Anticlue

Sun bought seebeyond

In the arena of oh that's just interesting! Sun has acquired SeeBeyond (just to be datagate). Is this the first step in a SOA for healthcare?

Eclipse 3.1 Release

Eclipse 3.1 was released on midnight of June 28th, 2005. You can download it from here.

Mach II: The Tipping Point

After reading Peter Farrell's Mach II is dead, I think it is time that Mach II was released to the community instead of being the individual work of Hal and Ben. They have done a great job, but better project management needs to occur or MachII will fade away. First a project team structure needs to be set up, there should be an oversite group which included individuals such as Hal, Ben and Sean. This group ultimately approves what needs to go in what release and what ways to communicate to the general public. My next suggestion is to add a group of developers to do the building. Developers who want to contribute for the good of the framework. Also a team of documentation experts would do well to be apart of the team. A shortfall of the project is the lack of documentation; if the framework was for the community then there should be more documentation. A way for the community to contribute documentation, like MachII.info needs to be recognized.

The next big items needed are a schedule and a change control process. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but there are no schedules for improvement or change control processes. At first the change of the Mach II framework was rampant, almost 4 version changes in six months. Then there was 1 change within 6 months, and now nothing since October 2004. An anticipated release and functionality schedule needs to be shared with the community at least one that will take advantages of what has been offered with CFMX 7 and fix the plugin manager bug.

Thinking of the plugin manager bug, the other item that needs to be shared with the community is the bug list or issues. The issue list needs to capture what will be fixed, what won’t be fixed, and what doesn’t need to be fixed. This will give everyone a good sense of where the Mach-II project is at the current time. JIRA is available to most open-source projects for free. How many issues or bugs are there with the current Mach-II?

The final item is that throughout the project, there seems to be little or no planning to anything outside of the first code development, and this item is causing Mach-II to fail. There is no substitute to planning, and a project without planning will always fail. Good luck to Model-Glue to avoid this risk, just plan a little more communication, a schedule of releases, and a project team with community involvement.

jTDS: an Opensource JDBC 3.0 driver for MS SQL and Sybase.

jTDS is an open source 100% pure Java (type 4) JDBC 3.0 driver for Microsoft SQL Server (6.5, 7, 2000 and 2005) and Sybase (10, 11, 12). It provides full support for all JDBC features. Check out the feature matrix. However support for connection pooling is handled via DBCP or C3Po. Rowsets are handled via Sun's JDBC Rowset Implementations 1.0.1. Since it really didn't make sense to recreate those wheels.

jTDS is installed by placing the .JAR file for the driver into the Java Applications classpath.

NPI TRANSITION PLANS

CMS has announced the following plans for transitioning to the National Provider Identifier (NPI) in the fee-for-service Medicare program:

From May 23, 2005, to October 1, 2006, CMS's claims processing systems will accept either an existing legacy Medicare number and or an NPI that is accompanied by an existing legacy Medicare number.

From October 2, 2006, through May 22, 2007, CMS systems will accept an existing legacy Medicare number and/or an NPI. This will allow for six to seven months of provider testing before only an NPI will be accepted by the Medicare program.

Beginning May 23, 2007, CMS systems will only accept an NPI.

Why IT governance fails

Why IT governance fails

· Lack of management commitment.

· Too much time devoted to complicated process diagrams.

· Not creating written work instructions and not assigning process owners.

· Roles and responsibilities must be clearly defined and that includes management.

· Concentrating on performance criteria and not quality.

· Trying to implement too many processes at once.

· Failing to maintain momentum.

· Allowing departments to claim sole ownership of a process.

Slow response with alot of dbs in one SQL Server instance?

Back in January MS released this cool performance tweak to the sp_MSdbuseraccess stored procedure. If you are in an environment that has a lot of db's on one box, originally sp_MSdbuseraccess would check on each db the level of access you have. With the modified procedure, it checks to see the level of access you have only of the dbs you can access, instead of all of the dbs on the server.

Barbecue: A Java Barcoding Solution

Barbecue is an open-source, Java barcode library that provides the means to create barcodes for printing and display in Java applications. A number of barcode formats are supported and many more can be added via the flexible barcode API. Barcodes can be outputted to Graphics objects.

