Editor
Areas of Expertise:
- free and open source software
- health IT
- writing
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Recent Posts | All O'Reilly Posts
Andy blogs at:
http://oreilly.com/blogs/
http://radar.oreilly.com
http://strata.oreilly.com
http://toc.oreilly.com
LISA mixes the ancient and modern: report from USENIX system administration conference
December 14 2012
I came to LISA, the classic USENIX conference, to find out this year who was using such advanced techniques as cloud computing, continuous integration, non-relational databases, and IPv6. I found lots of evidence of those technologies in action, but also … read moreOpen source developers combine efforts in the health care field
December 13 2012
I had a chance to listen in a recent meeting of Open Health Tools, a trade association bringing together companies, academics, and standards bodies who create open source software tools for all stages of the health care field. Open Health … read moreThe MOOC movement is not an indicator of educational evolution
December 03 2012
Somehow, recently, a lot of people have taken an interest in the broadcast of canned educational materials, and this practice — under a term that proponents and detractors have settled on, massive open online course (MOOC) — is getting a … read moreNovember 05 2012
Veterans Affairs is collaborating with Fujitsu on a complex and interesting use of sensor data to help rehabilitate veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I recently talked about this initiative with Dr. Steven Woodward, Principal Investigator of the … read moreDoctors rate doctors in HealthTap’s medical quality project
November 01 2012
HealthTap, a network of physicians and patients, routinely breaks new ground and tries bold experiments in the area of generating trust. I remember how, in my first posting about the company, I questioned whether the company could sign up both … read moreHow to open an industry: data points from Strata Rx
October 19 2012
O’Reilly’s first conference devoted to health care, Strata Rx, wrapped up earlier this week. Despite competing with at least three other conferences being held on the same week around the country on various aspects of health care and technology, we … read moreTools for test-driven development in Scala
October 17 2012
Scala, a language designed for well-structured and readable programs, is richly provisioned with testing frameworks. The community has adopted test-driven development (TDD) and behavior-driven development (BDD) with zeal. These represent the baseline for trustworthy code development today. TDD and BDD … read moreSensor-laden glove brings medical examination to the masses
October 11 2012
Recently a group of three young entrepreneurs showed off a prototype of a glove that contained sensors useful for medical examinations. Their goals were not merely to make diagnosis easier, but to save the doctor/patient relationship from the alienation of … read moreOpen source software as a model for health care
October 09 2012
(The following article sprang from a collaboration between Andy Oram and Brigitte Piniewski to cover open source concepts in an upcoming book on health care. This book, titled “Wireless Health: Remaking of Medicine by Pervasive Technologies,” is edited by Professor … read moreDiscovering genetic associations using large data
October 09 2012
David Heckerman from Microsoft Research presents a summary of his work in the session “Discovering Genetic Associations on Large Data.” This was part of the Strata Rx Online Conference: Personalized Medicine, a preview of O’Reilly’s conference Strata Rx, highlighting the … read moreCombining patient data sets for better medical research
October 09 2012
I find Datalanche’s upcoming search application interesting because its database mixes public health data with patients’ clinical data from a private vendor. Practice Fusion opened up their data set of de-identified clinical information for a challenge that Datalanche won last … read moreAdvanced analytics for all in the health care system
October 09 2012
Arijit Sengupta presents a summary of his work as the CEO of BeyondCore in the presentation “Advanced Analytics for All: Enabling business users to act on length of stay patterns at a leading hospital system.” This presentation was part of … read morePrivacy concerns and regulatory challenges in personalized medicine
October 09 2012
Ann Waldo, a partner in Wittie, Letsche & Waldo, LLP in Washington, DC, presents a summary of her work in the webcast “Overview of Privacy Concerns and Regulatory Challenges Concerning Personalized Medicine — and Some Modest Suggestions for Change.” This … read moreOctober 08 2012
Four leading members of the House Ways and Means Committee tore away last Thursday at the polite, cautious, incremental approach that the Department of Health and Human Service has been taking toward key goals of HITECH act that was meant … read moreGrowth of SMART health care apps may be slow, but inevitable
September 13 2012
This week has been teaming with health care conferences, particularly in Boston, and was declared by President Obama to be National Health IT Week as well. I chose to spend my time at the second ITdotHealth conference, where I enjoyed … read moreThe many sides to shipping a great software project
September 09 2012
Chris Vander Mey, CEO of Scaled Recognition, and author of a new O’Reilly book, Shipping Greatness, lays out in this video some of the deep lessons he learned during his years working on some very high-impact and high-priority projects at … read moreThe future of medicine relies on massive collection of real-life data
September 05 2012
Health care costs rise as doctors try batches of treatments that don’t work in search of one that does. Meanwhile, drug companies spend billions on developing each drug and increasingly end up with nothing to show for their pains. This … read moreAnalyzing health care data to empower patients
August 29 2012
The stress of falling seriously ill often drags along the frustration of having no idea what the treatment will cost. We’ve all experienced the maddening stream of seemingly endless hospital bills, and testimony by E-patient Dave DeBronkart and others show … read moreSeeking prior art where it most often is found in software
August 28 2012
Patent ambushes are on the rise again, and cases such as Apple/Samsung shows that prior art really has to swing the decision–obviousness or novelty is not a strong enough defense. Obviousness and novelty are subjective decisions made by a patent … read moreSmart notebooks for linking virtual teams across the net
August 13 2012
Who has the gumption to jump into the crowded market for collaboration tools and call for a comprehensive open source implementation? Perhaps just Miles Fidelman, a networking expert whose experience spans time with Bolt, Beranek and Newman, work on military … read moreFive elements of reform that health providers would rather not hear about
August 09 2012
The quantum leap we need in patient care requires a complete overhaul of record-keeping and health IT. Leaders of the health care field know this and have been urging the changes on health care providers for years, but the providers … read moreTechnical requirements for coordinating care in an Accountable Care Organization
