With That Said

HIMSS is near . . .aren't you excited?

The other day I was trying to get my arms around my calendar. February 3, the Patriots march toward perfection. The week of February 11, on the road to visit clients. The week of February 18, school vacation week in the northeast.  Then it hit me.  February 24 through the 28, the Grand Daddy of them all . . . HIMSS!

A Personal Health Record that is neither......

With my morning coffee, I catch up on all the relevant news articles.  The 9-0 Patriots are favored by 16 over the Buffalo Bills, the Celtics are still undefeated, and BC beats Clemson to play in the ACC title game.  All is well, right? 

Well,  I begin reading my email trying to catch up on some industry news.  It then dawns on me that since Microsoft's initial release of its Personal Health Record (PHR) aptly called HealthVault, we haven't heard much about it given the source is Microsoft.

HIPAA - for whose security?

It's that time of year again!  Football season. And I am alive with anticipation for another NE Patriots Super Bowl win.  Plus college ball.  BC beat Wake Forest, Appalachian State beat Michigan.  What?  Yes. Blue fell to AS in a shocker to go down in the books as one of the biggest upsets in college football.

Despite all of this excitement, it has been a sullen Labor Day weekend.  Virginia Tech opened the season with a sobering ceremony to remember the 32 students killed and 17 injured this past April by their fellow student, Seung Hui Cho.

Vendor User Groups, Friends or Foes?

How is your support from your software vendors?  Have they disappeared now that you are Live or have been using their system for awhile? 

Relationships change.  You know the drill.  When a vendor is courting you, "you are the most important client", "we will be by your side the whole way", "you will be a showcase account for us", "yada, yada". Then . . . it happens.  A new prospect comes into their view - a bigger catch, providing greater visibility for the vendor and, oh yeah,  spending more money.  Before you know it, you are kicked to the curb like someone you met at a college keg party at closing time . . .

Assessments to Support IT Strategy

In all of our lives, both personal and professional, we have been in situations where we have been told to take a step back and look at the situation at hand. Usually when we do step back, we are better able to assess the issue and put forth the appropriate action. What if we did this proactively rather than reactively?

Sicko or Psycho?

Well, I did it.  It was a Friday night and I was feeling a little restless. I was in the mood to watch a movie, so I started channel surfing catching bits and pieces of "You've got mail", "Frankie and Johnny", "Dirty Dancing" … you see where this is going.  With nothing of interest on the tube and echoes of "Nobody puts Baby in a corner" ringing in my ear, I needed an escape.

I checked to see what movies were playing in the theaters (at this point it was coming upon 9:30 pm), and I saw that there was a 10:15 showing of Michael Moore's new "movie", Sicko.  Now, I can't claim to be a MM fan nor can I say that I have ever seen one of his previous films, but I knew he was controversial, the movie was about healthcare, and thought I could write off the $9 ticket, the $5.50 soda and $6.00 popcorn as business expenses (thanks Ralph).

I get to the cinema and thought I would find an empty theater.  I mean, who goes to a documentary at 10:15 on a Friday night? Well, after scanning the large audience I realized they came for one of two reasons. They either lacked an appreciation of what a fun Friday night is really about, or this movie was about a topic that many people care about. In case you are wondering, I fall into the latter classification .............