Open source tool for connecting disparate legacy medical/clinical databases

Since most of us in IT spend at least part of our time combining data from multiple databases, it might be worth taking a look at an open source toolkit called Hydrate that eases the process. From their description: Hydrate is a Java tool that provides for fast efficient and error-free transformation of data between three different representations: relational databases, objects in an object-oriented programming language and extended markup language (XML).

Will at The Candid CIO wrote a great article today: “This is no way to run a project”. Having been in my share of demos that have no defined purpose or evaluation criteria I had a great chuckle.

Every useful medical and clinical application has security requirements and most programmers end up implementing some sort of Role-Based Access Control (RBAC). Every couple of months I’m called in to do a code review or architecture assessment for the security components and it surprises me that everyone keeps reinventing the wheel when there is good thought leadership in the area. If you’re writing secured applications and you need help with role based access control, please do yourself and your programmers a favor and review the NIST Role-based Access Control research materials and standards guidelines.

Last night I presented my briefing on hype, pitfalls, and opportunities associated with Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to the Nothern Virginia Chapter of the IEEE Computer Society. Many people asked for a copy of the briefing/presentation so here it is: Enabling the Service Oriented Enterprise – Overcoming the hype, misconceptions, and pitfalls of SOA If you attended the meeting last night, please feel free to leave me comments on what you liked, what you didn’t like, and whether it was helpful.

I found the following articles interesting. I especially like how the author has a “why it matters” section for each entry, trying to bring the subject home and telling you why you should care. Nice. British NHIN project failing FDA puts standardized drug information online JCAHO will not sell data analysis services PDAs increase antibiotic efficiency Ohio HIPAA violation

Tim at Medical Connectivity reported yesterday about IT being an important part of most hospital CEO’s concerns and prioritites. An important remark he made was: Hospital boards are focused first on financial viability (66%), information technology infrastructure ranked second (at 22%). Hospital CEOs are investing in programs to improve quality. Specific programs are chosen in large part for their ability to generate revenue enhancements and/or reduce costs. Time to visit your local hospital CEO and help him part with his money :-).

With all the recent talk about eHealth 2.0, EMRs, PHRs, and consumer driven healthcare we may sometimes forget that some of us are involved in the dirty, rotten, tiresome, and difficult job of getting their firms paid for services. HIPAA did a decent job of standardizing electronic claims with the ASC X12 837 transaction sets and payers and clearinghouses were good about supporting it but one big thing was missing: attachments for documents required to prove the rendered services.

Most people in the healthcare and medical/clinical applications universe are aware of PHP, Java, perl, .NET, C#, and especially Mumps for developing systems. However, most of you may not be familiar with a relatively new scripting language called Ruby and a full-stack framework called Ruby On Rails. If you’re developing quick-turnaround web applications to connect to existing or legacy applications you may find that working in Rails is a very good way to get quick and dirty applications completed.

Reuters recently reported about a study that concludes U.S. leads way in medical errors, costs: Patients in the United States reported higher rates of medical errors and more disorganized doctor visits and out-of-pocket costs than people in Canada, Britain and three other developed countries, according to a survey released on Thursday. Thirty-four percent of U.S. patients received wrong medication, improper treatment or incorrect or delayed test results during the last two years, the Commonwealth Fund found.

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