Minnesota & Great Lake States using VistA & Other Open Source EHR Systems

The installation and use of 'open source' electronic health record (EHR) systems have continued to spread across Minnesota and many other states across the U.S.  See the map of healthcare facilities running some variant of the open source VistA electronic health record (EHR) system in Minnesota and other states bordering on the Great Lakes.


In the state of Minnesota , all of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare facilities are continuing to use the well known, award winning VistA System. VA healthcare facilities (i.e. hospitals, outpatient clinics, nursing homes) using VistA include the:

• Minneapolis VA Medical Center
• Alexandria VA Clinic
• Bemidji VA Clinic
• Brainerd VA Clinic
• Fergus Falls VA Clinic
• Hibbing VA Clinic
• Mankato VA Clinic
• St. Cloud VA Medical Center
• Maplewood VA Clinic
• Montevideo VA Clinic
• Northwest Metro VA Clinic
• Rochester VA Clinic
• South Central/St. James VA Clinic


The following Indian Health Service (IHS) or Native American Tribal healthcare facilities in Minnesota  are currently using a variant of the VistA system known as RPMS:

• Ball Club Tribal Clinic
• Cass Lake Indian Hospital
• Red Lake Indian Hospital
• Pine Point IHS Clinic
• White Earth IHS Clinic
• Inger Tribal Clinic
• Onigum Tribal Clinic
• Prairie Island Tribal Health Clinic    
• Mille Lacs Ne-Ia-Shing Tribal Health Clinic
• Ponemah IHS Clinic
• Bemidji Tribal Health Clinic
• Bena Tribal Clinic
• Nest Tribal Clinic
• Bois Forte Tribal Health Clinic
• Naytahwaush IHS Clinic

The following are other Federal, State, and local government healthcare facilities in Minnesota currently using other derivatives of the VistA system, e.g. CHCS, OpenVistA, vxVistA, WorldVistA.

• Ramsey County Mental Health Center

See the map of all healthcare facilities running some variant of the open source VistA electronic health record (EHR) system in Minnesota  and other states across the U.S.  VistA, or one of its derivatives, is one of the most widely used EHR systems in the country.

Finally, other popular 'open source' EHR systems in use across Minnesota and other states bordering on the Great Lakes  include OpenEMR and OpenMRS. It has been estimated that there are more than 5,000 installations of OpenEMR in physician offices and other small healthcare facilities across the U.S. serving more than 30 million patients. Further, conservative estimates by the OpenEMR Organization(OEMR)  indicate that OpenEMR is installed in over 15,000 healthcare facilities around the world, translating into more than 45,000 practitioners using the system serving approximately 90 million patients.  As of 2012, OpenMRS was in use at over 100 facilities in more than 30 countries and had been used to record over 2 million patient records around the world.

Don't forget to read related articles about 'open source', 'open data', 'open access', and 'open standards' in Minnesota that have been posted on Open Health News (OHN).

Open Health News (OHN) plans on releasing a comprehensive report on the VistA Market in September with detailed information on VistA deployments state-by-state across the U.S., as well as in countries overseas, e.g. India, Jordan, Mexico, etc.  Also, Peter Groen, Senior Editor at OHN, will be presenting more on the subject and the associated VistA Installations GIS Map & Database v.1.0 at the upcoming OSEHRA Summit meeting.