Wentz to Speak at OSEHRA's January Open Source Innovation Webinar

Robert Wentz, CEO of Oroville Hospital in Northern California, will discuss the financial factors that led the regional hospital to self-implement the open soruce VistA EHR, and and why every regional hospital in the United States should do the same thing. VistA was originally developed by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and it is used by more than 1,800 VA medical facilities.

Wentz will be speaking during the January's monthly open source innovation webinars sponsored by OSEHRA. He will detail how Oroville Hospital successfully implemented VistA in 154-bed Oroville hospital, as well as at 17 out of the 20 clinics that the hospital owns. Currently the open source electronic health record (EHR) is being used by nearly 1,200 general staff members, more than 400 physicians, as well as more than 60 nurse practitioners and physician assistants.

Oroville Hospital has achieved 100% CPOE and the cost of implementation was less than 25% of the cost of implementation of proprietary EHRs that have been adopted by similar-sized regional hospitals in California.