10/3/2011 Oracle Corporation has been around since 1977. The company has always had an enterprise focus, like its competitor the German software giant SAP, and as a result has been less of a household name than Microsoft, which has such a large consumer presence.
9/26/2011 There was an important piece of IT healthcare news that almost slipped under the radar last week: IBM’s supercomputer “Watson”, of Jeopardy! fame, has been selected by WellPoint in the United States to diagnose medical problems and to authorize treatments.
9/19/2011 One of the promises of EHRs is that they will be able to provide researchers with a treasure trove of data.
9/12/2011 Defenders of electronic health records – and that means most of us – are confident that the technology is in place to make them secure. We can come up with effective privacy policies, too, though often they are playing catch-up to changing environments.
9/7/2011 PharmaTrust's remote dispensing kiosk is a truly innovative technology. But will pharmacists buy-in to the concept?
8/29/2011 Some studies are redundant and pointless.
8/15/2011 Canadians are familiar with concerns about the cost of delivering healthcare, and with how financial burdens may increase as expensive therapies are delivered to an aging population. This is considered in the context of our singular, cash-burning delivery model, generically referred to as the healthcare “system,” which is larded with internal choke points and inefficiencies. However, my greater worry is the weakening of the Canadian model and the proliferation of poorly integrated, inefficient “systems.”
8/8/2011 I have been enthusiastic about personal health records, but there are those who believe—and with good cause—that the adoption of PHRs will be more evolutionary (patient-driven and slow) than revolutionary (stakeholder-driven in a few short years).
8/3/2011 It can be hard to know when to leap when it comes to investing in cutting-edge technology. Canadians tend to be “fast-followers” who wait and see how the technology waters settle before we jump. Now, OTN, which is used by more than 3,000 healthcare professionals and is one of the largest telemedicine networks in the world, is transforming care in a way that is cost-effective.
7/25/2011 When it comes to smart phone and tablet use in hospitals, privacy remains a concern. Training seems to be key here, though the overall lack of awareness with regard to privacy in healthcare environments can be frustrating in the extreme. As it stands, a lot of CIOs—many of whom are also privacy officers—are playing catch-up.
7/18/2011 There are so many medical advances these days – most of which involve cutting-edge technology – that it can be hard to assess their relative merits. Usually the technology is seen as admirable simply for what it can do. But there is another discussion too, which involves a tougher assessment of cost and need.
