Escaping the EHR Trap — The Future of Health IT

Mandl, Kenneth, D. and Isaac S. Kohane. "Escaping the EHR Trap — The Future of Health IT." New England Journal of Medicine, 366:2240-2242, June 14, 2012.

From the article: "It is a widely accepted myth that medicine requires complex, highly specialized information-technology (IT) systems. This myth continues to justify soaring IT costs, burdensome physician workloads, and stagnation in innovation — while doctors become increasingly bound to documentation and communication products that are functionally decades behind those they use in their “civilian” life…. We believe that EHR vendors propagate the myth that health IT is qualitatively different from industrial and consumer products in order to protect their prices and market share and block new entrants. In reality, diverse functionality needn't reside within single EHR systems, and there's a clear path toward better, safer, cheaper, and nimbler tools for managing health care's complex tasks." Read more

From Real-Time Intercepts to Stored Records: Why Encryption Drives the Government to Seek Access to the Cloud

Swire, Peter P., "From Real-Time Intercepts to Stored Records: Why Encryption Drives the Government to Seek Access to the Cloud" (April 12, 2012).

From the abstract: "This paper explains how changing technology, especially the rising adoption of encryption, is shifting law enforcement and national security lawful access to far greater emphasis on stored records, notably records stored in the cloud. The major and growing reliance on surveillance access to stored records results from the following changes:

(1) Encryption. Adoption of strong encryption is becoming much more common for data and voice communications, via virtual private networks, encrypted webmail, SSL web sessions, and encrypted Voice over IP voice communications.

(2) Declining effectiveness of traditional wiretaps. Traditional wiretap techniques at the ISP or local telephone network increasingly encounter these encrypted communications, blocking the effectiveness of the traditional techniques.

(3) New importance of the cloud. Government access to communications thus increasingly relies on a new and limited set of methods, notably featuring access to stored records in the cloud.

(4) The “haves” and “have-nots.” The first three changes create a new division between the “haves” and “have-nots” when it comes to government access to communications. The “have-nots” become increasingly dependent, for access to communications, on cooperation from the “have” jurisdictions.

Part 1 of the paper describes the changing technology of wiretaps and government access. Part 2 documents the growing adoption of strong encryption in a wide and growing range of settings of interest to government agencies. Part 3 explains how these technological trends create a major shift from real-time intercepts to stored records, especially in the cloud."

Read more

A Snapshot of Australia’s Digital Future to 2050

Ruthven, Phil. A Snapshot of Australia’s Digital Future to 2050, a report commissioned by IBM, 2012.
 

From the article: "A world-first, the report reveals information and communications technology (ICT) enhanced with ubiquitous high-speed broadband is becoming Australia’s new utility – as historic and game changing as electricity or telephony… The report predicts that 10 per cent of Australia’s 509 industries, accounting for 23 per cent of the nation’s revenue, will not function without this new utility. A further 23 per cent of industry revenue will use it to drive step-changes in their business. 15 industry classes are likely to demise if they do not reinvent themselves to embrace the digital future; and some may simply be unable to do so. The report finds that Australia will no longer be known for its dependency on the export of natural resources over the next half century. It will become known as much an exporter of services such as tourism, business services, health and education services. The export of tourism alone could match the 2012 mineral exports totalling around $175 billion by 2030." Read more

Health Information Exchange Policy Brief Examines Privacy And Security Concerns And Solutions

"Health Information Exchange Policy Brief Examines Privacy And Security Concerns And Solutions." press release PR Newswire,  June 13, 2012.

From the press release: "A new policy brief by Consumers Union and the Center for Democracy & Technology offers solutions to strengthen the privacy and security of electronic health information systems and support the increased use and appropriate sharing of patients' health data. It also identifies gaps in current law and offers recommendations to address those gaps to help assure a trusted, secure electronic health records system…. According to the policy brief, the shift from paper to electronic health records presents new challenges and new solutions to protecting the privacy and security of patients' health information. A breach that formerly affected a single paper record now can expose an entire database of patient records. At the same time, health information exchange presents powerful new ways to improve the privacy and security of patients' data, including encryption, authentication and authorization controls, and electronic audit trails." Read more

See also 

"Achieving the Right Balance: Privacy and Security Policies to Support Electronic Health Information Exchange." California Healthcare Foundation, June 12, 2012.

