Top Rated Electronic Health Record Software Is Free

Earlier this month, Medscape published the results of their recent survey (here) which asked 18,575 physicians across 25 specialties to rate their Electronic Health Record (EHR) system. For overall satisfaction, the #1 ranked EHR solution was the VA’s Computerized Patient Record System ‒ also known as VistA. It was built using open‒source software and is therefore license free.

There’s also a publicly available version of VistA called OpenVista and several companies leverage a services-only business model for larger OpenVista installations. For smaller installations, a YouTube video (here) suggests the free OpenVista software can be installed in about 10 minutes ‒ bring your own hardware. Of course free software licensing doesn’t make the hardware, installation or maintenance free, but the lack of any software licensing fees at all does reduce the overall cost ‒ especially for large installations ‒ and that can typically save millions of dollars.

Open-source software also charts a much different course for design changes that are not dependent on the resources, budgets (or revenue requirements) of independent software vendors (ISV’s). In many ways, VistA’s top rating is no surprise because it’s the only EHR installation in the U.S. with a truly national footprint. As a single software solution, VistA is designed to support almost 9 million vets through about 1,700 different care sites around the country...