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Healthcare's Apple-Like Ecosystem At the VA?

Is the health care industry in line for a 21st-century makeover - mobile electronic health records, remote patient monitoring, and a new corporate culture, friendly to the open-source systems and workplace democracy in which tech innovation thrives?

Yes, says Craigslist founder Craig Newmark in Fast Company magazine. In fact, he believes healthcare could be as easy as, well, Craigslist.   With Newmark's consulting advice, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is leading the way:
"Last November, Adobe won the VA’s first Blue Button competition, a name inspired by the vision of an easy, single-click-access electronic health record (Newmark was one of the judges). The winning system includes an interactive platform, complete with intuitive graphic art and simplified statistics.
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"Additionally, the VA will open source its new health care ecosystem, permitting a community of developers to co-construct the new database and allow outside institutions to modify the codebase for their own systems. The vision is a system that permits real-time communication between patients and doctors and isn’t held hostage by either a painfully slow government entity or a single, inflexible corporate partner. For developers, this means a whole new sub-industry of opportunity."

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