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Schools get the "App"titude across the globe

Since the launch of <a href="http://www.google.com/a/edu">Google Apps Education Edition</a> in October 2006, millions of people at thousands of schools in more than 100 countries have been using our free email and collaboration tools. We love hearing from newly deployed schools like <a href="http://www.lmu.edu/">Loyola Marymount University</a>, <a href="http://www.westmont.edu/">Westmont College</a>, <a href="http://www.njit.edu/">New Jersey Institute of Technology</a>, <a href="http://www.kpbsd.k12.ak.us/">Kenai Peninsula Borough School District</a>, <a href="http://www.chapman.edu/">Chapman University</a>, <a href="http://www.ignatius.edu/s/237/home.aspx">Saint Ignatius High School</a>, and <a href="http://www.csuchico.edu/">California State University, Chico</a> (to name a few) about how they're now able to use Apps in teaching, learning, and researching on campus, while also saving time and money. While we continue to see more and more U.S. schools moving to Google Apps, we find it especially exciting to see that the trend of outsourcing online communication and collaboration needs is catching on in other parts of the world. In Australia, for example, the New South Wales Department of Education <a href="http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24966636-15318,00.html">recently migrated</a> 1.5 million students to Google Apps. The University of Adelaide also just <a href="http://www.adelaide.edu.au/news/news31901.html">announced</a> that it is offering to its 16,000 students email services and other online tools as part of the Apps suite, at no cost to the university. Many other schools and colleges in this region have also recently deployed Google Apps, including <a href="http://www.hsc.edu.tw/">Hsin Sheng College of Medical Care and Management</a> in Taoyuan County Taiwan, <a href="http://www.au.edu.pk/">Air University</a> in Islamabad Pakistan, <a href="http://www.uph.edu/">Univesitas Pelita Harapan</a> in Indonesia, the <a href="http://www.icms.edu.au/">International College of Management</a> in Sydney, and schools across New Zealand like <a href="http://www.fendalton.school.nz/">Fendalton School</a>. To help spread the word about Apps, the team in India came up with the <a href="http://www.google.co.in/apps/gottheapptitude/index.html">Got the "App"titude Challenge</a>, which encouraged students, faculty members and alumni from all engineering and management schools throughout India to move their institutions to Google Apps. The challenge created quite a stir, and after launching in August, we received almost 6,000 sign-ups. Each college team consisted of students, alumni and faculty who worked closely with IT staff to identify challenges in their existing email and collaboration solutions. Working with a Googler, the teams then demonstrated ways Google Apps could be used to address these challenges. The performance of each team was evaluated by measuring product usage after their deployment. We'd like to extend our congratulations to the XL CONNECT team from <a href="http://www.xlri.ac.in/">Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI), Jamshedpur</a>, who won the challenge by demonstrating the highest usage of Google Apps products. As a result of the challenge, more than 100 colleges across India are now in the process of implementing Apps in their institutions. And we look forward to seeing more and more schools all over the world adopt Google Apps. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMFPjvBD5h1TIRmAl9tyqe6UYRKLCz3a9SY2QnclEN6Gkd0GlxR6D8PR0ABUmCo5XZhjjl0VNkBuR50e20N37EkNehNQ0uMZJEWTD5SWtpTxxNIYOV-qDtVX-WqG-fZKfLDSYlE9RqSZ2k/s1600-h/Picture+12.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312368619552880722" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMFPjvBD5h1TIRmAl9tyqe6UYRKLCz3a9SY2QnclEN6Gkd0GlxR6D8PR0ABUmCo5XZhjjl0VNkBuR50e20N37EkNehNQ0uMZJEWTD5SWtpTxxNIYOV-qDtVX-WqG-fZKfLDSYlE9RqSZ2k/s400/Picture+12.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 197px;" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Countries shaded in blue represent active Apps users in that area. </div> Posted by Amarpreet Singh, Online Sales and Operations Manager, and Andrew Mitchell, Senior Strategist

Schools get the "App"titude across the globe

Since the launch of Google Apps Education Edition in October 2006, millions of people at thousands of schools in more than 100 countries ha...

