Reducing our carbon footprint

In June 2007 Google made a voluntary commitment to <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/carbon-neutrality-by-end-of-2007.html">become carbon neutral</a>. To honor this commitment, we calculated our global carbon footprint, purchased high-quality carbon offsets, and worked with a <a href="http://www.winrock.org/">third party</a> to certify our calculations and validate our offset portfolio. Through this process, we've neutralized all of Google's 2007 emissions, as well as part of our 2008 emissions. We'll continue to invest in offset projects until we reach carbon neutrality.<br /><br />Offsets are only a small part of what we are doing to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. While offsets with strong <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Additionality#Additionality_and_Its_Importance">additionality</a> can achieve real emissions reductions in unregulated sectors at a relatively low cost, we view them as a short-term solution for Google, not as a substitute for other action. They provide a way for us to take responsibility for our emissions now, while we continue to advocate the development of utility-scale renewable energy. Current standards for offsets require a significant amount of work to evaluate the quality of each offset project and ensure that projects go beyond "business as usual." Stronger additionality standards -- that are more stringent, clear, and objective -- would also make it simpler for corporations like Google to use offsets as part of an overall strategy to neutralize emissions.<br /><br />While we do plan to continue with the purchase of offsets to neutralize the emissions we cannot eliminate through efficiency or renewable energy, our green team will focus on what we do best -- engineering technology solutions. We've seen the success of transportation and IT efficiency programs like <a href="http://www.google.org/recharge/">RechargeIT</a> and the <a href="http://climatesaverscomputing.org/">Climate Savers Computing Initiative</a>, and the potential of renewable power and energy information initiatives such as <a href="http://www.google.org/rec.html">RE<C</a> and <a href="http://www.google.org/powermeter/">Google PowerMeter</a>.<br /><br />The best way to reduce our corporate footprint is to not use electricity in the first place. Google will continue to reduce our emissions directly by building and designing some of the world's most <a href="http://www.google.com/corporate/green/datacenters/">efficient data centers</a> as well as using <a href="http://www.google.com/corporate/solarpanels/home">on-site renewable energy</a> to power our facilities. Over the last five years, we have eliminated over half the emissions we would have produced in the absence of these critical measures. Offsets serve to neutralize the rest. In the future, we will continue to drive for improvements in energy efficiency and to find affordable sources of renewable energy.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Bill Weihl, Green Energy Czar</span>

Reducing our carbon footprint

In June 2007 Google made a voluntary commitment to become carbon neutral . To honor this commitment, we calculated our global carbon footpri...

Đọc thêm »

Synthes Settles, Agrees to Stop Giving Stock to Physicians Conducting Clinical Trials

