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Electronic Health Record Vendors Take Patient Data Hostage: What Should We Do?
In today’s interconnected world it seems intuitively true that instant access to comprehensive medical patient histories will help physicians to provide better care at a lower cost. This simple argument was persuasive enough for the federal government to spend $26 billion to incent medical providers to adopt electronic...
The next step forward is to connect these electronic silos together so that physicians can share their patients’ records. The billions of dollars in federal spending will only have any tangible benefit if this is done successfully. EHR vendors have taken patient data hostage and are not willing to release it unless the...
Pay EHR vendors the ransom that they are asking to release their hostage and allow sharing of the patient data among medical providers.
Regulate the industry and force the EHR vendors to allow sharing of patient data among medical providers.
Regulating the industry seems like the only feasible solution to this problem. Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX), the leader of the House Energy and Commerce trade subcommittee is drawing up a bill to enforce data sharing. The benefits of regulating the EHR industry, if any, will take a very long time to become tangible. The...
The best solution for the government is to do nothing. The new pay for performance payment methods in which the medical providers are being paid a fixed amount for treating patients would drive them to become more efficient and increase their profit margin by seeking solutions such as health information exchange to cut...
AMMAN (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - It was in the dead of night when Nagham and her three young sons crept out of the Jordanian refugee camp and set off on a long walk that brought them to the capital Amman just as the sun came up.
Having already fled the embattled city of Homs in neighboring Syria, her children were frightened by the roar of jets flying over the camp.
Nagham, traveling without her husband who was barred from crossing the border with them, was worried by the lack of security and privacy during the month they spent there.
“I finally felt safe,” said the 33-year-old mother of her family’s night-time trek to the city in April 2015.
Nagham and her children are just some of the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in Jordan who have lost their rights to humanitarian aid and risk deportation because they either left official refugee camps or failed to register with the U.N. refugee agency or the Jordanian authorities.
In the almost two years since she left the camp, Nagham, who do not want to give her real name because she fears being arrested, has barely left her apartment in Amman.
Instead, her three sons – aged 10, 12, and 14 – go out to work as delivery boys in local vegetable shops every day, earning a meager salary of 3 Jordanian dinars ($4.25) each, barely covering the monthly rent of more than $200.
“I usually don’t go out of the house, if I do I never leave the neighborhood. I tell my children not to speak to many people,” said Nagham inside her bare, first-floor flat in a poor area of east Amman traditionally inhabited by Palestinian refugees.
Numbers of new arrivals from Syria dropped off dramatically after Jordan tried to seal the 370-km (230-mile) border in 2013, citing strain on its limited water resources and economy.
The Jordanian government says there are 1.4 million Syrians in the country at the moment, of whom around 633,000 are registered with the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR. Many are welcomed by host communities whose family ties straddle the Syrian-Jordanian border.
A UNHCR spokesman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation it had no estimate on the numbers of refugees who are unregistered.
If caught without documentation, unregistered Syrian refugees face being returned to camps or being deported back to Syria, say human rights groups.
Jordan is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, though has said it operates in according to principles of international law, which include non-refoulement - meaning a refugee may not be forced back to a country if they face persecution.
Officials in three government ministries did not respond to requests from the Thomson Reuters Foundation for comment.
Adam Coogle, Jordan researcher for Human Rights Watch, said he had been tracking deportations since 2014. They took place for a variety of reasons including security concerns, refugees working illegally or suspicion of having committed a crime, he said.
“We hear reports that deportations are ongoing and they probably increased following the attack in Rukban camp in June, 2016,” said Coogle, referring to a suicide attack at a Syrian-Jordanian border crossing close to a camp for 50,000 refugees.
Noura, a 31-year-old refugee from Homs said her younger brother was deported after he tried to leave a camp.
Refugees living in Jordan’s cities say they even worry their children could inadvertently betray them to the authorities.
When Syrian children get into arguments with locals the Jordanian parents sometimes threaten to get them deported, or blackmail them for money, said Areej, a 38-year-old woman living in Mafraq, a city 10 miles from the Syrian border.
Several civil society organizations in Jordan are trying to help the undocumented refugees, but mistrust on both sides is hampering the process, said Samar Muhareb, director of Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development, which gives legal assistance to refugees.
“I think perception or the fear of deportation are much higher than the realities but unfortunately this is the language used by the host communities,” she said.