MySQL Migration Toolkit: an overview

One of the tools to keep in your toolkit is the MySQL Migration Toolkit. The new release supports migrating Oracle, SQL Server, and Access databases to MySQL. For Access migrations, just remember to show the system objects and allow the admin security group read design access to MsysObjects and MsysQueries.

Also if you are looking to go between machine and machine, check out agent-based migrations. In this scenario the toolkit resides on a separate machine, maybe your work machine. The agent is set up to migrate the source machine to the target machine without going through the MySQL Migration Toolkit setup on your work machine.

Free Java Book

How to think like a computer scientist is a good concise introduction to java and the programming mentality.

Eclipse BIRT Project

The Eclipse Foundation has a preview of BIRT (Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools) out. BIRT is an open source, Eclipse-based reporting system that integrates with your application to produce compelling reports for both web and PDF.

"BIRT is an Eclipse-based open source reporting system for web applications, especially those based on Java and J2EE. BIRT has two main components: a report designer based on Eclipse, and a runtime component that you can add to your app server. BIRT also offers a charting engine that lets you add charts to your own application. BIRT is currently in community review for release 1.0."

New UB-04 form.

The National Uniform Billing Committee (NUBC) unveiled the new UB-04 form. The UB-04 contains a number of improvements that resulted from nearly four years of research, including better alignment with the electronic HIPAA ASC X12N 837-institutional transaction standard.

Lessons Learned: Integrated Testing

Integrated Testing is when you test everything working together, the applications, the interfaces, and the workflow processes. Last week was our first shot at it with the newest implementation. Here are the items that I’ve learned.

First there needs to be two teams, the first team is the testers and the fixers. The testers should consist of the actual applications users, have the people using the application and the workflow do the testing. The second team consists mainly of IT individuals who analyze and diagnosis problems. Vendor representatives are best on both teams.

Like two teams, there needs to be two people running the testing sequence. The first person works with the testers, does a quick triage of issues, and controls the changes to the testing process. The second person needs to keep track of the issues and work with the fixers team.

The individual controlling testing needs to approve all changes to the testing environment. There can be a change that is absolutely necessary so that testing and proceed and changes that affect all other scenarios. This individual also decides which scenarios go through retest and which scenarios are no longer suitable for testing, the kiss of death error.

For testing scenarios, one needs to get a good handle on the creation of scenarios early in the implementation process. You should test accordingly to the customers requirements, not your specification. Also if you don’t have a tool that allows for automated testing, it isn’t possible to test everything under the world. Customer expectations need to be handled.

Testing takes resources and time. The participants need to have their schedules cleared, because there is a clear dependency on testing. It hard to maintain the flow while we are waiting for a tester to return from a 2 hour meeting, or has been pulled for another priority. Testers end up waiting for the next tester.

Testing is best done in a centralized location, where the testers are all in the same room. The scenarios can flow easier, and sequencing is clearer to everyone in the room.

A conference call to discuss the testing needs to occur daily preferably either first thing in the morning or last thing in the afternoon. Everyone should be involved and the call should be mandatory.

Testing is a trying experience, its hard that the same people are trying to break what they have spent a considerable amount of time and energy building. Always be considerate of that fact when the builders and testers are the same resources.

MIA – Nice White Board with Markers.

At work, I’ve recently had to relocate cubes. Honestly what I miss most is my white board. I had a sweet location, next to a conference room. So any given day, I could have 3 whiteboards going. I would leave the pictures up until I needed to wipe them for the next explanation or brainstorming session. I found that frequently I or others would go back to an old picture, so I would leave it in place – thus the three whiteboards, one in my cube, the others in the conference room. My current cube doesn’t have room for the whiteboard and the conference rooms have become booked with meetings. So I left my whiteboard in its old location, and the current occupant of the cube covered it up. So its not used anymore.

My lack of a whiteboard is a communication blocker, I find I’m trying to white board in the air with my hands and by defining locations. What’s really funny is that people sometimes follow the abstract picture in the air. Other times, someone is following and the other person is laughing and saying “do you see that drawing?” Then I go for a piece of paper and a pencil, the paper always turns out too small.

A whiteboard is the best place for a quick discussion of ideas.