Again, 'tis the season for legal settlements. <a href="http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/05/nj_reaches_landmark_settlement.html">From the Newark Star-Ledger</a>,<br /><br /><blockquote><p><br /><em>New Jersey and Pennsylvania-based medical company Synthes reached a settlement today over the company's alleged financial conflicts of interest</em>, which officials are calling a landmark deal, state officials announced today.<br /><br />The attorney general's office launched an investigation early 2008 into Synthes, which produces devices for treating spinal trauma, to determine whether physicians were financially benefiting from conducting clinical trials on the company's products. Under the agreement, <em>Synthes will no longer pay trial physicians with company stock and must disclose all payments to the physicians and whether the physicians have a financial stake in the outcome of the trial</em>. </p><p>Attorney General Anne Milgram, who said such provisions were the first of their kind, said conflicts of interest are common within the medical community.<br /><br /><em><strong>'It is outrageous that doctors who are testing and, in many cases, recommending the use of certain high-risk medical devices are being compensated with stock in the very companies that make the devices</strong></em>,' said Milgram. 'All patients -- but especially those considering high-risk devices such as spinal disc replacements -- deserve honest, objective clinical trial information about the products available.'<br /><br />She also criticized the Food and Drug Administration, saying the federal agency was not vigilant enough in regulating Synthes, a $3.2 billion global company.<br /><br /><em>'Medical device makers have a duty to make certain that clinical trial results are accurate and unbiased,' Milgram said. 'In creating these financial incentives for doctors, Synthes and the rest of the industry have done the exact opposite</em>. Going forward, if the industry will not address this problem voluntarily, we most certainly will.'<br /></p></blockquote><br />What will they think of next? We have seen plenty of cases in which physicians have been given payments that could influence their clinical decision making by companies with products or services to sell. Often, such payments are not disclosed. This is one of the few times I have seen physicians other than those on corporate boards, however, receiving payments in company stock. This would seem to be a new low. It surely would provide a more powerful incentive to make the studies' results favor the company's products than would mere cash payments. At least the settlement will stop this practice, and force disclosure of company payments.<br /><br />The statements by the state Attorney General were particularly and admirably direct.<br /><br />However, once again we see some familiar patterns. While human beings authorized or committed the acts that got the organization in trouble, rarely do these people seem to suffer any negative consequences. At most, the organization may pay a fine. In this case, the fine was, in corporate terms, tiny. However, even a large fine, however, may come out of dividends or the stock price, dispersing the cost to stock-holders, or out of salaries across the board. Thus, those who got the organization into trouble are unlikely to feel pain from it. Perhaps because of reverence for all organizations related to health care, and fear that the bankruptcy of any health care organization, even a health care insurance company, will leave patients in the lurch, prosecutors do not seem inclined to actually prosecute such organizations. The net effect, though, seems to be that dishonest executives of health care organizations can continue to act with impunity.Until bad leadership of health care organizations leads to negative consequences for those practicing it, health care leadership can be expected to continuously degrade.<br /><br />ADDENDUM (6 May, 2009) - See also <a href="http://www.gooznews.com/node/2906">comments by Merrill Goozner </a>on GoozNews blog.

Synthes Settles, Agrees to Stop Giving Stock to Physicians Conducting Clinical Trials

Again, 'tis the season for legal settlements. From the Newark Star-Ledger , New Jersey and Pennsylvania-based medical company Synthes re...

Đọc thêm »

Larry Page's University of Michigan commencement address

Over the weekend Larry Page delivered the commencement address at his alma mater and encouraged grads to "get a little crazy." Video of his speech was recently posted and we wanted to share it with our readers. You can also read the <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/annc/20090502-page-commencement.html" id="tc:z" title="read the full transcript">full transcript</a>.<br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qFb2rvmrahc&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qFb2rvmrahc&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><br /><span class="byline-author"><br />Posted by Susan Straccia, Google Blog team<br /></span>

Larry Page's University of Michigan commencement address

Over the weekend Larry Page delivered the commencement address at his alma mater and encouraged grads to "get a little crazy." Vid...

Đọc thêm »

