2-12-10 Community E-Newsletter/Call

Hello, after a week's hiatus, we're back offering you all a chance to weigh in and contribute toward OurMed's unbiased, free license and dynamic medical/health knowledge base.

This article serves as E-Newsletter as well as proposed agenda topics for today's OurMed Community telephone call. As our web technology and knowledge of MediaWiki software grows, so does the quality of our content. It might be easier to track discussion via our website here. As we push forward with a newly signed contract with Blueliner Marketing, we are looking to step up our pace could use your input! In constancy with our mission, our non-profit community approach seeks your unbiased contributions to medicine and consumer knowledge on healthcare.

 

Time: Friday (Today!) : 2 - 2:45pm EST

Call in Number : 712-775-7000  Passcode : 634011#

If you would like to opt out of these emails, please let me know. Thank you for your continued interest in the OurMed initiative--we couldn't make this happen without your participation and are grateful for you pitching in!

Greg Miller, Executive Director at OurMed.Org         (212) 740-1850

Watch our OurMed YouTube Video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqgYfFxEkLk

OurMed's Technology Update
Last week, Blueliner, a top notch web development and marketing firm signed the OurMed Phase Two contract with OurMed and Vincent Navarro will be heading up the Technology Committee. Meeting seperately, we'd like to include several members from this core community into a Tech Community, a few of which may be needed as liasons between the content committee and the design committee. OurMed pledges to honor anyone that puts in over 100 hours of volunteer work as aFounding Framer.

Here's what the Tech Committee might look like:


 * Vincent Navarro - Committee Chair
 * Elise Passikoff project manager/liason with Blueliner?
 * Gary Diopinto - quality assurance candidate
 * Bob Mawussi - quality assurance candidate
 * Sampada Paranjape - quality assurance candidate
 * John Volpe - advisor/liason?
 * Terri Moore - wiki advisor?
 * Tony Wasserman - open source advisor?
 * Stan Kachnowski - architecture and healthcare advisor
 * Florence Devaourd - advisor? (or content committee?)

Members are not set in stone yet but Stan Kachnowski (OurMed Board Chair) and Vincent will be aranging a design meeting with Blueliner in the comming weeks. If a representative from Blueliner is on the call today, feel free to say a few words!

The Pepsi Refresh Grant Project Update - Voting Starts March 1st
Oleta McHenry, former accountant for the Wikimedia Foundation that made Wikipedia and current OurMed Board Director and Treasurer, had the original idea to apply for this grant and has a strong network to tap for votes.

Greg Miller, OurMed Executive Director, in addition to having written 54 proposals to major Foundations in January, created the application with the below chief elements in the description.

Online voting for the project is the key driver for success. Oleta suggested that Susan Gardner, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director, might be able to rally votes with her community.

There are many elements to this grant proposal including budget details and organizational specifics but the main thrust of the grant proposal are these:

Brief Bio:

OursMedicina (“OurMed”) was created as a response to the lack of unbiased and well organized information on the internet. While many health websites already exist, the information they provide is often times cluttered and biased by advertisers who support the site and influence its content.

About The Project:

Main Goals (70 character limit each)

1) Create a Physician verifiable portal to instil a trustworthy Wiki

2) Re-design OurMed.Org with a sleek non-wiki design

3) Add a new layer of including user preferences and experiences.

4) Rally 200 medical pioneers in a community of innovative reformers

Description of Project Plan:

The "Democratization of Healthcare Information" project seeks to further the development of our free Medical Encyclopedia that has been a “Wikipedia Model” for health information. Our plans go beyond the public wiki approach and include a physican verifiable mechanism that will offer an accurate, non-partisan and free source of information that users can trust.

Working with the former head of Wikipedia and reform minded healthcare professionals, we are convinced that our revolutionary proposal has attracted the most innovative technology partner in the world that will enable all health and wellness participants to sort through unreliable, outdated and irrelevant information.

Addressing the need to improve disparities throughout the healthcare system, user ratings will establish dynamic standards of accuracy andl allow location-specific queries of the most effective drug and treatment options.