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A Health Care CEO Who Didn't Put His Own Pay First

We recently posted about executives at two different not-for-profit health care insurance companies/ managed care organizations whose pay seemed to keep levitating, despite organizational financial losses, and commented on how the compensation of top executives of health care organizations seems always to go up, regardless of the financial fortunes, or quality of the products or services provided by their organizations. (Posts <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/03/more-gravity-defying-compensation-for.html">here</a> and <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/03/43-million-dollar-ceo-for-not-for.html">here</a>.) Today's Boston Globe, however, <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/03/12/a_head_with_a_heart/">provided a contrast</a>. The background is that the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), a renowned Harvard teaching institution, is facing a budget shortfall. <blockquote> Paul Levy, the guy who runs Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, was standing in Sherman Auditorium the other day, before some of the very people to whom he might soon be sending pink slips. In the days before the meeting, Levy had been walking around the hospital, noticing little things. He stood at the nurses' stations, watching the transporters, the people who push the patients around in wheelchairs. He saw them talk to the patients, put them at ease, make them laugh. He saw that the people who push the wheelchairs were practicing medicine. He noticed the same when he poked his head into the rooms and watched as the people who deliver the food chatted up the patients and their families. He watched the people who polish the corridors, who strip the sheets, who empty the trash cans, and he realized that a lot of them are immigrants, many of them had second jobs, most of them were just scraping by. And so Paul Levy had all this bouncing around his brain the other day when he stood in Sherman Auditorium. He looked out into a sea of people and recognized faces: technicians, secretaries, administrators, therapists, nurses, the people who are the heart and soul of any hospital. People who knew that Beth Israel had hired about a quarter of its 8,000 staff over the last six years and that the chances that they could all keep their jobs and benefits in an economy in freefall ranged between slim and none. 'I want to run an idea by you that I think is important, and I'd like to get your reaction to it,' Levy began. 'I'd like to do what we can to protect the lower-wage earners - the transporters, the housekeepers, the food service people. A lot of these people work really hard, and I don't want to put an additional burden on them.' 'Now, if we protect these workers, it means the rest of us will have to make a bigger sacrifice,' he continued. 'It means that others will have to give up more of their salary or benefits.' He had barely gotten the words out of his mouth when Sherman Auditorium erupted in applause. Thunderous, heartfelt, sustained applause. </blockquote> The editorialist's conclusion was: <blockquote> Paul Levy is trying something revolutionary, radical, maybe even impossible: He is trying to convince the people who work for him that the E in CEO can sometimes stand for empathy. </blockquote> Note that Levy is one of the few health care CEOs who <a href="http://runningahospital.blogspot.com/">blogs</a>, and he appears to write his blog on his own, unfettered by public relations flacks or risk-averse lawyers. His discussion of his revolutionary plan is <a href="http://runningahospital.blogspot.com/2009/03/town-meetings-bidmc.html">here</a>. Further note the context in which he is working. While his medical center does not seem to receive particularly payments from insurance companies and managed care organizations, a previously secret agreement between the previous CEO of Partners Healthcare, another renowned, but competing Harvard-affiliated medical system and the previous CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the state's biggest, and not-for-profit health care insurer/ managed care organization awarded much higher payments to that health care system (see posts <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/01/scorpions-in-bottle-shook-hands-secret.html">here</a> and <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/01/to-whom-did-scorpions-in-bottle-owe.html">here</a>). And the current CEO of that Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts just received (see this <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/03/43-million-dollar-ceo-for-not-for.html">post</a>) a substantial raise, enough to make him the best paid health care CEO in the state, while his organization's revenues and membership decreased. This case shows it is possible for a health care CEO to put the organization's mission, and the welfare and morale of its hard working staff ahead of his own remuneration. If only this example were not so rare.

A Health Care CEO Who Didn't Put His Own Pay First

We recently posted about executives at two different not-for-profit health care insurance companies/ managed care organizations whose pay se...

