MedWorm provides a medical RSS filtering service. Over 6000 RSS medical sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest medical blog items that have been tagged with 'cloud'. Sat, 03 Sep 2011 01:56:19 +0100 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5174704&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=34634&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FEmrAndHipaa%2F%7E3%2FMJr4_oLHBIQ%2F Time to touch on a few popular topics that I found being discussed on Twitter. First, I’ll put the tweets and then a little but of my own commentary on these hot button issues in healthcare IT. @GovHIT Does a nationwide #EHR lower healthcare costs? Social media reactions | #GovHIT Blog http://ow.ly/64DL1 I always love when people talk about a nationwide EHR. I actually think that it’s a bad title by Government Healthcare IT, but that it’s a very good question. To me a nationwide EHR implies that there is one EHR for the entire nation. I think a number of other countries which are much smaller and less complex than the US have proven quite well that a nationwide government run EHR is a bad idea. I think the Government HIT article actually refers more to widespread adoption... EMR and HIPAA blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5174704 Mon, 29 Aug 2011 07:20:12 +0100 5174704 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5159275&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=34625&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FNeilVerselsHealthcareItBlog%2F%7E3%2FRTT7SAYwins%2F As long as there have been EMRs, there have been vendors selling aggregated, de-identified data. And there have been people worried about privacy. That issue came up last week AHIMA Legal EHR Summit right here in Chicago, during a session exploring issues related to data ownership and stewardship in the era of cloud computing. (I’ll have a more complete rundown of the session Monday in InformationWeek Healthcare.) Near the start of the panel, Daniel Orenstein, senior VP and general counsel of Athenahealth tried to put any lingering questions to rest right away. “I think data monetization is kind of a red herring,” Nussbaum said of people who criticize vendors for selling sensitive patient information. According to Nussbaum, de-identified data no longer includes any protec... Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5159275 Sun, 21 Aug 2011 12:52:18 +0100 5159275 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5077940&cid=t_128832_132_f&fid=35006&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnsaunders.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F07%2F28%2Fi-cant-resist-a-word-cloud-now-using-r%2F Top 1000 words in FriendFeed comments, ISMB 2008-2011The wordcloud package is word clouds for R with a difference: they look great. Of course, having just analysed online coverage of the ISMB conference, I had to run all 6 906 comments from the 2008-2011 meetings through some code. If you followed along via the Sweave code, I went as far as generating the data frame of comments, ismb.comments, then pulled the comment text into a new data frame using: data.frame(ismb.comments$body) It was then simply a case of following along with the excellent example code from the post Word Cloud in R, over at One R Tip A Day, limiting myself to the 1000 most-used words. Watch out, the TermDocumentMatrix() function from the tm package uses quite a lot of memory. Result shown at right: click image for full... What You're Doing Is Rather Desperate blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5077940 Thu, 28 Jul 2011 10:11:36 +0100 5077940 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4911773&cid=t_128832_136_f&fid=37852&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdonnatrussell.com%2F2011%2F06%2F08%2Fthanks-a-lot-media%2F Filed under: Journalism, Pop Culture, Social Media Tagged: anthony weiner, news, tag cloud, trussell & trussell, twitter (Source: Donna Trussell) Donna Trussell blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4911773 Wed, 08 Jun 2011 16:49:10 +0100 4911773 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4872201&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=34625&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FNeilVerselsHealthcareItBlog%2F%7E3%2FwDgU7yJHDwM%2F That’s the question I ask in my weekly post for EMR and HIPAA. Check it out, and share your opinion. Related posts:Another black eye for EHRs EHRs in the public eye EHRs and other health IT on the national radar screen (Source: Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog) Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4872201 Thu, 26 May 2011 20:28:17 +0100 4872201 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4872204&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=34634&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FEmrAndHipaa%2F%7E3%2FM2lKprj3Yl8%2F A blog post today by Microsoft’s Dr. Bill Crounse got me thinking again about the cloud. Crounse cited a new CDW poll showing that 30 percent of healthcare organizations could be considered “cloud adopters,” and for good reason. “The flexibility, scalability and lower costs associated with moving certain line of business applications to the cloud are compelling, especially for an industry like healthcare. After all, the primary focus of hospitals and clinics is caring for patients, not running an IT empire. There’s not a CIO, CFO, CEO, COO, CNO, CMIO, or CMO who wouldn’t love to shift some of their IT spending to delivering better care to the communities they serve,” Crounse wrote. They were more likely to turn to the cloud for “commodity” serv... EMR and HIPAA blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4872204 Thu, 26 May 2011 20:25:03 +0100 4872204 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4852855&cid=t_128832_87_f&fid=39187&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgetbetterhealth.com%2Fwhy-cloud-computing-can-be-dangerous-in-healthcare%2F2011.05.23 A lot of people are intrigued with using “cloud” applications and storage for personal health data. This week we’re seeing