The OurMed Symbiosis Project
Following up from the last few weeks, Richard Knipel, President of the New York City Chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation and member of OurMed's content committe created a five-part plan to jumpstart Ourmed by developing positive symbiotic relationships with existing open content communities.

We will examine the first two points here.


 * 1. Ensure our MediaWiki and WYSIWYG configuration is compatible with Wikipedia
 * 2. Import high quality health and medical topics articles from Wikipedia: Featured articles and Good article

In order to best understand how to leverage the use of free content license, we will examine Medpedia's article H1N1 and see if we can eitheruse their introductionor expand on the current one.

Medpedia's Content Policy is quoted here:http://www.medpedia.com/terms

The Content, the Site and any associated software, and all Intellectual Property Rights (as defined below) related thereto, are the exclusive property of Medpedia and its licensors. Except as explicitly provided herein, nothing in these Terms shall be deemed to create a license in or under any such Intellectual Property Rights, and you agree not to sell, license, rent, modify, distribute, copy, reproduce, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, publish, adapt, edit or create derivative works from any Content except as expressly provided herein.

For the purposes of this Agreement, "Intellectual Property Rights" means all patent rights, copyright rights, moral rights, rights of publicity, trademark, trade dress and service mark rights, goodwill, trade secret rights and other intellectual property and proprietary rights as may now exist or hereafter come into existence, and all applications therefore and registrations, renewals and extensions thereof, under the laws of any state, country, territory or other jurisdiction, relating to the Content.

Medpedia's License to You

Subject to your compliance with these Terms, Medpedia grants free access to the Content in the wiki section of Medpedia, which is licensed to you and the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License (CC-BY-SA). The Content may be copied, modified and redistributed so long as the new version grants the same freedoms to others and acknowledges the Medpedia Editor community as the author of the article. A prominent direct link back to the article satisfies this requirement.

Content on the "Accredited" sister pages that accompany some articles on Medpedia are not editable by the broad Medpedia community. They are there to allow for the case when organizations and physicians want to contribute to The Project but either want to retain their copyright and/or do not want their content edited by others (other than being deleted altogether). Therefore, content on "Accredited" pages is not part of the (CC-BY-SA) license of Medpedia and the copyright is solely held by the authors of that content, whose name appears on that page. Those pages are clearly marked at the top and bottom of the article as protected by the authors' copyright.

If you violate any of these Terms, your permission to use the Content automatically terminates and you must immediately destroy any copies you have made of any portion of the Content.

Links to Medpedia Content

Subject to your compliance with these Terms, Medpedia hereby grants you a restricted, non-exclusive, and revocable license to use hyperlinks or otherwise refer to the Content (collectively, a "Link"), provided that (a) Links may not suggest or imply in any way that Medpedia promotes, sanctions or otherwise approves any Web site, organization, individual, product, service or information; (b) you do not misrepresent the Medpedia Service or your relationship with Medpedia; and (c) you may not include a Link on any Web site that that could be construed as, or that a reasonable person may consider obscene, offensive, or inappropriate. Medpedia reserves the right to require you to remove any Link at any time in Medpedia's sole discretion.

Building content on OurMed one article at a time – What to write about?
Changes or additions can be made easily with our WYSYWIG editor (what you see is what you get), making it much easier than Wikipedia and cutting the volume ramp up rate to the new site significantly faster.

At times posting new material my be difficult to give attributions for so it may be easier to publish previously published work Alternatively, you can choose content from one of the many free content ("copy left") sites such as much of the content on:


 * 1. NIH's National Library of Medicine and PubMed
 * 2. Wikipedia.org
 * 3. Medpedia.com
 * 4. GanFyd.org (original medical wiki site that says Medpedia copied them and boasts 2000 site visitors per day)
 * 5. PubMed.org
 * 6. Medline.org
 * 7. Open.Michigan.edu
 * 8. Others?

Accounts with OurMed – Has everyone got one? What’s your ID? Have a Talk Page?
OurMed's accounts are free, easy to get and really make you apart of the community. Be one of the early pioneers to own one.