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Former Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science Board Member Pleads Guilty

The Chicago Tribune<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-weinstein-guilty-plea-11-mar11,0,3203453.story"> published </a>a reminder about a scandal from a few years ago that got little other than local attention at the time, <blockquote> Dr. Robert Weinstein, 63, of Northbrook faces 2 to 3 years in prison in connection with a complex fraud scheme in which he and Levine cheated Northshore Supporting Organization, a charity the two controlled. The charity supported the work of the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, which lost a combined $6 million in the scheme. Both men sat on the board of the North Chicago medical school. Weinstein, a self-described private investor for the last decade, admitted that he understated his income by $3 million on his 2003 tax return when he actually made $9.2 million. Weinstein, who is scheduled to be sentenced on July 1, didn't agree to cooperate in the federal probe. Weinstein was indicted last June on charges of wire and mail fraud and making false statements. But last week prosecutors charged him with a single tax fraud count after he agreed to plead guilty. The Tribune first reported in 2004 that the $6 million was missing from the charity. Not only did the school lose scholarship money but it also unknowingly paid a school construction contractor $1 million in kickbacks, according to court records. That money allegedly went to Sven Philip-Sorenson, a European businessman who paid it to the medical school as part of the scheme. Philip-Sorenson, who has not been charged, was a director of a Chicago-based health maintenance organization when Levine was a major stockholder of the company. </blockquote> I would submit that in retrospect, having two convicted felons on a medical school's board of trustees suggests a major governance problem. Yet this case, like others we have discussed involving very bad behavior by leaders of academic health care organizations, caused nary an echo outside its local area. Until we acknowledge that bad, sometimes horribly bad leadership and governance of respected health care organizations is possible, little will be done to prevent more bad leaders from damaging more organizations.

Former Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science Board Member Pleads Guilty

The Chicago Tribune published a reminder about a scandal from a few years ago that got little other than local attention at the time, Dr. R...

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Disruptive Innovators at Healthcare Renewal: Disruptive to whom, exactly?

