Conmergence

5th International Digital Curation Conference "Moving to Multi-Scale Science: Managing Complexity and Diversity" Call for Papers

We invite submission of full papers, posters, workshops and demos and welcome contributions and participation from individuals, organisations and institutions across all disciplines and domains that are engaged in the creation, use and management of digital data, especially those involved in the challenge of curating data for e-science and e-research.

Proposals will be considered for short (up to 6 pages) or long (up to 12 pages) papers and also for demonstrations, workshops and posters. The full text of papers will be peer-reviewed; abstracts for all posters, workshops and demos will be reviewed by the co-chairs. Final copy of accepted contributions will be made available to conference delegates, and papers will be published in our International Journal of Digital Curation. Accordingly, we recommend that you download our template and read the advice on its use.

Papers should be original and innovative, probably analytical in approach, and should present or reference significant evidence (whether experimental, observational or textual) to support their conclusions.

Subject matter could be policy, strategic, operational, experimental, infrastructural, tool-based, and so on, in nature, but the key elements are originality and evidence. Layout and structure should be appropriate for the disciplinary area. Papers should not have been published in their current or a very similar form before, other than as a pre-print in a repository.

We seek papers that respond to the main themes of the conference: multi-scale, multi-discipline, multi-skill and multi-sector, and that relate to the creation, curation, management and re-use of research data. Research data should be interpreted broadly to include the digital subjects of all types of research and scholarship (including Arts and Humanities, and all the Sciences). Papers may cover:

• Curation practice and data management at the extremes of scale (e.g. interactions between small science and big science, or extremes of object size, numbers of objects, rates of deposit and use)
• Challenging content: (e.g. addressing issues of data complexity, diversity and granularity)
• Curation and e-research, including contextual, provenance, authenticity and other metadata for curation (e.g. automated systems for acquiring such metadata)
• Research data infrastructures, including data repositories and services
• Disciplinary and inter-disciplinary curation challenges and data management approaches, standards and norms
• Promoting, enabling, demonstrating and characterizing the re-use of data
• Semantically rich documents (e.g. the “well-supported article”)
• The human infrastructure for curation (e.g. skills, careers, training and organisational support structures, careers, skills, training and curriculum)
• Curation across academia, government, commerce and industry
• Legal and policy issues; Creative Commons, special licences, the public domain and other approaches for re-use, and questions of privacy, consent, and embargo
• Sustainability and economics: understanding business and financial models; balancing costs, benefits and value of digital curation

Important Dates

• Submission of papers for peer-review: 24 July 2009
• Submission of abstracts posters/demos/workshops: 24 July 2009
• Notification of authors of papers: 18 September 2009
• Notification of authors of posters/demos/workshops: 2 October 2009
• Final papers deadline: 13 November 2009
• Final posters deadline: 13 November 2009

Summit at Stanford Co-Presented by AlwaysOn and Stanford Technology Ventures Program

July 28th-30th, 2009, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA

What's New with Summit at Stanford on 6/1:

The Era of Banner Ads may be fading, but the Gold Rush to online advertising is far from over. New winners in this race emerge daily, and we're thrilled to welcome innovators to our stage at Summit at Stanford 2009 for the conversation: "Is the Internet optimizing Madison Avenue out of business—or enabling a revolution?"

Founding chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Archer advisory-group founder Rich LeFurgy will moderate. Quantcast CEO Konrad Feldman, the Rubicon Project CEO Frank Addante, Omniture CEO Josh James, and OMD's Chief Digital Officer Jon Raj will offer high-level viewpoints.

How are ad buyers of Madison Avenue transforming their patterns for the online audience? Which digital tools will enable massive returns?

This is a debate entrepreneurs and investors won't want to miss. Forget soundbytes and get ready for real ROI-driven debate.

Event Countdown: Only nine weeks to go! Click here to register and take advantage of the exclusive 33% discount we have reserved for you before it expires!

