The Governor's Office of Health Care Reform Wednesday announced its intention to enter into a contract worth at least $10 million with Medicity without the benefit of an open and transparent bid, request for proposal or other long-established practice of public contracting.

Over the past 18 months, multiple Republican and Democratic officials have been indicted and charged with undertaking secretive, non-transparent, non-public participatory contracts against the public interest. Taxpayers pay and pay for these bad dealings.

The technology that connects hospitals, physicians and health care providers to improve patient safety is called health information exchange technology, or HIE. When Pennsylvania undertakes its statewide HIE project, it will be one of the largest of its kind in the nation. The state HIE technology will connect large health care organizations such as University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, as well as large and small physicians. Deploying the best HIE system is vitally important to 12 million Pennsylvanians.

Presently, Medicity's biggest operating HIE project is the Delaware Health Information Network. For perspective, Geisinger Medical System of Danville is larger than all of Delaware's health care systems combined, by far. Delaware cannot compare to the size, scope and complexity of Pennsylvania's health care systems.

Many people are questioning why the state is not using the state procurement code to buy the HIE technology. Rumors, allegations and speculations are swirling. In fact, these controversies will slow down or stop the deployment of HIE technologies.

Every day, Pennsylvania government has the opportunity to be open, transparent and honest. We support open, transparent and honest government because that path saves resources, time and taxpayer money, creates better government service and is the right thing to do. No matter which vendor wins, we believe the procurement process must be open, participatory, collaborative and fair.

More than ever, it's time for the General Assembly, auditor general, attorney general and the governor to intervene and force this HIE technology project to be openly bid, transparent, participatory and fairly contracted.

On Dec. 1, the state Senate's Technology Committee has scheduled a hearing on IT procurement. Recognizing federal stimulus money shall be used and President Obama's call for openness, transparency and public participation, we formally request the Senate committee expand the hearing to provide a full and complete public disclosure on the contracting plans and projects of the governor's health care reform office.

Kelly Lewis is president and chief executive officer of TechQuest Pennsylvania, operated by the Technology Council of Central Pennsylvania.

A budding entrepreneur recently asked me, "How much time and money do you spend marketing?"

As I thought about ways we're taking WorkXpress to market, I realized most of them were invented within the past decade.

First, we have spent an enormous amount of time and money developing our Web site. These days, a Web site is all-consuming. It includes positioning, branding, support, infrastructure, training materials, community development, sales operations, bug reporting. The list goes on. There is not a single facet of our business that doesn't touch the Web site.

This past weekend, we wanted to test our message of "empowerment" on a focus group. We sent one of our team members to a BarCamp in Philadelphia. At a Bar Camp, organizers prepare the location, set times and administrate a few other functions, but members largely determine the topics they want to speak about and hear about. We diligently noted reactions, questions and responses -- just like a focus group.

Second, whenever we have something to say, we use our social networks. We let the world know what we're doing, what's new, what we like or don't like on sites that include Twitter and LinkedIn.

Third, we like to e-mail newsletters. It's a great way to periodically tell everyone your news.

We also spend time enhancing our search-engine status.
And we write a lot of articles. Articles get picked up by search engines. They get reprinted by other industry publication sites and they find their way onto blogs. If you do a good job, they get used as a starting point or reference for someone else's article, and your message propagates.

There are so many ways to get messages out there. And all of them are new or take a new approach to old methods.

Treff LaPlante is president and chief executive officer of Carlisle-based WorkXpress.

More government control of the Internet, but cheaper broadband Internet service. I'll be interested to see how this ones shakes out.

Today, the Federal Communications Commission is expected to advocate expanding broadband and talk about current road blocks. The FCC is considering forcing Internet providers to share their networks with competitors, and financing the spread of broadband by increasing fees on phone customers' bills.

It's a hot topic.

Thoughts?

Andréa Maria Cecil is managing editor at the Central Penn Business Journal. She is a 31-year-old native New Orleanian who is obsessed with how gadgets and technology can make you more efficient.

Oh, Google. You're so smart.

Just in from The Official Google Blog: The search-engine/advertising/navigation/will-one-day-rule-the-world giant says it added an improvement to Web-search results. Specifically, Google replaced the Web address/URL that showed up in some search results with a hierarchy that shows the exact location of the page on the Web site.

So instead of the Web address for a search for Google Internet Evangelist Vinton Cerf showing up as www.google.com, it'll show up as www.google.com/corporate/execs.html.

"The new display provides valuable context and new navigation options. The changes are rolling out now and should be available globally in the next few days," according to the blog post.

Google says this should make your search experience better.

"When we design the way results appear on google.com, our goal is to get you to the information you're looking for as quickly as possible. Sometimes that means improving how we represent websites, and other times that means giving you new ways to explore content. We're always happy when we can introduce a feature, like site hierarchies, that does both!"

And it should help potential clients more easily find the information they're looking for on your site - a good thing.

Thoughts?

Andréa Maria Cecil is managing editor at the Central Penn Business Journal. She is a 31-year-old native New Orleanian who is obsessed with how gadgets and technology can make you more efficient.