Medi-Span Update Distribution Changes

Wolters Kluwer, the company that owns Medi-Span, is making changes to the way it distributes the quarterly drug database updates.  After June 30th 2011 they will no longer ship the updates via CD.  Instead, they will publish the updates to a website to be downloaded.  This means there will be one more CD update covering 2Q11.  After that customers will need to download the updates from the website.

This affects our Allscripts Clients.  We have partnered with Wolters Kluwer to take care of the whole process for our Clients.  We will create the necessary website account and set up the process.  For those Clients that we manage the Medi-Span updates, we will download and install them when they are released.  We will be notified by Wolters Kluwer when updates are released.  At that point we will download the updates and schedule an after hours installation.

In order for Allscripts Clients to be able to utilize the downloadable updates Allscripts must be at version 7.0.1.36 or higher. Clients that wish to have us take care of the registration process can simply contact our office.

Internet Explorer 9 Released

The latest version of Internet Explorer was released on 3/14/11.  Version 9 is more secure, faster and sports an updated user interface.  On the technical side, it supports HTML5 very well.  The new user interface is much slimmer than previous versions allowing for more viewing area.  It takes advantage of hardware acceleration which allows for a very fast browsing experience.  Expect some pretty neat stuff when web developers start taking advantage of IE9’s display capabilities.  The address and search bar are now combined in the One Box.  It takes a little getting used to, but quickly feels like the right way to work. 

IE9 is tightly integrated with Windows 7.  It also runs in Windows Vista but not Windows XP.  Websites can be pinned to the taskbar and/or start menu in Windows 7.  IE9 also allows users to protect themselves from marketing tracking that occurs on many if not most websites.  You can manually block tracking on specific websites or utilize predefined lists that are provided by several Microsoft partners. 

IE9 is much more standards compliant than previous versions of IE.  While not perfect, it really does work much better on more sites than in the past.  It’s adherence to HTML5 specs will insure that this is true moving forward as well.

I have been using IE9 for about 8 months.  Other than the typical “beta issues” that comes with running beta software, it has been pretty good.  By the time the Release Candidate was available, IE9 was pretty solid.   Now that the final product has been released, it’s certainly worthy of replacing your existing browser.  As with all new software, we do suggest taking some time to test IE9 in your specific environment to insure that your critical websites work properly before you roll it out to your devices.  It’s a solid product.  It will make browsing the internet safer, faster and much more enjoyable.