what I think is the final nail in the coffin of “cloud only” for anything important. You gotta have offline backups: two huge cloud vendors – Amazon and now Google – have demonstrated that even they can go down, leaving their users absolutely powerless. Cloud computing (Wikipedia) is hugely attractive to software developers and businesses. As shown in this diagram from Wikipedia, the idea is that you do your computing using storage or tools that are on some computer somewhere out there “in the cloud.” You don’t know or care where, because somebody out there takes care of things. As your business or database grows, “they” take care of it. And it... Better Health blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4852855 Mon, 23 May 2011 18:00:31 +0100 4852855 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4841673&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=38236&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.healthcareitnews.com%2Fblog%2Fshould-we-abandon-cloud It's been a bad month for the cloud. First there was the major Amazon EC2 (Elastic Cloud) outage April 21-22 that brought down many business and websites. Some of the data was unrecoverable and transactions were lost. No sticky read more (Source: Healthcare IT News Blog) Healthcare IT News Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4841673 Mon, 16 May 2011 13:40:07 +0100 4841673 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4813409&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=34695&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmedicalconnectivity.com%2F2011%2F05%2F10%2Fstorms-from-the-cloud%2F Given the analogy between actual clouds and computer clouds, it now seems appropriate to extend the concept to storms that those clouds may bring. This was illustrated recently (April 21, 2011) when Amazon had a cloud outage (a mixed metaphor no doubt) in their Amazon Web Services business. This situation was covered by the NY Times (here), and the professional computer press (here) among others. As a result of Amazon’s problems some Web sites were reported to be down for as long as 11 hours, although actual loss of previously stored information has seemingly not been part of the problem–this time. However there is a related question for any new data that was or should have been generated during the outage. Where is it, and will the gap be properly filled in retroactively? The ... Medical Connectivity Consulting blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4813409 Tue, 10 May 2011 23:07:19 +0100 4813409 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4768038&cid=t_128832_107_f&fid=36672&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencebase.com%2Fscience-blog%2Fcurrent-science-news-2.html Uranium hard drive – A new uranium-containing compound maintains its magnetic behaviour at low temperatures. The discovery could take us a step closer to magnetic memory devices with capacities thousands of times denser than current high-end hard drives. Clouds from both sides – Atmospheric and climate models may have overlooked the fact that exactly how clouds appear to reduce the amount of sunlight available for warming the surface of the earth depends on the wavelength being measured across the spectrum from infrared to ultraviolet. The finding could now help researchers improve climate models by factoring in the effects of cloud cover more precisely. Soap story – It is perhaps no real surprise to any chemist who has unblocked a drain clogged with white lardy deposits,... Sciencebase Science Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4768038 Fri, 29 Apr 2011 08:19:59 +0100 4768038 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4318392&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=34631&url=http%3A%2F%2Fehealth.johnwsharp.com%2F2011%2F01%2F06%2Fa-year-in-review-perspective-from-higher-education%2F Lev Gonick, CIO of Case Western Reserve University, has written 2011: The Year Ahead in IT, a fresh perspective looking forward instead of back. There are many parallels to healthcare. 1. The Big Picture: The State of the Global Economy and What It Means for IT on U.S. College Campuses (or, globalization and localization). He says that universities are tied to the cities they live in and community partnerships are crucial for global competitiveness. The same could be said for urban and academic medical centers. 2. How do you spell opportunity? A-U-S-T-E-R-I-T-Y (shared services and entrepreneurship).  With greater austerity in health care, shared services and making IT a profit center through entrepreneurship are key to IT survival in healthcare as well. 3. Operational Excellence Is Goo... eHealth blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4318392 Fri, 07 Jan 2011 03:18:50 +0100 4318392 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4294753&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=34625&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FNeilVerselsHealthcareItBlog%2F%7E3%2F-Xob9ZUrOJc%2Fdell-to-buy-imaging-firm-insite-one.html I've just learned that Dell is making a deeper push into health IT by announcing an acquisition of cloud-based PACS and medical imaging systems vendor InSite One. (Source: Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog) Neil Versel's Healthcare IT Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4294753 Wed, 22 Dec 2010 23:02:06 +0100 4294753 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4040547&cid=t_128832_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FAbyw2kRBRUg%2F By Jim HarperThe Washington Post has a poorly thought through editorial today on the Justice Department’s “CALEA for the Cloud” initiative. That’s the formative proposal to require all Internet services to open back doors to their systems for court-ordered government surveillance. “Some privacy advocates and technology experts have sounded alarms,” says the Post, “arguing that such changes would make programs more vulnerable to hackers.” Those advocates—of privacy and security both—are right. Julian Sanchez recently described here how unknown hackers exploited surveillance software to eavesdrop on high government officials in Greece. “Some argue that because the vast majority of users are law-abiding citizens, the government... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4040547 Thu, 07 Oct 2010 18:46:38 +0100 4040547 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3891788&cid=t_128832_132_f&fid=35006&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnsaunders.wordpress.com%2F2010%2F08%2F23%2Fabstract-word-clouds-using-r%2F A recent question over at BioStar asked whether abstracts returned from a PubMed search could easily be visualised as “word clouds”, using Wordle. This got me thinking about ways to solve the problem using R. Here’s my first attempt, which demonstrates some functions from the RCurl and XML packages. First, install a couple of packages: snippets, which provides the cloud() function for plotting a word cloud and tm, a text-mining library: install.packages('snippets',,'http://www.rforge.net/') install.packages('tm') Next, the code to search PubMed, fetch abstracts and generate a list of words: library(RCurl) library(XML) library(snippets) library(tm) # esearch url <- "http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/esearch.fcgi? q <- "db=pubmed&term=sa... What You're Doing Is Rather Desperate blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3891788 Mon, 23 Aug 2010 06:29:57 +0100 3891788 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3802590&cid=t_128832_150_f&fid=35777&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FPharmalot%2F%7E3%2F2pcvgNkqy-U%2F Hello, everyone. A spot of rain is falling here on the Pharmalot corporate campus today. Nonetheless, our spirits remain sunny. Why? We are compelled to offer our periodic reminder, courtesy of the Morning Mayor: ‘Every brand new day should be unwrapped like a precious gift.’ So go ahead and tug on the ribbon. Meanwhile, please join us for a cup of stimulation as we scan the news of the world. Have a great day… Sanofi-Aventis To Bid $18 Billion For Genzyme (Bloomberg News) FDA Considers Changes To REMS Safeguards (Reuters) Lilly Dumps Amazon Web Services Over Legal Struggle (SearchCloudComputing) Sanofi-Aventis Lawsuit Over Zimulti Is Reinstated (Bloomberg News) Fewer ABPI Complaints In 2009, But More Appeals (PharmaTimes) Lilly Loses Appeal In Gemzar Patent Case (Dow Jon... Pharmalot blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3802590 Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:24:11 +0100 3802590 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3374200&cid=t_128832_109_f&fid=38950&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.shockmd.com%2F2010%2F03%2F17%2Fcloud-computing-explained%2F Google published three videos to explain the main principles behind its three core businesses: search, ads and apps. This one is about the apps and explains the advantages of cloud computing. Beware cloud computing also has some downsides such as being unable to access data when the server is down, also security issues are always a threat, so take care. No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. (Source: Dr Shock MD PhD) Dr Shock MD PhD blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3374200 Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:24:32 +0100 3374200 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3374210&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=34631&url=http%3A%2F%2Fehealth.johnwsharp.com%2F2010%2F03%2F16%2Fgoogle-public-data-explorer-for-healthcare%2F Google recently released its public data explorer which combines the Google visualization tools with public datasets include population data and health data. For healthcare, the initial launch includes Sexually Transmitted Diseases in the U.S. and Cancer cases in the U.S. The charts allow selection by state and time options. For these two charts, CDC data sources are used. So could this data explorer be used more broadly with other health data sets. For starters, those at Data.gov (although most of the health data sets are Medicare cost data). But could major disease registries open themselves up to this API so that medical researchers could visualize more data sources and generate more research questions more quickly.  This could be one solution for the for the lethal lag time.  The CDC... eHealth blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3374210 Wed, 17 Mar 2010 02:42:20 +0100 3374210 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3363700&cid=t_128832_109_f&fid=38950&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.shockmd.com%2F2010%2F03%2F14%2Fcloud-computing-explained%2F Google published three videos to explain the main principles behind its three core businesses: search, ads and apps. This one is about the apps and explains the advantages of cloud computing. Beware cloud computing also has some downsides such as being unable to access data when the server is down, also security issues are always near you so take care. No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. (Source: Dr Shock MD PhD) Dr Shock MD PhD blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3363700 Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:24:32 +0100 3363700 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3316144&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=34631&url=http%3A%2F%2Fehealth.johnwsharp.com%2F2010%2F02%2F27%2Fbook-review-googled-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it%2F I recently completed this book by Ken Auletta who promotes his unique access to the search engine giant. The books follow the history of Google from the earliest days of the founders at Stanford, to rocketing to fame, going public and then being labeled as the evil empire. More recently, he chronicles conflicts with the government, traditional media, traditional advertising, publishers and China. He leaves with Google at a crossroads of maturing founders which he suggests may be losing focus, competitors in social media, and ongoing challenges from Microsoft and others. The book describes each new major app and the process and culture of building new tools and