If you do not want to pay online or want to inquire about group rates, please contact John Schwartz (john@alwayson-network.com or 310.721.9451), who can also help you secure spots for you and your associates at the lowest possible price.

Summit at Stanford 2009 Program and Invited Speakers

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Opening Remarks
•  Tony Perkins, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, AlwaysOn
•  Tina Seelig, Executive Director, Stanford Technology Ventures Program
•  Arden Pennell, Program Director, Summit at Stanford, AlwaysOn

Introducing the AO Global 250
•  Tony Perkins, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, AlwaysOn
•  Packy Kelly, Partner, KPMG

Fireside Chat: How High-Tech Can Save CA

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Technology Thought Leader Keynote
•  Bill Gurley, General Partner, Benchmark Capital

OnDemand Video Has Arrived; Who Profits?

Keynote: The Global Mobile Race–When Will the U.S. Catch Up? How Can
Investors Cash In?
•  Paul Jacobs, CEO, Qualcomm

Who's Making Money in Mobile?
With the increasing sophistication and stickiness of mobile devices, big money has been predicted for years. Which business models are working and how?
•  Bart Decrem, CEO, Tapulous
•  Simon Khalaf, CEO, Flurry
•  Matt Murphy, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Top Women in Technology: Success Stories and Hard-Nosed Advice

The Rainmakers in Cloud Computing
What opportunities are enabled by "the cloud" and will tech giants or startups leverage them best? Who's creating the most value for investors?
•  Monica Lam, Co-Founder & Chief Scientist, MokaFive
•  Chip Hazard, General Partner, Flybridge Capital Partners

Where's the Short-Term Green in Green?
Which investments avoid long-term reliance on technology and marketplace evolution to be capital-efficient now?
Moderator: Awais Khan, Director, Venture Capital Practice, KPMG
•  Jennifer Fonstad, Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson

Bioterrorism and Defense: A View of the Future in Technology
•  Dr. George Poste, Director, Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University; Fellow,
   Hoover Institution and Member, Council for Foreign Relations

SaaS Goes Open Source
Moderator: Matt Asay, VP Business Development, Alfresco & Blogger, CNET
•  Ron Yekutiel, CEO, Kaltura
•  Satish Dharmaraj, Partner, Redpoint Ventures, Founder & Former CEO, Zimbra

The New Sages of Sand Hill Road
Venture capitalists who understand social media consumption and the millenial generation talk about top opportunities going forward.
Moderator: Packy Kelly, Partner, KPMG
•  Josh Hannah, General Partner, Matrix Partners
•  Jeremy Liew, Managing Director, Lightspeed Venture Partners
•  James Slavet, Partner, Greylock Partners
•  Tim Chang, Principal, Norwest Venture Partners

The Reporter's Demise Has Been Greatly Exaggerated
What will emerge from the ashes as big media transforms itself? Cross-platform, local, and social have been touted as saviors—where's the opportunity?
Moderator: Jason Pontin, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher, Technology Review
•  David Smith, Founder & CEO, Mediasmith

Thursday, July 30, 2009

VC Survey results and VC Video
•  Packy Kelly, Partner, KPMG

Angel Investing Success Stories
•  Ron Conway, Founder, Angel Investors LP
•  Rob Hayes, Partner, First Round Capital

Liquidity in the Innovation Economy in 2009 and Beyond
Are IPOs set for an uptick? What will the technology investment bank look like post-meltdown?
•  Jason Hutchinson, Managing Director, Houlihan Lokey

VC in DC
How can government policy help the private-company ecosystem? Can VCs and entrepreneurs tap into Obama's stimulus dollars? Should DC be playing VC?
•  Nancy Pfund, Managing Partner, DBL Investors
•  Joe Kennedy, CEO, Pandora

Is the Internet Optimizing Madison Avenue Out of Business?
As online advertising continues to ramp up, who will grab consumer eyeballs going forward, and how will the behavior of media buyers evolve?
Moderator: Rich LeFurgy, Founding Chairman, IAB & General Partner, Archer
•  Konrad Feldman, CEO, Quantcast
•  Frank Addante, CEO, the Rubicon Project
•  Josh James, Co-founder & CEO, Omniture
•  Jon Raj, Chief Digital Officer, OMD