The fascinating site "HealthMemes: Tracking Conversations About the Future of Health" at <a href="http://in3.org/health/" target="blank">http://in3.org/health/</a> identifies latest trends in health care disruptive innovations (innovations that go "outside the box"). I recently found out they've been linking my own writing as per a review of their <a href="http://in3.org/health/archive.php" target="blank">archives.</a> A number of the posts they link to over the past year or two have been mine or that of Dr. Roy Poses of Brown here at Healthcare Renewal blog, along with writings from approximately <a href="http://in3.org/health/sources.php">100 other sources</a>. The first "Permalink: attention should be paid to these posts" in the middle column of their homepage is mine, about endemic "overconfidence" in computing. My writings have also been noted at <a href="http://healthcare.zdnet.com/?p=1848" target="blank">ZDNet Health </a> by business journalist Dana Blankenhorn. I ponder the use of the term "disruptive innovation." Perhaps it's itself disruptive to ask the question: "to whom is such innovation 'disruptive', and for what reasons?" From <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/disruptive">thefreedictionary</a><a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/disruptive">.com</a>: <blockquote style="font-family:arial;">disruptive - characterized by unrest or disorder or insubordination; "effects of the struggle will be violent and disruptive"; "riotous times"; "these troubled areas"; "the tumultuous years of his administration"; "a turbulent and unruly childhood" Synonyms:<a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tumultuous"> tumultuous</a>, <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/turbulent">turbulent</a>, <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/riotous">riotous</a>, <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/troubled">troubled</a> Antonyms (from thesaurus.com): <a class="theColor" href="http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/calming">calming</a>, disciplined, settling, <a class="theColor" href="http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/soothing">soothing</a>, <a class="theColor" href="http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/well-behaved">well-behaved</a> </blockquote> On the topic of to whom ideas and writings such as mine and other HC Renewal contributors are "disruptive": If there are disruptive innovators, then there must be a whole taxonomy of people who are not disruptive innovators. The taxonomy might go something like this: <ul style="font-family: arial;"><li>disruptive innovator</li><li>soothing, tradition-bound innovator</li><li>disruptive imitator (the antonym of innovator)</li><li>tradition-bound imitator</li><li>disruptive non-contributor</li><li>tradition-bound non-contributor</li><li>disruptive demolisher</li><li>tradition-bound demolisher (perhaps an oxymoron)</li></ul> Disruptive innovators, thus, are disruptive to the interests of a wide variety of others. The problems with tradition-bound innovators is that they tend not to break with politically correct custom and tradition to speak up when their innovations are misappropriated or misused. The mainstream healthcare IT community largely fits that criterion, resulting in what Harvard professors Jerome Groopman and Pamela Hartzband in today's Wall Street Journal called "<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123681586452302125.html">Obama's $80 Billion Exaggeration</a>" regarding an industry, HIT, hijacked from the pioneers and morphed into a runaway wagon train to a gold rush that considers clinicians the enemy of profit. Incidentally, the points made by Groopman and Hartzband parallel the <a href="http://www.ischool.drexel.edu/faculty/ssilverstein/medinfo.htm">points I've been making about HIT</a> since 1998 and that other disruptive innovators in Medical Informatics were making long before that. It's good to see an entire half page on these issues in a mainstream news source, finally. Disruptive imitators and tradition-bound imitators propagate the good ideas of innovators, often taking credit themselves. I've worked with several <a href="http://www.ischool.drexel.edu/faculty/ssilverstein/failurecases/?loc=cases&sloc=Cardiology%20story">CIO's</a> and <a href="http://www.ischool.drexel.edu/faculty/ssilverstein/failurecases/?loc=cases&sloc=%5Eyaleinf">professors</a> who fit the former category precisely. I believe many in our medical leadership fall into the tradition-bound innovator and imitator categories, thus allowing their bondage to tradition to faciliate what has been described on Healthcare Renewal as the <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2006/07/anechoic-effect-explained.html" style="font-family: arial;">Anechoic Effect</a> regarding healthcare malfeasance and other abuses. Disruptive non contributors simply make trouble, and tradition-bound non contributors are those the Little Red Hen had to deal with. Then there are the disruptive demolishers. These are the people with net-negative value to an endeavor or workgroup, who are only good at destroying the work of innovators of both stripes. Their demolition often serves their own (sociopathic) interests. Corporate empire builders who have often risen above their level of competence, dishonest speculators, and other parasitic character types fit into this class. Finally, it is clear our current society whose economic system and industries have been brought to their knees, could benefit from paying significant attention to true disruptive innovators. Corporate CEO's, are you paying attention? The disruptive demolition men and women who've led us to this point, while tradition bound others sat back and did little, need some competition. -- SS Addendum: it occurs to me after reading Ignacio Valdes' post "<a href="http://linuxmednews.com/1236901534/index_html">On Medieval Barbering, Wal-Mart and One Size Fits All With Health IT</a>" at Open Source Health IT proponent <a href="http://linuxmednews.com/">LinuxMedNews.com</a> that Open Source Software is a "disruptive innovation" and its authors "disruptive innovators."

Disruptive Innovators at Healthcare Renewal: Disruptive to whom, exactly?

The fascinating site "HealthMemes: Tracking Conversations About the Future of Health" at http://in3.org/health/ identifies lat...

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Here comes Google Voice

We've just started to release a preview of Google Voice, an application that helps you better manage your voice communications. Google Voice will be available initially to existing users of GrandCentral, a service we acquired in July of 2007. The new application improves the way you use your phone. You can get transcripts of your voicemail (see the video below) and archive and search all of the SMS text messages you send and receive. You can also use the service to make low-priced international calls and easily access <a href="http://www.google.com/goog411/">Goog-411</a> directory assistance. <object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/oFVXAqFNgic&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/oFVXAqFNgic&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object> As you may know, GrandCentral offers many great features, including a single number to ring your home, work, and mobile phones, a central voicemail inbox that you could access on the web, and the ability to screen calls by listening in live as callers leave a voicemail. You'll find these features, and more, in the Google Voice preview. Check out the <a href="https://www.google.com/voice/about">features page</a> for videos and more information on how these features work. If you're already using GrandCentral, over the next couple days, you will receive instructions in your GrandCentral inbox on how to start using Google Voice. We'll be opening it up to others soon, so if you'd like to be notified when that happens, please <a href="http://services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite">send us</a> your email address. Posted by Craig Walker, Vincent Paquet, and Wesley Chan, Google Voice Product Managers

