On February 3rd and 4th, 2010 there is a Health IT Summit for Government Leaders. It will be held at the Wardman Park Hotel in Washington D.C. You can also access the summit from your own office or home live through the Internet. Some keynote speakers include Dr. David Blumenthal, the National Coordinator for Health [...]

The New England Journal of Medicine published Dr. David Blumenthal’s perspective on Health IT and the provisions of the HITECH Act on December 30th, 2009. Blumenthal is the head of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT and his standpoint is that Health IT is vital. In fact, he stated that, “Information is [...]

The Office of Personnel Management just recently created new regulations to expand life insurance access to federal employees that are overseas. For example, this applies to federal employees sent overseas to help with military operations or individuals that have been called back into active military service. In a GovExec report, Matt Biggs, the legislative director [...]

A Kepler space telescope that has been orbited space has found five new planets. NASA launched the telescope this past March. According to InformationWeek, William Borucki, the mission’s principal science investigator, stated, “These observations contribute to our understand of how planetary systems form and evolve from the gas and dust disks that give rise to [...]

The General Services Administration recently announced that it updated the federal privately owned vehicle reimbursement rates. These new rates went into effect on January 1st, 2010. The new rates are as follows: Airplane – $1.29 per mile Automobile if no government owned available – $0.50 per mile Automobile if government owned available – $0.285 per [...]

On December 30, President Obama signed Executive Order 13528, “Establishing Federal Capability for the Timely Provision of Medical Countermeasures Following a Biological Attack,” which gives the US Postal Service responsibility for delivering self-administered antidotes in the wake of a biological attack against the US. The new order is designed to ensure that the number of [...]

The Veterans Affairs Department has delayed the security scholarship program until 2011. The program will reimburse many employees for the doctoral studies costs. It was first enacted in 2006, and is now a year away from completion. According to Federal Computer Week, it was first put into place because there was a “computer drive that [...]

Adam Conner (pictured here), who is Facebook’s first D.C. staffer, hopes to demystify the social networking site for politicians on the Hill. He hopes to teach them how to use the site more effectively. According to a Washington Post article, Republican Peter Roskam asked Conner, the Facebook lobbyist, “If we’re going to improve our presence [...]

Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke about the importance of the academy experience at a football bowl game in Fort Worth, Texas. He pointed out that attending these universities are launching potentials for service as a military officers. He also mentioned how these games really hit home with [...]