbauer on social graphs here -- cells will eventually be tracked by them. ) Of course, on the other end of the spectrum is home automation.</ed.note>

Phillips (still using POTS lines)
Qualcomm
Nokia's Intellisync Call Connect for Cisco

Shout out to http://www.wirelesshealthcare.co.uk who usually gets these stories before anyone else.

The Tech Scene: Banking by Cell Phone - This Time It's for Real?,
Use of Mobile and Wireless Technology Jumps in Hospitals,

iPhone ? ? ? ( Remember Osirix ), icefirst, liferecord, Access, aKos, ARANZ Medical, Asia eHealth presentations, Banco do Brasil, Blackberry [2], Diebold, Docobo, ebay VOIP (Skype), Gemalto, Google [2][3][4], INSIDE Contactless, J/Speedy, mBlox, mFoundry, Microsoft, m-Wallet, Obopay, payWave, Mayo Clinic InTouch, NTT DoCoMo, PayPal Credit Card, Privium, Samsung, telSpace, Telzuit's Bio-Patch PDA,
Telemedicine & eHealth Directory 2005, Verisign, ViVOtech, FeliCa, [2], Mifare [2], NFC Forum, Blackberry, Ubuntu mobile, Globe Telecom and Smart Communications

The Dossia Southeast Symposium, October 2, 2007, Nashville, TN

Large employers are creating Dossia to provide consumers with an important new health benefit: a lifelong personal health record that they own and control. 

Since Dossia announced its formation last December, there has been great excitement about its potential. Many local providers, healthcare delivery systems, Governors and legislatures have expressed interest in learning how Dossia impacts the local delivery of care as well as the economic impact of more fully empowered consumers. Come and learn about the Dossia concept, engage Dossia leadership and more fully understand Dossia’s progress, future plans and specific architectural components.

Dossia executive leadership is bringing together healthcare innovators in the Southeast region, including state executives, public health leaders, local providers and others who are involved in initiatives designed to bring greater efficiency and improved outcomes to our healthcare system.

Please join Dossia and Tennessee state leadership as well as local and national invited guests for our 2nd forum as we discuss our respective efforts to transform the US healthcare delivery system.

State & Business Leaders Confirmed to Attend: 
Governor Phil Bredesen, Tennessee
Craig Barrett, Chairman, Intel Corporation
Susan Cooper, Tennessee State Health Commissioner
Gov. John Engler, President NAM
Susan Nelson, VP, Cardinal Health

Sommet Center
http://www.nashvillearena.com
501 Broadway
Nashville, TN 37203
12 pm-5:30 pm CDT

To register, log on to: www.b-there.com/arm/dossiasesymposium07

HOTEL REGISTRATION MUST BE COMPLETE BY 9/12 AT 11 AM PST!

For more Symposium information, contact Brian DeVore at Brian.L.DeVore@intel.com

You must register for this event.  Registration is open to all organizations and individuals.  There is no cost to attend event.  A special hotel block has been reserved.  Space is limited.

Michael Strübin on HIMSS EMEA

Dear friend,

Greetings and we hope you had a good summer. We at HIMSS EMEA have been excited to see the Health IT Community grow with new professionals joining almost daily, forming a community dedicated to the advance of eHealth.

We wanted to inform you about some key initiatives and events at HIMSS EMEA that may be of interest to you:

1) Our upcoming eSeminar on electrotechnical standards on 12 September
Do you or your company seek access to European markets with your software or medical equipment, and need to comply with medical standards directives from the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)? Are these directives bewildering or intimidating? Or are you merely interested in learning more? This eSeminar at 16h CET on 12 September may be for you. Dr. Georg Heidenreich from Siemens, a renown expert and Health IT Community Member, will discuss several ICE standards and take the teeth out of their bite. Participate by yourself or invite a room full of people. Learn more and register at http://emea.himss.org/professionaldev/regMore.asp

2) A networking event for XING members at World of Health IT
Are you planning to come to World of Health IT Conference & Exhibition in Vienna, 22-25 October? Registrations are still being accepted at www.worldofhealthit.org. We are planning to host a Meet & Greet of XING members at World of Health IT during afternoon exhibition hours on Wednesday 24 October. We will be in touch with you with an invitation later this week.