Donor states have prodded the Jordanian government to relax labor laws to allow thousands of refugees to work legally in industrial parks and businesses near big camps like Zaatari.
Jordan had issued 20,000 work permits by July 2016, and tens of thousands more Syrian refugees are expected to get them in the coming years.
If refugees are unable to live and work legally, they will be forced to take risks, said Matteo Paoltroni, technical advisor to European Commission’s humanitarian aid department (ECHO), during an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation in his office in Amman.
ECHO is supporting projects aimed at registering refugees.
Nagham said she has only received a food coupon once, when a neighbor took pity on her. “It was like a holiday,” she said.
But she has no regrets about leaving the refugee camp.
The stakes are high. Adults in politics and media are willing to forget that in their rush to project on teens their own disagreements and posturing.
A year ago Thursday, Cameron Kasky and Kyle Kashuv were everyday high-school students. A horrifying act by a deranged gunman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School made them news subjects. Their passion made them outspoken political activists. And our national news cycle made them famous.
Since then, both teens have wrestled publicly with their political views and personas. Their story is part John Hughes, part "Black Mirror,” defined by an idyllic sunny Florida day shattered by trauma, and the full force of modern media and politics that descended after.
America's coming-of-age cinema doesn't offer a lot of guidance for the young political activist. "The Breakfast Club" famously features a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal, grappling with their identities, but not a viral video star. Kid 'n' Play "House Party"-ed, the "Mean Girls" burn booked...
Reese Witherspoon's dark and driven Tracy Flick ("Election," 1999) may be the most applicable, though not terribly admirable, example.
Florida shooting survivors aren't 'crisis actors.' They're victims of Internet failure.
But these days, we are in danger of making politics, and the public scrutiny that comes with it, another rite of teen passage. Even when teens don't intend to be public figures, what were private musings or dorm-room bull sessions a generation ago are now posted for much of the world to see.
Kasky was one of a trio of students who emerged from the devastation in Parkland onto the national media scene with a visceral message about gun control. Along with David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez, Kasky famously appeared at a CNN town hall, confronting Sen. Marco Rubio with a demand to reject NRA funding, adding "it’s ha...
These days he hosts a podcast titled, "Cameron Knows Nothing," the description for which reveals lessons learned since getting "weirdly famous."
"Chances are when you suddenly have 400k twitter followers, you’re gonna think you’re hot s---. I sure did. But then, last summer, I realized something — I don't know everything. Turns out, I have an awful lot to learn."
His Twitter feed ("Verified" — another rite) is a mix of Trump criticism and liberal policy preferences with a sprinkling of gut-check admonitions to his own side. He looks back on some of the early, emotional days of his activism with misgivings.
"I'm very regretful of a lot of the mistakes that I've made along the way," Kasky told Fox News Contributor Guy Benson on his radio show, "Benson & Harf" in September 2018, among which he counts the Rubio jab.
Kasky left the board of the "March for Our Lives," and is focusing on "efforts to encourage bipartisanship or at least discussion that is productive and help a lot of people avoid the mistakes that I made," he said.
Kashuv followed a similar arc to Kasky, from trauma victim to spokesperson to media star, at least in conservative circles.
At first, he sought attention reluctantly, feeling that the pro-2nd Amendment position had been unfairly marginalized by media in the wake of Parkland. But once he got a platform, he says he succumbed to temptations he had promised to reject.
He became a mirror image of Kasky, to a mirror-image crowd, garnering headlines like the Miami Herald's "Parkland’s ‘most hated pro-gun advocate’ thrills conservatives." He now does high-school outreach for the conservative group Turning Point USA, founded by pro-Trump figure, Charlie Kirk, but he hasn’t shied away fro...
A month ago, another teen found out just how badly things can go when tempers are high and kids gets thrust into the limelight. Nick Sandmann was a high school student at an average American political march. He became the subject of a week of national news coverage thanks to a short viral video in which he uttered not ...
Subsequent examination of fuller video of the encounter showed many portrayed Sandmann and his classmates unfairly. Today, Sandmann has lawyers, a handful of apologies from famous people, and a brush with infamy he never wanted or deserved.
For these teens, their political acts, statements — and, yes, sometimes missteps — aren't a matter of whether they can be forgiven 35 years from now for a yearbook photo, but whether they can be treated with fairness and grace in real time in a news cycle that is built for quick condemnation. Teens should have space to...