keeping them free. Only two pages are devoted to Google Health, however. Generally, the books focuses much more on the advertising ... eHealth blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3316144 Sun, 28 Feb 2010 02:44:11 +0100 3316144 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3089294&cid=t_128832_88_f&fid=38961&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsymtym.net%2F2009%2F12%2Flos-googeles%2F Los Angeles doing it right! Not specifically with regards to Google, but rather cloud–sourcing the enterprise. (Source: quanta vie) quanta vie blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3089294 Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:36:32 +0100 3089294 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2963175&cid=t_128832_109_f&fid=38950&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.shockmd.com%2F2009%2F11%2F05%2Fgoogle-apps-tricks%2F If your like me, having 5 e-mail accounts, a couple of websites, wikis, several calendars and address books it’s hard to keep everything in sync. Cloud computing or living in the Cloud has it’s benefits. Cloud Computing refers to Internet-centric software and services that are outsourced to someone else and in this case to Google. Everything is on the servers of google and you can access it from anywhere with a browser when connected to the Internet. Advatages of cloud computing with Google: it’s free or cheap, for 50 dollars a year you get support back up up time of 99% platform and browser agnostic constant improvements someone els is responsible for the hardware reliability you can share your information. Google wave hasn’t replaced this for me yet. If you need some gu... Dr Shock MD PhD blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2963175 Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:42:22 +0100 2963175 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3123425&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=34631&url=http%3A%2F%2Fehealth.johnwsharp.com%2F2009%2F10%2F29%2Fthinking-about-the-future%2F What will the Web Look Like in 5 years? Gartner presented Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google to talk about the future. Some of his key points include: Five years from now the internet will be dominated by Chinese-language content. Today’s teenagers are the model of how the web will work in five years – they jump from app to app to app seamlessly. Five years is a factor of ten in Moore’s Law, meaning that computers will be capable of far more by that time than they are today. He also talks about being trapped in a 1980s architecture. I heard a webinar demo of an app today which uses client-server technology. It seems to me that any application which does not use the web with AJAX and hosted on a virtual server is old technology and not something that should be supported. Schmid... eHealth blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3123425 Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:17:00 +0100 3123425 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2762097&cid=t_128832_134_f&fid=34841&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.diabetesmine.com%2F2009%2F09%2Fexercise-post.html A couple of weeks ago, Time magazine published an issue with an attention-grabbing headline: Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin. Won’t make me thin? you ask. Then what the heck am I bothering huffing and puffing and sweating like mad on the treadmill? Good question, says the author, John Cloud. The theory, he writes, is that exercise [...] (Source: Diabetes Mine) Diabetes Mine blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2762097 Thu, 03 Sep 2009 14:50:16 +0100 2762097 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2738006&cid=t_128832_150_f&fid=38374&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FePharmaSummit%2F%7E3%2F_y8W2oXd4KU%2Fis-web-20-past-its-hype-cycle-in-pharma_26.html (Source: ePharma Summit) ePharma Summit blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2738006 Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:40:00 +0100 2738006 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2734124&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=34631&url=http%3A%2F%2Fehealth.johnwsharp.com%2F2009%2F08%2F25%2Fcloud-computing-tops-gartners-list.aspx%3Fref%3Drss Gartner's Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies includes an evaluation of cloud computing. They view cloud computing as being at the Peak of Inflated Expectations. While companies look to the cloud for cost effective solutions, "The levels of hype around cloud computing in the IT industry are deafening, with every vendor expounding its cloud strategy..." Another post on the Emerge Blog, sees cloud computing as a promise without hype noting three cloud based models: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)This is a helpful formulation especially since so many platforms are becoming available in the Cloud and specifically in health care: Google Health and Healthvault to mention just two. While there is still concern about security in cloud com... eHealth blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2734124 Wed, 26 Aug 2009 10:10:43 +0100 2734124 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2695454&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=34631&url=http%3A%2F%2Fehealth.johnwsharp.com%2F2009%2F08%2F13%2Fpublic-and-private-clouds--health-information-exchange-hie.aspx%3Fref%3Drss In healthcare, there has been hesitancy to consider cloud computing in spite of the promise of funding for electronic medical records and perhaps HIE.  