46 things baohouse likes Explore more popular stuff on Tumblr →

This week, I joined my colleagues, including White House Cabinet Secretary and Initiative Co-Chair Chris Lu, in Jacksonville, Florida to engage with Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) business leaders about the Obama Administration’s policies and programs to support aspiring entrepreneurs and start-ups, resources for small businesses wanting to go global, and innovation opportunities for entrepreneurs, including health IT.

Throughout American history, AAPI communities have played a pivotal role in helping to build the infrastructure that supports our great nation.  As our economy continues to improve, the contributions of the AAPI community will lead the way in building and improving our health care infrastructure in An America Built to Last.

As a health care innovation professional at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), I understand that the quality of the care received by our citizens is directly tied to their productivity.  It is connected to industries that have the potential to drive growth and create jobs.  Our nation is moving toward a high-performing, patient-centered health care system built on the latest evidence, the most advanced technology, the right incentives, and a focus on keeping people healthy.  We are achieving better health, better care, and lower costs, and the AAPI community is playing a key part in building the infrastructure that ensures these positive changes. 

At HHS, one of the first steps we’ve taken to support infrastructure development in healthcare is to make significant investments in health information technology (health IT).  Health IT encompasses an array of technologies to store, share, and analyze health information, and it is bolstering a grand transformation in health care as we know it.  Health care providers are using health IT to improve patient care.  Patients are using health IT to better communicate with their doctors, learn and share information about their health, and take actions that will improve their quality of life.  Until recently, relatively few Americans have had the opportunity to use this kind of technology to enhance important relationships related to their health – with doctors, pharmacies, and hospitals.  That has all started to change since the launch of this Administration’s comprehensive effort to promote adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) in 2009. Since then, the number of hospitals using EHRs has more than doubled, and the number of doctors is increasing rapidly.

For those interested in pursuing a career in health IT, health information technology professionals are in demand.  As the nation moves toward a more technologically advanced health care system, providers need highly skilled health IT experts to support them in the adoption and use of electronic health records.  The Obama Administration has launched four workforce training programs to meet the demand for workers with health IT experience and training. 

• Training is provided through 82 community colleges and nine universities nationwide. As of January 2012, over 9,000 community college students have been trained for health IT careers and another 8,706 students have enrolled.  For more information and a list of participating community colleges, go tohealthit.hhs.gov/communitycollege. 
• Health IT Workforce Curriculum: The Federal government has funded the development of comprehensive curriculum free to all Americans.  The health IT workforce curriculum offers colleges and universities in all 50 states innovative health IT teaching materials at no cost to instructors.  Sign up for an account to access these materials for free at: www.onc-ntdc.org/

To learn more about the growing health IT sector, I encourage you to visit healthIT.gov and healthIT.HHS.gov.  Opportunities within health IT are emerging as technology and innovation improves our health care system and the health and well-being of all Americans.

Wil Yu is the Director of Innovations at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

I’ve never in my life held family first until just recently. Often times I’ve blamed my mom for many of my life’s grievances and attempts at suicide. All the neglect, the stealing, the lying, the cheating, the disapproval, the put downs, and the misunderstanding have ingrained in my mind shattered remnants of a dysfunctional mother-son relationship. From living a life where everything was made, to being forced out and dragged alongside her living in run down rented rooms where the unfolding of a mattress caused 3/4ths of the room to become occupied. 

She has thrown away a lot of my most prized possessions, failed to remember my birthday many times, stolen my money that I worked hard to earn, and hid from me that I have a full blood sister out there that was put up for adoption. In my younger days when I was completely naive I said to myself “She’d be better off dead”. 

My heart hurts to remember how foolish I was. 

Being grown up and more mature now, I’m more at liberty to live my own life, still dealing now and then with her misunderstanding of what I desire to do with my myself. We don’t get along well, we hardly see each other, and I hardly ever get a chance to ever talk to any of my parents, but they will still come first at any given time they need me. People will walk away in your life, but family is tied to you by blood. 

Disclaimer: This post is not directed towards any one in particular. Please do not take offense if you have a different point of view. 

Funny how I have been putting some thoughts into the recent rave about Jeremy Lin and I come across this article: “Why Jeremy Lin’s race matters”.

I personally think that Jeremy Lin is undeniably good, judging from the past five games he played on the Knicks. It bothers me a great deal that people simply negate his athleticism by commenting his race. People who think his superb performance in all five games is purely luck frustrate me. People, like Floyd Mayweather, claim that the hype is based purely on Jeremy Lin’s ethnic background really irritate me. Mayweather said that “Black players do what he does every night and don’t get the same praise.” Hm, excuse me, but I do remember Kobe, Dwight Howard, LeBron James, and Blake Griffin (just to name a few) all had their tremendous praise from the media. There are so many reasons why certain player gets media attention, may it be their monstrous dunks or crazy 81 points game, but to dismiss a player’s legit athleticism just because of his race is ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong,  I do believe that Lin’s race must have played a role in all the praises and talks. We shouldn’t like someone just because of their race. I became a Jeremy Lin fan because he is undoubtedly great; he gave me and everyone a big surprise after being traded from the Warriors to the Knicks. And the fact that he is a Chinese-American player in a sport predominantly white/black gives me even MORE reasons to like him. 

In the words of a “Jeanyus”: [Jlin] is a great player, who rose up from obscurity. He was cut from 2 teams including his hometown team, lived on his brother’s couch in NY while being on a non-guaranteed contractfor the knicks and indanger of also being cut from the knicks. He is asian american, was disregarded and went undrafted. There is a strong stereotype that asians can’t ball, especially Asians who went to IVY league and not powerhouses like UNC or Syracuse He works his ass off, and starts lighting up the league. This not only is great basketball, and not only a great story about an underdog, but a story about breaking down of stereotypes. Now young asian american teens have someone to look up to, and have a role model, whereas before jlin, there was none. He broke that barrier for Asian Ams and is proving to the whole nation that we are more than just math and good looks. We are diverse and can ball just as well as the best of them. So what jlin has done is nothing short of incredible