Building Unity Farm Sanctuary - Third Week of May 2017
In case it seems that my posting frequency has dropped, it ’s a combination of a hectic spring farming/sanctuary schedule and writing requests from outside organizations. For my views on the recent cybersecurity/ransomware events see thePBS Newshour blog.Unity Farm Sanctuary work clothes have arrived in our closets. This was my wife ’s idea to identify mentors and experienced volunteers on the property. We have so many visitors every day who are walking the trails, visiting the animals, and offering to help that we need to separate those with experience from those who are new to the sanctuary. &n...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - May 18, 2017 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
Building Unity Farm Sanctuary - First Week of May 2017
We continue to work on the forests and trails surrounding the Unity property to create a community resource. The map below shows the current status of the land (water is in blue) - 18 trails, 10 bridges, 3 ponds, and 5 streams. We ’re clearing invasive non-native plants, removing decades of scrap metal/pottery/plastic midden piles, and taken down unstable dead trees that are a safety issue. With every passing week, the land becomes more and more accessible. Every time I go to the rural foundation meadow, I find it filled with wild turkeys, deer, raptors, coyotes, and rabbits. Our goal is to pro...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - May 4, 2017 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
Building Unity Farm Sanctuary - Fifth Week of April 2017
Several folks have contacted me, wondering why the pace of my blog posting has slowed a bit in April. Don ’t worry - all is well on the farm and sanctuary, it’s just spring planting, maintenance, and trail building time. The snow has melted, the weather is mild and the plants/animals need more attention that ever.Here ’s what we’ve been up to over the past two weeks. The adjacent landowner to Unity Farm and Sanctuary is the Sherborn Rural Land Foundation and they ’ve asked for our help maintaining their protected land. I ’ve expanded our trail system to cover 60 acres with over...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - April 27, 2017 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
The Dark Side of E-commerce
As I mentioned in arecent post, Amazon has focused on the convenience of the customer instead of the convenience of their business. Yesterday ’sNew York Times highlighted the trend for the hotel industry to do the same.In my post, I lamented that some industries including old school industrial companies and healthcare have not widely adopted customer focused technologies. To their credit, Marvin Windows followed up with me and promised to accelerate their automation efforts. I was impressed.However, all is not completely rosy in the transformation from brick and mortar to e-commerce.In an effo...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - April 26, 2017 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
Building Unity Farm Sanctuary - First Week of April 2017
In North America, Easter and Thanksgiving are traditionally associated with eating ham and turkey. You can imagine that a vegan sanctuary is very popular with creatures who want want to avoid being eaten.This week, we had the great turkeychautauqua . Every wild turkey in the local forests assembled at Unity Farm Sanctuary for an afternoon of companionship, dancing and gentle conversation. To put this photo in context, it ’s taken from the sanctuary loft - about a football field away from the turkeys. There are 17 turkeys in just this view. Yes, the Tom turkey in the middle of the ph...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - April 6, 2017 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
A Cautionary Tale for Healthcare
During my CIO career, I ’ve worked on a few Harvard Business School case studies and I’ve had the “joy” of presenting my failures to Harvard Business school students for over a decade.I enjoy telling stories and inevitably the cases I teach are about turning lemons into lemonade.In this post, I ’d like to tell a story about a recent experience withMarvin Windows and lessons learned that apply to healthcare. I know that sounds odd, but hear me out.At Unity Farm and Sanctuary I ’m the proud owner of about 100 Marvin windows from the 1990’s. All are still functional but incorporate nylon parts that e...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - April 5, 2017 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
Building Unity Farm Sanctuary - Fifth Week of March 2017
We continue to refine the sanctuary buildings, prepare the new animal care areas, and keep our creatures healthy.Sweetie, our 18 year old Welsh Pony developed a sore on her right lip. Using my human medicine training I inspected it for abscess formation and drained it, while also applying local antibiotics. It did not heal this week, so we asked the horse vet to take a look. It turns out that when horses have tooth abscesses in the lower jaw, they develop drainage tracts in their lips. Tooth abscesses in the upper jaw drain into the sinuses and out the nose. She ’s now on syst...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - March 30, 2017 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
Early Experiences with Ambient Listening Devices (Alexa and Google Home)
