World Cup in Canada

A friend from Germany asked us, “since Canada isn’t in the World Cup you don’t follow it, or do you?”.  Our respond was,  in Canada we cheer for all teams. There’s always someone on the winning side. Today, for example we saw over 10 flags on cars from different countries. Some vehicles have a flag from two different countries; my wife thinks this is because one spouse is cheering for England while the other is Portuguese, it could also be someone hedging their bets.

Semantic Web 3.0, what’s new about it?

It is the trend of progressive versions in software releases that has created Web 2.0 and now Web 3.0. I don’t recall; but I don’t believe it was ever called Web 1.0, except perhaps as a retro definition.  Of course those of us who used the precursor of the internet, know about Web 0.0. This is arcnet and uunet.  Anyone recall FINGER, ARCHIE and GOPHER?

Evolution of the Web 0.x to 3.0

Clarity in software development

My programming began with the use of Fortran and Watfive in high school on IBM mainframes. In University I learned Cobol, PL1, Pascal, APL and  C. Along the way I was exposed to assembler and machine language, both of which I used in both school and in my first few jobs. Attending the University of Waterloo Co-Op program afforded me the luxury of applying the skills learned in class to the workplace during work terms.  Learning in the process the practical use of the academic lessons.

Writing programs on mainframe using punch cards

Off to HIMSS in Atlanta

If its spring it must be HIMSS. This annual event gathers the world health IT experts together in one place for the preeminent health information management trade show. This year the host city is Atlanta, the jewel of the south, hot-lanta. I can’t wait to experience this city and all it has to offer.

Sav and Whale Shark in Galapagos

On Saturday, Feb 27th we arrive in Atlanta and begin our trip with a visit to the Georgia Aquarium, the largest in North America. Between 3:30 and 4 pm we experience the aquarium from the inside out. Scuba tanks go on for a swim with the Gentle Giants; Whale Sharks, the largest fish of the oceans. Don’t worry they don’t bite; they are filter feeders eating mainly plankton. This is a wonderful experience, if you can - watch for us on the Georgia Aquarium webcam. Or even better if you are in Atlanta come and see us at the Aquarium.

On Sunday, I’ll be presenting at the Health IT Venture Fair. While not officially part of HIMSS it takes please as a precursor to the show. Sponsored and organized by Blank-Rome of Philadelphia and Howard Burke this event showcases innovative companies that are seeking venture capital, partners and growth opportunities. Over 30 venture capital firms participate to get a jump start on the trade show exhibitors.

Sunday evening the Canadian Trade Commissionaires are hosting a dinner for Canadian companies to meet with US companies. This match making helps Canadian companies doing business or planning to do business in the US to find partnerships.

Come visit Us at HIMSS Booth 1407

The official HIMSS start is Monday, the exhibits open at 12:30 and until 5:30 we will be at Booth 1407, meeting with interested organizations looking for health IT solutions. Another HIMSS tradition is the Canadian reception that brings together all the Canadian exhibitors and Canadian attendees. This is always a rousing event with cross-Canadian representation and Canadian beer, BC and Atlantic salmon, perhaps even Alberta beef.

The Consulate General breakfast on Tuesday is another excellent networking and educational event. With trade commissionaires from across the US doing their best to promote the Canadian companies at HIMSS.

From 10:30 am to 5:30 we can be found on the exhibition floor at Booth 1407.

After the HIMSS reception on Tuesday night, it’s off to the Woodfire Grill an Atlanta hotspot for dinner prepared by award winning Top Chef Kevin Gillespie.

co-Owner and Executive Chef Kevin Gillespie

A relaxing evening is planned with BBQ ribs and friends to raise a glass.

That leaves the last day of HIMSS with the exhibit floor going from 10:30 to 5:30. In the evening a spirited HIMSS reception bringing us full circle as we return to our starting point at the Georgia Aquarium. Unfortunately, this time they wouldn’t let us go for a swim, I asked.

