IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

“Only 4 percent of the people we polled knew what FirstGov was,” said Martha Dorris, deputy associate administrator in GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Communications.

Though a lot of noise is being made about deployments here and there, that’s not enough to move the U.S. needle.

When it comes to broadband deployments worldwide, the United States still ranks high, but not as high as it used to, according to a new report.

“Other countries have been improving faster than we have,” said David Belson, editor of the  Fourth Quarter 2014 State of the Internet Report from Akamai Technologies. “The challenge is we have areas of high population density, but also lots of rural areas where it’s harder to deliver broadband. Also, in some areas there is not a lot of competition. There is a lot of noise being made about deployments here and there. And that’s good news, but it’s really fits and starts, and right now that’s not enough to move the U.S. needle.”

The United States moved up a single spot – from 12th to 11th -- in the most recent United Nations E-Government Survey, a measure of how well a country is implementing e-government practices. In 2003, the first year the survey was conducted, the U.S. topped the list.

The survey tracks progress based on its E-Government Development Index that assesses telecommunications infrastructure, human capital and online services delivery and places counties into one of four categories: very high, high, middle and low. The United States scored in the “very high” category overall. Denmark, Australia and the Republic of Korea had the three highest scores.

Interestingly, while the country’s large land area is still one of the main factors impeding the U.S. government’s ability to successfully leverage its IT capabilities to a maximum, the biggest reason for the country’s underperformance has been its “less than satisfactory” political and regulatory environment, according to The Global Information Technology Report 2012 [PDF].

For decades, studies such as this have revealed the severe health disparities that currently exist in America – much of which are caused by a lack of access to care, especially for poorer communities. As our government and health care organizations continue to work to decrease these gaps, policymakers must continue to work diligently to remove any legislative or regulatory barriers that impede progress.

The hottest wave in technology today is not about the individual consumer, but the “smart city.”

Global companies, having wired people throughout the world, are now on a mission to connect cities, within and without, through the integrated application of advanced technologies like wireless sensors and processors, mobile and video telecommunications, and geographic information systems. The tantalizing prospect: cities and metropolitan areas that use technology to manage urban congestion, maximize energy efficiency, enhance public security, allocate scarce resources based on real time evidence, even educate their citizenry through remote learning.

Telehealth — real-time video encounters between patients and providers — presents the opportunity to reverse the longstanding paradigm of placing the burden on patients to seek care where it’s physically available by bringing healthcare directly to them — akin to the old-fashioned “house call.” These technologies move appropriate care to lower cost settings, reducing unnecessary ER utilization, hospitalizations and even general overhead, and support preventative care efforts for chronic care patients.

In a national scientific telephone survey conducted on Dec. 6, by Poll Position, a non-partisan news, polling and social media company, only 20 percent of respondents believed the United States would get to an all-paperless status, while 24 percent were undecided or had no opinion.

Today almost one quarter of all Americans, 73 million patients, are covered under a managed care health insurance program. This is up from 58 million patients in 2005, a 26 percent increase in just 6 years.