BIDMC has a long tradition of testing speculative technologies with the notion that breakthroughs often require tolerance for failure. For example, we ’ve embraced blockchain in healthcare because we believe public ledgers have promise to unify medical records across institutions.Over the past few months, we ’ve developed healthcare applications for Alexa, Amazon’s ambient listening device that combines natural language processing and easy to use application program interfaces. We have also tried Google Home.Here ’s our experience thus far.1. We ’ve used Alexa in a pilot inpatient setting (n...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - March 29, 2017 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
Building Unity Farm Sanctuary - Fourth Week of March 2017
It ’s officially Spring and although the weather is cold and snowy, the anticipation of warmer weather means that Unity Farm Sanctuary is more active than ever.This week, a local young woman purchased our goose eggs and made traditional Ukrainian Pysanky Easter eggs. We were impressed.The owners of Penny Blossom, the Yorkshire pig living at the sanctuary for a year, brought us empty wire cable spools. The goats are jumping from spool to spool, having a great time.This week, we finished creating the last bedroom at the Sanctuary using a 1760 ’s bed we found in Plymouth. It was not designed to use ...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - March 23, 2017 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
Embracing Innovation
I ’ve written several posts over the past two years about the need for innovation in healthcare IT - deploying self-developed apps, leveraging third party cloud hosted functions, and embracing the internet of things.I ’ve previously discussed establishing a center for innovation. In preparation, I ’ve worked on innovative projects in industry accelerators, academic collaborations, and government sponsored hack-a-thons.What has worked?1. I ’ve learned that it is very important to make innovation a part of the day to day work inside an organization. Creating change externally and then trying to...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - March 22, 2017 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
Building Unity Farm Sanctuary - Third Week of March 2017
With every passing day, Unity Farm Sanctuary increases its capacity to host public educational sessions, retreats, and events. Our first few months were focused on the historical Unity Hall building. As you ’ll see in the photographs below, we’ve made substantial progress. The next few months will be focused on expanding our capacity to give " forever homes " to animals in our community. A design, which works for just about every species we ’ll encounter, is done. By May it will be a reality.Here ’s a view of the rooms of the Sanctuary, all assembled from local base...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - March 16, 2017 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
Building Unity Farm Sanctuary - Second Week of March 2017
When you run a sanctuary, you need to be agile. We received a message that we had until 1pm to rescue a heritage turkey or he would be eaten. We drove the Unity Farm van to pick him up and within 2 hours he was living at Unity Farm Sanctuary. Meet Palmer, a 2 year oldRoyal Palm turkey He ’s social, friendly, and very interactive. He gets along with all the other birds, the dogs, and pigs. I was able to pick him up and move him into the barnyard without a struggle. Although we now have over 150 birds, we have little experience with turkeys. We let Palmer choose his f...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - March 10, 2017 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
Building Unity Farm Sanctuary - Fourth week of February 2017
In New England we often say that if you do not like the weather, wait 5 minutes. The high this week at Unity Farm Sanctuary was 70F and the low was 5F. We ’ve had blankets on the horses overnight then removed them at dawn to prevent overheating. The flowers are blooming now but have frozen solid over cold nights. I fear that our apple crop will be diminished since the young buds will be damaged by killing frosts. There ’s not much I can do to battle an unexpected cold snap.The cold means that every creature - wild and domestic - struggles to stay warm. Turkeys and deer are coming to t...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - March 2, 2017 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
Next Steps for the National Healthcare IT agenda
At HIMSS, I listened carefully to payers, providers, patients, developers, and researchers. Below is a distillation of what I heard from thousands of stakeholders.It is not partisan and does not criticize the work of any person in industry, government or academia. It reflects the lessons learned from the past 20 years of healthcare IT implementation and policymaking. Knowing where we are now and where we want to be, here are 10 guiding principles.1. Stop designing health IT by regulationThrough its certification program, ONC directs the specific features, functionality, and design of electronic ...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - March 1, 2017 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
Building Unity Farm Sanctuary - Third Week of February 2017
As the weather begins to warm, work on the sanctuary gets easier. Snow and ice are melting. We ’ve taken the blankets off the horses and left the doors/windows on barns open overnight. Turkeys and deer are looking for food on the newly visible ground, causing the dogs to bark all day and night.This week, Millie, a 23 year old Welsh pony arrived at the sanctuary. She immediately bonded with Pippin, our 30 year old Welsh pony. Amber and Sweetie hang out on one side of the large paddock, Millie and Pippin on the other. Everyone is getting along well.Millie ’s arrival was a bit rock...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - February 23, 2017 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