Businesses Dominate Bids for Internet Suffixes

Jesdanun, Anick. "Businesses Dominate Bids for Internet Suffixes." The Atlanta Journal Constitution, June 13, 2012.

From the article: "Big brands are behind hundreds of proposals for new Internet addresses, including scores for generic terms such as "cruise," ''.kids" and ".tires."

If approved, Amazon could use ".author" in an attempt to dominate online bookselling, while Google could use ".love" to collect registration fees from its rivals.

Amazon and Google also are vying for ".app" and ".music," while the wine company Gallo Vineyards Inc. wants ".barefoot."

It's all part of the largest expansion of the Internet address system since its creation in the 1980s, a process likely to cause headaches for some companies while creating vast opportunities for others. The organization in charge of Internet addresses, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, announced the proposals for Internet suffixes Wednesday. A suffix is the ".com" part in a domain name.

The bids now go through a review that could take months or years. Up to 1,000 suffixes could be added each year." Read more

See also

Reveal Day 13 June 2012 – New gTLD Applied-For Strings, ICANN, June 12, 2012.

Wyden, Issa Call for Internet Bill of Rights

Sasso, Brendon. "Wyden, Issa Call for Internet Bill of Rights." The Hill, June 11, 2012.

From the blog: "Speaking at a technology conference in New York on Monday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) called for a "digital bill of rights" to protect Internet users from intrusive legislation.

The two lawmakers said the protections are necessary to prevent Congress from passing bills that stifle Internet freedom, pointing to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA)…. The proposal declares that "digital citizens" have the right to "a free, uncensored Internet" and an "open, unobstructed Internet." The draft also includes rights of equality, privacy, sharing and property on the Internet.

The lawmakers did not detail how they planned to enforce the rights or whether the proposal would be a law or a constitutional amendment." Read more

See also

"A Digital Citizen's Bill of Rights." From the office of Congressman Darrell Issa website.

Digital Drag Forecast on Media Growth

Steel, Emily. "Digital Drag Forecast on Media Growth." The Financial Times, June 11, 2012.

From the article:  "Consumers’ reluctance to pay as much for digital media as they do for physical products, such as news, books and music, will drag on the global media and entertainment industry’s growth over the next five years, according to a new industry forecast.

The media and entertainment industry is likely to grow at a 5.7 per cent compound annual rate over the next five years, slower than the 6.6 per cent annual growth rate expected in nominal GDP over the same period, according to PwC’ annual outlook for the sector…

Digital entertainment and media revenues increased 17.6 per cent globally in 2011, in sharp contrast to a 0.6 per cent increase in non-digital revenues, PwC said. Digital media is expected to account for 37.5 per cent of the market in 2016, up from 28 per cent in 2011."

Read more

See also

Global entertainment and media outlook: 2012-2016, a report prepared by PricewaterhouseCooper, 2012.

Google and Netflix Make Land Grab On Edge Of Internet

McMillan, Robert. "Google and Netflix Make Land Grab On Edge Of Internet." Wired, June 9, 2012.

From the blog: "Behind the scenes, there’s a big change happening on internet. It’s something that’s mostly hidden from web surfers, but it’s becoming critical to big internet companies such as Google and Netflix.

They’re moving servers — usually free of charge — next to the service providers’ networking gear so that people trying to watch a popular YouTube video don’t have to send traffic across the network to servers back to the website’s data center. It can save companies like Google and Comcast lots of money, and it speeds things up for consumers.

According to Craig Labovitz, founder of network analysis company Deepfield Networks, it’s also changing the way that internet companies work. “The business they’re in isn’t delivering bits anymore. It’s delivering content,” he says. And while not everyone agrees, Labovitz says there’s a bit of a land rush going on as more companies move to get their content closer to consumers." Read more