Consumer oriented healthcare

Healthcare reform is a political hotbed in the US. Even in Canada, Europe and other parts of the world health care is a political and financial concern. As our population ages and health care needs rise we need to maintain costs to reduce the overall impact on our future health. Everyone agrees that to preserve even our current levels of health care spending we must make changes for greater sustainability.

Recall how stores, banks and other services industries operated 15-20 years ago. There were no online registrations or self-help kiosk. Today some stores give consumers choices, the ability to self-server or to get personalized services from an associate.

Tesla Motors IPO

Tesla Roadster

Well it isn’t a hover car or a jet pack but the Tesla Roadster is a beginning. It is an electric car that isn’t underpowered or dependent on a gas-powered engine to generate power. This car delivers on zero-emissions. This company offers a future to the decline in the auto industry in North America.

The original electric car was introduced in the early 1900′s the Detroit Electric Car Company lost out to the internal combustion engines of the twenties. Then there was the EV1, which according to the movie “Who killed the Electric Car?” was scrapped by GM. The electric car is being resurrected in the twenty-first century.

Telsa Coil Wireless Electricity

Open Pit Coal Mine

It is the dawn of an new decade of the 21st century, and I must admit the future isn’t at all what I had expected. It doesn’t match the space age promises of my youth. No flying cars or personal helipad, no jet packs, no colonies on the moon. What is most disappointing to me is how mundane issues have escalated without solutions. Our pollution is growing and no action is taken, our oceans are dying without screams of dismay. Our energy consumption and needs are preventing our progress.

This week I was told about a renewed effort to open coal mines, it’s the 21st century and we are still using coal to generate electricity and fuel industry. This was a ancient source of power in the 1800′s, men and boys went underground to mine for black rock to burn. This fossil fuel kills the miners and the user, yet is still used and mined.

What about oil? Gas powered cars are still the norm. In Canada the oil sands are being processed to squeeze out more oil to be used for gas guzzling cars. In some parts of the world the 21st century is no different than 100 years ago.

Science and technology has provided us with abundance. Cell phones, microwaves and the internet are all part of the application of science. Why haven’t the same technologies been applied to electrical production and transportation?

Wizard of the West

In the first quarter of the 1990′s a brilliant engineer call Tesla proposed ideas that were science fiction then and now are considered prophetic. Wireless transmission of electricity using the earth as a conductor. Solar panels in space to collect solar power and transmit electricity to earth. Free unlimited power anywhere on the globe. With the proper application of technology all these things are possibile.

We may still be a long way from colonies on the moon or even hover cars, still we should be able to replace coal mines and produce clean forms of electricity. Even without the Tesla Coil and wireless electricity transmission the technology exists to produce electricity without digging caves and harvesting fossils to be used for fuel. This should be manageable for us. Then we can start cleaning up our mess in the air, land and oceans.

New Years eHealth proposal

From 1997 to 2001 I experienced first hand the shortcomings of the Canadian healthcare system. Over this period my family saw the death of three close relatives. We experienced the fragmentation of the Ontario health care system. From community hospital to academic health sciences centre, private homecare and nursing care, cancer care centers and palliative care, each doctor and hospital maintained a health record, yet none had access to the information from the previous location. Blood work done one day would be repeated because the lab results were not shared between providers. New specialists would conduct the same interview done the previous day or just the same morning in a different clinic. The only full health record was what we, as a family, maintained. It kept us involved in the care process and we were able to inform new clinical staff with the details from previous visits saving time and money for us and the healthcare system. We were not the first family to experience nor the last, others have expressed similar frustration with medical records.

My background is not medical. My experience is in information technology. For two decades I worked in the financial sector developing software for banks, trust companies and credit unions. In the late nineties I deployed financial solutions, supported document scanning and presentment for cheque recognition and bill payment on the internet. The financial sector has benefited greatly from technology advancement, greater efficiency and performances. With my experience in IT and the eye-opening experience of the fragment healthcare system it was apparent that health information exchange could be and should be improved.