Silicon Valley in the New Millennium
Geek chiefs of the old guard lay out the new software and computing agenda.
•  Tom Malloy, Chief Software Architect, Adobe

Is Education Finally a High-Growth Opportunity for Entrepreneurs?
How can high-tech enhance .edu? Is the innovation ecosystem ripe for edtech profits?
Moderator: Deborah Quazzo, Co-founder, NeXtGlobal Advisors
•  Mark Atkinson, CEO, Teachscape
•  Ntiedo Etuk, CEO, Tabula Digita
•  Bruce Kingma, Associate Provost for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Syracuse University
•  James Shelton, Advisor to US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Former
   Program Director, Gates Foundation

Beyond Facebook and Twitter: The Social-Media Future
As social-media functions spread beyond dedicated platforms to a variety of digital services, how will they impact lives, businesses, and Web browsing?
•  Max Ventilla, Co-founder and CEO, Aardvark

Please feel free to suggest speakers or provide program input by contacting Arden at arden@alwayson-network.com.

Internet 2 Member Meeting April-29, 2009 Netcast Information

Internet2 uses our meetings to showcase advanced networking video streaming technologies. Below are links to generally available streams, and streams that require high-performance networks. Please visit the downloads section before the event to test your network's streaming capabilities.

Note: Multicast works only if your network supports multicast. For more information about multicast, visit the Internet2 Multicast Working Group. Multicast detection tools include the Internet2 Detective and the Multicast Technologies tester.

For netcast support email: netcastsupport@internet2.edu

Tuesday	Session Title	Live Streams	Video On Demand
8:45 AM - 10:00 AM	Campus Cyberinfrastructure
8:45 AM - 10:00 AM	Regional and State Networks: Poised to Face Economic Challenges
10:30 AM - 11:45 AM	General Session
1:15 PM - 2:30 PM	Challenges and Successes for US Campuses Overseas
1:15 PM - 2:30 PM	Information Security Tools: Salsa and REN-ISAC Updates
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM	The MACE Program
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM	Stimulating Big Broadband Deployment
4:30 PM - 5:30 PM	NSF Office of Cyberinfrastructure Update
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM	Telepresence Perspectives and Interoperability
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM	Internet2 Network Members and Connectors BoF
Wednesday	Session Title	Live Streams	Video On Demand
8:45 AM - 10:00 AM	Digital Humanities Initiatives and Internet2: A National Dialogue
8:45 AM - 10:00 AM	Emerging StateNets Issues Associated with CI and the 3-Tier Networking Model
10:30 AM - 11:45 AM	General Session
1:15 PM - 2:30 PM	Green: Start with the End in Mind? Three Views to Solve Parts of the Problem
1:15 PM - 2:30 PM	R&E Network Models: Using Lessons Learned and Creative Solutions to Address Challenges
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM	Advanced Information Technology at the Department of Veteran Affairs
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM	Future of InCommon and US Federations

Fred Trotter Announces FOSS Healthcare Conference, July 31st to August 2, Houston, TX

The local FOSS revolutionaries in Houston, TX have decided that it is time to restart hosting a conference/unconference focused exclusively on FOSS in healthcare. DOHCS ( http://www.dohcs.org/ ) is awesome, but there is only so much that you can accomplish in a single day. We also feel that Californians should not be the only ones having all the fun. So I am happy to announce the FOSS Healthcare conference. http://fosshealth.eventbrite.com/

The conference will be held here in Houston, TX the weekend of July 31st to August 2. We are trying to coordinate to have the WorldVistA conference at the same time/location, but for now that is up in the air.