WellCare Settles, Accepts Deferred Prosecution Agreement

'Tis the season for deferred prosecution agreements for health care organizations. As <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124153953103687873.html">reported by the Wall Street Journal</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote><br /><em>WellCare Health Plans Inc. agreed to pay $80 million to settle a Florida Medicaid fraud investigation</em> that has embroiled the company since the fall of 2007, previously prompting a management shake-up and restatement of more than three years of the company's earnings.<br /><br />The settlement resolves federal and state criminal probes into allegations that <em>WellCare defrauded Florida benefits programs for low-income adults and children of about $40 million by improperly inflating what it spent on care</em>.<br /><br />WellCare, based in Tampa, Fla., administers medical benefits for about 2.5 million enrollees in government-sponsored plans in several states.<br /><br />Under a deferred prosecution agreement, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida in Tampa filed <em>a fraud conspiracy charge</em> against the company but said it wouldn't prosecute the case if WellCare meets all of the deal's terms.<br /><br />U.S. Attorney A. Brian Albritton said in a news conference Tuesday that his office <em>could have pursued a conviction but that it likely would have put the insurer out of business, hurting customers, innocent employees and shareholders. In penalizing the company, 'we have, at the same time, tried to avoid crushing it,' he said</em>.<br /><br />Under the terms, WellCare must forfeit $40 million and pay another $40 million in restitution to Florida's Medicaid and 'Healthy Kids' plans. WellCare also has agreed <em>'to accept and acknowledge full responsibility for the conduct that led to the government's investigations</em>,' according to the deferred prosecution agreement. The company declined to elaborate.<br /><br />In addition, the company also must retain an independent monitor to review its business operations, cooperate with the government's ongoing investigations and implement new procedures within 60 days to prevent future abuse or faulty reports to state health care programs.<br /></blockquote><br /><br />This was not the first bit of trouble WellCare got itself into. We posted <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2007/11/health-plans-programs-cancelled-for.html">here</a> about how the state of Connecticut stopped WellCare from running a plan for poor children after the company refused to reveal what it was paying physicians, and why it was failing to pay for particular services. <br /><br />So, as we have found from blogging on Health Care Renewal for a while, organizations that are found to be committing one sort of mischief often are also found to be committing another sort. <br /><br />We also see some other familiar patterns. While human beings authorized or committed the acts that got the organization in trouble, rarely do these people seem to suffer any negative consequences. At most, the organization may pay a seemingly large fine. This, however, may come out of dividends or the stock price, dispersing the cost to stock-holders, or out of salaries across the board. Thus, those who got the organization into trouble are unlikely to feel pain from it. Perhaps because of reverence for all organizations related to health care, and fear that the bankruptcy of any health care organization, even a health care insurance company, will leave patients in the lurch, prosecutors do not seem inclined to actually prosecute such organizations. The net effect, though, seems to be that dishonest executives of health care organizations can continue to act with impunity.<br /><br />Until bad leadership of health care organizations leads to negative consequences for those practicing it, health care leadership can be expected to continuously degrade. <br /><br />By the way, one member of the <a href="http://ir.wellcare.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=176521&p=irol-govboard">WellCare board of directors </a>is Regina Herzlinger, a well known and prolific health policy expert, and holds the <a href="http://drfd.hbs.edu/fit/public/facultyInfo.do?facInfo=bio&facEmId=rherzlinger">Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration Chair of the Harvard Business School</a>. As far as I know, Prof Herzlinger is one of the many health policy experts who avoids discussing the sorts of problems with the accountability, integrity, and transparency of health care leadership which is grist for the mill here at Health Care Renewal. Yet under the stewardship of such an august expert, WellCare had to "accept and acknowledge full responsibility for ... conduct" that included fraud. Perhaps, Prof Herzlinger, like many other main stream health policy experts, should learn to acknowledge that health care leadership may be unaccountable, opaque, dishonest, and sometimes flagrantly corrupt. Furthermore, Prof Herzlinger, like many other well-paid board members of health care organization, should pay a bit more attention to the mischief being committed by those who answer to her.

WellCare Settles, Accepts Deferred Prosecution Agreement

'Tis the season for deferred prosecution agreements for health care organizations. As reported by the Wall Street Journal : WellCare Hea...

Đọc thêm »

