As the printing press fueled a transition from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance, Social Networking (SN) will be the transformation catalyst of our century.

Most Seinfeld fans certainly remember "The Package" episode, involving a subplot in which Elaine Benes is unable to find a doctor willing to treat her troublesome rash. Branded a "difficult" patient by her primary care physician, Benes scours New York City doctors' offices in search of treatment, even plotting to steal her medical records with hopes of altering her doctor's comments. She eventually recruits ...

In the halls of Congress, in the media, in the coffee shops and restaurants of Washington, D.C. -- health care reform is dominating the conversation, and for good reason. We have an enormous opportunity, and a small window of time, to make the transformational changes to our health ...

I ran a "night before vacation" errand to Lowe's. As I completed the purchase, the store manager interrupted on the overhead, "Employees and customers, head immediately to the break room. A tornado has been spotted and is headed our direction."

The ...

A bold statement for sure, and one that begs the question: How do I know the recession is over? Well, I looked into my crystal ball...er, paper bag, and it is definitely over.

What, you question the validity of this statement?

Come on now, I'm an honest guy.

It says it right here, in a report by the Associated Press (AP). The recession is over.

The economy has kicked it up a ...

I dreaded visits from Battalion HQ. Bravo Company operated fine without Big Brother coming down and creating more work. As a 20-year-old platoon leader, I had to gauge what level of involvement was beneficial versus what was busywork. I understood ...

Medical billing is about to get a lot more complicated. If your medical practice hasn't kept pace with new billing requirements, or if you're bogged down by receivables, it may be time to take action.

As part of its health care reform plan, the Obama administration is calling for a standards- based ...

A funny thing happened on the way to the reporter's pencil and notebook.

ADVANCE for Health Information Executives welcomed many IT executives' expertise to our pages over the years, and they ended up using that relationship to launch their own publishing "careers" and "experiences," leaving for other publications.

This came to mind as I paged through some older (and much thicker, I might ...

I landed on the bottom of the ocean, staring up at the surface. Before I could process what happened to me, I was ripped out into the watery abyss. I paddled toward the light, broke through, and gasped for breath. Only seconds before, I'd been standing ...

Due to demand from contest entrants, the application deadline for ADVANCE's IT Project of the Year Award has been extended from May 15 to May 20.

Please click here for full details on how to enter.

The winning facility will be featured on the cover of our August 2009 print edition. This ...

A recent survey by Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based ProTech highlights some interesting insight onto what IT professionals are doing in these tough economic times. Eighty-nine percent of respondents surveyed said IT is playing a significant role in enhancing their company's competitive advantage in this tough economic climate. ...

And the winner is...NIR Diagnostics

The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia awarded the student team from NIR Diagnostics, whose patented InfraVue device detects wound healing more accurately than current approaches, the $20,000 Michelson Grand Prize in this year's Wharton Business Plan Competition (WBPC) (

To Teach, To Heal, To Discover -- Six words that captured the essence of the mission of the academic medical health system where I served as CIO. Along with our affiliate ...

Guest commentary from Lee Barrett, executive director of the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC), a non-profit standards-development and accreditation organization.

Information technology has been mature enough to transform health care for years. The HITECH Act has now cemented ...

Times are tough. And, while I'm not standing in a line for food, yet, I'm horribly saddened by the way the U.S. economy has headed south.

I blogged on ADVANCE for Health Information Executives' Web site in December 2007 about what I saw as the tea leaves that ...

Surescripts made the announcement in conjunction with the release of the company's "National Progress Report on E-prescribing." The report, based on the operations of the Surescripts network, details the status of ...

To date, I've had the privilege of holding three CIO positions. First, for a physician managed services organization. Second, in an academic-based multi-hospital system. And currently, as CIO for a large faith-based community hospital system. In my ...

For example, Absolute Software, a provider of firmware-based computer-theft recovery, data protection and ...

Okay, let me say this as quietly as possible...IT'S OKAY ONCE AGAIN TO MAJOR IN COMPUTER PROGRAMMING!

Quiet enough?

According to a recent post on the Computing Research Association's (CRA) Web site, CRA's Taulbee Survey of PhD-granting computer science (CS) and computer engineering departments in ...

My family will host our 6th foreign exchange student this fall. Anne will join us from Germany and stay through the academic year. Our "extended" family has expanded over the years, and these former students are now doctors, teachers and actors. We ...

Pulling together as a nation to overhaul an aging, often paper-based medical records system is long overdue. We can all agree it will create jobs, pump money into various industries and make managing a fast-growing patient base much easier. With great potential comes great risk -- in this case, risk of stretching an ...

1) that it has suffered an injury in fact -- an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized; and (b) actual or imminent, ...

Well I had tried to post a blog entry on Tuesday, but didn't have a chance.

A couple of things to note was an interesting presentation on Wednesday morning by Alan Greespan. Greenspan noted the huge increases in medical expenses, 20 percent faster than the Gross Domestic Product.

Greenspan that earlier "high-tech" in health care was a doctor prescribing two aspirins and calling him in the morning. ...