Saturday, August 8, 2009

AFL/CIO Interested in Healthcare IT Failure?

In today's Wall Street Journal, in a piece entitled "You Are Terrifying Us" about the growing opposition to the administration's healthcare reform plan, columnist Peggy Noonan writes:

... But every day the meetings seem just a little angrier, and people who are afraid—who have been made afraid, and left to be afraid—can get swept up. As this column is written, there comes word that John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO has announced he’ll be sending in union members to the meetings to counter health care’s [i.e., the reform plan's - ed.] critics.

Massive expansion of healthcare IT is one of the cornerstones of the healthcare reform initiative. I have expressed my concerns in an open letter to the President on this blog about the dangers of too rapidly pushing health IT in its present underdeveloped and experimental condition.

With that in mind, I've just noted several "hits" on my Drexel website on healthcare IT failure from the following IP number (internet digital address):

06 Aug, Thu, 16:22:42 12.4.17.250 Netscape 7 Windows XP
06 Aug, Thu, 16:45:53 12.4.17.250 Netscape 7 Windows XP
06 Aug, Thu, 17:03:07 12.4.17.250 Netscape 7 Windows XP

These occurred as a result of someone at IP 12.4.17.250 searching Google on the phrase "drexel university health information tech."

I cannot tell what they looked at besides the site's main page at 16:22, but at 16:45 and 17:03 the referring URL's were:

http://www.ischool.drexel.edu/faculty/ssilverstein/failurecases/?loc=about

In other words, my biographical information was being reviewed.

IP 12.4.17.250 translates as follows:

AFL-CIO AFLCIO-17-0 (NET-12-4-17-0-1)
12.4.17.0 - 12.4.17.255

Perhaps someone at AFL-CIO is interested in pursuing a graduate certificate in healthcare informatics at Drexel, or perhaps someone there is conducting background research on potential or perceived IT-related "impediments" to healthcare reform. (Such as my writings?)

I don't know which, but I thought the hits interesting.

-- SS

Aug. 11 update:

This "hit" just in on unknown referrer:

Aug, Tue, 08:13:39 12.32.3.194 Netscape 7 Windows XP

IP 12.32.3.194 translates to:

UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA UNITED-S 21-3-192
(NET-12-32-3-192-1) 12.32.3.192 - 12.32.3.199

A lot of hits on my HIT failure site with union labels lately.

-- SS

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