I have over 40 years experience in the Medical Electronics side of the Healthcare field. I've owned, managed, sold and  serviced many of the products used in diagnostic evaluations  including MRI's, CT's, Cath Labs, Special procedures rooms, PACS, EHR's etc. I've also designed and built free-standing clinics and complete departments for large hospitals.

"Computers in healthcare" has long been my main focus, and I've installed complete systems inside and outside of the U.S.  Within my company, Parameter Developments, I've developed healthcare-related hardware and software for a variety of agencies.

Nearly three years ago I listened to Dr. Kitzhauber speak at one of the Health IT conferences in San Diego, and I was so impressed with his presentation I jointed the Archimedes movement  the next week: We Can Do Better!

The healthcare field is changing; it's an unstoppable charge into computer-based equipment throughout the hospitals and clinics and soon into our very homes. These same computers that used to be single use and stand alone are now being integrated to communicate with one another. They are becoming interconnected into a very fast communication system on the campus, city, state, and national levels.

Governments at the State and Federal levels have placed the computerization of the healthcare industry at the highest level and are moving toward national interconnectivity. The hope is to control, integrate and lower costs of the overall healthcare system with the adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Personal Health Records (PHR) .

In the meantime, the Archimedes Movement is taking a grass roots approach on changing the healthcare system from a user point of view. We need to take a careful look at the impact computers are going to have on all of us from industry to personal use.