Click here to get started now: http://ourmed.org/index.php?title=Special:Userlogin&amp;type=signup&amp;returnto=Main_Page

Once you have one, you can share your background with the community by filling out a bit about you on your Talk page.

Posting on OurMed.Org
Now that you have an account--Use it to nudge the OurMed movement forward! You can write about nearly anything, just keep your comments about new ideas,health and medicine.--It's really important that OurMed gets off the ground using a communities collaborative approach to building it, just as Wikipedia did nine years ago.

Please click on this link to make a small post about whatever's on your mind. You can suggest articles, design or features that you'd like to see on the site. http://ourmed.org/index.php/New_Ideas_for_Site

Most Active Authors in past month have been:


 * Savealife * Gmiller * Drsjpdc * D Joiner * Bluestar * Vnavarro * T1 * Pharos * Johnvolpe * Skywalker

Patients must sort, evaluate online health advice
'Feb. 12th, 2010 by Andrew Van Dam

On O’Reilly Radar, Brian Ahier reviews various efforts to help patients sort through the reams of health information online and to come up with something useful and credible.

Ahier includes an in-depth look at The Decision Tree, a new book by Thomas Goetz. Goetz walks patients through a data-driven approach to health decisions, focusing on the three pillars of early action, data reliance and openness.

“One of the themes of the book is that by knowing and better understanding our genetic makeup, we can improve the medical decision making process.” Ahier’s article includes a decision-tree widget that asks the consumer a series of questions and offers some information.

Ahier also squeezes in a reference to Susannah Fox’s Pew Internet commentary on search engines and health information. According to Fox, “two-thirds of consumer health inquiries start at a general search engine” and that number is growing steadily. Given their importance in the health information market, Fox says, search engines have focused on ways to deliver the most reliable and relevant information to consumers.

Among other things, Fox addresses Google’s effort to “guide consumers to safe, trusted health websites,” including this insight from Roni Zeiger of Google Health on just how this is done:

For this health search feature we decided to offer users one source each from a governmental health agency, a medical institution, and a commercial site. We’ll study how users like these choices and continue to iterate. None of these sites is paying any money to Google to be included in the feature. Google is 100% committed to ranking websites objectively to provide the most relevant information to users. Websites cannot pay for higher search rank.

Source: Reprinted in its entirety from CoverageHealth, Association of Health Care Journalists: http://www.healthjournalism.org/blog/&lt;br&gt;

Association of Health Care Journalists
Feb. 5th, 2010 by Andrew Van Dam

One private-sector initiative already has about 50,000 patients inputting their symptoms and treatment regimens and updating details of their disease progression. Wonder how others are coping with your particular ailment? PatientsLikeMe.com spells it out via color-coded charts and graphs. “When you need help, privacy is a terrible thing,” says Jamie Heywood, who co-founded PatientsLikeMe in 2004 before his brother died of Lou Gehrig’s disease, or ALS.

Rochman demonstrated the strength of PatientsLikeMe in an anecdote in which data from the site’s users allowed administrators to reach clear conclusions about the effectiveness of lithium in the treatment of ALS six months ahead the formal clinical trials that were testing the same thing.&lt;br&gt;While medical professionals like those at the Society for Participatory Medicine have embraced the patient power movement, “plenty of doctors are worried about the quality of the information that is being assessed as well as patients’ ability to understand it,” Rochman wrote. A few have taken it upon themselves to fill the gaps, banding together to weigh in on the effectiveness of certain off-label treatments via Twitter, and to produce patient seminars on the reasons for clinical trials and the efficacy of various treatments.&lt;br&gt;NCHS: Patient 2.0 most popular use of health tech by far&lt;br&gt;The National Center for Health Statistics recently (Feb. 2) released statistics for the first half of 2009 on “Health Information Technology Use Among Men and Women Aged 18-64.” The stats show that “searching for health information online” is still the only use of health information technology embraced by a majority of American adults.&lt;br&gt;The numbers:


 * From January through June 2009, 51% of adults aged 18-64 had used the Internet to look up health information during the past 12 months.&lt;br&gt; * Over 3% of adults aged 18-64 had used an online chat group to learn about health topics in the past 12 months.&lt;br&gt; * Among adults aged 18-64, women were more likely than men to look up health information on the Internet (58.0% versus 43.4%) and were also more likely to use online chat groups to learn about health topics (4.1% versus 2.5%).&lt;br&gt; * From January through June 2009, almost 5% of adults aged 18-64 had communicated with a health care provider by e-mail in the past 12 months.&lt;br&gt; * During the first 6 months of 2009, 6% of adults aged 18-64 requested a refill of a prescription on the Internet, and almost 3% had made an appointment with a health care provider in the past 12 months using the Internet.&lt;br&gt; * Among adults aged 18¬64, women were more likely than men to request a prescription refill on the Internet (6.6% versus 5.3%), make an appointment using the Internet (3.5% versus 1.8%), and communicate with a health care provider over e-mail (5.6% versus 4.2%).

Source: Reprinted in its entirety from CoverageHealth, Association of Health Care Journalists

Telling a patient story and the issues facing physician writers
February 6, 2010 by Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD

There is a veritable epidemic of doctor-writers out there. What is going on?

Are doctors suddenly in the kiss-and-tell mode? What about confidentiality? Professionalism? HIPAA?

As one of the aforementioned doctor-writers, I look upon this trend with both awe and trepidation. I suspect that that this flourishing literary phenomenon relates to the public’s fascination and fear about all things medical. It also relates to the falling away of previous, pedestal-like images of doctors and doctoring. Lastly, it may have occurred to the medical profession—and this has taken a few centuries, it seems—that doctors have profound emotional reactions to the work we do, and that exploring these reactions may offer benefit to both patient and doctor.

Whatever the reason, this literary genre appears to be here to stay, and it is worth considering the ethical implications. Legally, there doesn’t appear to be much beyond protecting identity and avoiding libel.

But physicians clearly need to work with a higher bar. For starters, patients speak to doctors with an expectation of confidentiality. This is vastly different from an ordinary citizen speaking to a journalist. This confidentiality needs to be preserved. Unless a patient indicates otherwise, a doctor-writer must change the name and identifying characteristics. My rule of thumb is that the description must be different enough that it would be tough for anyone other than that person or a close associate to recognize them.

This, of course, brings up an issue of reliability. We’re trafficking in nonfiction, not fiction. When I write, I try to ensure that the aspects I change are not the crucial ones in the story. When talking about the intricacies of an illness, it probably doesn’t matter whether the hair is blond or brown, or the country of origin is Trinidad rather than Jamaica. If these minor things mask the patient’s identity without altering the key aspects of the story, then I think it is a reasonable trade-off.

But most importantly, there is the consideration that patients come to us for our help. They are in a particularly vulnerable situation and doctors have an ethical obligation to put that first. If, at some later time, this seems like a story that might edify the current discourse, the doctor might think about writing it up. It is helpful to let some time pass, so that the situation is no longer “active.” If it’s possible to obtain consent, we should do so.

If I can’t obtain consent, then I need to ask myself whether I feel the patient might be hurt by the publication of the story. If there’s any thought that this person would be uncomfortable or embarrassed or pained, then the story stays in the drawer, no matter how amazing it is. (I have one powerful story—about a patient lied to me, and the implications of that lie—but I suspect that my patient would be unhappy if he ever saw the story, so I’ve never pursued publication.)

Ultimately, I want to give a respectful rendering of my patient’s story, one that I hope would honor them and what they’ve endured. Of course this is necessarily a subjective decision, but it is the only internal ethic that I can live with. My patients have entrusted me with their stories, and I need to respect that. If a particular story can edify future doctors, or educate the public, there might be value in publishing it.

I choose these stories very carefully. I obtain consent when possible—patients almost always have a positive reaction. I let time pass. I try my best to write a story that honors them, and show a draft to them if circumstances permit.

Ultimately, doctor-writers have to treat patients’ stories as we treat our patients, realizing that we are in a privilege position, and taking care not to abuse that.