The main issues in cloud computing and EMRs are security and availability. Security is governed by HIPAA including the upcoming regulations on data breaches. Security of EMRs and PHRs is also key in maintaining public trust in EMRs and by implication, medical practices. Availability is key as well as medical practices become dependent on real-time data from EMRs for medical decision making. Can the cloud provide the security and availability/reliabity for EMRs? Alternatively, are EMRs now becoming private clouds which can potentially interact with the public cloud, such as in the case of disease registries and public health initiatives... eHealth blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2695454 Thu, 13 Aug 2009 09:03:37 +0100 2695454 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2584215&cid=t_128832_109_f&fid=34750&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpsychcentral.com%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2009%2F07%2F08%2Fgot-low-self-esteem-dont-ditch-the-positive-self-talk-just-yet%2F Those pseudo-inspirational workplace posters annoy me. You know the kind I’m talking about — the ones that say “SUCCESS” and “ENDURANCE” in all caps below some nature-themed stock photography surrounded by a thick black border? Yeah. They’re all over my office, and they’re probably all over yours, too. (I think they multiply after everyone in the office leaves for the evening.) The more I look at the “AIM HIGH” poster — the one with a mean-looking eagle careening through the sky — the less I feel like aiming high. And the more I feel like creating online parodies of these ubiquitous workplace posters. (Try it; it’s fun.) Why do these posters annoy us so much? Do these ultra-positive messages actually increase our... World of Psychology blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2584215 Thu, 09 Jul 2009 01:11:15 +0100 2584215 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2405299&cid=t_128832_107_f&fid=36698&url=http%3A%2F%2Fminingdrugs.blogspot.com%2F2009%2F05%2Ftag-cloud-mining-drug-space-may-2009.html As created by Wordle. (Source: Mining Drug Space) Mining Drug Space blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2405299 Mon, 11 May 2009 18:44:00 +0100 2405299 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2341811&cid=t_128832_147_f&fid=38117&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.engageinhealth.com%2F2009%2F04%2Fapplication_medication.html It would be fair to say that some elements of the health world have been relatively switched on to the world of mobile technology for a while now; the concept of using SMS as a reminder to take medication, for example, is a tried and tested technique for many medical institutions. But as the technology evolves, so do the potential uses. The iPhone has taken mobile technology in a really interesting direction and it is rapidly becoming clear that its potential uses go considerably further than the sphere of entertainment for which it has primarily been marketed. The possibility to develop new applications for the iPhone (15,000 and counting) makes the opportunities limitless, in the world of health included. A very recent example is Health Cloud, a new application for the iPhone that giv... The Health Engagement Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2341811 Mon, 06 Apr 2009 19:16:43 +0100 2341811 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2210552&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=34933&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpalmdoc.net%2F%3Fp%3D2220 After a week of experimenting with syncing my contacts and calendar with the “cloud” I think it’s been reasonably successful. My usual daily practice is to sync my Palm Centro with Palm Desktop using a traditional USB hotsync. This has worked well for me. After some minor glitches attributable to a corrupt Calendar database, I managed to sync my Palm Centro with Outlook instead of Palm Desktop. Now as Google has licensed EAS from Microsoft, I thought it would be good if I could sync Outlook Calendar and Contacts with my Google account. It’s a pity the current Google desktop sync supports only Calendar at the moment, but I managed to get both done with a third party app called gSyncit. This app costs $9.99 (one time payment) and works as advertised. The author also s... The Palmdoc Chronicles blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2210552 Mon, 23 Feb 2009 05:00:00 +0100 2210552 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2190637&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=34933&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpalmdoc.net%2F%3Fp%3D2207 It seems PalmOS is officially dead. The Palm Centro will be the last device produced by Palm to run on Garnet (PalmOS version 5.x) so says Ed Colligan recently. The future is WebOS and this is what the latest PDA phone from Palm, the Palm Pre, will run on. One of the Palm Pre’s radical changes is the departure from traditional Desktop sync and the reliance on data sync over the “cloud”. This means syncing with data on Exchange as well as pulling data from services like Google and even getting contact information from Facebook etc. As someone who has been syncing only with Desktop PCs all this time, this is somewhat a major departure from what I am used to. I thought I might experiment a bit more with getting my PIM data synced using “cloud services”. Firstly a... The Palmdoc Chronicles blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2190637 Mon, 16 Feb 2009 05:00:00 +0100 2190637 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2095816&cid=t_128832_114_f&fid=34646&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FHealthCareBlogLaw%2F%7E3%2F508994470%2Fwordle-health-care-law-blog.html I noticed recent tweets about Wordle, an ultra cool "word count" generator. Here is an example pulled from the text of my Health Care Law Blog. Give it a try for your blog, tweets or next presentation. (Source: Health Care Law Blog) Health Care Law Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2095816 Sun, 11 Jan 2009 16:25:51 +0100 2095816 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2078347&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=36504&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FMedicalRecordShow%2F%7E3%2F501643528%2F I’ve just combed through all my previous posts, and “indexed” them via tags, as opposed to categories. In case you’re not aware of the distinction, tags are terms that describe various features or phrases in a blog post that you as a reader may want to use as a search phrase. For example, “tags” and “categories” are 2 tags that this post itself will have. Categories are what used to be used for this, but which were never originally intended as such. They’re supposed to be broad descriptions of content: this post belongs to the Category of “blog,” as does every post in The EMR Show. If I had audio podcasts or videos as part of the blog, there could also be “podcast” and “video” Categories. It’s a... The EMR/EHR Show: Making Your Electronic Medical Records Really Work blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2078347 Sat, 03 Jan 2009 09:42:47 +0100 2078347 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2018352&cid=t_128832_107_f&fid=36698&url=http%3A%2F%2Fminingdrugs.blogspot.com%2F2008%2F12%2Fpublic-data-sets-on-aws-amazon-web.html "AWS hopes to provide researchers across a variety of disciplines and industries with tools to enable more innovation, more quickly" [Public data on AWS]If you are interested in cloud computing and storage then you will be delighted that Amazon offers support to the science community. Though appreciated, do I think that the information provided for the data sets is very sparse, e.g. which conformer generation was used for the chemistry data sets? How exactly was the UGI dataset created?Anyway, this sounds similar to the computing and storage solution of Google, called MapReduce and GFS. I do not know enough about it to understand the technical differences between the frameworks of Amazon and Google, but both are used to work with tons of data. As announced by Amazon would users (or compan... Mining Drug Space blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2018352 Sat, 06 Dec 2008 16:43:00 +0100 2018352 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1951781&cid=t_128832_114_f&fid=34646&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FHealthCareBlogLaw%2F%7E3%2F449907829%2Fhealth-cloud.html Tim Sturgill, MD JD at symtym provides an explanation and insight into the potential shift from silo'ed EHRs controlled by multiple providers to a Health Cloud centralized around a single PHR.The result of such a shift lessens the need for complex health information exchanges to process and communicate information among a variety of health information silos, matching patient records and trying to match multiple sources of health information that may or may not be identical.This approach is similar to the discussion and perspective I outlined in a recent article on PHRs for Health Lawyer News.Graphic image courtesy of Tim's post. (Source: Health Care Law Blog) Health Care Law Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1951781 Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:59:49 +0100 1951781 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1939003&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=34631&url=http%3A%2F%2Fehealth.johnwsharp.com%2F2008%2F11%2F05%2Fbuilding-100-in-the-cloud.aspx%3Fref%3Drss A new Web 2.0 company, Drop.io, has its infrastructure virtually through Amazon making it totally dependent on the Cloud for hosting. Are there pros and cons to this? They see mostly pros - highly available, meet unpredictable growth needs, limit startup expenses, treat storage like the commodity it is. They like the variable cost as a start up as opposed to fixed costs. Maybe there is a lesson for Health 2.0 startups here.Technorati: Cloud Computing (Source: eHealth) eHealth blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1939003 Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:10:04 +0100 1939003 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1809696&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=34631&url=http%3A%2F%2Fehealth.johnwsharp.com%2F2008%2F09%2F19%2Fthe-intelligent-cloud--implications-for-health-and-medicine.aspx%3Fref%3Drss "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."This phrase describes the future of cloud computing and more specifically, information storage and retrieval. Predictions from Google:By 2019, parallel-processing computer clusters will be 50 to 100 times more powerful we'll also see a rush of new devices customized to particular applications, and more environmental sensors and actuators, all sending and receiving data via the cloud.computer systems will have greater opportunity to learn from the collective behavior of billions of humansResearchers across medical and scientific fields can access massive data sets and run analysis and pattern detection algorithms that aren't possible today.There are likely other implications for health care, such as, accessing the the cloud (or a secure a... eHealth blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1809696 Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:04:20 +0100 1809696 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1794363&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=34631&url=http%3A%2F%2Fehealth.johnwsharp.com%2F2008%2F09%2F15%2Fcloud-computing--is-availability-meaningless.aspx%3Fref%3Drss This article poses the question of whether the traditional measures of availability, five 9's, is outmoded. If the primary data sources like Google maps and others have significant reliability, do the applications themselves have reliable hosting and application stability to provide this kind of availability? Technorati: Cloud Computing (Source: eHealth) eHealth blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1794363 Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:32:20 +0100 1794363 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1788673&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=34631&url=http%3A%2F%2Fehealth.johnwsharp.com%2F2008%2F09%2F12%2Fpersonal-cloud.aspx%3Fref%3Drss This post on the concept of a personal cloud focuses on the integration of the iPhone, Google tools and the cloud. How about a personal cloud for managing health? In his presentation on Google Health at HIMSS in February, Eric Schmidt envisioned storing health information, including all the xrays taken this year in the  Cloud so that they would be accessible from anywhere. Interesting concept. First, Google Health should be available via the iPhone. Next, the clound should allow connection to your data and health information and tools from anywhere and on any device.Finally, the personal cloud must be secure.Also mentioned is an Mac program called Getting Things Done. Check out the Wikipedia entry.Technorati: Cloud Computing (Source: eHealth) eHealth blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1788673 Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:36:50 +0100 1788673 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1668310&cid=t_128832_132_f&fid=35016&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpeanutbutter.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F07%2F30%2Fpaul-meets-bill-gates%2F From a heads up on a post by Jake, Paul Watson has been meeting with Microsoft and Bill Gates this week discussing cloud computing for science. Reported in a local North east media site as Microsoft leaders in thrall to Northern expertise, the report outlines cloud computing technology at Newcastle highlighting Paul’s company Inkspot science. (Source: peanutbutter) peanutbutter blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1668310 Wed, 30 Jul 2008 11:27:28 +0100 1668310 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1648976&cid=t_128832_132_f&fid=35024&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2FBlindscientist%2F%7E3%2F344169453%2F Image via WikipediaIn my opinion the best aspect of the so-called Web 2.0 (a catchy name) is the interaction we get from tools such FriendFeed and Twitter. Accessing these sites, one can be overwhelmed by the amount of information, all kinds of information, ranging from the new photos of tropical fruits, to the end of science as we now it, being liveblogged from ISMB 2008. In the past months I have been accessing these services/tools more and more, and in the past months by the power of the crowd (at the least the small scientific crowd) a small group of scientists have been exchanging information, ideas, links, tools, comments, learning and teaching anything that comes to mind. There I learned more about the computer cloud (an example here) and one idea leading to another I thought about ... Blind.Scientist blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1648976 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:54:00 +0100 1648976 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1542979&cid=t_128832_132_f&fid=35016&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpeanutbutter.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F06%2F25%2Fcarmen-a-scalable-science-cloud%2F Paul Watson presents a talk on CARMEN a the Google Seattle Conference on Scalability. (Source: peanutbutter) peanutbutter blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1542979 Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:05:26 +0100 1542979 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1543114&cid=t_128832_113_f&fid=34631&url=http%3A%2F%2Fehealth.johnwsharp.com%2F2008%2F06%2F24%2Fthe-petabyte-age.aspx The latest issue of Wired magazine includes a series of articles lead by the editor Chris Anderson's article, "The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete." In Wired's usually controversial approach to topics, he leads off with the quote, "All models are wrong, but some are useful." In the petabyte age, we move from local storage to storage in the cloud and "information is not a matter of simple three- and four-dimensional taxonomy and order but of dimensionally agnostic statistics."He sites one medical example, he cites Craig Vetner who "went from sequencing individual organisms to sequencing entire ecosystems." He proposes that "We can analyze the data without hypotheses about what it might show."Do these rash statements have relevance to health care? Much of ... eHealth blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1543114 Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:34:56 +0100 1543114 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1526041&cid=t_128832_132_f&fid=35006&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnsaunders.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F06%2F19%2Fwell-everyone-else-was-doing-it%2F Everyone seems to be having fun with Wordle. Except for me, until I realised that all my machines were cursed with something named “icedtea-gcjwebplugin”, as opposed to the Sun java plugin. Problem solved. So there it is. But for the prominent “bioinformatics”, you’d never guess I was a biologist, would you. I do believe that this is telling me something. (Source: What You're Doing Is Rather Desperate) What You're Doing Is Rather Desperate blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1526041 Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:14:58 +0100 1526041 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1420486&cid=t_128832_132_f&fid=35011&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fmndoci%2F%7E3%2F284145660%2F At JavaOne, one of the big announcements was a hookup between Amazon, specifically EC2, and OpenSolaris (finally generally released as a full open source OS). The collaboration between Amazon and OpenSolaris will give customers access to OpenSolaris (for feree) and MySQL premium technical support, and more. The key selling points are ZFS and D-Trace. Now, I am a big Linux guy, but options are always good and enterprise relationships/partnerships are just a sign of the maturing and relevance of cloud computing. Related articles Amazon Now Serving OpenSolaris on EC2 [via Zemanta] Sun debuts OpenSolaris; OS to be served up on Amazon EC2 [via Zemanta] Sun adds support for Amazon Web services, targets start-ups [via Zemanta] The Cloud on NPR (via The BioTeam blog) Aside. It&#8... business|bytes|genes|molecules blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1420486 Mon, 05 May 2008 19:47:34 +0100 1420486 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1395146&cid=t_128832_132_f&fid=35011&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fmndoci%2F%7E3%2F276426481%2F Here are some blog headlines in my feed readermo Live Mesh: First look at Microsoft’s new platform A conversation