At this link, I present a novel, economical software system that I've been developing for two decades. It uses Microsoft Office and e-mail to exchange comprehensive patient data between authorized parties, and does it conveniently, securely and at very low cost. This peer-to-peer (node-to-node) desktop-based system is much less complicated and costly than today's centralized systems and works with any other software programs.

I'm debating a cloud-computing expert about the use of the cloud for health IT. The debate focuses on issues of cost, security, complexity.

He started the discussion with this comment:

I've written two related posts this time:

In the past few weeks, there's been a wonderful convergence of discussions focused on core issues underlying our country's healthcare reform debates; these issues are: American values, personal responsibility, and pragmatic solutions for a sustainable healthcare system.

For example, in the past two weeks, the Hasting Center posted the following blogs:

Dr. "Ravi" Pandey is president of BIPRO Inc., a consulting company, which focuses helping organizations across the globe to achieve sustainable growth in performance and consumer satisfaction.

In the following three new blog posts, I discuss fundamental issues concerning the healthcare reform debate:

An interesting post by Margalit Gur-Arie on THCB—titled "What if I Had to do HIT All Over Again?"—critiques the very large, very expensive and very clunky monolithic EMR/Practice Management/Billing system currently dominating the market. She concluded the post this way:

For healthcare reform to succeed, our country needs the right blend of principle and pragmatism, and it is foolish to prefer glorious defeat to an incremental victory. I contend that this requires (1) defining what we have to (ought to, should, must) do in order for our healthcare reform strategy be judged as principled and, at the same time, (2) defining what we can do in order for it to be judged as pragmatic.

In a prior post, I examined the how empathy (i.e., the ability to put oneself in the shoes of another), which is often lacking from the healthcare reform debate, ought to be an essential ingredient in the decisions our country makes. My discussion about the need for greater empathy triggered a contentious debate between a man working in the insurance industry and myself.

Our heated debate are at the following two links:

I discuss President Obama’s July 22^nd press conference in which said what I consider to be the single most important issue about reforming our healthcare system: “…here's what I'm confident about. If doctors and patients have the best information about what works and what doesn't, then they're going to want to pay for what works.