The stakes are high, and yet adults in politics and media are far too willing to forget that in their rush to project on teens their own deep disagreements and dopey posturing.
What Kasky and Kashuv learned during a year in the national spotlight is they don't sit on polar ends of a spectrum, though their personas once suggested they did. They have beliefs, they are capable of rational discussion, and they encourage it in others, in the name of honoring those lost. It all sounds measured and ...
"You see us as you want to see us… In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions."
But we can and should do better by politically engaged teens. When we lean too much on children to fight our rhetorical battles for us, it's because we have forgotten how to argue like adults.
Rajnath Singh was addressing a rally in Ahmedabad in support of BJP president Amit Shah, who filed his nomination from Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency later in the day.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh Saturday asked if former prime minister Indira Gandhi can be credited for liberating Bangladesh from Pakistan, why should not Prime Minister Narendra Modi be credited for the Balakot air strike.
Singh was addressing a rally in Ahmedabad in support of BJP president Amit Shah, who filed his nomination from Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency later in the day.
“It was the bravery of our forces that they divided Pakistan into two parts. One remained Pakistan, while Bangladesh was formed (out of the other),” he said.
“After the war, our leader A B Vajpayee praised Indira Gandhi in Parliament. She was also praised all over the country,” Singh added.
Referring to the Pulwama attack, the home minister said, “When our 40-42 CRPF soldiers lost their lives in a fidayeen attack, Modiji gave a free hand to our forces.” “If Indira Gandhi can get the credit of dividing Pakistan in 1971, why shouldn’t Modiji get the credit for what he has done in Balakot,” Rajnath asked.
“If our prime minister has shown such strong willpower to avenge the terror attack on our CRPF jawans, then I would like to ask you why our prime minister should not be praised?” he questioned.
“The Congress was in power when 26/11 attack took place in Mumbai. And they (Congress-led UPA) could do nothing against Pakistan. When political power and military might go hand in hand, then I can assure you that no power in the world can challenge the might of our military,” he said.
He asked the people to “punish” Congress president Rahul Gandhi for making allegations of corruption against the prime minister.
“Who will deny the fact that India’s respectability in international fraternity has grown. We all accept the truth that India’s leadership is in strong hands. But the irony is that the leader of our opposition party and Congress national president abuses our prime minister. I appeal to the people through this event to ...
“You have seen earlier governments. In the past five years, no one can dare say there is a blemish of corruption on PM Modi or any of his ministers,” the home minister claimed.
Taking on the Congress’ “chowkidar chor hai” jibe, Singh said, “Congress national president Rahul Gandhi says ‘chowkidar chor hai’.The chowkidar is not a chor, he is pure, his re-election as PM is sure, and for all the country’s problems, he is the cure.” He said under Modi, the country was now the sixth largest econom...
“Who will deny the fact that India’s respectability in the international fraternity has grown. We all accept the truth that India’s leadership is in strong hands,” he said.
Union minister Nitin Gadkari, speaking at the same event, claimed whatever happened in the last five years under PM Modi’s leadership “did not happen in 50 years”.
“Amitbhai gets the credit of making the BJP the world’s largest party. The NDA will certainly win in this election, and I am certain our government will come back under Modiji’s leadership,” Gadkari said.
“People understand that our government has not discriminated against anyone on the basis of caste, religion, creed or language,” he said.
Shiromani Akali Dal patriarch and former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal showered praise on Shah, saying he is the country’s “biggest organiser, campaigner”.
“Amit Shah ji was the chief campaigner and organiser in the 2014 election when Modi was elected. If there is anybody other than Modiji who gets credit for the government getting formed, then it is Amit Shah,” Badal said.
“Modi ji made the country proud by taking the decision to conduct (aerial, surgical) strikes to crush militancy. This happened without any jawan getting harmed. This decisive nature belongs to Modi saheb’s,” Badal claimed.
“We pray to god that Modi saheb becomes the country’s prime minister again by a huge majority, and Amit Shahji also contributes to it,” he said.
“I became MLA in 1979, MP in 1977, winning from Hajipur (in Bihar) with the largest margin. I will be happy if you break all past records,” he said.
Paswan said Modi’s claims of a “Congress-mukt” country was coming true as the opposition party was nowhere to be seen.
