nospecinterests

Thats a good point. In the US the ONC/HIT at HHS has put out recommendations and rules for the schemas for data storage. Which is what the documents you reference are about they are about defining the building blocks used to store and capture health data. But, they do not define how they are transported or exchanged. The C-CDA even notes this, the "CDA DOES NOT specify how documents are transported, simply how critical data elements should be encoded for exchange and interoperability". Its the same thing for HL7 and all those great ICD9 and ICD10 codes. They are just building blocks not rules for transport. (I also know a thing or two about the field. We are magnetic buddies.)

Am I the only one who thought judith faulkner's quote was hillarious?

"Let’s say a patient is coming from U.C.L.A. and going to the University of Chicago, an Epic-to-Epic hospital. Boom. That’s easy"

Well no kidding! Your company wrote the software. Its like saying its easy to mix 2 packets of Grape Jello together to make a larger serving. Of course that will work! I would be slightly terrified if it wasn't possible. Plus, they wrote Epic Care Everywhere to exchange data between healthcare providers. Its part of the selling point of their software! "Buy us, we have half of 'Merica covered so you can exchange patient records like relz easy." (not an actual quote).

There are no enforceable standards and no governmental body has come together to figure out the standards for data transfer. I don't think its going to readily happen either. Currently, each company (the Epics, GEs, etc) will ALWAYS say that their product is the best and their standards should be the ones used. No one wants to give so they don't play nice with each other. They are leveraging the built in incompatibilities to make more money and there is nothing wrong with that. Plus, there are no economic reasons (like fines and quite frankly most patients don't need to go between large systems for care so there is no driving force from patients) to force them to play nice.

In this case, the free market can be the solution. In this fact, Judith Faulkner is wrong (and she is passing the buck). The government does not need to get involved and write standards. Especially if it is anything like the way the government has done other standards. If they did they would invite in the manufacturers to sit on a committee and each one would push and pull until the standard includes all of the features of their respective software systems. Before you know it, the standard is bloated, useless, and costly to implement. The solution is the free and open market. Some enterprising group of healthcare providers and practitioners, along with their IT teams, need to come together and form a group (away from the influence of the software manufacturers) to write the spec. They then need to form an alliance organization that calls on its members to require their systems to implement the group's specification. That way as a group (much like health insurance pooling) they have a large enough force to get manufacturers to listen to their needs. Because it costs millions to implement an EHR/EMR this path would not provide instant results for those who have already implemented a system or are in the process of implementing one. But as healthcare practitioners and providers upgrade to new versions they would gain the functions of their spec.

I am soo happy about this release I think my neighbors dog just went wee on their floor!

This article is starting to bug me.

First, the author makes the claim that the team was given the McDonalds for use for this particular mission but that, as far as I know, is false. They have had the space for some time while they were restoring lunar orbiter images.

Second, the team's/company's news updates show that they had to buy more equipment than an old radio, a mac laptop and some parts to fix a broken tv, specifically, a software defined radio (sdr).

I know they are doing this as a community service... because, I assume they feel it is their honor and duty to do so... but why the hell do these guys NOT have at least a donate link/button on their site!!!!! This is crazy. I know they are going to get awesome press which would have normally cost thousands but it never hurts to throw up a link and see how much your appreciated.

But that doesn't mean we humans are "safe". Knowledge is power but its not a vaccine.

That is a total overstatement/generalization.

But how many times have you had a flu where you bleed out of your orifices? Me.... none.

That would be the case if it were not for the fact that it is really good at surviving in the human body.... until the person is dead or until they have developed antibodies to fight it. Some people do survive Ebola (aka the plague or the black plague). But not many. Ebola spreads, and fast at that, in areas where there are high population densities, areas where people are in close contact (areas like NYC). Because of the symptoms, it is possible that someone may be infected, spreading the disease, but think they have the flu or some other common ailment. That is the reason why the hospital in the original article didn't take chances and put the person in involuntary quarantine (the article didn't say it but I can guarantee that is the case (and the patient may not know it because if you had Ebola you would have to be insane to decline care)). The only effective way to fight Ebola is quarantine. You section off an area, don't let anyone in or out, and wait out the sickness until it runs it course. After that you safely and securely destroy everything.

Your chances of recovery from Malaria are far higher than recovering from Ebola. Malaria is more of a regional issue and does not necessarily have the ability to reach pandemic levels where Ebola, because of its communicability, does.

Edit: Though you are correct it is not necessarily something to be freaking-out over at the current moment. That said its a serious problem that we should not assume is benign. We should be working to contain it outside of the US.

Under that line of reasoning there could be no science done involving any type of living creature, both big and small (like bacteria), unless it was purely non-contact observational.

I think that could be one reason/assumption. Though I think generally humans think that living creatures can all suffer. After that it comes down to acceptability and return.