There’s a very positive article in the Washington Post on the Veterans Affairs VistA software: ‘…Since 1999, the VA’s 155 hospitals, 881 clinics, 135 nursing homes and 45 rehabilitation centers have been linked by a universal medical records network. It allows any authorized person to look at 5.3 million patients’ records — everything from a nurse’s note written during a hospital stay, to the result of a blood test drawn at a clinic visit, to the moving-picture film of a coronary angiogram done in a cardiology lab.

Even though President Bush has set a goal of 2014 for when most Americans should have their medical information stored electronically, the Department of Veterans Affairs is today one of the few health systems — and by far the largest — that is virtually paperless…’

A fairly detailed article entitled “VistA Electronic Health Record (EHR) System: The Market Today and Tomorrow” was recently published in Virtual Medical Worlds. See the article here.

Texas Tech University Medical School will deploy a version of VistA by Document Storage Systems, Inc. According to several news reports like this one: ‘The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine has begun deploying a public domain version of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ electronic health record (EHR) system developed by Document Storage Systems, according to the vendor…’ Some articles are saying that this is an open source deployment, however that may or may not be the case. The vendor, Document Storage Systems, is noted for being a proprietary vendor selling its own, not Free or Open Source Licensed, proprietary version of VistA. According to the article: ‘…The El Paso medical school, which is the company�s biggest non-VA job to date, will use the same core components of VistA as the VA does. The school also will use DSS-developed add-on modules to support departments not found in VA hospitals, such as pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology. DSS said it is also providing the school with an endocrinology software module…’

Blue Cliff, Inc. has announced the development of a non-proprietary open source laboratory interface to VistA-Office Electronic Health record system (VOE). Blue Cliff is a Hawaii-based software consultant and development company specializing in providing installation, configuration and customization support for VistA and its derivatives.

�There was a gap in the system, and we�ve filled it,� said Blue Cliff VistA Specialist Norman Dodd. �This new interface software provides the functionality required for ordering laboratory tests thru VOE and receiving electronic and paper based results from external lab services.� The Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) capabilities of VOE are enhanced to include the range of laboratory workflow scenarios encountered in primary care settings so all orders can be completed entirely within the clinical chart.

Continue reading →

Updated 03/06/07: VIPIS report. Live from the 1st WorldVistA Education Conference and Seminar at Robert Morris University near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This is a 3 day education event being put on by worldvista.org Highlights so far, Peter Bodke just demonstrated his VistA demonstration appliance version 1.0 that is available on Sourceforge. This has both the client and server available on a Windows machine via virtualization. This is so far not intended to be a production system but it has all the configuration details done out of the box. More information about the conference as it occurs.

Nancy Anthracite on the Hardhats groups writes: ‘…I have the translated CPRS from David Fonseca Sanchez . He said that since he does not have a medical background, he would appreciate feedback on the translation as well as how well it works. You can download it from two places at the moment [here and here]. Eventually it will be only on the second server.’

Modern Healthcare Online has an in-depth article on VistA and VOE: ‘…Next month, WorldVistA plans to submit to the federally funded Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology its VistA Office Electronic Health Record for testing and, if all goes well, certification. The submission will be a milestone in the life of the project begun in 2004 by the VA and the CMS. The goal of the project is to make EHRs more affordable to physicians in solo practice and small groups, where EHR adoption remains persistently low and where the real-dollar incomes of many primary-care physicians has shrunk during the decade.

VistA was a natural choice by the CMS for two reasons. It is in use at more than 800 outpatient facilities across the VA, and the VistA software is in the public domain, thus it is available from the VA without charge under the Freedom of Information Act…’

Government leader has an article with much praise for the Veterans Affairs VistA EMR and its grass roots approach to software: ‘…Destination VistA. The VA program �is a model for modern health management,� said Stephen Shortell, dean of the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley. �It is where the rest of the U.S health system needs to go in terms of widespread use of electronic information technology.�

VA credits VistA with helping it achieve a number of goals, including lower costs, better care, fewer errors, fewer hospitalizations, and promotion of preventive care. Patients� waiting times have declined, and access to care has increased because of online availability of health information…’

So whats the big deal anyway? I argue over on GPLMedicine.org that developing proprietary versions of VistA is both unethical and foolish. I would love to hear any
responses.

The latest VistA News is out: ‘We report on several major developments in this issue of VistA(r) News. These range from a public call by the Senate for the Department of Defense (DoD) to adopt the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs VistA(r) EHR software to a major breakthrough in recognition for VistA(r) in the open source community’s LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco…’