SDFM The Business of Defense
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MD, FACP; Medical Director, Ambulatory EHR and Health IT Policy; MedStar Health Dr. Basch practices general internal medicine in Washington, DC, and is an early adopter of electronic health records and ePrescribing. He also serves…
February 27, 2012 -
Senior Vice President, Booz Allen Hamilton Susan Penfield specializes in the management and strategic use of information technology within the national health industry
February 27, 2012 -
For the past 25 years, reforming the American healthcare system has been a national priority. As part of this effort, this Administration has incentivized the use and adoption of health information technology, primarily in two forms - promoting the meaningful use of electronic health records and creating health information exchanges to facilitate greater sharing of information. For patients, unlocking health information creates the promise of greater access, convenience, and mobility in receiving healthcare services. For providers and payers, reducing barriers to information flow is one key to improving healthcare quality and reducing costs. But this raises several critical questions: Will doctors and patients embrace electronic health records and the secure exchange of health information? How might mobile applications fundamentally transform how we conceive of the healthcare system in the future? How should healthcare professionals embrace next-generation technologies along with the need for privacy and security? What will this health information technology ecosystem look like in 10 years, and what do we need to do to plan for its success?
February 27, 2012 -
Members of the Federal Managers Association join host Bill Bransford to talk about the group\'s annual convention. February 24, 2012
February 24, 2012 -
A senior Pentagon official apologized Friday to Washington-area Muslims for the burning of Qurans at a military base in Afghanistan. The Associated Press reports, Peter Lavoy, acting assistant secretary of defense for Asia and Pacific security affairs, said the military is investigating what occurred and that all 140,000 coalition troops in Afghanistan are being retrained in the handling of religious materials. Lavoy apologized multiple times during a brief speech during prayer services at the ADAMS Center in Sterling, one of the largest mosques in the country.
February 24, 2012 -
A bittersweet day for the Marines yesterday --More than 170 Marines who recently returned from a 7-month deployment to Afghanistan visited 16 wounded warriors from their unit at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. At the same time, Two Marine Corps helicopters collided over a remote section of the California desert during a nighttime exercise, killing seven Marines in one of the deadliest military training accidents in years. An investigation into what happened is underway.
February 23, 2012 -
Steven J. Kempf sets strategic direction and oversees the delivery of over $50 billion of best-value products, services and solutions to federal customers, allowing them to effectively and efficiently achieve their missions.
February 23, 2012 -
This week on AFGE\'s \"Inside Government\" Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) discusses the importance of the 2012 elections, health care reform and what a single-payer health care system in the U.S. would look like. AFGE Field Services and Education Director Bill Fletcher and Transportation Security Administration Local Presidents Rick McCoy and Kim Kraynak-Lambert also join the program from the recent AFGE TSA Council 100 Founding Convention.
February 22, 2012 -
International Military authorities in Afghanistan are going through evidence from taken from Bagram Airbase to analyze and determine why religious material were burned --causing a firestorm of protest in Kabul. Several questions top their list of queries. They include: What kind of religious material was involved? Why was it removed from the Parwan detention facility? How much was destroyed -and what the chain of events that led to the destruction?
February 22, 2012 -
The Pentagon is disputing reports that Iranian ships docked at a Syrian port over the weekend. According to the Associated Press, Iranian state-run Press TV said Saturday that an Iranian navy destroyer and a supply ship had docked in the port of Tartus to provide training to ally Syria\'s naval forces, as Syria tries to crush the opposition movement. But Defense Department press secretary George Little said Tuesday the U.S. military saw no indication that the ships docked or delivered any cargo. Little said Tehran\'s ships went through the Suez Canal and now appear to be going back through the canal again.
February 21, 2012 -
Spending on cyber security and special operations forces, will probably remain steady or decline a bit in 2013 under the Pentagon\'s budget plan. The Associated Press is reporting, defense leaders have insisted that increased investments in these areas were needed to address future national security threats at home and abroad. They said last year that cyber spending would likely increase in 2013 because the threat is escalating at a dramatic rate. But demands to slash the military budget have made it difficult to boost spending. So defense officials are finding savings while still meeting the nation\'s war fighting needs.
February 21, 2012 -
The Justice Department and the Departments of Health and Human Services are reporting record-breaking health care fraud recoveries for 2011. The Health Care Fraud and Abuse Program returned 4.1 billion dollars to the Medicare Trust Fund and the Treasury last year. That includes 2.4 billion dollars in bogus claims they recovered in civil court under the false claims act, and 1.3 billion dollars in fines and restitution in criminal cases. Officials credit a new anti fraud team the two departments first created in 2009.
February 17, 2012 -
The Air Force wants to know if commercial cellular networks might be the way forward for its wireless communications needs. The service is trying to collapse several of its legacy wireless networks that it says are becoming too costly and too cumbersome to operate. At Langley Air Force Base, the Command and Control Integration Center has just started testing the 4g wireless networks of the four largest national cellular carriers. They\'re also testing next generation handheld devices running both Android and Apple\'s iOS.
February 17, 2012 -
The Department of Health and Human Services wants to spur the creation of a new generation of software that makes electronic health records more accessible to Americans with disabilities. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology is launching a EHR Accessibility Module Challenge. They\'ll award prizes of up to 60-thousand dollars for people who can create usable mobile apps for people with vision, hearing, intellectual, and other disabilities.
February 17, 2012 -
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is becoming only the second federal agency to move its big backend office systems to the cloud. NRC has awarded a 23 million dollar contract to transition its Financial Accounting and Integrated Management Information System to a privately-hosted infrastructure. The agency had been using hosting services provided by the Interior Department. The NRC decision follows a similar move by the Labor department last year, when moved its financial systems to a private cloud.
February 17, 2012