June 2011

[Commentary] After leading the globe in smartphones sold for the last 15 years, Nokia is about to lose its crown as the smartphone king, but not to Apple. Samsung is poised to become the first company since 1996 to sell more smartphones than Nokia as early as this quarter, according to estimates from analysts at Nomura.

The leadership change shouldn't come as a surprise to those who have followed both Nokia’s fall from grace since the introduction of the original iPhone in 2007 and the strategic steps that Samsung has taken in recent years. Nokia, which accounted for 65.6 percent of all smartphone sales in the second quarter of 2007, only had a 24.3 percent share in the first quarter of this year, according to IDC figures. Meanwhile, Samsung embraced Android early, which has paid off, and made the following wise decisions to position itself as the new top dog in smartphones: 1) The design of the Galaxy S, 2) designing its own smartphone processors, 3) creating its own handset platform, 4) building its own media ecosystem, and 5) the Galaxy S 2.

As President Obama has said, we can't win the future with a government of the past. How our government uses the Internet to communicate and deliver services is an obvious and critical part of this modernization effort.

Today, there are nearly 2,000 top-level federal .gov domains (this means a top-level url, [WEBSITENAME].gov, that links to a distinct website). This includes WhiteHouse.gov, as well as others like USDA.gov, USASpending.gov, NOAA.gov and USA.gov. Under many of these domains are smaller sub-sites and microsites resulting in an estimated 24,000 websites of varying purpose, design, navigation, usability, and accessibility. While many government websites each deliver value to the taxpayer through easy-to-use services and information, an overall online landscape of literally thousands of websites – each focusing on a specific topic or organization – can create confusion and inefficiency. In addition to confusing the public, duplicate and unnecessary websites also waste money. And while the costs for some of these websites may be relatively small, as President Obama also said in the video, "No amount of waste is acceptable. Not when it's your money, not at a time when so many families are already cutting back." So the federal government will do more with less, improving how it delivers information and services to the public by reducing the number of websites it maintains. To help drive this change we've set a specific goal that over the next year, we'll get rid of at least half of them. As one of the first steps of the Campaign to Cut Waste and as part of an OMB memorandum to improve customer service, we've taken three concrete steps:

• Stop the bleeding. Starting right now, there is a freeze on all .gov URL’s. This means no one can get a new one without a written waiver from the federal CIO, Vivek Kundra. Facing this constraint, agencies will focus on their current infrastructure, adding content and functionality to existing websites.
• Map out the current landscape. To understand what’s working, and what isn't, agencies will need to report on every URL they maintain. In addition, we’re enlisting the oversight of a powerful stakeholder: you. In the next 30 days, a list of all registered .gov domains will be published so that you can pore over them yourself and offer feedback.
• Develop a government-wide policy for websites. While it’s pretty obvious that we don't need thousands of websites, what we do need is a little trickier. Should there only be one federal website? Is a more practical solution a common set of templates and standards so that sites are better connected to one another and more consistent to the public? A task force will consult with experts from the public and private sector to develop a policy for government websites moving forward.

A new toolkit of prepared cell phone text messages advising people how to protect their health after a disaster is available now through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. These messages support state and local emergency managers in disaster response and are available online at http://emergency.cdc.gov/disasters/psa.

Cell phone usage and texting is widespread in the United States and many communities have text alert systems for emergency notification. During a disaster, the state or local agency can download and distribute the new public health messages using their existing cell-phone emergency message distribution systems. Community residents should contact their local emergency management agency to learn whether text message alerts are available in their community and to register if available. To develop the public health emergency text message content, HHS experts worked with state and local agencies. The content, approved by subject matter experts, complements 30-second public service announcements for radio and television available through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The text messages cover a wide range of actions people can take to protect their health. Messages are limited to 115 characters or fewer including spaces. Emergency responders can use the messages as they are or tailor the messages based on specific local needs. The toolkit currently features text messages relevant to hurricanes, floods and earthquakes.

Rather than study electronic health record (EHR) usability in the abstract, "a few high-value use cases, particularly those that have patient safety implications," should be examined, according to recommendations developed by the Health IT Policy Committee's adoption and certification workgroup. Those recommendations--based on a day of hearings held by the workgroup--were outlined in a letter to national health IT coordinator Farzad Mostashari. In the letter, Marc Probst, CIO at Intermountain Healthcare and co-chair of the workgroup, and Larry Wolf, senior consulting application/data architect at Kindred Healthcare and a workgroup member, broke down different facets of usability before suggesting the test-case approach.