Google Trends on your website

One thing we've noticed here at Google over the years is that the more popular something becomes, the more people search for it online. Our annual <a href="http://www.google.com/zeitgeist">zeitgeist</a> catalogs some of the more interesting trends we've seen in a year's worth of web search data. We also like to keep our eye out for more timely events, such as the <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/search-findings-from-us-presidential.html">U.S. presidential inauguration</a>.<br /><br />As we head into the last month of this season's "American Idol," we thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce our new <a href="http://www.google.com/landing/trendsgadget/">embeddable Google Trends gadget</a> to track your favorite trends, right on your own website. It's as easy as "cut and paste" to showcase the rising popularity of your own idols, even if they're not on a hit television show. You get to choose which trends you want to track.<br /><br />I've been using <a href="http://www.google.com/trends">Google Trends</a> to follow my favorite "Idol" contestants for the past three years. It all started in 2006 when I was a <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=chris+daughtry&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B5GGGL_enUS315US315&ie=UTF-8&aq=t&oq=chris+dautry">Chris Daughtry</a> fan. Looking at the search trends I could tell I wasn't the only one, and I felt pretty good about the odds that Chris was going to fare well against the other contestants.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8cQrl_B08x1RqYAPNuRbQkGcHU3iQbSWLSS6TX_cynUUdKKUReOCexkgLKkc4AS4nLpeEJylLVlaUGTBqAQkNCE82QAdl5hJgKR5Xgy8k9cLNHMMmVQMbUWQHMxDYi3dqmTDvGtUYUdb3/s1600-h/American_Idol_Insights_Screenshot_2006_v2.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332737182804756226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8cQrl_B08x1RqYAPNuRbQkGcHU3iQbSWLSS6TX_cynUUdKKUReOCexkgLKkc4AS4nLpeEJylLVlaUGTBqAQkNCE82QAdl5hJgKR5Xgy8k9cLNHMMmVQMbUWQHMxDYi3dqmTDvGtUYUdb3/s400/American_Idol_Insights_Screenshot_2006_v2.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 180px;" /></a><br />Going into the final four, Chris had a lead on <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Elliott+Yamin+american+idol&btnG=Search">Elliott Yamin</a>, and I was pretty confident he'd advance. But over the week leading up to the performance, Chris' lead began to diminish. Despite his early lead, Chris ended up getting eliminated. I was totally bummed, but wasn't all too surprised given that they were neck and neck on Trends days before elimination night.<br /><br />Fast-forward to 2008. I was rooting for <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1B5GGGL_enUS315US315&q=David+Cook+American+Idol&btnG=Search">David Cook</a>, and after each performance I'd check so see how he was doing on Trends.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm6VtHzK9zlz5VNMmlFVwGO2h4jI9D_dmoM6mKFc5IfVdLp_6mwm2eboEAkw6H-kfE3hXDPQ5QcqB0fUMU4znfDHYTqzQ0xHgh5JlCN58pcUlugqxq2AmewSJLDgXbJy6DFWBAzi2yE6Tl/s1600-h/American_Idol_Insights_Screenshot_2008_v2.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332737441344686162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm6VtHzK9zlz5VNMmlFVwGO2h4jI9D_dmoM6mKFc5IfVdLp_6mwm2eboEAkw6H-kfE3hXDPQ5QcqB0fUMU4znfDHYTqzQ0xHgh5JlCN58pcUlugqxq2AmewSJLDgXbJy6DFWBAzi2yE6Tl/s400/American_Idol_Insights_Screenshot_2008_v2.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 152px;" /></a><br />I was excited to see him getting more and more popular each week, and each week I could rest a little easier when I found out that David was more popular than the other contestants. David ended up walking away with the crown that year, and I had finally picked a winner!<br /><br />This year, I had the good fortune of attending an "American Idol" show in person. Not really knowing what to expect, I was completely blown away by the evening's final performance: <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1B5GGGL_enUS315US315&q=Adam+Lambert&btnG=Search">Adam Lambert</a>'s rendition of the Tears for Fears song "Mad World." I could literally feel the building move under my feet from his powerful vocals and the roar of the crowd. Since then I have been an Adam fan all the way. And just when I thought that <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1B5GGGL_enUS315US315&q=Allison+Iraheta&btnG=Search">Allison Iraheta</a> was closing in, Adam raised the bar yet again with his rockin' performance of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love." Let's see what Google Trends has to say about Adam this week. And if after last night's show you're worried that your favorite "Idol" had a bad night and might not make it to the next round, see if you can <a href="http://www.google.com/landing/trendsgadget/">glean some insights</a> from the search trends.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by R.J. Pittman, Director, Product Management</span>

Google Trends on your website

One thing we've noticed here at Google over the years is that the more popular something becomes, the more people search for it online. ...

Đọc thêm »