Early bird registration is really, really cheap. This is very intentional. I know that budgets are tight and travel is often the first thing to go. We are making early bird registration cheap enough that you might be able to fund the trip out-of-pocket if you are an individual contributor to a particular project. We also have limited "spare room" availability so if you want to go, but cannot afford a hotel, contact me offline ASAP. If I get an overwhelming response to this, I may need to change to bigger facilities. So really cheap early-bird registration has the added benefit of giving me a good early head count. Early-bird registration is just $60 bucks. You can SAVE TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS if you register early!

I have invited every project that I could think of, but I know for a fact that FOSS in healthcare is much bigger than my meager contact list. If you work with or know of an open source project with serious impact in healthcare that might like to attend/present, please forward them this invitation! Here are the rules for project invitations:

• You have to be actually using the software live to be considered for a project invitation. No disrespect to alpha projects, but our resources are limited and we have to favor mature projects.


• Project leaders can get two free tickets to the conference, one for a guest and one for a speaker. The speaker should be ready to give a 10 minute summary talk on your project.


• Please advertise this talk now on your own forums. The early-bird pricing, specifically for community members is only good for about a month.

I have already gotten commitments to speak from people that I consider to be some of the top minds in FOSS healthcare. I can guarantee that if you are a Medical or IT professional you will get good talks on software that can make a difference in your world today. I am doing everything that I can think of to ensure that different projects will be able to cross-pollinate and grow.

If you are not sure if you can go... it is worth $60 to reserve a spot... sign up today!

Continua Health Alliance Announces the formal release of its Version One Design Guidelines

After two years of work from more than 175 companies around the world, Continua Health Alliance is proud to announce the formal release of its Version One Design Guidelines and the Continua Certification Program. These guidelines encompass connectivity for vital sign devices (pulse oximeter, blood pressure cuff, thermometer, weight scale, glucose meter), cardiovascular fitness equipment and independent living activity monitors.

“I’m proud to welcome the first Continua Certified product to the global marketplace from industry leader and Continua Promoter member Nonin Medical, Inc.,” said David Whitlinger, Continua Health Alliance President. “Nonin Medical’s engineers have worked diligently with other telehealth leaders in the alliance to produce the Continua Version One Guidelines, with the goal of building Continua’s vision for interoperable and personal healthcare.”

In addition to the Continua Version One Design Guidelines, Continua also provides its members with a large library of reference software that represent all of the connectivity interfaces in Version One. The Continua Enabling Source Code Library (CESL) represents an investment of nearly $1 million to accelerate member companies’ product development.

These accomplishments come at a time of high momentum for Continua, as the alliance prepares to welcome hundreds of its members to its upcoming international summits in Tokyo and Barcelona. Held across the world, these summits give Continua members the opportunity to network during face-to-face working group meetings. These events also include keynotes delivered by industry thought leaders, product demos, networking activities, and updates on recent accomplishments and roadmaps.

8th Annual Fiber to the Home Conference Call for Papers - September 27-October 1, 2009, Houston, TX

Lake Oswego, OR - February 9, 2009. The Fiber to the Home (FTTH) Council has issued a Call for Papers for its 8th annual conference to be held from September 27-October 1, 2009 in Houston, TX.  The 2009 FTTH Conference & Expo is the only gathering of its kind dedicated to the advancement and deployment of FTTH technologies and benefits. This year's theme, Building the Business of FTTH, will bring leaders, visionaries and decision makers to the Hilton Americas-Houston and the George R Brown Convention Center to share success stories and lessons learned about the business elements needed to generate revenue with FTTH.

With considerable investments in fiber to the home deployment, the pressure is on for operators to add subscribers and to generate revenue from the subscribers they serve. The stakes are high and so are the expectations. The 2009 program will offer attendees an overview of best business practices for advancing of high speed broadband over fiber optic networks.

The FTTH Council is seeking papers in the following target areas:

Conference Tracks

1.    Building FTTH Revenues: Explain how to build the top line as an FTTH service provider. Describe your marketing and service packages and how they attracted subscribers.  Provide an overview of the video content and internet packages that were considered and selected, and how to increase market share away from the competition. Experience-based service provider submissions are requested.

