Recently, Histalk leaked that Ryan Bloom, has left his role as Director of Open Source Development — Healthcare. The post contemplates that Blooms departure might indicate that the Misys commitment to open source has waned. I got Tim Elwell’s permission to repost his thoughts from an email exchange between, him, me and Tim from Histalk. Elwell writes:
Monthly Archives: June 2008
2nd ImageJ User and Developer Conference
After the successful first ImageJ User and Developer Conference in 2006, the Public Research Center Henri Tudor is currently planning the second edition of this event in Luxembourg.
HITN: Another West Virginia hospital gets Open Source EHR
Health IT News has an article Re: ‘Lakin Hospital, a long-term nursing facility operated by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, has adopted an open source electronic health record.
Sapping VistA’s Soul
HealthBeatBlog has an article on the current Veterans Affairs VistA situation: ‘In the past I’ve spoken highly of VistA, the Veteran’s Administration computerized health records system—and with good reason. VistA has a lot going for it. In 2006, it won an “Innovations in American Government Award” from Harvard. Studies show that use of VistA has improved VA productivity by 6 percent a year since national implementation was achieved in 1999. In a time of sky rocketing health care costs, VA care has become 32 percent less expensive than it was in 1996 in part thanks to VistA. The computerized system also has helped the VA reach an amazing prescription accuracy rate of over 99.997 percent. And last—but certainly not least—VistA is a flexible program that allows for much independent tinkering in the name of improvement, both by techies outside of the VA and those within the administration.