Strategic Informatics

A blog about the strategic application of technology

Nov
15

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Inagural San Antonio HIMSS Chapter Meeting was a Huge Success

Category: Electronic Medical Record, Healthcare, HIMSS Tags: , , Leave a Comment

Bill Phillips

This past week started one of many future events for the local San Antonio HIMSS Chapter.  Our speaker, Bill Phillips, CIO of University Health System gave a very informative speech and real-world take on EMR deployments.  Many thanks to Bill for starting us off on a great foot.  Again, I would like to thank our sponsors, World Wide Technology, EMC, and WellMed Medical Management for providing the sponsorship to provide over 70 people with lunch and facilities for the event.  A special thanks to the National HIMSS committee and my fellow board members who each played a crucial role in getting the chapter formed and off the ground.

Stay tuned for details of future engagements at our website www.sahimss.org. Also follow us on Twitter @ www.twitter.com/sahimss

Nov
12

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San Antonio HIMSS Chapter Inaugural Event

Category: General Leave a Comment

SAHIMSSbanner

With our new website up and our inaugural event starting tomorrow afternoon at 11:30 a.m. at Dave & Busters our registrations are steadily increasing.  We expect to see a crowd of at least 60.  This has been several months in the making and I’m thrilled we were able to get such a great speaker to kick-off our event.  If you can’t make the first event there will certainly be more to follow.  Visit our website at http://www.sahimss.org often for event updates and Healthcare IT news that affects the Alamo City!

I have to give a special thanks out to our title sponsor World Wide Technology, Inc., and to our associate sponsors WellMed Medical Management, and EMC2 who are helping support our efforts:

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Date: November 12, 2009 from 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM CST

Location:

Dave and Busters
4400 Crossroads Boulevard
San Antonio, TX 78201
(210) 515-1515

About Our Speaker:
William Phillips is the Vice President/CIO for University Health System in San Antonio, Texas.  Responsibilities include direction and oversight for the organization’s Information Technology division including system operations, applications, strategy, planning and integration for University Hospital and its community clinics.

Phillips has held numerous management positions within University Health System’s Information Systems division.  He previously served as Director of Operational Services, Chief Security Officer and Executive Director/CIO before being appointed Vice President/CIO in 2007.  He has led the organization through key healthcare transformations including the successful implementation of a computerized physician order entry system and other leading technology applications.  In 2008 under his leadership University Health System received 3 prestigious awards, which include HIMSS Analytics EMR Stage 6 (only 12 hospitals in the country have achieved this stage), Top 100 Most Wired Hospitals, and the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives Transformational Leadership Award.  Phillips has also been featured in several leading healthcare publications to include Healthcare Informatics, KLAS, Hospitals & Health Networks.  Phillips has more than 26 years of experience in Healthcare Information Technology.


Topic for the Event:
Mr. Phillips will share his experience of successful and full implementation of EMR system at the University Health Systems in San Antonio, one of the largest deployments of vendor application in the country, including phases of implementations, and lessons learned.

Nov
1

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Book Review: We-Think: Mass Innovation, Not Mass Production

Category: Book Review, Business, General Tags: , , , Leave a Comment

I just finished reading “We-Think:  Mass Innovation, Not Mass Production”.  We-Think is an interesting concept that focuses on the Internet and how it increases your level of connection with others.  The process of becoming connected increases your chances of collaboration in areas that otherwise may have gone unnoticed.

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If you live and breath the Internet as part of your job or everyday life it states several things we already know about the ubiquity of the Internet and how it democratizes communication throughout the world, politics, and industry.  Never-the-less the book offers several examples of how this ubiquity translates into fundamental change and collaboration among users across all demographics.  Of particular interest are the transformation of politics in different areas of the world.  The Internet can’t be singled out here as it is but one major form of wider communications that allow people to socialize ideas and concepts.  Of course you run the risk of the “group-think” mentality but as the author mentions the connectivity gives way to enhanced freedoms in key areas allowing the venue for free thinking, challenging traditional media and political views, and even start your own mini-media empire.  I rated the book a 7 on a scale of 1-10.  A worthy read if you are interested in transformative examples the Internet has had in economic, political, and organizations steeped in a traditional mind-set.

Nov
1

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Configure Evolution on Ubuntu 9.10 for use with Exchange

Category: How To, Microsoft, Open Source, Web Tags: , , , , , , , 7 Comments

I downloaded and installed the final release of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala on my Dell M4400.  So far I’m very impressed with the fit and finish of this latest Linux release.  Evolution is one of the many e-mail clients avaialble for Linux but one of the very few with the ability to access your corporate Microsoft Exchange Server by default.  It is very similar to Outlook on your Windows desktop so you will feel right at home with this release.  Below is a walkthrough of how to connect Evolution to your Exchange 2003 server.

When you launch Evolution you will be presented with the following setup screens:

Screenshot-Evolution Setup Assistant

The first dialog box presented is “Restore from backup” which, as the title suggests, restore from a previous backup.  I skipped this step as this is a new installation.

 

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The next dialog box is “Identity” which is where you enter your Full Name and e-mail address associated with the Exchange account you are trying to setup.   If this is your primary account you can leave the checkbox checked for “Make this my default account” as I did above.

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In the “Receiving Email” dialog bx that appears next you will enter your Outlook username and Outlook Web Address URL.  If you are unsure what it is it will typically take the form of  https://domain name/exchange/.  Be sure to include /exchange after the URL if applicable.  Then press Authenticate to enter your Exchange password.  If successful you will see your Exchange mailbox username appear in he Mailbox: field.

 

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In the “Receiving Options” dialog box you will see several options to set the frequency and limits of your Exchange e-mail box.  You can simply leve the defaults or modify them to your liking as I did above to improve security and frequency of e-mail delivery.

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In the “Account Management” dialog box you configure the name of your newly configured account.  Work, Personal, or your Company Name works well here. 

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Then that’s it…  Just press the Apply button and you are immediately brought to the Evolution application with its new configuration.  It will immediately start downloading your e-mail and associated folders, including Calendar, Tasks, Memos (Notes in Outlook), and Contacts.