There is an article in Medical Economics about the possibilities of privatization of the Veterans Administration VistA software. It has some laughably erroneous quotes in it which are fortunately partly rebutted in the article such as: ‘…Mark R. Anderson, a consultant with the AC Group in Montgomery, TX, is skeptical that the VistA-Office EHR will be as inexpensive as CMS claims. The main problem, he says, is that it uses the MUMPS programming language, rather than Windows. Even though a Windows “front end” can be grafted onto the MUMPS system, making the screens look like Windows screens, a small business computer server can’t run the software, he says. “Any PC can access a MUMPS operating system. But who’s going to maintain that server with the MUMPS operating database? You’ve got to buy a big mainframe server that costs $50,000 to $100,000 to run the system.” VistA will also need special interfaces to outside applications that run on Windows, including practice management and laboratory systems, he maintains…’ Thanks to Kevin Toppenberg for this link.