2.    Success Stories: Share your experiences as a provider of FTTH services to help others build successful FTTH based businesses. Explain the benefits realized from linking your customers and community to FTTH, to better quality of life and prosperity.  Experience-based service provider submissions will be given first consideration.

3.    New Technology: Educate prospective and practicing network builders on new technologies that enable profitable FTTH services. Target topics include MDU technologies, in-home connectivity, video and IP video, green benefits, and new electronic and optical systems. Special consideration will be given to system-level papers that help decision-makers improve the business case for FTTH.

4.    Advanced Network Design, Construction and Management: Explain innovations in efficient network design, construction, installation and testing. Describe new options for efficient management of the network and subscribers. Target topics include network design cost modeling, construction techniques and equipment, testing and tools for managing subscribers.

5.    Finance and Regulatory:  Elucidate the new funding and financing options available, and teach how to access capital.   Explain how to navigate through the application process to reach government loans and grants. Clarify the latest regulatory changes and implications to FTTH service providers.

Abstract Guidelines

Abstracts should be a maximum of 500 words, without pictures, and must be commercial free. The abstract should describe the primary conclusion or results of the paper including pertinent details of the work indicating the significant findings. Learner outcomes must be included. Papers must contain significant new material not presented or published previously.  Papers may range from introductory to advanced, but bear in mind that your audience may be just getting started in this field. As such, "FTTH 101" papers will also be considered within each category.*

NEW for our 2009 Program...we will be offering a few repeated track sessions in Spanish.  As a perspective speaker, you may wish to indicate that you wish to repeat your presentation in Spanish during the online submission process.

For complete information on deadlines and submission guidelines, please visit www.ftthconference.com...Become a Speaker. 

*FTTH 101 Papers do not need to meet the new or unpublished requirement.

About the Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Council

The Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) Council is a non-profit association consisting of companies and organizations that deliver video, Internet and/or voice services over high-bandwidth, next-generation, direct fiber optic connections - as well as those involved in planning and building FTTH networks.  The Council works to create a cohesive group to share knowledge and build industry consensus on key issues surrounding fiber to the home. Communities and organizations interested in exploring FTTH options may find information on the FTTH Council web site at www.ftthcouncil.org.

About Legend Conference Planning

Legend Conference Planning is the official project management and event planning firm for the 2009 FTTH Conference & Expo and the FTTH Council Secretariat. For further information, email at info@legendconferences.com.

Contact:
Speaker Liaison, Jennifer Cakir
Legend Conference Planning
Tel: 613-226-9988 x4
Email: speakerliaison@legendconferences.com

 

3rd Annual Demonstrating Open-Source Health Care Solutions, February 20th

Los Angeles Westin LAX (Don’t forget to also check out the SCALE Open Source conference taking place the 21st and 22nd)

Time	Presentation	Speaker(s)
9:00-9:30 AM	Event Check-in & Registration Open
9:30-10:30 AM	Industry Leaders Take on Open Source Healthcare Panel Discussion	Akaza Research (OpenClinica), ClearHealth (ClearHealth & WebVista) , Medsphere (OpenVista), WebReach (Mirth)
10:30-11:30 AM	The Health of the Source A completed roundup of 2008 Open Source Healthcare projects and people.	Fred Trotter
11:30-12:30	The promise and limitation of health information technology in national health reform. Health information technology is often considered the critical component needed to fix the American health care system. While it’s role in supporting clinical decision making, efficient service delivery and the provision of safe, high-quality care are important, more fundamental shifts are required to transform the US health care system.	Jonah Frohlich, Senior Program Officer, California Health Care Foundation
12:30-1:30 PM	Lunch Break
1:30-2:30 PM	Open Source Odyssey for Sharing Medical Records concepts and lessons learned. An Overview of the 50 site Montgomery County Maryland/Primary Care Coalition CHLCare (ClearHealth) system providing practice management, electronic medical records and health information exchange.	Guy Fisher, WESP Consulting LLC
2:30-3:30 PM	A Practical Application of Open Source Strategies in a Not-So-Conventional Health Care Company A presentation on the the four critical components for consideration in the framing of an Open Source strategy and what must be considered in the creation of an Open Source strategy in a traditionally closed source health care company.	Timothy Elwell & Alesha Adamson of Misys
3:30-4:30 PM	It’s all about the Community Evidencing the important roles domain experts have in an open source healthcare and life science project.	Neil Cowles of Tolven Health
4:30-5:30 PM	Security and Health Care Security common sense and securing VistA and other health care systems.	Jon Tai of MedSphere and K.S. Bhaskar of Fidelity Information Services

