US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

See the following -

VA’s CIO Stephen Warren on Serving Veterans

Dan Verton | FedScoop | August 18, 2014

In his first interview since a scandal involving secret waiting lists forced a change of leadership at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Stephen Warren, VA’s chief information officer, offers a candid assessment of the agency’s past and future technology plans. Read More »

VetAdvisor Deploys SugarCRM to Create a World-Class Veteran Relationship Management Platform

VetAdvisor, the nation’s expert in veteran-centric holistic care, has rapidly expanded its reach to military veterans through its recent deployment of the SugarCRM customer relationship management (CRM) platform. Leveraging  SugarCRM’s advanced open source CRM platform, VetAdvisor is able to provide proactive coaching services across behavioral health, wellness, financial, and all aspects of transition and career development.

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Veterans Affairs Nominee Connected To Corporate Fraud

Amy Eddings | Ring of Fire | July 1, 2014

In order to fix a problem with the VA’s doctored documents and falsified data, President Obama has nominated the former CEO of a company which doctored documents and falsified data. If Obama wants to do right by the veterans who depend on the VA for their health care, gambling on leaders from corrupt corporate America could cause more problems than the VA is currently dealing with.

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Veterans Affairs: We want the DOD to pick us for its new EHR

Jennifer Bresnick | EHR Intelligence | March 14, 2014

The VA will be adding its competitive bid to a host of commercial offerings, said VA Secretary Eric Shinseki during a hearing this week, to give the DOD more options as it selects a new EHR system to replace the aging AHLTA suite. Read More »

VistA

Veterans Health Information Systems & Technology Architecture (VistA) - This is a comprehensive electronic health record (EMR) and practice management system system originally developed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The software is in the public domain and is installed in several thousand public and private hospitals and clinics around the world and supported by a number of public organizations and health IT corporations.

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VistA as an EHR System Core for DoD

Here is a copy of the full text of the proposal submitted by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to the Department of Defense in response to the Request for Information for an electronic health record (EHR) solution that can replace the existing DoD EHR system. This is the approach that makes the most sense as the current core EHR that the Department of Defense (DoD) uses is based on a 30-year-old version of VistA. The current EHR crisis facing DoD stems from the inability to upgrade this older version of VistA. What the VA is proposing is basically an upgrade to DoD's existing core EHR. Read More »

VistA EHR Community and OSEHRA Experiences Extraordinary Growth in 2014

We have recorded a robust year of growth during 2014 and have laid a solid foundation for market expansion in 2015. OSEHRA corporate membership doubled during 2014. Corporate Members include large, medium and small corporations, nonprofits, academic institutions and international organizations that are leaders in health information technology...our primary open source electronic health record product, VistA, was rated by a MedScape survey as the most preferred EHR by physician users again in 2014. Further, our corporate members collaborate on policy, marketing, education and software initiatives. We expect the business opportunities for corporate members to grow considerably next year as the marketplace for open source health IT continues to expand. Read More »

VISTA Expo 2014 Moves to DC

Press Release | VistA Expertise Network, OSEHRA | July 24, 2014

The VISTA Expertise Network is joining forces with the Open Source Electronic Health Record Alliance (OSEHRA) to collaborate in a special strategic meeting regarding the future of VISTA...This special session, entitled Future VISTA: A Technical Town Hall, will be chaired by Rick Marshall, the Network’s executive director. It will be held on the first day of the 2014 OSEHRA Open Source Summit, September 3–5 at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, just outside of Washington, D.C. Read More »

VistA Is A Rival to Epic and Cerner in Major Deployments of EHR Systems

According to a recent article in Healthcare IT News, Intermountain Healthcare has just signed a multi-year contract to deploy Cerner electronic health record (EHR) systems. The article claims that "only two companies – Epic and Cerner – seem to be in competition for the large and complex deployments."  However, there is a third option that constantly goes unrecognized - the widespread deployment and use of the world reknowned 'open source' VistA system by large scale healthcare provider organizations in the U.S. and overseas. Read More »

VistA Marketing Ramps Up in Advance of DoD EHR Award

Molly Bernhart Walker | FierceGovernmentIT | January 14, 2015

A marketing campaign aimed at raising the profile of the Veterans Affairs Department's open source electronic health record is in full swing. A non-profit group founded through a VA contract to advance the department's Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture has stood up a website, Twitter account and LinkedIn group to promote VistA. Read More »

VistA, AHLTA, CHCS: An Evolving Alternative Roadmap to the Future

The obstacles to continue moving U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in a common direction with regard to their clinical IT systems are fairly well-known. Having made that statement, it may therefore seem strange that this blog suggests that a conceptually simple technical approach may have the potential to untie the Gordian knot that has defeated many previous efforts. The proposed approach is not some yet-to-be-developed technology that exists only on Powerpoint slides. In fact, the proposed approach is based on technology that has already been validated by the-powers-that-be – at taxpayer expense – and the official conclusion in the official report on file at the DoD(1) states unambiguously and explicitly that the technology works as claimed is scalable, and can handle very large M/Caché systems.

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vxVistA Now Viewable in VistA Visualization Environment

Press Release | OSEHRA, DSS, Inc. | November 18, 2014

VIVIAN™ initiative gives new insight into VistA structure and dependencies; aids understanding and increases open source community collaboration

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Wall Street Journal: "ObamaCare’s Electronic-Records Debacle"

This Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Op-Ed could have been entitled "President Sucker: Led Down the Garden Path by The Healthcare IT Industry." It is entitled "ObamaCare’s Electronic-Records Debacle", as below.  First, though: On Feb. 18, 2009 the WSJ published the following Letter to the Editor authored by me...I have a different view on who is deceiving whom. In fact, it is the government that has been deceived by the HIT industry and its pundits. Stated directly, the administration is deluded about the true difficulty of making large-scale health IT work. The beneficiaries will largely be the IT industry and IT management consultants.

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Warren: VistA Is Here To Stay

Adam Mazmanian | FCW | March 20, 2015

The Pentagon eliminated a bid for an open-source health record solution based on the VISTA software developed by the Department of Veterans Affairs from its $11 billion electronic health record procurement, but that doesn't mean VA is going to shift gears in the future. "I do not see the VA moving away from VISTA," Steph Warren, acting CIO at the VA, said on a March 19 call with reporters. Read More »

Where did the issue of health data exchange disappear to?

There has been extensive talk about the scandals at the VA and remedies for them, including the political and financial ramifications of partial privatization. Republicans have suggested it for some time, but for the solution to be picked up by socialist Independent Senator Bernie Sanders clinches the matter. What no one has pointed out yet, however–and what makes this development relevant to the Datapalooza–is that such a reform will make the free flow of patient information between providers more crucial than ever. Read More »