“Gathbandhan has become lathbandhan as its constituents are fighting against each other. I can say with confidence that the NDA and the BJP will get more seats in 2019 than what they got in 2014,” he said.
“When the press asked me three years ago, I had said there is no vacancy for the prime minister’s post in 2019. They should prepare for 2024, and we will see them then,” Paswan stressed.
DANBURY - When Patricia Doyle started teaching in 1964, there were 36 third-graders in her New Britain class. There were no special education programs, no social workers or psychologists and no bilingual or English as a Second Language classes for the growing Hispanic population. In those days, teachers solved their ow...
As America’s mystique has faded, we’ve grown to miss the skill and steadiness we once took for granted.
It was Bush’s gift to be sensitive even to Soviet generals who were seeing their world collapse around them. He knew a humiliated foe is a dangerous foe — and this foe had a nuclear arsenal. He slowly, carefully helped ease Russia out of its old ways and structures, helped it stand as its ground firmed up, and helped d...
Here’s a theory: Bush’s achievement wasn’t seen for what it was, in part because America in those days was still going forward in the world with its old mystique. Its ultimate grace and constructiveness were a given. It had gallantly saved its friends in the First World War, and again in the Second; it had led the West...
Having won the war, of course it would win the peace. It seemed unremarkable that George Bush, and Brent Scowcroft, and a host of others did just that.
Bush was the last president to serve under — and add to — that American mystique. It has dissipated in the past few decades through pratfalls, errors and carelessness, with unwon wars and the economic crisis of 2008. The great foreign-affairs challenge now is to go forward in the world successfully while knowing the my...
Bush came to be somewhat defensive about his reticence in those days. As a former aide I respected his caution, his sense that the wrong move could cause things to go dark at any moment. But I saw it differently: This was a crucial event in the history of the West, and its meaning needed stating by the American preside...
It is a delicate question, in statecraft as in life, when to speak and when not to. George Bush thought it was enough to do it, not say it, as the eulogists asserted. He trusted the people to infer his reasoning from his actions. (This was his approach on his tax increase, also.) But in the end, to me, leadership is pe...
Something deeply admirable, though: No modern president now considers silence to be an option, ever. It is moving to remember one who did, who trusted the people to perceive and understand his actions. Who respected them that much.
To the state funeral in the Washington Cathedral: Its pomp and ceremony served to connect Americans to our past and remind us of our dignity. In a way, it was a resummoning of our mystique. It was, for a moment, the tonic a divided nation needed.
There was majesty — the gleaming precision of the full-dress military, the flag-draped casket coming down the aisle, the bowed heads and hands on hearts, the bells tolling, the dignified solemnity.
There was a sense of gratitude that the old man had, the past week, gotten his due. For decades the press and others had roughed him up — “wimp,” “lapdog.” His contributions had not been fully appreciated. Now they were. We were happy but not triumphalist.
We were reminded: History changes its mind. Nothing is set. A historical reputation can change, utterly. Sometimes history needs time and distance to see the landscape clearly.
And history is human. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the seniormost world leader, was there. Back home her party was in the middle of a battle to choose her successor, and she couldn’t afford to be gone. But when she heard of Bush’s death she said she had to come to Washington. She told reporters that without Bush, s...
There was something else. She had told Bob Kimmitt, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany, that Bush had treated her “like a somebody when I was not.” Meeting with the obscure junior minister in the Oval Office in 1991, the president treated the young woman with great personal and professional respect. And so there she w...
Two other points about the funeral. Its unembarrassed religiosity and warmly asserted Christianity were beautiful, and refreshing. The burial rite was from the Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer, and it was a great and moving moment when the presiding bishop, Rev. Bruce Curry, met the flag-draped coffin at the Gr...
And there was a consistent message in the speeches. George Bush in his 94 years asked for and received everything — a big, loving family, wealth, position, power, admiration. But the lesson of that life was clear: He worked for it, he poured himself into it. He gave it everything he had. He made sacrifices to be who he...
We gave a lot of attention to his life this week, in part because we want to remind ourselves that such fruitful lives are possible. We want to show the young among us what should be respected and emulated, and that public service can be a calling, and that calling brilliantly met.
This was a good man, a brave one who proved himself solid when major edifices of the world were melting away. He was kind and gentle.

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