3) HIMSS EMEA response to the European Commission
Brussels and the European Commission (EC) may seem far away from you, but decisions taken there will impact you sooner or later. HIMSS EMEA seeks to represent eHealth users like you, and to add your voices to the process. In August the EC opened an informal consultative process about its draft recommendation on ehealth interoperability (http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/cf/itemlong...). A small band of HIMSS volunteers has drafted a response that is being finalised for submission on 10 September. The final response will be available on the HIMSS EMEA website next week.

For these and other initiatives, we invite you to get involved. Start adding your voice to the Health IT Community. Join our discussions, conferences, eSeminars and other events. Subscribe to our newsletter, and consider joining HIMSS. More information is at www.himss.org/emea.

Thank you for your interest and we look forward to being in touch.

Best regards.

Why, Yes, I AM A LIFE Scout

Scouts on the GRID.

<ed.note>Now, if someone would just tell the leadership of Girl Scouts of the United States of America that the best way for them to model best business practices for the girls is to use their e-commerce site to sell cookies instead of doodads...</ed.note>

Rex Brooks on Collaborative Expedition Workshop #62

<ed.note>Rex is ACTIVE in many healthcare IT related initiatives, one of which is the OASIS International Health Continuum Technical Committee. He posted the following summary in a recent listserv comment:</ed.note>

Hi Folks,

I've been attending and presenting at these collaboration workshops for five years now. The first presentation I gave was at #36. It seems unreal that this was #62.

Here's the url for the workshop yesterday. All of the presentations are downloadable.

Ian Ïoster's presentation on Service Oriented Science is really important for connecting the dots of how all this health-related activity can be pulled together and work together, enabling the kind of multiplier effect we are all hoping will lift Healthcare IT from the depths of paper-anchored catacombs.

Christopher Mackie's presentation on Cyberinfrastructure supports Ian's presentation on Service Oriented Science is particularly cogent in the context of not letting go of the tiger's tail. It's a very pragmatic approach to how to ensure that cyberinfrastructure, especially in academia remains strong after initial funding dwindles. It includes references to actual software development projects.

The Trans-Enterprise Service Grid presentation was given by David Ellis from Sandia Labs, with whom I work on a regular basis in the OASIS Emergency Management TC, and it highlights both the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) as a message payload, and the Emergency Data Exchange Language Distribution Element (EDXL-DE) for message routing. Since messaging is what makes web services work, whether using SOAP or REST, the concept of the Service Grid is what makes the Service Oriented (Architecture) Science and Health Grid mentioned in the other presentations work.

Michelle Warner's presentation on the Health Grid from the perspective of the National Governors Association is another dose of pragmatism. It is a wise inclusion, since the level of state cooperation basically dictates the actual viability of all national health initiatives.

Saul Rosenberg, whose presentation highlighted the concept of the Health Grid, is HQd across the SF Bay from me, and I think I will be working with him in an associated-follow-up project to support his registry-based PTSD/Head/Brain injury early diagnosis service. I met him through Marc Wine in the GSA Office of Intergovernmental Solutions.

This wiki page is a rich set of resources, especially down in the Resources Section toward the bottom of the page.

Cheers,

Rex Brooks
<rexb at starbourne.com> 
President, CEO
Starbourne Communications Design
GeoAddress: 1361-A Addison Berkeley, CA 94702
Tel: 510-898-0670

Managing Virtual Distance - Driving Business Transformation through Distributed Work, November 14-16, 2007

The Disneyland Hotel • Anaheim, CA

THE One, THE Only Conference Focused on Strategies, Teams, Tools & Beyond in the Virtual Workplace
ANNOUNCING INAUGURAL CONFERENCE ON MANAGING VIRTUAL DISTANCE

• IDENTIFY, MANAGE & MEASURE virtual distance
• Break through language barriers & manage MULTI-CULTURAL ENVIRONMENTS
• Harness virtual KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
• Believe the unbelievable & witness the power of VIRTUAL WORLDS technology
• Transform business norms & cause cultural shifts in the way people work through SOCIAL NETWORKING
• Implement new millennium strategies that change the way we think about INNOVATION in a corporate context
• Manage, Train & Measure Productivity of the REMOTE EMPLOYEE
• Identify SECURITY CHALLENGES introduced by the transition into Web 2.0 and Web 3.0