Danielle Ofri is writer and practicing internist at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital who blogs at Medicine In Translation. She is the editor-in-chief of the Bellevue Literary Review. Her newest book is Medicine in Translation: Journeys with my Patients.&lt;br&gt;

Source: Reprinted in it's entirety from KevinMD Blog&amp;nbsp; http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2010/02/telling-patient-story-issues-facing-physician-writers.html&lt;br&gt;

How patients can bring information and new ideas to their doctors
February 7, 2010 by Wendy S. Harpham, MD, FACP

A patient learns about a treatment for his condition. So he goes to his physician to suggest the treatment as an option. Is there anything wrong with that?

It depends on how his “suggestion” is presented.

In today’s age of patient advocacy and direct-to-patient marketing of pharmaceuticals, a new phenomenon is flourishing in doctors’ offices: patients asking for specific diagnostic tests or therapies.

I think it’s terrific if you bring information and ideas to your physicians. In fact, it can be a red flag if your physicians refuse to listen to any of your ideas about your evaluation or treatment. But you only hurt yourself if you expect your physician to follow your orders [no matter how well-trained you are in the condition(s) being treated].

Problems can arise if you just appear to be trying to drive your own care. This is especially true in new physician-patient relationships, where you and your physician are just getting to know each other.

If you find a test or treatment that interests you, instead of saying to your physicians, “I’d like to suggest this treatment,” try something along the lines of “This is what I’ve learned about the treatment and why I think it might be useful. What do you think about it in my case?”

You and your physician are a team with a shared mission: getting you better, if possible. You benefit most when you can depend on and trust your physician’s judgment and expertise in your care.

Wendy S. Harpham is an internal medicine physician who blogs at Dr. Wendy Harpham on Health Survivorship.

Source: Reprinted in it's entirety from KevinMD Blog&amp;nbsp; http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2010/02/patients-bring-information-ideas-doctors.html

Pioneer Bios
Just like the Wikimedia Foundation that created Wikipedia, OurMed will mostly be driven by volunteers. In addition to the occasional business or technology consultant, the profile for OurMed’s volunteer community will be talented professionals that want to make bring forward the OurMed mission to the end-goal of having a global impact.

To incentivize our founders, we have created the Founding Framer Program. To date, the following folks are eligible and working toward a goal to volunteer more than 100 Communty hours:

Vincent Navarro (OurMed Tech Committee Chair)
212 444 2633

vnavarro”at”pipeline.com

Research Specialist @ Weill Medical College

Online Database Manager @ Scientists Without Borders

I have done basic science research for over 15 years in the area of prostate cancer. During this time I have had the privilege of working on the development of monoclonal antibodies targeting prostate cancer from concept through clinical trials. This has afforded me a keen insight into development process of therapeutic drugs. In addition, a strong interest in computers has seen me pursue a graduate degree in computer science in addition to my undergraduate in Chemistry. As a result I have designed and developed a clinical trials management system in my laboratory. I am currently the Online Database Manager for Scientists Without Borders. There, I am responsible for the administration of the database and development of the web portal.

Eileen McGinn, MPH (OurMed Content Committee)
MPH/Certificate in Aging, qedeileen”at”aol.com

Worked in international health and development for 25 years, including several years living in Africa and Asia. Currently PT Research Manager for Nathan Kline Institute, working on the interrelation of poverty and mental health and health equity for persons with disabilities. PT tutor for immigrant high school students at Manhattan Comprehensive Night and Day High School. Volunteer work for many different agencies, including health, disability, immigrant, women's, peace, international. Have written for various websites on health issues. Especially interested in translating technical work into comprehensible language, community-based participatory research and the Capabilities Framework for development and justice.

Geoff Hayden, MD (OurMed Content Committee)
Geoffhayden”at”gmail.com 615.479.6499 (Cell)

I am a practicing Emergency Physician, splitting time between NYC and South Carolina. I have been in academic practice since 2005 (Residency at Vanderbilt University, Fellowship at University of Pennsylvania), with an emphasis on resident education and emergency ultrasound. My interest in OurMed.org stems from a dissatisfaction regarding the abysmal state of preventive care and a general lack of health care coverage in the U.S. I see OurMed.org as an essential resource to connect patients to health information and health providers.

