Greetings Linux Medical News readers, we are reporting live from the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) 2005 Fall conference. We previously did advance reporting on the goings-on here.

One of the most noteworthy presentations was a demonstration of an ASP version of VistA by Sequence Managers President Brian Lord. There was a great deal of interest in the software judging by the audience response.

The AMIA open-source working group meeting was well attended. Many initiatives were entertained such as holding a symposium for FOSS EMR software vendors, having a FOSS track at future AMIA conferences. Encouraging the assignment of copyright to the government at the end of federal software development contracts through the use of DFARS clauses. The Cure for Kids cancer project was announced, but I have lost the contact information for that so if anyone knows where the website is please post it. Finally the new officers were announced: Will Ross secretary, Fred Trotter and Bill Lober as members at large, Ignacio Valdes moves from secretary to Vice chair, Alric O’Connor is chair.

The panel discussion entitled: ‘Deployment of the VistA Free and Open Source EHR/EMR Software Stack’ was well attended and the audience was very enthusiastic. Joseph Dal Molin was awarded the Linux Medical News Freedom Award. See subsequent story for details of the award.