Alaska has launched a new database designed to help healthcare officials track Alaska residents' vaccine history. The data base, called VacTrAK, is the state's first Web-based immunization information system. The Alaska's Department of Health and Social Services' public health division will manage the database.
American Well, a Web service that puts patients face-to-face with doctors online, will be introduced in Hawaii. Its first customer, the Hawaii Medical Service Association, will make the Internet version of the house call available to everyone in the state, the company said. The service is for people who seek easier access to physicians because they are uninsured or do not want to wait for an appointment or spend time driving to a clinic, said Roy Schoenberg, co-founder and chief executive of American Well Systems.
Thanks to video-game technology, realistic rubber skin, fake organs, mannequins, and other simulation devices, budding surgeons at the University of Washington now test their skills in the virtual world. The UW is increasingly moving toward requiring all medical, nursing, pharmacology students and others to master such simulated realities before ever touching a live human being.
The HIMSS AsiaPac 2009 HealthCare IT Conference & Exhibition will be held from February 24-27, 2009 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The event aims to help health IT stakeholders to connect and exchange ideas in order to help advance quality healthcare delivery through the use of IT.
The new Evercore-Univision Enterprise Image Viewer was introduced recently in Chicago. The Evercore Univision module is the first non-proprietary distribution of DICOM images and other objects in a standard format that can be accessed using HTML, XML, and using HTTP protocols.
The Institute of Medicine of the National Academies has recommended that the Department of Health and Human Services look to the private sector for effective information technology infrastructure models. Officials say this will provide a tool for analyzing, aligning, modifying, developing, and discontinuing programs.