To Register:
E-mail register@iirusa.com
Call 888.670.8200
Fax 941.365.2507 
Visit http://www.iirusa.com/virtual

The New World of Work
Daniel W. Rasmus
Director of Information Work Vision – MICROSOFT

Virtual Distance Under High-Stress
Honorable Jerry MacArthur Hultin
President – POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY & FORMER UNDER SECRETARY OF THE U.S. NAVY

Global Projects vs. Traditional Projects
Karan Sorensen
Chief Information Officer – JOHNSON & JOHNSON PHARMACEUTICAL R&D

Legal Issues & IP Protection
Michael S. Mensik
Partner – BAKER & MCKENZIE

Virtual Worlds Technology
Philip Rosedale
Founder & CEO – LINDEN LABS

Secrets of High-Performance Distributed Teams
Cynthia C. Froggatt
Author of “Work Naked: Eight Essential Principles for Peak Performance in the Virtual Workplace”

Leadership in the Digital Age
Charles H. House
Executive Director – STANFORD UNIVERSITY, MEDIA X LAB

A Perspective From Corporate Resources
Ann Bamesberger
Vice President of Open Work Services – SUN MICROSYSTEMS

More here.

This Day in Connected Health

<ed.note>FasterCures SmartBrief pointed me here while Wireless Healthcare Weekly News pointed me here. This is, of course, serendipitous and synergistic given this, you know, if anyone in power pays attention.</ed.note>

Rural Chinese Doctors Use Video, Internet for Medical Training

ihealthbeat.org

Physicians in China's remote villages are being trained by Beijing-based Haoyisheng.com, a company that uses video classes to address the essentials of diagnosis and basic care, the Wall Street Journal reports.

LinkEHR

David Moner Cano announces:

Dear all,

Our Group of Biomedical Informatics (IBIME) at the Technical University of Valencia, Spain, has been working during the last years in the field of integration and standardization of clinical data for the construction of EHR systems. Our main project has been called LinkEHR, which is a prototype system for managing clinical data in the form of EHR Extracts, following a dual model approach.

This system is part of a coordinated project, together with the University of Murcia (Spain), called "Semantic Web Technologies-Based Platform for the Management of Standardized Electronic Health Records".

The main component of LinkEHR will be LinkEHR-Ed, an archetype editor with integration and standardization capabilities. Its objectives are:
   1. to develop archetypes trough a visual interface independent from any particular reference model and direct edition of ADL. It includes the capability of importing a new Reference Model expressed as an XML Schema in order to use it as the guide for development of new archetypes. It also includes the capability of semantic validation of the designed archetypes.
   2. to provide tools for the standardization of legacy clinical data by mapping an archetype structure to data sources containing non-standardized clinical data and automatically generation of queries to extract and transform that data in the form of XML EHR extracts compatible with the Reference Model XML-Schema.

Although our work is not yet finished, we have decided to announce the existence of a beta version of LinkEHR-Ed. It just covers point 1 of the objectives (the edition and validation of archetypes), since point 2 (mapping archetypes to clinical data sources) is now under visual interface development and testing and we have decided to hide its interface by the moment.

Some remarks:

• LinkEHR-Ed differs of current available archetype tools since it is a technical oriented editor and not a clinical point of view archetype editor.
• LinkEHR-Ed has already been tested with the OpenEHR reference model and the European CEN EN13606 reference model.
• LinkEHR-Ed is being developed in Java under the Eclipse Framework and it uses many components developed by ACode people. We expect to make its source code public by the end of the project, the last quarter of this year.

You can find more info and download the beta version of LinkEHR-Ed at http://pangea.upv.es/linkehr

Direct link for download: http://pangea.upv.es/linkehr/?page_id=10

PDF documentation: http://pangea.upv.es/linkehr/?page_id=9

All comments will be appreciated.

Best regards,

--
David Moner Cano
Grupo de Informática Biomédica - IBIME
Instituto ITACA
http://www.ibime.upv.es

Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (UPV)
Camino de Vera, s/n, Edificio G-8, Acceso 3, 3ª planta
Valencia – 46022 (España)

Jose Lacal's Published Telehealth Works

<ed.note>If you are interested in cutting edge eHealth news subscribe to JC's "Seamless Health" Newsletter - contact info at http://lacal.net. Also see http://www.IEEE2407.org</ed.note>

Lacal, J.C., 'Cell Phones and Tele-Medicine,' Proceedings of Healthcom 2003, the Fifth International Workshop on Enterprise Networking and Computing in Healthcare Industry; Santa Monica, California June 2003 here.