with Ray Ozzie about Live Mesh Bungee Labs evolves to compete with Salesforce, Oracle, & others IBM’s new servers for cloud computing Data center makeover Earlier today, I received an email from Amazon with the subject Amazon Web Services: Lower Data Transfer Costs And here is a conversation that Michael Barton and I had on twitter. If you don’t know that we’re in the middle of a significant change in how we consume and access compute cycles, either directly or indirectly, it’s time. Heady stuff. Of course, that also means that the hype and crazy headlines are going to become unbearable Technorati Tags: Cloud Computing ShareThis (Source: ... business|bytes|genes|molecules blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1395146 Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:51:45 +0100 1395146 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1376746&cid=t_128832_132_f&fid=35011&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fmndoci%2F%7E3%2F271621840%2F Two of my favorite High Performance Computing blogs are Scalability.org and InsideHPC. A post by Joe Landman at Scalability.org led to a great discussion on the marketing and economics of cloud computing (see the comments). Joe further expands on this issue in a follow up post Further listening Werner Vogels at E-Tech (Via IT Conversations) Image by whurley via Flickr Technorati Tags: High Performance Computing, Cloud Computing, Business Models, Resource Planning ShareThis (Source: business|bytes|genes|molecules) business|bytes|genes|molecules blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1376746 Wed, 16 Apr 2008 19:00:18 +0100 1376746 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1327424&cid=t_128832_132_f&fid=35016&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpeanutbutter.wordpress.com%2F2008%2F03%2F26%2Fminimum-information-about-a-neuroscience-investigation-mini%2F The idea behind the CARMEN project is that we provide a system to store electrophysiology data and analysis services so that data can be shared and analysed in the “Neuro-cloud”. An important factor in realising this system is that the stored data and the services have to be described in a way that is both human and computationally amenable. The first stage of this is agreeing what information should actually be ascribed to the data. In other words, the balance between what the experimentalist want to say about their data and what informaticians need to know about a particular data set in order to perform their analysis. To this end we have defined what we believe to be the minimum information that must be ascribed to an electrophysiology experiment for submission to the CARMEN... peanutbutter blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1327424 Wed, 26 Mar 2008 10:40:28 +0100 1327424 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1270538&cid=t_128832_82_f&fid=34667&url=http%3A%2F%2Flaryngoscope.blogspot.com%2F2008%2F03%2Fsoaked-to-skin-iii.html Now to help the patient you have to relieve the pressure around the heart. Usually this is (relatively) easy. You use a sternal saw and cut through the sternum. (middle of the chest where the ribs come together).In this case it was more difficult. He's had cardiac surgery before. Which means they've already sawn (sawed?) through his sternum in the past. This is problematic because there's sometimes lots of scar tissue there now, so if you try to get in through the sternum quickly, you make have to go through scar tissue. And in that scar the patient's aorta, which is the biggest artery in the body, may be scarred together. The other option is to go in through the side of the rib cage. Since he hadn't had any surgery on his chest from the side, there's less chance of scar tissue and bleedin... i'm so sleepy blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1270538 Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:48:00 +0100 1270538 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=1216486&cid=t_128832_82_f&fid=34667&url=http%3A%2F%2Flaryngoscope.blogspot.com%2F2008%2F02%2Fsoaked-skin.html As an anesthesiologist you shouldn't need to go to your office and change your scrubs in the middle of a case.No I didn't soil myself because the case scared the heck out of me because it did, but I was covered in blood from moving the patient on to the bed.I'm on call today and I was headed down to the Electropysiology (EP) lab to relieve the anesthesiologist down there so he could go home. I'm poking around looking to find out which room he's in. I pop my head in one room, I see a CRNA... have you seen Dr. X? Oh he was just here but he's probably next door... they're having trouble.Hmm... that's not a good sign. I go into the room and usually the room is dark and quiet, the patient is on the bed under light sedation... they're usually pretty sick, but generally unexciting. Anyway... I go... i'm so sleepy blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=1216486 Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:41:00 +0100 1216486 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=710214&cid=t_128832_132_f&fid=35016&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpeanutbutter.wordpress.com%2F2007%2F07%2F02%2Frss-readers%2F I have outlined my growing tendency at the minute to handing over applications to the “Internet cloud” in an earlier post. I prefer using web-based applications because I tend to jump from several machines throughout the day at work and then use a different machine at home. Having applications, floating in the ether cloud, means moving around is considerably easier. I have been using bloglines for quite a while now for my RSS feeds. I did have a early look at Google reader when it first launched, but I felt then it was not quite what I wanted and definitely not as good as bloglines at the time. However a re-visiting of Google reader over the last week or so has dramatically changed my perception. Re-vamped with a new interface (similar to bloglines) has made reading posts alot ... peanutbutter blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=710214 Mon, 02 Jul 2007 22:14:18 +0100 710214