GOSCON – Government Open Source Conference

Yesterday, I came across a new conference, at least new to me.  It is called GOSCON or Government Open Source Conference. (here) It will be held in D.C. this year.  I will be attending as the Comprehensive Diabetes Management Program (CDMP) that we are part of is a prime example of government using open source and making the results of projects open source.  The development of CDMP was originally for the creation of a diabetes management application for military healthcare.  It has expanded beyond that today, but still has its root in government.  Because of it being funded by the government it is available license free to government institutions and it has always been given freely to interested researchers and third parties. We are currently working with our partners on officially declaring it open source, but working through the legal issues is taking some time.

Update 6/22/09 – The conference was rescheduled for Fall 2009.  The decision to do this was based on conversations with the Obama administration and other IT leaders.  No date has been announced.  I find this to be fairly vague and while a lot will change and be formalized in the next few months regarding IT particularly in health care, one has to wonder if there was an attendance issue?

PAeHI Health Information Technology (HIT) Summit

May 4th I will be in Harrisburg attending the PAeHI Health Information Technology Summit. 

The Pennsylvania eHealth Initiative (PAeHI) was created to encourage the development and use of electronic medical records (EMR) in Pennsylvania along with health information exchanges (HIE), which will ultimately tie into a national system allowing patients and health care providers to securely access medical records regionally and throughout the country.

The Summit is a one day session covering a broad range of topics including the impact of President Obama’s Recovery Act and information on what is going on in Pennsylvania with respect to HIT.

American Telemedicine Association (ATA) Conference

You can find Drew Lewis and RJ Kedziora at the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) Conference in Las Vegas this coming week from Sunday, April 26th until Tuesday, April 28th. 

Having attended this conference over the past few years it is an excellent conference that showcases telemedicine research and related companies.  It will be an interesting conference after having attended HIMSS a few weeks ago.  This conference is definitely on a smaller scale, but very targeted. I am looking forward to it.