Istepanian R. S. H. and Lacal, J 'Emerging Mobile Communication Technologies for Health: Some Imperative notes on m-health.' Proceedings of The 25th Silver Anniversary International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society; Cancun, Mexico September 2003 here.

Lacal, Jose C.; "Proposed Framework to Measure the ROI of Mobile Tele-Health Solutions in the Management of Chronic Diseases." Proceedings of The 26th International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society; San Francisco, September 2004 here.

Kemper, S, & Lacal, J. C. (2004). Addressing the communication needs of an aging society. In National Research Council, Technology for Adaptive Aging: Workshop report and papers. Steering Committee for the Workshop on Technology for Adaptive Aging. Richard Pew and Susan Van Hemel, editors. Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington DC: The National Academies Press, here. The chapter he contributed to. The section he wrote beginning at the "Technology to Empower Older Adults" heading.

EUROREC Institute

The EUROREC Institute (EuroRec) is an independent not-for-profit organisation, promoting in Europe the use of high quality Electronic Health Record systems (EHRs). One of its main missions is to support, as the European authorised certification body, EHRs certification development, testing and assessment by defining functional and other criteria. EuroRec is organised as a permanent network of National ProRec centres and provides service to industry (the developers and vendors), healthcare providers (the buyers), policy makers and patients.

Call for the eHealth Book Chapters - "Biomedical Knowledge Management: Infrastructures and Processes for E-Health Systems"

Posted at eHealth News EU

Submission Deadline: September 15, 2007
"Biomedical Knowledge Management: Infrastructures and Processes for E-Health Systems"

A book edited by
Wayne Pease, University of Southern Queensland, Australia,
Prof. Malcolm Cooper, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Japan, and Assoc. Professor Raj Gururajan, University of Southern Queensland, Australia.

E-Health describes the application of information and communications technologies (ICT) across the whole range of functions that affect the health sector, from the doctor to the hospital manager, via nurses, data processing specialists, social security administrators and - of course - the patients. E-Health is one of the most rapidly growing areas in health today. However, limited systematic research has been carried out to inform e-Health policy and practice. The internet and other developments in e-Health are playing increasing roles in consumer health behaviour, and in the delivery of health services.

Overall objectives and mission of the book
Key challenges facing healthcare providers today include an aging population, demanding patients, medical errors, lack of access to systematic knowledge bases including measuring health outcomes, and rising costs of health care. These challenges will be addressed by the contents of this book. Our book is an in-depth examination of e-Health from a theoretical as well as a practical viewpoint, in an edited paper format (8000-10000 words). The objective of the edited book is to look at the current state of play in terms of e-Health research and development of innovative ICT systems and services that process, integrate and use all relevant biomedical information for improving health knowledge. An examination of e-Health will also shed light on the rise of the Asia Pacific region as a prominent growth area in the use of ICT in the delivery of health services. The book will be written with a higher level academic readership in mind, while also being targeted at those who in some way or another are engaged in the study of ICT solutions to industrial and social problems with respect to health care delivery in the developing world.

Recommended topics include, but are not limited to the following:

• General overview of eHealth in the 21st Century
• General overview of the ICT environment for eHealth
• Role of ICT as an enabler for healthcare outcomes
• Improving the quality of healthcare services using ICT technologies
• Streamlining multi-disciplinary and multi-level care management
• Improving clinical and administrative efficiency including clinical governance
• Developing knowledge bases for health care systems
• Meeting training needs for health professionals using ICT technologies
• Maintaining high standards of patient privacy and information security
• User friendliness and community involvement in eHealth systems and services.
• Legal, ethical and regulatory issues
• Education issues - e-health involves new forms of patient-physician interaction
• New relationships between health professionals and their patients – patient centric
• Electronic medical records (EMR) and integrated health platforms
• Extending the scope of health care beyond its conventional boundaries
• New Frontiers for ICT and health care management
• Empowerment of consumers and patients
• Equity and e-health - to make health care more equitable is one of the promises of e-health, but at the same time there is a considerable threat that e-health may deepen the gap between the "haves" and "have-nots" – the digital divide
• Development and implementation of electronic healthcare information standards for data exchange for use in health informatics e.g. HIPPA, HL7 and DICOM
• Role of electronic healthcare standards in health informatics
• Data standards for the distribution of meaningful data in health informatics e.g. controlled medical vocabularies (CMVs) such as the Standardized Nomenclature of Medicine, Clinical Terms (SNOMED-CT)
• Decision support systems in healthcare, including clinical decision support systems