Ignacio Valdes thread from the American Medical Informatics Association Open Source Working Group Listserv on Healthcare under the Obama Framework

<ed.note>Ignacio edits LinuxMedNews.com, where he is also posting on this meme.</ed.note>

'Rockefeller Amendment' for Studying Open Source in Stimulus Bill

About page 701 of the
http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/leg/LEG%202009/020209%20complete%20legislative%20text%20of%20American%20Recovery%20and%20Reinvestment%20Act.pdf
stimulus bill  is a provision for studying Open Source: "...(A) the
current availability of open source
6 health information technology systems to Fed
7 eral safety net providers (including small, rural
8 providers);
9 (B) the total cost of ownership of such sys
10 tems in comparison to the cost of proprietary
11 commercial products available;
12 (C) the ability of such systems to respond
13 to the needs of, and be applied to, various pop
14 ulations (including children and disabled indi
15 viduals); and
16 (D) the capacity of such systems to facili
17 tate interoperability...'

# # # #

Brief Analysis: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

After reading the parts of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
of 2009 that relate to health IT, here are my conclusions: 1) More of
the same. The current plans and all the same players for Health IT as
before only now there is a lot more money involved and a brief time to
accomplish all of this in terms of health care time: 2014. 2) A
chicken in every pot approach, everyone gets money: education, Health
IT schools, some physicians get money for implementation on a
descending rate. Some talk of free/open source but the usual political
favorites AHIC, etc. are all still there as well only they get a lot
more money now. 3) No clear plan as to how to do all this. No clear
plan for dealing with issues such as 20 year veteran clinicians and
nurses with no computer experience. No plan for enabling the
proliferation of innovative software with existing systems. No penalty
or plans for dealing with proprietary software stonewalling.

Complete brief article: http://linuxmednews.com/1234372142/index_html

# # # #

Brief Analysis: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of2009

Well, I didn't want to say some of the things that are in the HIMSS
analysis, especially given the near silence of AMIA on any of this. I
cannot argue with its conclusions. The ARRA of 2009 appears designed
to remove competition, unfortunately all competition, even healthy
competition except for a select few who will form a cartel or a
monopoly. It looks as though legalized robbery and absolute control of
medical data at great expense by a few wealthy corporations may be at
hand. I will not be surprised when doctor and personnel scapegoating
will begin when much of this doesn't work very well and billions have
been spent. Then comes the criminal penalties for non-use of CCHIT
certified systems. If all this occurs, then goodbye privacy, goodbye
rapid innovation, and the traditional role of physicians as custodians
of medical data. That nearly everyone except a select few were shut
out of the debate on this in Congress and how quickly it has been done
so that organizations like AMIA can only stand by in stunned silence
speaks volumes.