In 2001, with a strong team of developers we began the process of creating an eHealth solution. The Clarity Healthcare Framework was the starting point.

Clarity Healthcare Solution

Over this previous decade we deployed electronic form applications to collect patient assessments. These are used to measure quality of care in hospitals. The ultimate goal, to create a personal health application that would allow patients and their families to keep and monitor all the health details, a life-time health record. The Clarity Health Journal focuses on the patient and their family to help them manage and monitor their health.

There are challenges to maintaining a full and complete health record. You can start and keep your own information easily enough. You can maintain a blog or a website with the details of your diet, exercise and even medication, but what do you do about doctors’ notes, lab results or hospital visit details?

Health information exchange can be used to improve the overall health delivery. Easier access to health records means better quality health. Each doctor, hospital and clinic maintains health record for the patient, only the family maintains a fully holistic view of the personal health information.

Health Information Gap

While we do online banking and use ATMs around the world to withdraw cash from our bank accounts, pay bills with Paypal and other online services our health information is locked up in a filing cabinet someplace. We can’t access those records. Our caregivers have access to the record they created, but we have no way to access them or share them with family and friends involved in our care. Even when permission is granted to a spouse, partner or adult children; doctors or hospital administrators can still refuse access or prevent flow of some information needed for your care. 2010 needs to be the year we take control of our health information.

These days most patients have access to the internet in some form. Digital cameras, scanners and fax machines can be found in many homes. Larger percentages of patients have cellphones and computers. Technology is no longer a barrier for patients and their family. Still many doctors’ offices and hospitals still maintain paper records and written notes.

Back in 2001, I started a family history using a family tree maker software. Online I found resources that included ship manifest of 18th century that had been scanned, OCRed, categorized into a database. Old paper records hand written using quill pens are now indexed and searchable online. You can expect hospitals and doctors’ records could be as advanced as genealogy software makers. Technology can offer a solution to making paper health records available online very easily.

Ontario eHealth can easily offer a service to scan all health records and categorize the data for patients. The process doesn’t have to be a mega project. Each hospital can maintain a scanner to OCR records into a database. When a patient arrives for a new visit, if they already have a paper record the history can be scanned. New visit details would be collected electronically online. Within a very short period of time all patients health records would be online. Doctors offices could either scanner records internally or send out the records to a services bureau. Within 2 or 3 years a majority, if not all, records would be online. The resulting database would have both the images of the paper records plus the categories details of the electronic data. It would be indexed and searchable and could be made available to patients and their families to use.

The personal health record can then be enhanced with the individuals own data. Once online the patient and their family uses and share this info wherever they are, with doctors, hospitals and clinics. A truly universal healthcare system is possible.

Global eHealth access

When traveling we don’t normally take all of our health information with us. You may have some recent details on your prescriptions, but not much more. A friend told me that when he travels he usually runs for exercise, on his shoes he has a tag that contains his doctor’s name and phone number as well as the doctor’s cell phone. If my friend were to drop unconscious someone could contact his doctor and get help immediately…hopefully. While this medical emergency contact information is a start it doesn’t suffice for most people with serious health conditions.

It makes perfect sense for a healthy person to carry emergency contact information. Perhaps, it would be worthwhile to have more immediate info accessible to the emergency response person wherever you may be. Yet a simple slip of paper with information on it is not enough. How does someone know you have such a document in your pocket? Some solutions such as medic-alert have been used for individuals. A simple call to a toll-free number provides access to medical information using a call center services. Is there a better way?

Personal Healthcard can be used to access info during emergency

One solution to this issue is USB key technology. Why not use a USB Key? How many USB Keys do you own and how many have you misplaced or lost? Compare that with your credit card. You carry one or more of them in you wallet, purse or pocket. Even when lost you can easily get them replaced or reissued. Devices like a USB need a computer, credit cards just need card readers or scanners. And even without the computer or internet a smartcard can have information on it and in it that can still provide information when needed.