More tools and tricks for teachers

Hello teachers,<br /><br />We hope that your desk was deluged with a bunch of shined-up apples this morning as a thank you from your students for all that you do for them every day. At Google, we'd like to thank you as well, and acknowledge that we wouldn't be where we are today if it hadn't been for the great teachers who mentored us through school.<br /><br />In support of <a href="https://www.nea.org/grants/1359.htm">National Teacher Day</a>, we'd like to announce that applications are open for our next <a href="http://www.google.com/educators/gta.html">Google Teacher Academy</a>, which will take place in our <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=google+boulder&sll=40.022291,-105.26134&sspn=0.008183,0.017896&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=40.022586,-105.26119&spn=0.00866,0.01869&z=16&iwloc=A">Boulder, Colorado office</a> on Wednesday, August 5th. The Google Teacher Academy is a free professional development experience designed to help K-12 educators get the most from innovative technologies. Each academy is an intensive, one-day event where participants get hands-on experience with Google's free products, which will help you bring communication, collaboration and fun into your classrooms. Teachers will also learn about innovative instructional strategies, receive resources to share with colleagues, and immerse themselves in an innovative corporate environment. Upon completion, participants become Google Certified Teachers who share what they learn with other K-12 educators in their local region. <a href="http://www.google.com/educators/gta.html">Applications</a> are due Friday, July 3rd.<br /><br />We'd also like to thank our cadre of Google Certified Teachers, who spread all kinds of professional development love every day. Specifically, we'd like to highlight GCT Jerome Burg, whose <a href="http://www.googlelittrips.org/">Google Lit Trips</a> was recently awarded the <a href="http://asiasociety.org/education/prizes/home.htm">2008 Goldman Sachs Foundation Prize</a> for Excellence in International Education in Media and Technology. Google Lit Trips uses the technologies of <a href="http://earth.google.com/">Google Earth</a> and social networking to bring literature to life through virtual mapping. By placing markers on Google Earth tracking the journeys of characters from literature and populating those placemarks with a wide variety of supplemental resources, students can “ride along as virtual passengers” on the same journey the characters are taking. The site gives teachers access to previously constructed Google Lit Trips as well as the ability to interact and post new trips online. Congratulations, Jerome — you couldn't have made us prouder!<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE6YltVd78r0yTVnqC31cSNttBAkHtMKFOlzlEFCoQ6WlsFolFEw3T_MzlJNnNAcxrGc35C460x9ZOZRwavWqokx3xG18NigK6zyPny607gq75Hck-O3jjwoUyeIlWIqtLD7n5tKoBwujk/s1600-h/candide_3.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332568671784206354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE6YltVd78r0yTVnqC31cSNttBAkHtMKFOlzlEFCoQ6WlsFolFEw3T_MzlJNnNAcxrGc35C460x9ZOZRwavWqokx3xG18NigK6zyPny607gq75Hck-O3jjwoUyeIlWIqtLD7n5tKoBwujk/s400/candide_3.png" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 394px; height: 309px;" /></a><span class="byline-author"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Update: </span>Corrected the application due date.<br /><br />Posted by Cristin Frodella, Product Marketing Manager</span>

More tools and tricks for teachers

Hello teachers, We hope that your desk was deluged with a bunch of shined-up apples this morning as a thank you from your students for all t...

Đọc thêm »