August 08 2012
The concept of an Accountable Care Organization (ACO) reflects modern hopes to improve medicine and cut costs in the health system. Tony MCormick, a pioneer in the integration of health care systems, describes what is needed on the ground to … read moreInside GitHub’s role in community-building and other open source advances
July 26 2012
In this video interview, Matthew McCullough of GitHub discusses what they’ve learned over time as they grow and watch projects develop there. Highlights from the full video interview include: How GitHub builds on Git’s strengths to allow more people to … read moreDemocratizing data, and other notes from the Open Source convention
July 25 2012
There has been enormous talk over the past few years of open data and what it can do for society, but proponents have largely come to admit: data is not democratizing in itself. This topic is hotly debated, and a … read moreSocial networks are not communities, and other discussions from the Community Leadership Summit
July 16 2012
The Community Leadership Summit this past weekend roused thoughts in me about the predictions and analyses I’ve heard over the past few years about social networking and to contrast them with what we were saying about community. I realized that … read moreThe key web technologies that work together for dynamic web sites
July 12 2012
The technologies that led to an explosion of interactive web sites — PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, and CSS — are still as popular today, and a non-programmer can master them quickly. read moreJuly 09 2012
In honor of the third health care track at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, I invite everyone to join me in five ways to have a healthy conference. read moreHealth records support genetics research at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
June 26 2012
Michael Italia from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia discusses the tools and methods his team uses to manage health care data. read moreClinician, researcher, and patients working together: progress aired at Indivo conference
June 21 2012
SMART and Indivo offer a far-reaching platform for giving patients access to data and working seemlessly with other cooperating institutions. read moreHow the federal government helps health care standards evolve
June 20 2012
In this interview, Federal Health Architecture director Dr. Lauren Thompson discusses the state of health information exchange. read moreGames for Health covers current status of behavior change
June 15 2012
A few existing and upcoming projects that illustrate what games are doing in health care, and some trends to watch. read moreHealth care privacy discussed as an aspect of patient control
June 13 2012
Privacy is caught up with issues of security, clinical decision-making, mobile health, and medical errors. So the topics at this conference are relevant to all the issues health care advocates talk about regularly: data exchange and ACOs, clinical research, the use of apps on mobile devices, the Quantified Self movement, and… read moreData in use from public health to personal fitness
June 12 2012
Releasing public data can't fix the health care system by itself, but it provides tools as well as a model for data sharing. read moreHealth reform leaders focus on patient access to records as key barrier
June 11 2012
A convocation of trend-setters and organizational leaders in U.S. health care advised two government organizations driving health reform--the Office of the National Coordinator at the Dept. of Health and Human Services, and the Dept. of Veteran Affairs--how to push forward one of their top goals, patient engagement. read moreGetting started with data-related explorations of everyday things
June 07 2012
Sau Sheong Chang describes the intriguing projects in his upcoming book, "Exploring Everyday Things with R and Ruby" and how other people can develop their own experiments. read moreUsing Python for Computer Vision
May 31 2012
In this interview, Jan Erik Solem, author of the upcoming book "Programming Computer Vision with Python," describes the uses for some common operations, and choices programmers have. read moreJon Loeliger offers some practices to use with Git
May 24 2012
After finishing the second edition of "Version Control with Git," author Jon Loeliger talked to O'Reilly editor Andy Oram about how to use Git effectively as changes to code pile up. read moreHealth Information Technology: putting the patient back into health care
May 21 2012
In health information technology, we have a rare chance to ensure that the most affected members of the public actually have their own direct representative. A letter in support of Regina Holliday. read moreHow to start a successful business in health care at Health 2.0 conference
May 16 2012
Great piles of cash are descending on entrepreneurs who develop health care apps, but that doesn't make it any easier to create a useful one that your audience will adopt. About the Spring Fling conference, enterpreneurship, and open data. read moreLucene conference touches many areas of growth in search
May 11 2012
With a modern search engine and smart planning, web sites can provide visitors with a better search experience than Google. Why turn-out for the new "big data" track was lower than I expected, and other news from this week's conference about using Lucene big and small. read moreThe state of health IT according to the American Hospital Association
May 06 2012
The letter conveys a rather sorrowful message about the state of health IT in the United States. One request--to put brakes on the requirement for hospitals to let patients see their own information electronically--has received particularly strong coverage and vigorous responses. read moreRecombinant Research: Breaking open rewards and incentives
May 02 2012
To move from a hothouse environment of experimentation to the mainstream of one of the world's most lucrative and tradition-bound industries, Sage Bionetworks must aim for its nucleus: rewards and incentives. Comparisons to open source software and a summary of tasks for Sage Congress. read moreRecombinant Research: Sage Congress plans for patient engagement
May 01 2012
The Vioxx problem is just one instance of the wider malaise afflicting the drug industry. Managers from major pharma companies expressed confidence that they could expand public or "pre-competitive" research in the direction Sage Congress proposed. The sector left to engage is the one that's central to all this work--the… read moreRecent Posts | All O'Reilly Posts
Webcast: Crowdsourced news and professional journalists: pulling together to replace the tug-of-war
March 27, 2012
Duration: Approximately 60 minutes. Cost: Free This webcast covers both the threat and the promise presented to professional journalism by citizen journalism, social networking, and other crowdsourcing. We'll look at some of the proposals made by...
Also find Andy on:
Recent Twitter posts:
Buy Now and Save
Use discount code: OPC10
All orders over $29.95 qualify for free shipping within the US. See details.