Steps to a National Healthcare IT Strategy

Health Information Technology: HHS Is Taking Steps to Develop a National Strategy, by the GAO, includes lessons learned from DOD and VA, which operate the largest healthcare delivery networks in the nation, and other countries that have begun national health IT infrastructure initiatives. Some of the key lessons, which are applicable to any health delivery system IT initiative, include obtaining the endorsement of top leadership, adopting standards, addressing stakeholder needs, and deploying solutions in small increments and building on successes

EHR Certification with a Diabetes Focus

The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) plans to develop a new certification program for electronic health record (EHR) systems. The certification program is going to evaluate EHR systems for compliance and compatibility with the data collection and reporting requirements under NCQA's American Diabetes Association Diabetes Physician Recognition Program (DPRP).

Its a start.

Just email the phone

There are times, where one needs to get a short message to a cell user. Its really not worth the calling and bothering, but the knowledge is needed.

Check out below for the email addresses that can be used to send a short message to cell users on different carriers.

AT&T: AreaCode+Mobile@mobile.att.net
Verizon: AreaCode+Mobile@vtext.com
Nextel: AreaCode+Mobile@page.nextel.com
T-Mobile: AreaCode+Mobile@tmomail.com
Sprint: AreaCode+Mobile@messaging.sprintpcs.com
Cingular: 1+AreaCode+Mobile@mobile.mycingular.com

Compression for J2ME

Looking for a gzip compression in J2ME, check out JCraft’s JZlib for J2ME.

It is a modified version of JZLIB, which can work on some J2ME mobile phones. According to the version, the minimum phone is Siemens S55, having about 340Kb for the heap of Java Midlet.

A different type of production problem

We have another person leaving our IT department. She is off to hopefully greener pastures. We are all wishing her well on her journey to the new pasture, and the relationships have changed to the short-timer stage of her eventual departure.

So where is the production problem? Here it is, we don?t have a single-signon, and we have a plethora of applications. Depending on the type of employee you are, your security level can be very broad, or extremely narrow. It can also may need to be extensively tracked and monitored or minimally. We have a very process driven security maintenance application that is customized to that process and not very well documented. The last person who understood our security management process and worked it daily is leaving. We have coverage which we can support for a week or two, but other critical projects will hit the resource crunch due to the switch of support.

She is a terrifically diligent and dedicated person, showing up daily, quietly dealing with all of the issues, so nothing ever came to the front showing that the security process needs to be examined. The process may work, as complicated as it is, but it is very very complex. And when questions arose, the process is so screening intensive, she would be back before any real concerns arose.

For me this has been an eye opening experience, I've learned to appreciate the niche player more. It takes a certain type and level of dedication for someone to do the exact same job day in day out with little to no glory. Yet, they are always there and always dedicated, they may quietly grumble. But the truth be told, the whole operation would not be able to run, without them. As we will soon see if we don't solve the production problem.

Where is the local Anonymous Neologists Group?

Neologism refers to meaningless words used by a psychotic, unfortunately yesterday I was playing the role of the psychotic. Having always played the role of technician, I know probably most of the computer acronyms and jargon. Now I’m playing the role of project manager, business analyst, and technician. Yesterday, I was doing the business analyst part working with the case managers deriving integrated testing scenarios for testing the new system. This implementation is the first for our Case Department to actively partake in and derive scenarios. It is a new experience for them, and I’d like it to be a learning experience, and introduction into the magical art of implementing a system, working with technology. However there is the difference, to me it is a magical mystical art that I truly enjoy, to them it is time wasted from doing their real job taking care of patients and ensuring they don’t go broke or are ill cared for during their stay with us. Terms like integrated testing, what is your workflow, what requirements do we want to test, all resulted in the most horrific blank stares.

It made me reminiscent of my previous boss, who left for greener pastures. She was a clinician and she was able to talk the lingo. I got there eventually by remembering how she used to play interpreter between me and the clinicians. Integrated testing transformed into we just want to see if all the parts work together this time and laid out the parts. I got to learn about pre-admission reviews, concurrent reviews, carve out days, the difference between acute and ALC. They got to learn, that their world is apart of the enterprise, not a silo anymore

AJAX Debugging Tool

Julien Couvreur has released an updated version of his Ajax Debugging Tool. The new script adds debugging features to the tracing greasemonkey script.