OSEHRA 2012: Innovation in Open Source EHRs and Health IT to be Focus at 1st Annual Open Source EHR Summit and Workshop

First-ever conference for OSEHRA brings together health care visionaries, business leaders and accomplished practitioners to discuss future electronic health record developments

ARLINGTON, Va., Oct. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Open Source Electronic Health Record Agent (OSEHRA), a nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating innovation in electronic health record software, kicked off its First Annual Open Source EHR Summit & Workshop. The event is the culmination of a year of growth for OSEHRA, which was launched as a result of an agreement between the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense in 2011. OSEHRA's goal is to drive rapid innovation in electronic health records and health IT through an open source software process involving the community of software developers, clinicians, business leaders and other practitioners. The creation of OSEHRA is part of the Veterans Administration's effort to capitalize on its extensive history with Open Source EHRs to improve care and lower costs while simultaneously advancing care delivery beyond its own system.

"OSEHRA began with a bold commitment by the VA to engage a broad collection of stakeholders in the development of its next generation EHRs," said Seong K. Mun, PhD, President and CEO of OSEHRA. "The VA has been joined in this commitment by the Department of Defense, which has spurred the growth of our community to more than 1,400 stakeholders. Our 1st Annual Summit and Workshop is a chance for these individuals to come together and determine the course of the growing Open Source EHR industry."

More than 30 eminent panelists and speakers, including the Honorable Scott Gould, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Todd Park, US Chief Technology Officer, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President, and the Honorable Roger W. Baker, Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Peter Levin, PhD, Chief Technology Officer of Department of Veterans Affairs will present during the Summit. Topics will include best practices in open source software development, the future of open source software and EHRs, trends in the Open Source software industry, and more, rounding out a robust program of speakers and presentations.

Many of the topics being addressed at OSEHRA's Summit will affect the development of health information technology beyond EHRs. Workshops entitled, "Big Data & Clinical Genomics," "Open Data, Open Science," and "Data Mining and Data Analytics" will be led by experts from a variety of health care disciplines. OSEHRA, the engine of rapid innovation, has come together to drive a number of significant, community-based innovation initiatives such as code convergence, the modernization of key components, common web services, meaningful use certification, genomics and m-health.

"I believe this year's Summit is an important step in a journey that will have profound implications for health delivery systems," said James B. Peake, MD, Chairman of OSEHRA's Board of Directors. "With the challenges facing the health care industry, it is more important than ever for this community to utilize open source to foster rapid innovation in health IT. OSEHRA is the natural place for these advances to begin."

The conference will serve as the first opportunity for the OSEHRA community to meet face to face and advance its efforts through open source health IT training and educational workshops.

For more information on the conference and OSEHRA, please visit www.osehra.org.

About OSEHRA

Founded in 2011, OSEHRA supports an open, collaborative community of users, developers, and researchers engaged in advancing electronic health record software and related health information technology. OSEHRA hosts software repositories for applications such as the Department of Veterans Affairs' VistA electronic health record. For more information, visit www.osehra.org.

SOURCE Open Source Electronic Health Record Agent