Portal   (pôr'tl, pōr'-)  n.   A doorway, entrance, or gate, especially one that is large and imposing. An entrance or a means of entrance: the local library, a portal of knowledge. A website considered as an entry point to other websites, often by being or providing access to a search...

I've called "data input" the final frontier in clinical computing. In fact, data input has been a frequent topic on HealthBlog these past few years. If you want to see for yourself, just type in "data input" in the handy search box on the upper right-hand corner of my Blog. Up will come entries about...

Today I attended the opening of the 4th Annual Science and Technology in Society (STS) Forum in Kyoto, Japan. I'm here at the invitation of Mr. Koji Omi, Member of the House of Representatives and former Finance Minister for Japan. Mr. Omi is also notable as the founder of the STS Forum. It is a genuine...

As a physician, I know how important it is to have access to my patient's health information. As a patient, I know how frustrating it is to have my health information scattered across multiple doctors, ambulatory clinics and hospitals. As a care manager for my elderly parents, I've experienced firsthand...

Anyone who works in healthcare knows that many of today’s clinical software applications leave a lot to be desired when it comes to “user experience”. Unlike ubiquitous, commodity software used in other businesses, healthcare applications are highly proprietary and often based on legacy technologies...

The Internet is abuzz today following a New York Times article by Steve Lohr about Microsoft's and Google's designs to change the game in healthcare. Readers who follow this Blog will understand very well where I come down on all of this. As a country, maintaining the status quo in our broken healthcare...

I've mentioned before on this Blog that I'm a fan of Most-Wired Online and its guest editorials. Every so often, a Most-Wired edition comes across my desk that especially draws me in. This week's editorials by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island on Building a National Health IT Infrastructure...

Are you a healthcare industry solution vendor? Do you want worldwide recognition for your company's good work and the solutions you build using Microsoft technologies? Would you like an opportunity to win prizes including a roundtrip for two to Paris and a guest spot to judge at the Imagine Cup 2008...

My colleagues at Microsoft Research asked me to spread the word about an announcement they made on Monday during their External Research & Program’s Faculty Summit. Faculty Summit is the premier event hosted by ER&P for academic researchers and professors to meet with Microsoft researchers and...

Every so often we do a program in my House Calls for Healthcare Professionals series of audio and video-casts that really seems to hit the mark in demonstrating the value of Microsoft technologies in the healthcare industry. I want to draw your attention to one such program. Arkansas Children’s...

Back in April I posted information on HealthBlog about Medstory, the medical search company that had recently been acquired by Microsoft. I interviewed Medstory founder and CEO, Dr. Alain Rappaport, who I have known for nearly a decade. Alain and I first met while I was co-founding a venture-backed technology...

Arkansas Children’s Hospital Every so often I come across organizations and people that truly blow me away. Pediatric hospitals have always been known for innovative ideas in the care of their young patients. So, it comes as no surprise that a pediatric hospital would rise to the occasion to better...

Over the past few years Microsoft partner, Motion Computing , has focused on serving the healthcare industry. In February at HIMSS , the company introduced an entirely new category of Tablet PC; the Mobile Clinical Assistant, also known as the C5 . In March, Motion introduced a new full-sized Tablet...

I wanted to draw your attention to a just released interview I did with Digital Healthcare and Productivity . In it, I talk about one of the most worrisome trends I see in US healthcare; how far we are falling behind the rest of the world in the use of information technology in the industry, including...

In previous HealthBlog entries, I've told you about the growing trend of hospitals using commodity software to run the enterprise including electronic medical record systems based on Microsoft standard products. Most of these examples come from outside the United States where perhaps there's more emphasis...

I’m writing this from Orlando, Florida, where I just delivered the opening keynote for the American Association of Urgent Care Medicine annual conference and exhibition at the Walt Disney World Resort . As you might imagine, I come here frequently for such engagements as well as for Microsoft corporate...

One of the big announcements during HIMSS last February was Microsoft’s acquisition of a company specializing in medical search. That company is called MedStory . Recently, I caught up with MedStory founder and CEO, Dr. Alain Rappaport , M.D., Ph.D., for a conversation about his company and why he decided...

Back in January, I wrote a piece entitled Big Healthcare Savings from Surprisingly Simple Solutions . I profiled some excellent work at Childrens Memorial Hospital of Chicago where they are using solutions built with Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Office, and InfoPath to absolutely delight clinical...

In previous Blog entries and on my House Calls audio-cast series , I’ve highlighted healthcare customers who are doing some outstanding work using Microsoft and Microsoft partner solutions to build portals that make key performance indicators, quality standards, and price standards more transparent....

Last week while visiting New York City, I sat down for an interview with Peter Cervieri at ScribeMedia . Peter and I first met last December at the Consumer Health World conference in Washington, D.C. Peter had invited me to visit him at ScribeMedia's Manhattan headquarters the next time I was in the...

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of undergoing an outpatient medical procedure in one of Seattle’s most highly regarded medical centers. Without getting into unpleasant details, let’s just say it was one of those screening exams we’re all supposed to do every 5 to 10 years beyond a certain age and...

As I was exiting Consumer Health World in Washington, D.C., to catch my plane back to Seattle a few weeks ago, Peter Cervieri who serves as Director of Business Development for New York based ScribeMedia / ScribeStudio grabbed me for an ambush interview. We covered a lot of territory in a short amount...

I'm back in the office after a two week Holiday break. 2007 is upon us, and I look forward to a very exciting year with the introduction of Windows Vista , Office 2007 , and some of the first new solutions from our Health Solutions Group here at Microsoft . Just before vacation, I attended Consumer Health...

If you are charged with managing e-mail, messaging, and other forms of electronic communication and collaboration in a healthcare organization large or small, you will be very interested in learning more about Exchange Hosted Services from Microsoft. For starters, check out the new audio-cast on this...

I'd like to draw your attention to a very thoughtful piece in HHN Most Wired written by well-known CIO, John Glaser, and his Partners Healthcare CTO, Steve Flammini. These guys are highly respected healthcare IT veterans and thought leaders in the industry. If Glaser and Flammini believe Service-Oriented...