Many have compared eHealth with eCommerce and ATM banking. We can take a page from this domain and use the smartcard. This is used for credit and debit cards. A personal healthcard based on smartcard technology can store encrypted data about the individual and also have access to family members’ health details if needed. The card would have a photo for identification and a number and name to identify the person quickly. Yes, it would be required that the emergency response would have to have a card-reader to access the stored data on the card. The technology can even have information printed on the card, along with a Name, Health card number there can be an emergency phone number to a central agency.

The card can also have a 2-d barcode that can be scanned to reveal more details that may be needed by EMS and that the user would want to keep private form someone visually inspecting the card. Scanning the 2-D barcode could also direct the user to a website. With added security questions and login the site can provide access to a full health record. Add RFID and a biometric such as a fingerprint, retinal scan or DNA and you have a very secure mobile device for health information. This would eliminate individual hospital cards and allow global access to health details wherever you are.

Clarity Health Journal 2-D barcode

Such a solution could be used by anyone. The scanner and card-reader technology is readily available and easily deployed by EMS and hospital ER departments. It would reduce the stress related to remembering passwords and also make it easier in case of emergencies.

Don’t Save the Planet…save yourself

There still seems to be debate about climate change. I’ve been a greenie since the 70′s. Not a fanatic environmentalist, just a regular person seeing the damage the we have created and doing what I can to change. I riled against the large gas-guzzlers Detroit built even though my father worked in the auto industry. Going to school in Windsor it is hard not to have a “car mentality”. Still I recycled before cities started recycling collection and composted before municipalities provided compost bins.

It not easy living green. I installed a tank-less water heater to eliminated our wasteful hot-water tank. We added solar panels to generate green power. Both costly endeavours with little financial return, yet environmentally friendly. I’ve always felt it is the least I can do. Everyone can do their part but it is difficult for an individual to have global impact.

Solar Panels

Today the developing countries are resisting change to combat CO2 emissions. We want to save the Amazon Rainforest and the Congo in Africa, because these represent earth’s lungs cleaning our air. Yet, in North America we deforested the largest deciduous forests when we settled Canada and the US. In Europe deforestation began with the Romans. Industrialized 1st world counties want to slow China’s growth as an industrial power because it would contribute to fuel emission and fossil fuel usage. How can we ask these nations to do what we haven’t been able to do.

Polar ice caps melting

Melting polar ice caps are as indisputable as the depletion of the ozone layer in Antarctica. We reversed ozone depletion by reducing fluorocarbons. Melting ice-caps maybe irreversible. Ice is a reflective surface, open seas absorb sunlight. As ice melts less sunlight is reflected more is absorbed leading to more melting and the cycle continues. The cascading effect is nearly impossible to reverse once it begins on a large scale. And there is no denying that it has started. The longer we wait, the faster the process. The melting of the arctic ice will raise sea levels, affect weather world wide, causing erratic shifts in temperature, hurricanes, typhoons, flooding and droughts.

Change is difficult unless there is an immediate need. We have environment problems at a time of devastating economic crisis. Why not take advantage of this to make positive change. During the Great Depression the New Deal resulted in job creation through the building of large hydro-electric plants. During this current economic upheaval we can apply knowledge and labour to create a green economy. Building wind farms and solar generation is not enough. We also need to replace coal powered plants.

Nuclear Plants help reduce CO2 emmission

The only feasible way to generate the power that developing countries and western societies need wihtout harming the environment further is to replace coal powered plants with low emission nuclear plants. This would remove large CO2 and cut fossil fuel usage.

There is disagreement about the degree of climate change and whether we are experiencing global warming or a naturally ocurring hot-house affect. However, the human impact on the planet is undeniable. Governments should use the economic crisis as an oportunity to make real change in our envirnoment by building new infrastructure that is environmentally supportive, rather than technology that damages our environment.