Here comes Google Voice

We've just started to release a preview of Google Voice, an application that helps you better manage your voice communications. Google V...

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Google Reader starts a conversation

I'm a big fan of sharing (might be all those lessons I learned in kindergarten). And when I share something, it's always nice to get a response like "Thanks!" or "That was the funniest thing I've ever read!" Whether you're 5 or 50, you're more likely to share other <a href="http://www.google.com/reader/shared/user/15650323335570657892/label/cool">awesome things</a> if you know people are excited to hear what you have to say. <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?hl=en&nui=1&service=reader&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Freader">Google Reader</a> makes it easy to read and share your favorite articles, blogs, and videos. In the last year, we've added new features to Reader like the ability to <a href="http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2008/08/pick-your-friends.html">choose friends</a> and <a href="http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2008/05/share-anything-anytime-anywhere.html">share items with a note</a>. But it did occur to us that the sharing process was incomplete -- there was no way to have conversations with friends about all those shared items. That's why we're excited to announce that starting today, your friends will be able to reply to shared items with comments, allowing you to have conversations with your friends right inside Reader. Comments can only be seen by friends of the person who originally shared the item. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilrhy0E7OMtC6FtChbXFBWrFcQXFqdC_Hvb12vQw1yS7ayDIE8x-43cuEgbxy45F3NKL5_XNIjTIlqJ6WWB7D81U7iWNoUoppqKYjnX66FFKV3m929Qs5rCYyBMB1yWHtFtRYjG9oq-lKX/s1600-h/pancake-instructions.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312058712813090546" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilrhy0E7OMtC6FtChbXFBWrFcQXFqdC_Hvb12vQw1yS7ayDIE8x-43cuEgbxy45F3NKL5_XNIjTIlqJ6WWB7D81U7iWNoUoppqKYjnX66FFKV3m929Qs5rCYyBMB1yWHtFtRYjG9oq-lKX/s400/pancake-instructions.png" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 393px; height: 400px;" /></a> <div>To get started, click "Comment View" at the top of your Friends' shared items in Reader, or just write a comment by clicking "Add comment" at the bottom of any shared item. For more details on how comments work, check out the <a href="http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2009/03/google-reader-is-your-new-watercooler.html">Google Reader blog</a>. Posted by Dolapo Falola, Software Engineer</div>

Google Reader starts a conversation

I'm a big fan of sharing (might be all those lessons I learned in kindergarten). And when I share something, it's always nice to get...

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Wal-Mart to market Electronic Medical Records? Has Medicine Gone Bananas?

