Hello World.

Welcome to the Minformatics Blog. "Minformatics" is an amusing concatenation of the name of my technology consulting business, Mendocino Informatics. It is also a pun drawn from a personal focus on minimally invasive technology. My broad goal for starting this blog is to leverage this verbal venue to advocate for technology solutions that enhance our humanity, protect our privacy, conserve our resources, and accelerate our collective ability to create peaceful and productive communities for ourselves and for all inhabitants of the planet. The narrow focus of my comments will be the theory and practice of health informatics, with specific attention towards the ability of small rural communities to participate in the emerging eHealth agenda. Occasionally I will lapse into commentary on art exhibits, musical performances, sustainable technology, horticulture, raising children and other peripheral topics; however my primary discussion will consider how to make electronic health data agile across the community in an affordable way while maintaining appropriate privacy, security and access controls.

The next post will drill down into recent public claims made by CalRHIO, including their general barrage of press releases; CalRHIO doesn't actually operate a health information exchange (HIE), they merely issue press releases about planning to operate one. Specifically, I will analyze the public testimony by Dr. Molly Coye, Chair of the CalRHIO Board, at the California State Senate Health Committee hearing in San Jose on March 13, 2009. I will compare and contrast the assertions in her testimony to other testimony at the same hearing.