>From the HIMSS analysis:
"e)    The shrinking number of vendors that are capable of meeting CCHIT
certification exposes a fundamental flaw in its current organizational
structure - CCHIT is funded by the very vendors it certifies. In order
for it to maintain revenue, it needs to provide a reason for vendors
to continue to either:
i)    re-certify on a regular basis
ii)    apply for new certifications
The problem with this model is that, in order to justify ongoing
re-certification, CCHIT must continue to add new certification
requirements year-to-year. The driver for more requirements is not
necessarily the needs of customers or the best interest of the
healthcare system, but the need to have new requirements against which
to certify vendors. This is illustrated by the fact that CCHIT has
recently reduced the length of the certification from three to two
years, and is adding numerous supplemental certifications in areas
like child health, cardiovascular, etc. There is no end to the number
of requirements to which this could lead, but there is no evidence it
will serve anyone well in the long run, other than the few large
vendors with the resources to keep up with this process, and CCHIT
itself.
f)    Although in theory vendors can apply jointly for CCHIT
certification, in practice the monolithic certification process will
limit the ability for vendors to provide component solutions from
which customers can choose to create best-of-breed, low cost solutions
that best fit their needs. For instance, in the ambulatory arena, this
might typically be a combination of Practice Management, EMR and
e-Prescribing solutions.
g)    Certification of Practice Management systems in other markets
(e.g., UK) has arguably reduced innovation and investment, increased
the total cost of ownership and consolidated the market to such a
point that there is limited choice and the barrier to entry for new
entrants into the marketplace is unaffordable."

-- IV

# # # #

Brief Analysis: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of2009

Item 3 pretty much says it all: "CCHIT works to the benefit of a small
number of large EMR vendors that can command a high price from the
relatively small segment of the market able to currently afford their
products. It is essentially anti-competitive, and establishes a major
barrier to entry by new vendors and open source projects (where the
majority of innovation will take place)."

-- IV

# # # #

For the record, I am not anti-corporation, anti-big corporation,
anti-business or anti-government. I am for real solutions that will
solve these problems with fairness, and without needless, massive
expense, disenfranchisement, or loss of rights. I agree that there are
massive opportunities, but it looks like the federal government has
already essentially picked who gets the massive opportunities, who
gets crumbs and who gets nothing. That specifically appears to be the
incumbents who get the massive opportunities. That there is little
public rhetoric or any meaningful public vote or say at all on such
massive unfocused Health IT spending bill, good or bad on this is
concerning to me. Three to five billion dollars were floated around in
very recent years for doing this and it was considered a
insurmountably large sum of money to spend by the government. It is
now a fait accompli that we will quadruple that and this is being done
with little or no public discussion vote or consent on a crash basis
with little in the way of guaranteed or even reasonably researched
results. The bill is very vague or things not addressed at all for
solving difficult, crucial problems that I see on a daily basis in the
trenches. Who is driving the language in the bill? I do not know. I
can only conclude that large health IT corporations with lobbyists or
'board members' are driving it by its language. Physicians, patients
and small innovative companies like Webreach that have done wonderful
things for interoperability without any federal money appear to be
utterly disenfranchised in all of this.  The historic propensity of
the US to form expensive corporate cartels whether they are needed or
not and that become government favorites is of great concern as well
as this being HMO's all over again? I can easily see a massive
bureaucracy accomplish very little, then throw this into the hands of
the 'savior' large corporations. It has happened many times before.

Someone else said that this is a "Hurry up and pass this before things
get better on their own" bill.

-- IV

# # # #

Links to: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 text.

Original Link: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bi...
TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/h1as2-pdf

I'm not sure that this will be the final. I am told that the final
will be out possibly Friday.

-- IV

# # # #

Links to: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 text.

The health IT stuff begins about page 230.

Page 249:

''(iii) The utilization of a certified electronic health record for
each person in the United States by 2014."

This is a extraordinarily provocative clause with very large
ramifications. That means that essentially the US government has just
taken over Health IT and is now in complete control. As I understand
it, it means that if an entity cannot pony up $70K every 2 years to be
re-certified until everyone that cannot do this is driven out of
business. That means the only ones that can survive this are the
Epic's and the Cerner's. Along with the reporting requirements, your
privacy and your records especially in a proprietary system is now in
the hands of both a large corporation and subject to what a large
government bureaucracy thinks is the definition of your medical
privacy. Joy.

Comfortable? I am VERY uncomfortable with this. This appears to be a
very invasive action by the federal government that, by the way, you
must have permission to sue.

-- IV

# # # #

Links to: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 text.