No, it's not April 1 yet. While I bought the very netbook on which I am composing this essay at Wal Mart, along with the shirt I'm wearing and the astronomy magazine I will soon read, considering the exploratory nature of clinical IT and the expertise needed to install, manage, maintain, train, customize, remediate, and back up EHR's, as well as the history of <a href="http://www.ischool.drexel.edu/faculty/ssilverstein/failurecases/">health IT misadventure on a national scale</a>, I will only provide a few comments on the following, including this pithy one: Rotsa Ruck. <blockquote style="font-family:arial;">Wal-Mart to market EHR system to small practices. On the front page of its Business Day section, the <a href="http://links.mkt211.com/ctt?kn=71&m=3958340&r=MjIyMjczNDU4NgS2&b=0&j=MTEwNzg5OTk3S0&mt=1&rt=0">New York Times</a> (3/11, B1, Lohr) reports, "Wal-Mart Stores is striding into the market for electronic health records [EHRs], seeking to bring the technology into the mainstream for physicians in small offices, where most of America's doctors practice medicine." Partnering "its Sam's Club division with Dell for computers and eClinicalWorks, a fast-growing private company, for software," Wal-Mart aims to "make the technology more accessible and affordable, undercutting rival health information technology suppliers by as much as half." In doing so, the company will offer a "package deal of hardware, software, installation, maintenance and training." The package will "be made available this spring" for "under $25,000 for the first physician in a practice, and about $10,000 for each additional doctor." According to experts, "traditional health technology suppliers...have tended to shun the small physician offices because it has been costly to sell to them." But, "Wal-Mart...has the potential to bring not only lower costs but also an efficient distribution channel" through the "200,000 healthcare providers" among its Sam's Club members. </blockquote> Next, McDonald's. Can I have an EMR with that cheeseburger? (Oh, wait. McDonald's already <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2006/07/pfizer-brings-life-to-my-if-youve-run.html">cornered the Pharma market</a>.) Seriously, all I see with yet another intermediary between the vendors and the physician is more money taken out of healthcare and given to yet more nonmedical for-profits, and this for a technology our own National Research Council <a href="http://www.ischool.drexel.edu/faculty/ssilverstein/failurecases/?loc=cases&sloc=NRC">tells us does not meet clinicians' needs</a>, and may in its present form actually hamper healthcare improvement. Walmart has expertise in supporting ultra-specialized, cross-disciplinary enduser technologies such as an EMR like I have expertise in, say, nuclear engineering or high energy physics. (Maybe less, as I took physics in high school and college and did quite well in them.) It may be just me, but I've never thought of Walmart as the place to support ultra high tech virtual clinical devices such as EMR's. Sell cheap imported stethoscopes for blood pressure measurement, yes. Sell a device that our National Research Council says is not quite ready for prime time clinician use, that's a bit more iffy. Then, what would a Walmart EMR department look like? Shrink wrapped Acme Anvil EMR boxes stacked to the ceiling on warehouse shelves? Huge banners proclaiming "PRICE DROP: TODAY ONLY, $23,999.00?" What? <div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYzqqMseHktA_gweGeuaFoTdXGzhBCA8qDYlFSFuGVQpRJ2CRQLjo-sfQFnqAnBM5FJKqZYws2x7ULmPpYLd6G-vIgveDVrApZJvabBw04raCy6DlLkTqt4SCqeU84pjcrXmZ7VfygROT-/s1600-h/acme+catalog.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312303891533916658" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYzqqMseHktA_gweGeuaFoTdXGzhBCA8qDYlFSFuGVQpRJ2CRQLjo-sfQFnqAnBM5FJKqZYws2x7ULmPpYLd6G-vIgveDVrApZJvabBw04raCy6DlLkTqt4SCqeU84pjcrXmZ7VfygROT-/s320/acme+catalog.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 238px; height: 320px;" /></a>Price drop: Acme Anvil EMR, regularly $25,000. Special today, only $23,999! </div> Would it not be cheaper for the HIT vendors to simply post billboards for their products and services in small towns across America? This entire scheme reminds me of the cockamamie dot-com boom, free mortgages, and arcane financial instruments that have recently caused certain tectonic shifts in our society. With perhaps a touch of the Ol' West snake oil salesman entrepreneurship thrown in. Finally, why WalMart? RadioShack is also widespread and have a technology focus. They were a computer pioneer, and even used to have their own computer centers. Even Best Buys has far more extensive computer departments, including Apple in this area, and a knowledgeable sales team and technical "<a href="http://www.geeksquad.com/">Geek Squad</a>" to help support IT. I can't even believe I'm writing such things. Medicine has truly gone bananas when such issues even need to be written about. -- SS

Wal-Mart to market Electronic Medical Records? Has Medicine Gone Bananas?

No, it's not April 1 yet. While I bought the very netbook on which I am composing this essay at Wal Mart, along with the shirt I'm w...

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