A lot is being made these days about the word "innovation". Every advertisement you see on TV purports their product to be "innovative" - and Microsoft is no different. But what is innovation? What does it mean to be innovative? From my point-of-view...

Over this Thanksgiving Holiday weekend, you will most likely be traveling to visit relatives.  And if you’re reading this blog, you’re most likely visiting someone who is less technical than you. So after the Turkey and Pumpkin Pie, when everyone...

The BioIT Alliance will be holding its second conference and its annual meeting on November 3rd in Iselin, NJ.  We’re quite excited about this conference – focused on Translational Medicine, Health IT and how Pharmaceutical, BioTech and Medical Device...

In the last blog post we talked about releasing our “draft guidance” at the DIA EDM show last week.  Today, we’re pleased to announce that the “Configuring SharePoint 2010 for 21 CFR Part 11 Compliance” document is available on our website on our...

Today at the DIA EDM (Electronic Data Management) conference, we are taking the wrappers off a new whitepaper the covers how to configure SharePoint 2010 in a 21 CFR Part 11 regulated environment.  This whitepaper is a joint effort between Microsoft...

Last night we re-published our whitepaper on Collaborative Science to not require a LiveID in order to download.  From feedback I’ve gotten, only people with Hotmail and XBox Live accounts had a LiveID to begin with – so we wanted to start fresh...

The discussion of old prescriptions is a departure from the normal discussions in this blog around Health and Life Sciences Architecture, but related enough for me to ask you (gentle reader) the question: What do you do with your old prescriptions? A...

One of the items I've been working on is a white paper on using Connected Devices and HealthVault for scenarios such as patient reported outcomes and patient adherence.  In the course of writing this white paper Windows Phone 7 was released. This...

I had occasion to see my doctor this week. What for is irrelevant, but somewhat the premise of this discussion. When I approached the registration desk of my physicians practice I was asked, in a loud voice: “Name”? I respond, “Les...

I had the opportunity last week to travel to Minneapolis to be a conference keynote speaker for a session on the Trends in Life Sciences.  Little did I know that I would be a walking example of the points I was about to make.   As I sat in Terminal...

  Call for Proposals for Microsoft HUG Exchange 2010 Now Open! Of special interest to Medical Device companies, the Microsoft Health Users Group (MS-HUG) holds two meetings per year: one in the fall, and the other in the spring (at HIMSS). ...

Many of you will know that we host the Microsoft Pharmaceutical Deployment Users Group, a group of IT professionals that meet on the first Tuesday of every month.  We’ve had some great topics over the last 8 months (or so) that we’ve been doing this...

At the Share FEST conference hosted by NextDocs at the Loews Hotel in Philadelphia this week.  For those of you following me on Twitter , you’ll know that there are some interesting things happening today and tomorrow.  I’ll give a full recap...

This is going to be an interesting week for this architect: 1. Hosting the first meeting of the Microsoft Pharmaceutical Deployment Users Group. 2. Hosting the first meeting of the BioIT Alliance The PDUG (Pharma Deployment Users Group) is focused on...

The BioIT Alliance Conference is rapidly approaching!  Aimed at members of the BioIT Alliance, but open to the general public, the conference is being held at the Microsoft New England Research and Development Campus in Cambridge, MA.  It will...

Many of you will be aware that the Microsoft Global eXchange (or MGX, or MGB) is happening this week.  This is the week when Microsoft-ies go off together to get trained on the “new stuff”, what we have to sell, how to use the new technologies, and...

  After having been recently appointed as Director of the BioIT Alliance, I’ve been in the process of looking at what the Alliance does today and what it is capable of doing.  Given the number of companies involved, the possibilities are really...

In the style of Peter King from SI, here are a few things I think I think coming out of DIA: 1. I hadn’t noticed as many device manufacturers in previous years.  ePRO (e-Patient Reported Outcomes) is obvious – and expected – but there were a number...

In my opinion, the largest hurdle to a comprehensive Clinical Trials system, whether you talk about EDC or about traditional CTMS, is identity management.  Think about it: You set up your EDC system, but how do you get your users enrolled? You create...

Interesting how weeks become months when you're writing and updating blogs.  This CTMS project certainly hasn't gone away, but it did go on a bit of a hiatus while my "day job" intervened.  Enough excuses.  Mea Culpa.  On...

I have been asked - numerous times - "is it possible to do 'x' with out of the box Microsoft tools?" The list of things people ask about are numerous, but one of the most frequent requests of late is around building a clinical trials management portal...

It's amazing how many times we get asked that question! "Is SharePoint validated?" Despite the number of validated applications written by ISV's that are running on SharePoint, ...despite the overwhelming adoption by life science companies who are using...

I recently started using the GPS functionality in my AT&T Tilt (HTC 8925) . About the same time, I downloaded a new version of the Microsoft Windows Live Search Mobile (or http://m.live.com from your mobile phone). Very easy to set up: Download Live...

While at DIA I was asked an interesting question by Mark Uehling for his Clinpage blog , "what do you think is the future of EDC"? Kind of an interesting question, and my answer (which I'll let you read in his newsletter blog) was informed by how connected...

One of the cool parts of working for a large software platform vendor like Microsoft is working with the larger ecosystem of partners that are developing applications on the Microsoft platform. In particular, as we approach DIA each year, I am faced with...