iHealthBeat has an article: that states: ‘Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.), chair of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, at a hearing on Wednesday said he will introduce legislation that would give the VA’s CIO control of resources, budget and personnel, Government Health IT reports. The move to reform the VA’s IT operations and centralize it within the CIO’s office will affect the VA’s entire IT budget, including HealtheVet and the VA’s electronic health records system (Hasson, Government Health IT, 9/14)…’

The highly-anticipated VistA Office EHR release by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is ‘on hold..undergoing review’ according to this Government Health IT News article: ‘…The release of free electronic health record (EHR) software that physicians could download from the Department of Health and Human Services has been delayed indefinitely, a department official said yesterday.

Dr. Karen Bell, division director of the Quality Improvement Group at HHS� Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told a conference audience that VistA-Office �is undergoing a review right now by the secretary�s office.� You can�t download anything� now…’

There is an interesting interview with Scott Shreeve, MD a Co-founder of Medsphere a company which installs and supports VistA EHR: ‘…Since Medsphere was first, we had the opportunity to gather an incredible team of ex-VA and VistA luminaries. George Timson, our Senior Architect, is viewed as the rock star of the Underground Railroad, as they called it back then. He was one of the original Hardhats, the programmers who started working on VistA in 1979. There are great stories of the intrigue and political wrangling that forced this renegade group of programmers to go underground to collaborate before the VA cried uncle in 1982 and agreed to adapt VistA as their platform of choice. George created Fileman, an incredible file management tool that�s been running 20 years and still runs great today. He wants to get this incredible legacy he created out there and loves working with us to bring it to the broader market. Lots of people want to work with him. He�s one of the most intelligent and witty people I�ve every met in my life…’

Although it does not directly mention VistA, this Washington Post article describes the transformation of the VA healthcare system from worst to best: ‘…the system has undergone a dramatic transformation and now is considered by some to be a model. Researchers laud the VA for its use of electronic medical records, its focus on preventive care and its outstanding results…’

The WorldVistA website is sporting a new look and software backend based on plone. Looks like they are gearing up for the long-haul and upcoming VistA vendor training. Of interest is the VistA adopters page among other interesting pages.

Next week should be quite a week for the Veterans Administration VistA software. Among other things, CMS is expected to release VistAOffice EMR/EHR (or Vista Office with a space?) on or about August 1st. VistA Office EHR is a highly-anticipated, easy to install (but apparently *not* easy to configure) version of the VA VistA software that is oriented towards small physician’s offices. Here’s the blow by blow of how the ‘price’ of VistA Office EHR has unfolded to me: First it was free of cost and license according to the NY Times, then HHS ‘backed off’ of that saying that it will actually cost $2700, purportedly for a Cache’s MUMPS license. Now it may be that you get a free in cost, but not license, for a Cache limited time 3 seat proprietary license. Rumor has it that it really will be free in cost and license soon after the official CMS release whenever the community can get a GT.M version (which is free in cost and license). Why GT.M was not included by CMS from the start is unknown to this reporter. It should be quite a week. Visits to Linux Medical News have been very high this month.

According to an article in Government Health IT: ‘…Veterans in Hawaii will no longer have to follow the paper prescription trail thanks to a new VA/DOD bidirectional pharmacy system deployed this week by the Pacific Telehealth & Technology Hui, a health research and application and development center back by the DOD Pacific Regional Medical Command and the VA Pacific Islands Health Care System…’ One could envision that all health systems work this way, but one would be wrong.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 20, 2005 The Pacific Telehealth & Technology Hui (“Hui”) announced the completion of Hui OpenVista 3.0, the first major upgrade of the software since June 2003. In a technology transfer initiative, the Hui released the software upgrade to WorldVistA for use as a baseline in developing OpenVista 4.0.

The Hui development team made several key enhancements to Hui OpenVista –
most notably a more streamlined configuration process. Release 3.0 provides
a preconfigured baseline system that simplifies the steps needed to convert
the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) version of VistA to OpenVista. This
enables users to quickly download the baseline as a starting point for
configuring the system to their specific requirements.

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News about VistA just keeps coming. This article from iHealthBeat: ‘As the Department of Veterans Affairs plans its $3.5 billion overhaul of its hospital computer system, VistA, hospitals and clinics around the world are adopting the system, the St. Petersburg Times reports. Public hospitals and nursing homes in Oklahoma and West Virginia have installed the VistA system, as have hospitals in Germany, Nigeria and other countries, the Times reports.

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Wired news has a mass-media article on an Archives of Internal Medicine report about high rates of adverse drug effects in a hospital that is highly computerized. From the Wired article: ‘…At the Salt Lake City hospital, for instance, health workers ordered the wrong drugs, ordered the wrong doses and failed to monitor patients properly. Ninety-one percent of the 483 mishaps were moderately harmful, and 9 percent were serious, according to the researchers…If you think your own neighborhood hospital might do a better job than the hospital in the study, think again. Sure, the Salt Lake City facility is part of the frequently maligned VA system. But VA hospitals are widely lauded for their advanced medical technology and commitment to reducing medical errors.

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