I imagine my role with OurMed.org in terms of producing content, recruiting other physicians for ongoing contribution, and assisting Greg with the development of a user-friendly, comprehensive clearinghouse of useful health care information.

Geoffrey E. Hayden, MD, FAAEM, FACEP

Adjunct Clinical Professor Vanderbilt University Medical Center Department of Emergency Medicine Nashville, TN Piedmont Medical Center Emergency Department Attending

222 South Herlong Ave Rock Hill, SC 29732

Vanessa Moore (OurMed Recruitment Committee)
MVanellen”at”ourmed.org 914-665-4534 (home) 914-751-9758 (cell)

Vanessa Moore is a native New Yorker who brings 7 years recruiting experience to the Ourmed recruitment effort. She would like to leverage her experience recruiting volunteers to Ourmed, a forward thinking and progressive approach to disseminating unbiased healthcare information to the public. She has worked in both corporate and nonprofit settings including a consulting engagement for the Department of Education and most recently at the Westchester Independent Living Center, an advocacy group for people with disabilities. She studied Social Sciences at the Lincoln Center campus of Fordham University.

Dr. Stephen Press, DC, PhD, CCSP, FACSM, FICC, ICSSD (OurMed Content Committee)
A practicing Chiropractic physician (33 years). Was chief physician for the "Unified Team" (former USSR) at the XVIth Winter Olympic Games in Albertville, France in 1992. Founded the World Governing body for sports Chiropractic known as "FICS", for Fédération Internationale de Chiropratique du Sport, now headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland at the Maison Internationale du Sports, and administered in Toronto, at the World Federation of Chropractic offices. I served on the Medical commission of two IOC recognized World Sports Governing bodies; 1st as Chairman for the Fed. Int'l de Roller Sports, and then as Vice-Chairman for FIDE (Chess). Founded the website IAOCO.org, and co-founded WikiChiro.org. Today, I serve as advisor for the International Sports Chiropractic Association, which is the liaison body interacting with the World Olympian's Association. I speak, English, French, Russian and Spanish, play the cello and clarinet, compete in pool, and follow biblical archeology and do artist blacksmithing, making swords and medieval armor as hobbies.

John Volpe (OurMed Tech Committee)
johnvolpe1”at”yahoo.com 516-221-4692

My background is primarily in accounting, finance and business operations, primarily in the financial services industry. While I'm not a technical professional, I have participated in and managed numerous technical and business projects, primarily involving financial systems. I also worked as a management consultant for a Virginia based company that I did consulting work for the federal and state governments. I am currently retired. In addition to playing tennis and engaging in other physical activities, I volunteer my time and an Account Director with an NYC based organization that provides service grants in the form of a volunteer project team that manages strategy, financial, marketing and development projects for non-profits. My interest in this project is really from the perspective of someone who is a consumer of medical information and is interested in the efficient delivery of medical information to the public.

Richard Knipel, OurMed Content Committee
I have been a volunteer for Wikipedia and other free culture efforts for several years, with a special focus on outreach initiatives to New York area cultural institutions, such as Wikipedia classes at the New York Public Library, museum photography with Wikipedia Loves Art, and urban photography with the TOPP nonprofit with Wikis Take Manhattan. I have served as President of the nonprofit Wikimedia New York City since September 2008. I hope to bring these experiences in helping to build Ourmed into an innovative and rich online healthcare community along the wiki model.

Elise Passikoff, OurMed Content Committee
Hey Elise, need that Bio!!

