Scott Shreeve suggests the US gov put some of the 11 billion dollars it is spending on VistA into creating an open source community to help it with its efforts.
See his article, “Dude! The $100m VistA Open Source Opportunity”, at The Health Care Blog.
ClearHealth WebVista screenshots are now available. We will be making several more official announcements in the coming weeks but I wanted to point to the just released screenshots. For those of you unfamiliar WebVista is our Web 2.0 modernization of the VA VistA system providing all the capabilities of CPRS/OpenCIS/Roll&Scroll in a web based system with integrated scheduling/calendaring and electronic billing. We are now seeking BETA sites so please contact us for more information via email at info@clear-health.com or by phone at 877-571-7679.
Here is a press release from Medsphere: Healthcare IT Leader Expands, Builds Strategic Partnerships, Sparks VistA Community via Collaborative Open Source Model
CARLSBAD, Calif.––August 5, 2008––Medsphere� Systems Corporation, the leading provider of Open Source healthcare IT solutions, today announced the transition of corporate headquarters from Orange County to north San Diego County. The move is necessitated by two primary factors: recent development and persistent demand for Medsphere OpenVista�, the company’s cost-effective Open Source electronic health record (EHR) solution and rapid expansion of a collaborative Open Source community—the Healthcare Open Source Ecosystem—oriented around OpenVista and focused on enhancing quality of care and increasing clinical and operational efficiencies. Medsphere’s new corporate headquarters are located at 1917 Palomar Oaks Way, Carlsbad, California 92008.
Nominations are officially open for the 8th annual Linux Medical News Freedom Award to be presented at the November 8th-12th AMIA Fall conference at the Hilton Washington and Towers, Washington, D.C. Deadline for entries is August 31th, 2008. This is NOT a officially sponsored award or event of AMIA. This award is co-sponsored by the IMIA Open Source Working Group. Free and open source software isn’t ‘magic pixie dust’. There are people making significant personal sacrifices as well as doing difficult work to make medicine’s free software future a reality. This award is intended to honor the individual or project who has accomplished the most towards the goal of improving medical education and practice through free/open source medical software. The award winner is chosen by a panel of judges. Past recipients have been Tim Cook, K.S. Bhaskar — Fidelity Information Services, Inc., Thomas Beale — Ocean Informatics, Fred Trotter — Synseer, MirrorMed and the FreeB project, Joseph Dalmolin of WorldVistA/e-cology, Nancy Anthracite, WorldVistA, Will Ross of Mendocino Informatics, Paul Biondich of the OpenMRS project, Webreach for Mirth, WorldVistA CCHIT certification, Gerry Douglas, MD Malawi RHIO.
Modern Health Care (registration required) Joseph Conn is reporting that: ‘Perot Systems, Plano, Texas, has been awarded a contract to install a version of the Veterans Health Administration healthcare information-technology system, VistA, at 46 hospitals and about 500 healthcare clinics in the Middle East nation of Jordan, according to several sources…’ Linux Medical News sources state however that the contract has not been signed yet and that it may be for some Jordanian hospitals, with the Jordanians themselves converting the rest.
Dr. Matthew King has testified before congress regarding the Clinica Adelante deployment of WorldVistA EHR. From the testimony:
VistA is the aspirin of EHRs and if it was a drug, every provider would prescribe it. But just like generic aspirin, there are no “drug representatives” or lobbyists to sell it. Its effectiveness is clearly supported in the literature, but administrators don’t have time to read the literature. So they listen to the sales pitch and the lobbyists. In the healthcare industry, that could cost lives. In healthcare, when lives are at stake, I believe we should hold ourselves to the same standard we hold our physicians and use the evidence whenever possible to evaluate and select technology solutions…not advertising or marketing hype. And that is why Clinica Adelante chose VistA EHR.
OpenEMR HQ announced the official launch of their OpenEMR Live fully hosted EMR solution earlier today in a conference call with developers, employees, and clients. The service, according to their website, removes the headache associated with running an in-house application server and the cost of keeping a full-time IT person on staff. It also reduces compliance issues, eases administrative burden, and provides data monitoring, faster response times, and full disaster recovery service should something go wrong.
I’m interested in receiving examples of “Director of Clinical Informatics”, “VP of Informatics” or similar Job Descriptions that are lacking a requirement for clinical or informatics education or experience (as opposed to traditional management information systems backgrounds).
According to this press release: “Mirth Appliances Integrates OpenVista EHR With Third-Party Applications, Speeds Time to Clinical and Operational Benefits
Mike Doyle, CEO of Medsphere has been lunch with John D. Halamka, the CIO of Harvard Medical School. John has Written a summary of the “new” Medsphere.
You’ll see that their ideology is very noble – reduce costs, improve quality, and make a difference in healthcare.