Monthly Archives: December 2005

Demo hell

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The ever candid Will Weider outlines his key objections to software demonstrations. The case as he outlines for not having this imposition, makes sense.

I have been on both sides of this particular fence many times, and agree that the usefulness of such a forum is waning. Good for the whites of eyes encounter that both parties need, but the homework must be done way in advance.

Any vendor interested in selling software should be at least be providing trial downloads/installations (for desktop software), 30 day+ access to web-based software, screencasts libraries (short videos of users interacting with key parts of the systems – see this Jon Udell piece), reference site contacts and of course documentation.

Call to action for Security Administrators

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Bruce Schneier nicely summarises a recent McAfee study in Europe about employee attitudes to corporate IT resources

  • One in five workers (21%) let family and friends use company laptops and PCs to access the Internet.
  • More than half (51%) connect their own devices or gadgets to their work PC.
  • A quarter of these do so every day.
  • Around 60% admit to storing personal content on their work PC.
  • One in ten confessed to downloading content at work they shouldn’t.
  • Two thirds (62%) admitted they have a very limited knowledge of IT Security.
  • More than half (51%) had no idea how to update the anti-virus protection on their company PC.
  • Five percent say they have accessed areas of their IT system they shouldn’t have.

I think the first one is the scariest, quickly followed by point 6 – 62% admitting they have limited knowledge of IT security. If I was a security administrator, this would concern me greatly. When you think about it though, the basic points which any employee using IT resources in an organisation should be aware of – anti-virus/OS updates and  monitoring of  internet  usage -  should be introduced at orientation or training days.

Employees should definitely not have the opportunity to say "I didn’t know about that" if something unexpected happens as a result of their tinkering or negligence.

HSE unveils new structures

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Prof. Brendan Drumm has brought in the changes that have been in the offing over the past few months. The old health board areas are finally gone, and we now have 4 administrative areas – as noted in the news update

All references to former areas/regions will now be replaced by the appropriate one of these areas.

Interestingly, Pat McLoughlins name is still there as director of the National Hospitals Office (NHO) – after a quick trawl of the usual media sites – I do not see any reference which overturns the decision that he took some weeks back to resign as deputy head of the organisation.

Microsoft Ireland Chief appointed to HSE Board

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The Health Service Executive (HSE) website  has a lot of information that one might sometimes overlook. For example, the Health Tech Blog has found over the past few months that the News Section of the site has kept well up to date with responding to sometimes unfavourable comment in the media.

Most interesting in the latest edition of the newsletter Health Matters (Winter 2005- page 20), is a small piece referring to the fact that Joe Macri, Managing Director of Microsoft Ireland has been appointed to the board of the HSE. The bio note of Macri in the piece notes his time with NatWest in the UK, and technology companies in Australia. He is chair of the Small Business Formum and a member of the Management Board of ICT Ireland and the National Executive Council of the Irish Business and Employers Confederation.

I don’t know when this appointment happened – there is no reference to it under the general news heading or under board membership.

Oh – and by the way – no, I didn’t have to go through each of the 15 separate PDF documents that constitue the newsletter online (infuriating) – I managed to pick up a good old fashioned paper edition instead.

Update : The Department of Health and Children (DOHC) has a press release on the appointment, dated 3rd November.

Connecting Ambulances to the Network

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Tim Gee at Medical Connectivity notes the network-enabling of ambulances using Wifi. The full article is available at the wi-fi planet.

 
In Ireland, the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council (www.phecc.ie) are working toward an Electronic Patient Care Record (EPCR). A trial is currently underway with ruggedised tablet pc’s and software which will gather patient information (demograhpics, vital observations, etc). Presumably, the ability to send information via GPRS/Wifi are part of the plans to quickly and efficiently transmit this information to Accident & Emergency Departments.