Greg Miller, OurMed Executive Director
at OurMed greg.miller@ourmed.org 212-740-1850

Have 17 years of Corporate Finance and Marketing experience for Fortune 500 companies including nine years abroad (Germany, England and Japan). I've been here in New York since 1996, always passionate about developing new brands, ideas and products. Did Marketing Analysis for ANA, a Japanese Airline, Finance for Cablevision's HD Satellite business and Revlon. Since 2005, I've been inspired by non-profits, created New York's Dance Parade and have worked on OurMed since the Fall of 2008. I'm inspired by the transparent, non-profit approach to the democratization of healthcare. OurMed has a small office at Columbia Medical Center's Audubon Business and Technology Building--Come by and visit us!

3960 Broadway (Entrance on 166th Street) Suite 301 o (212) 740-1850 c (917) 627-7155 greg.miller@ourmed.org

Watch the OurMed Presentation: http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0Ad4ohgeyfGzCZGRoNnFuNW1fMzljMmh2OW5jdw&amp;hl=en

Florence Devouard
OurMed Board Member fdevouard@anthere.org

Florence Devouard served as one of the elected representatives to the Wikimedia Foundation Board starting June 2004, and was the Chair of the WMF Board from October 21, 2006 until July 16th, 2008. Florence was born in Versailles (France). She grew up in Grenoble, and has been living since then in several French cities, as well as Antwerpen in Belgium and Tempe in Arizona. She holds two masters, one in Agricultural Sciences (a 5-year degree in agronomical engineering (Diplome d'Ingénieur Grande Ecole) from ENSAIA and the other a postgraduate degree (DEA) in Genetics and Biotechnologies from INPL.She has been working in public research, first in flower plant genetic improvement, and second in microbiology to study the feasability of polluted soil bioremediation. She was employed until 2005 in a French company, to conceive decision-making tools in sustainable agriculture. She is now a consultant in Internet Communication Strategy. She joined the Wikipedia adventure in February 2002 and is known as a contributor under the pseudonym Anthere. Florence is 39, and lives in Clermont Ferrand with her husband Bertrand and her three children, Anne-Gaëlle aged nine, William eleven and Thomas two. On May 16 2008, Florence was made a knight in the French National Order of Merit, proposed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as "chair of an international foundation"

Alex Fotopoulos
OurMed Board Secretary alex@broadwaylawoffices.com

Alex Fotopoulos has served on the board since October 2008. He attended Rutgers College in New Brunswick, NJ and then received his Juris Doctor degree from Southwestern University in Los Angeles, California in 1990. He has experience as a litigation attorney and as an entrepreneur. He has held held positions as an attorney and as part of the management team of such high technology companies including AT&amp;T Wireless, T-mobile, Nextel, Metricom, GTE Internetworking as well as small local start-up ventures. He is a licensed Attorney in New York, New Jersey and California.

Stan Kachnowski
OurMed Board Chair swk16@hitlab.org

Stan Kachnowski is one of America’s distinguished scholars in health-care information policy and management having taught e-health and health-care e-business for nearly 20 years. He has authored over 100 scholarly papers and presentations for the world’s leading journals and societies in health-care technology management, informatics and e-governance. In 2003 he was elected as a Fellow in the Royal Society of Medicine in the United Kingdom for his research with the National Health Service in using handhelds to track patient data. In 1996 he was elected to the US-based College of Healthcare Information Management Executives. Stan is currently a visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India.

Oleta McHenry
OurMed Board Treasurer Newsgirl_fl@hotmail.com

Oleta McHenry was born in Washington D.C. and grew up in Ohio. After graduating high school, she briefly attended Wright State University in Dayton, studying Political Science. She transferred to St. Petersburg College in St. Petersburg, FL and received her A.A. degree in Liberal Arts. Oleta earned her B.S. in Accounting from Florida Metropolitan University in Clearwater, FL in 2006.

Oleta worked for the Pulitzer prize winning newspaper, St. Petersburg Times as a circulation manager. After receiving her degree in accounting, she worked briefly in the insurance industry before joining the Wikimedia Foundation as the fulltime accountant of record. While at the Wikimedia Foundation, Oleta helped put in place accounting practices that would help the company in growth and development. She did not follow Wikimedia to San Francisco and now works for a large medical supply company managing the General Ledger for several regions within the United States. Oleta resides in St. Petersburg, FL and works as an accountant.