Page 252:

''(x) Any other technology that the HIT Policy Committee finds to be
among the technologies with the greatest potential to improve the
quality and efficiency of health care."

Hmmm, how is that going to work?

Next, check out Page 253 on what the Policy Committee is composed of.
I will describe it only in one word: vast.

-- IV

# # # #

Links to: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 text.

I will close with apologies to Arthur C. Clark when I say:

I for one welcome our multi-billion dollar spending, bureaucratic,
vast policy committee, cartel favoring, certification-wielding
overlords.

-- IV

# # # #

Links to: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 text.

That is: Original Link:
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h1as2.txt.pdf

# # # #

Links to: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 text.

Others have pointed out that the certification is now no longer CCHIT
that it is in flux with NIST and somewhat unclear if that will be son
of CCHIT or what? The Free Medical Software Foundation (501c3 pending)
director Fred Trotter has discussed with me the possibility of it
having its own certification for F/OSS systems.

A Canadian friend has said: "...we are setting up some group therapy
clinics for American socialism-dodgers in Niagara Falls...probably one
of the casinos... we will accept American dollars and any rounding
errors from your multi-billion dollar socialist makeover." I replied
that I'm in as long as it uses standards-based slot machines that pay
double whenever government committee meetings run overtime.

-- IV

# # # #

How is the US Experience Going to be Different than the UK?

A little food for thought on how the British are doing with their
multi-billion effort:

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/01/27/234448/public-accounts-committee-criticises-npfit.htm

Venture Nashville: Bart Gordon announces Sci-Tech priorities

I replied at the DNJ link saying (after seeing the Venture Nashville blog post):

One thing we need to consider is making a Results-Only Work Environment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROWE ; http://www.culturerx.com ; http://caliandjody.com/blog ) the DEFAULT work condition in both schools and businesses. One should have to make a business case for being required to "drive into work". With so much employment moving toward knowledge work, the costs of not promoting telecommuting (Net-Working) have not been studied by area CEOs and they would be astounded how much money they are wasting on real estate, etc.; costs which were necessary in 1980 -- but not today. That is not to say that their competitors are also wasting these resources unnecessarily -- think about why cloud computing and virtualization have been in the IT press lately. ROWEs are not a panacea -- but definitely an option that very rarely shows up on the C-Suite table.

What think ye?

Two Million Minutes: A Global Examination, Robert Compton on C-SPAN

<ed.note>Note: 1) China and India DO NOT emphasize junior high and high school athletics (because the chances that that will bring one out of poverty are amazingly low). 2) When a child shows an aptitude for a subject the parents hire a tutor (FWIW: South Korea sometimes hires from the States and Skylake Incuvest, a South Korean investment fund specializing in the technology sector, thinks there's money to be made here). Wouldn't it be weird if the US (the parents thereof) ACTUALLY valued STEM education (instead of just the politically correct rhetorizing about it)? Think of the boon a combined fiber and distributed clean energy generation smart grid build out model could be for rural economies and what a platform for virtual tutoring that eco friendly grid could be? BTW: I admin Project Net-Work Group on Linkedin.com -- invite here if you're about more than lip service.</ed.note>

Text from C-SPAN, links mine: Robert Compton talked about his documentary Two Million Minutes: A Global Examination (Youtube Trailer here), which compares and contrasts the education experiences of six students; two from each of the countries of India, China, and the United States. Video clips were shown as he talked about the statistics on the amount of time spent in the classroom, the influence of the students' parents on their decisions to pursue a certain career, and the degree to which those choices impact their free time during their high school years. Two million minutes is roughly four years, the amount of time high school students have to prepare for higher education and their careers. Mr. Compton talked about the importance of education to competing in the new global economy and that people in other countries took it much more seriously. He said that although many middle and high schools were using his video, schools of education had rejected any need to learn about the educational systems in competing countries.

Venture capitalist Robert Compton's travels to India in 2005 and 2006 laid the groundwork for his decisions to author a blog, publish a book called Blogging Through India, and produce the documentary.