Target Audience
This book is intended to support both researchers in health information systems and health practitioners who are concerned with the successful design and implementation of health information systems. In addition the book will serve as a critical reference resource for various governmental and non-governmental circles concerned with health service delivery activities, directly and indirectly.

Submission Procedure
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before September 15, 2007, a 2-5 page manuscript proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of the proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by October 15, 2007 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter organizational guidelines. Full chapters (8000-10000 words) are expected to be submitted by January 31, 2008. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. The book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), www.igi-pub.com, and has been selected for inclusion in IGI Global's most prestigious imprint, Information Science Reference – ISR, as one of its Handbooks of Research. This highly-acclaimed line of publications includes only the most advanced, comprehensive research titles published by ISR.

Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document) or by mail to:
Wayne Pease
Associate Dean (Fraser Coast)
Faculty of Business
Fraser Coast Campus
University of Southern Queensland
PO Box 910
Hervey Bay, Queensland
Australia 4655
Tel.: +61 (0)7 41206123
Fax: +61 (0)7 41206168
E-mail: pease@usq.edu.au This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Google Virtual Pharmacy Benefits Management company???

<ed.note>I've been browsing the buzz about the announcement at Google's Blog ( nothing at Google's Health Advertising Blog ) and the speculation that Google will acquire an electronic medical record vendor/technology. To me, though, it has seemed for a while that Google wouldn't care how revolutionary the emr is as much as whether they can tie ad space to the health conditions described within the emrs so that folks will be able to voluntarily offer up deidentified phi in trade for the discounts provided by being a member of a virtual near real-time Pharmacy Benefits Management company. We'll wait and see...</ed.note>

Listen: The Blog and its Growing Impact on Healthcare

Corey Christman, for HealthLeaders News, Jul 02, 2007

Tony Chen, director of new business development at Evanston (IL) Northwestern Healthcare, talks about the evolution and benefits of the healthcare blogosphere. (Listen to the interview now.) He was interviewed by Corey Christman, editor with HealthLeaders Media.

Wireless Healthcare News on EDventures’ Adventures In Healthcare

<ed.note>The Apple iPhone, RIM's Curve, Nokia's N Series, Samsung's offerings, etc. not to mention Axiotron's ModBook and Motion Computing et al's tablets are poised to take advantage of electronic personal healthcare records. And medical banking is building out the real time payment possibilities. Ask your provider if they can provide point of service pricing if you offer to pay from your healthcare savings account. If s/he says "No" ask her/him why. There is a LinkedIn.com group which focuses on open healthcare - http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/3102/63B2164D6495 and another on wireless - https://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/2312/1D90E714F553/</ed.note>

28th June 2007 wirelesshealthcare.co.uk

Is the ehealth sector about to get the Dot Com treatment? Certainly EDventures, Esther Dyson’s investment vehicle, has been putting a lot of effort, and a substantial amount of money, into online healthcare companies recently. EDventures has been active in the high technology sector for twenty years and is currently involved with Voxiva and 23andme. Until February this year it was also part owner of Medstory, which is now part of Microsoft’s Health Solutions Group. A closer look at some of these companies may provide an insight into the direction the ehealth market is moving.

U.S. National Health Information Network (NHIN) and Open Source Health Information Exchange (HIE) Solutions

<ed.note>I saw this article via Roger A. Maduro's June/July 2007 issue of VistA® & Open Healthcare News.</ed.note>

By Douglas Goldstein and Peter Groen, Virtual Medical Worlds

In the United States, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) and the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS) have clearly stated that the long-range strategy for a National Health Information Infrastructure (NHII) requires a national health information network (NHIN) that can provide low-cost, secure data movement. They have stated that an NHIN is needed, along with a public-private oversight or management funct