Editorial: HIMSS Prefers Unacceptable Status Quo

Representative ‘Pete’ Stark recently put forth H.R. 6898 in which federal government coordination of open source and Veterans Affairs VistA software through the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) can occur. Despite the recent formation of an Open Source working group within HIMSS, the proprietary vendor dominated Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) is now officially opposed to the open source and VistA aspects of the bill saying that the Federal Government has no role in this. HIMSS is now officially in favor of more patient deaths by medical errors, further slow adoption of electronic medical records, protection for ‘black box’ medicine, continued high expense of health information technology and continued poor care in the United States.Representative ‘Pete’ Stark recently put forth H.R. 6898 in which federal government coordination of open source and Veterans Affairs VistA software through the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) can occur. Despite the recent formation of an Open Source working group within HIMSS, the proprietary vendor dominated Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) is now officially opposed to the open source and VistA aspects of the bill saying that the Federal Government has no role in this. HIMSS is now officially in favor of more patient deaths by medical errors, further slow adoption of electronic medical records, protection for ‘black box’ medicine, continued high expense of health information technology and continued poor care in the United States.

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