ADVERTISEMENT Brought to you by BMC Software Complimentary Executive Summit Performance Under Pressure: Visualize, Optimize, Realize Solutions to Succeed Wednesday, February 8, 2012 Join us for a thought-provoking discussion that will center on top CIO challenges and strategies to make your organization more effective and efficient: Hear how your colleagues are managing their move to the cloud and how they have handled the challenges Learn firsthand about agency IT Management strategies Discover how to guide your agency's adoption of innovative technologies Click here to register!

TOP STORIES

• Veterans Affairs will host electronic health records in DISA data centers
  The Veterans Affairs Department will start to move data center operations that support its Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) electronic health records to data centers operated by the Defense Information Systems Agency in March. Officials expect to complete the transition in slightly more than a year, VA Chief Information Officer Roger Baker told Nextgov.... full article
• Scientists halt controversial flu research
  Scientists working on a controversial project to create new forms of H5N1 bird flu agreed on Friday to stop their work for 60 days while the debate plays out.... full article
• Software upgrade knocks out Defense health record system
  The Military Health System shut down the AHLTA clinical data repository -- which stores 9.7 million electronic records for active-duty and retired military personnel and their families -- after experiencing problems with a commercial software package that manages data storage, a top MHS official told Nextgov. s... full article
• VanRoekel: Mobile roadmap will focus on streamlining acquisitions
  A cross-government team already has put together the rough draft of a government mobile roadmap that will streamline how agencies buy smartphones and tablets and how they use those devices to accomplish internal goals and communicate with the public, federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel said at a luncheon Friday.... full article
• VA not budging on plans to electronically track hospital staff
  The system would likely affect staff at the Martinsburg VA Medical Center in Martinsburg, W. Va.... full article

• Mobile health centers deliver medical care to rural veterans
  About 41 percent, or 3.3 million, veterans enrolled in the Veterans Affairs Department health system live far from a VA hospital, so last week the department added another 20 vehicles to its fleet of 50 mobile vet centers packed with sophisticated communications gear to bring medical care and other services to rural veterans. ... full article
• GSA course aims to train government social media leaders
  Every federal agency could benefit from engaging more on social media, but different agencies ought to engage in different ways, said Gadi Ben-Yehuda, who will be teaching a 12-week government-sponsored course beginning in February.... full article
• Fewer online petitions posted to We the People website
  Fewer than 15 petitions were actively collecting signatures on the White House's We the People website Tuesday, among the lowest numbers since the site's September 2011 launch. ... full article

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Brought to you by BMC Software

Complimentary Executive Summit
Performance Under Pressure: Visualize, Optimize, Realize Solutions to Succeed
Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Join us for a thought-provoking discussion that will center on top CIO challenges and strategies to make your organization more effective and efficient:

• Hear how your colleagues are managing their move to the cloud and how they have handled the challenges
• Learn firsthand about agency IT Management strategies
• Discover how to guide your agency's adoption of innovative technologies

Click here to register!

HEALTH IT UPDATE

• Owning Up to Health IT Challenges
  Physicians who have an ownership stake in a medical practice are more likely than other doctors to rate EHR implementation as difficult.... full article
• Health Care in Your Convertible
  If you have to sit in traffic, you might as well do something to improve your health.... full article
• GAO: Health IT Contractor Lags
  A major U.S. Department of Health and Human Services contractor has fallen behind in its efforts to promote electronic health records, concluded the General Accountability Office in a Jan. 13 report.... full article