EHR's and Scarcity of Public Reviews of the User Experience

I recently downloaded the public beta (incomplete trial version) of Apple's new web browser <a href="http://www.apple.com/safari/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Safari 4</span></a>.<br /><br />I like its <a href="http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/user_experience_or_ux.html">user experience</a> and features, presenting a main page "posterboard" of most visited or user-selected sites, a searchable, flip-panel history of visited pages (using the Macintosh OS X Spotlight and Cover Flow paradigms), top located tabs, and other useful features. (Note: I use both Macs and PC's, and hold no financial stakes in Apple whatsoever.)<br /><br />What struck me was the vociferous online discussions and debates about every facet of the new browser version, down to the level of minutiae. The following review particularly struck me for its level of detail - <a href="http://daringfireball.net/2009/03/safari_4_public_beta">Observations, Complaints, Quibbles, and Suggestions Regarding the Safari 4 Public Beta Released One Week Ago, Roughly in Order of Importance</a> by John Gruber. It includes minutiae such as this:<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">... THE TABS<br /><br />Safari’s new tab layout, placing the tabs directly in the window title bar, is a radical change. There’s no use addressing the specific details — good and bad — of this new arrangement, without first trying to figure out why Apple did this. Again, the designers are behind Apple’s wall of silence, so we’re left to speculate.<br /><br />Rule out the notion that Safari’s designers undertook this change lightly. This is a major change to an important feature that many users feel strongly about. My guess is that this is an attempt to bring tabbed browsing to the masses. The biggest and most important change is that the interface for the tabs is now far more prominent. In fact, previously, the entire interface for tabbed browsing was not visible in Safari by default — in a window with just one tab, Safari’s default settings were such that the tab bar was not shown.<br /><br />In Safari 4, there’s a prominent and unique “+” button that is always visible in the top right corner of every window, where the standard tic-tac button for toggling the display of the toolbar usually resides.1 Because the interface to create new tabs is now obvious, I can only assume that the point of this redesign is to encourage more people to use, or at least try, tabbed browsing.<br /><br />But the problems with this new tab layout are significant.<br /><br />Conceptually, the basic idea is sound. Browser tabs are, effectively, a collection of separate browser windows grouped together in a single parent window. Safari’s new tab layout makes this a tab is like a sub-window metaphor more explicit. The anchor, the conceptual root, of a standard Mac OS window is the title bar, and in Safari 4, the tabs aren’t just in the title bar, they are the title bar ...<br /></span></blockquote><br />Etcetera and so forth, on and on, as in other reviews easily found online.<br /><br />In Electronic Health Records and other clinical IT, by way of contrast, reviews at this level of detail are ... nearly nonexistent (I use the term "nearly" because I authored such a review, in general terms, <a href="http://hcrenewal.blogspot.com/2009/02/are-health-it-designers-idiots-part-1.html">starting here</a>). One reason EHR and other clinical IT user experience and performance debates are so rare is because customers are contractually forbidden to engage in them publicly. Koppel's and Kreda's JAMA paper makes that clear:<br /><br /><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><a href="http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/301/12/1276"></a><blockquote><a href="http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/301/12/1276">Health Care Information Technology Vendors' "Hold Harmless" Clause - Implications for Patients and Clinicians</a>, Ross Koppel and David Kreda, Journal of the American Medical Association, 2009; 301(12):1276-1278 </blockquote></span><br />Vendors claim they are protecting their "intellectual property." I'm not exactly sure what IP they are holding as closely as the crown jewels.<br /><br />Is it their:<br /><br /><ul><li>Earth shaking, 22nd century user interfaces?</li><li>Secretive and ingenious widgets that revolutionize user selection from choice lists?</li><li>Hyper-efficient, never before seen data structures and algorithms?</li><li>Artificial intelligence routines that would make Captain Picard and his android sidekick Mr. Data envious?</li></ul><br />In other words, what, exactly, is being protected by shielding commercial EHR's from external scrutiny and debate?<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgczlrzMT49uJ_QJkT2wm8vN33hCwIzyXC1ucci8-l4iQcivM6j1rjbPhjqOrMsMQHoUrMBsPrNqjcb0lbKKzzbGpeexZbilOno9aLu2hrW3NtnnVPeuNkDP9c42CenvQwZYIknDxwMa8Kz/s1600-h/m5.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332415104338254930" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgczlrzMT49uJ_QJkT2wm8vN33hCwIzyXC1ucci8-l4iQcivM6j1rjbPhjqOrMsMQHoUrMBsPrNqjcb0lbKKzzbGpeexZbilOno9aLu2hrW3NtnnVPeuNkDP9c42CenvQwZYIknDxwMa8Kz/s320/m5.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 260px; height: 195px;" /></a><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:85%;" >Is this the Secret Sauce the commercial EHR vendors seek to conceal?</span><br /></div><br />The loss engendered by such policies is the reduced feedback from, and reduced interaction among endusers. This interaction occurs commonly on the Internet in 2009 on a great number of topics, but EHR user experiences are not one of them.<br /><br />Companies like Apple and Microsoft, strongly user centric, <span style="font-weight: bold;">encourage</span> such debates through release of their beta's, both of enduser tools and of operating systems e.g., Windows 7 Beta. I should note that with these pieces of software, lives are not at stake, unlike with electronic health records systems.<br /><br />The Veterans Health Administration makes a full working copy of VistA Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS) available as a free public download to anyone in the world <a href="http://www1.va.gov/cprsdemo/">here</a>. I use it in my teaching (and am forced to do so, as commercial EHR demos are as available as, say, demos of the National Security Agency's spy and decryption software).<br /><br />What, exactly, is the commercial EHR vendors' real excuse for the levels of product secrecy they maintain?<br /><br />Could it be <span style="font-weight: bold;">embarrassment</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">fear</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">of exposure</span> of defects, ill conceived design features and a mission hostile user experience?<br /><br />-- SS

EHR's and Scarcity of Public Reviews of the User Experience

I recently downloaded the public beta (incomplete trial version) of Apple's new web browser Safari 4 . I like its user experience and f...

Đọc thêm »