HTML5 is W3C’s shiny new offering promising interoperability, speed and maintainability – almost everything, it would appear, but vacations in the tropics! It is going to live in ‘Webville’ for a while so let’s really get to know it. Sure, we can break the ice talking about the weather worldwide, but then, let’s really dig down and investigate HTML5’s personality and find out exactly what it can do. Chances are you may have already used HTML5 without realizing it, and chances are, you loved it – e.g., the file drag-and-drop feature in Google Docs. HTML5 was preceded by its reputation; now let us see if it delivers!

HTML5 will make web pages portable across devices, platforms and form factors – an idea that supports convergence with the proliferation of tablets and smart phones. Problems of varying resolutions can be artfully handled through use of related technologies like Scalable Vector Graphics (SVGs). The fact that all browsers will support HTML5 represents the holy grail of page styling and interface design – i.e., cross browser compatibility, which means no more hacks, browser-sniffing or code-branching. (more…)

We are quickly approaching the ICD-10 implementation deadline and most payers and providers are still in the planning phase. A recent HIMSS ICD-10/5010 Readiness Survey shows that while providers are making significant progress on ICD-10, it is generally at a slower pace than that for HIPAA 5010.

With less than 30 months left until the compliance date (October 1, 2013), healthcare entities will have to start taking stock, assessing their readiness and taking control of their planning activities.

Because the impacts of ICD-10 are widespread within and beyond individual organizations, it is very important to focus on these crucial first steps before embarking on the exciting journey of ICD10 implementation (more…)

Deploying a content management tool at an enterprise level requires a buy-in from users (bottom up). In a bottom up flow, it is important that top level commitment is present for the tool and that the tool is successfully installed and implemented.  This will benefit the organization and yield the desired results which were envisioned. Some interesting facts and market figures were revealed during the Business Process Management Summit in London. According to Mark Gilbert, Director – Consulting, Gartner, more than 40 percent of enterprises do not properly consider process and organizational issues when implementing ECM. He further adds that many companies underestimate the issues of installing an ECM, especially when it comes to the change management factor.

Organizational users generally have the tendency to utilize their own tools for information dissemination between departmental colleagues or across departments in an enterprise. The newly acquired content management tool must be approved by these users before it is implemented. (more…)

With the world becoming connected through social media platforms and the use of internet more extensive than ever, there has been a massive explosion of data and content. This has led to an unprecedented need for scaling solutions that store and process data. The traditional approach to address such data growth is to buy progressively more powerful hardware until the database can serve all the traffic.

Even larger companies have dealt with the horror of this scalability as they resorted to using traditional relational databases, eventually hitting limits that were unviable both financially and operationally. Google once ran off of 40,000 MySQL installations and Facebook was at one point spending $1M per month for specialized database hardware to serve their pictures.  These unviable solutions led to a re-evaluation of existing database technologies and led to the Not-Only-SQL (NoSQL)  movement. (more…)