In February 2011, two pilots of a new standard for sending health information securely over the Internet were launched. The pilots -- one in Minnesota and one in Rhode Island -- are the first tests of the Direct Project, a U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) initiative designed to simplify the exchange of information within the health care industry. The Direct Project represents an unusual experiment in accelerating the creation of the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN). The project has demonstrated how rapidly a "lightweight" open process can yield useful results compared with typical government-sponsored IT development projects.

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Background: The Veterans Health Administration, the nation's largest integrated delivery system, launched an organizational transformation in the mid 1990s to improve the quality of its care.

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The Open Source Initiative (OSI) Board meet this weekend in San Francisco for its annual face-to-face meeting. Since its inception, OSI's role has been one of stewardship of the Open Source Definition supported by community volunteers reviewing licenses. For that mission, the Board has been a self-selecting one, with the current Board evaluating nominations and electing its own successors. But it's gradually become obvious that the OSI needs to look beyond that role to act instead as a meeting point for the global open source communities at large. As you ma yrecall, that switch was exactly the one I joined the Board to assist, following earlier unsuccessful attempts.

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There's still not a lot of amity between the two parties in the Wisconsin Statehouse following a bruising budget battle this past month. Read More »

I reported yesterday that five members of the Wisconsin congressional delegation asked the Veterans Affairs and Defense departments to consider using a single commercial system for their new electronic health records, a move that could benefit one of the state's largest employers, software company Epic Systems Corp.

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In a country where doctors are still struggling to transfer basic patient information (such as continuity of care records) from one clinic to another, it may seem premature to think about seamless data exchange between a patient and multiple care organizations to support such things as real-time interventions in patient behavior and better clinical decision support. But this is precisely what medicine will need for the next breakthrough in making patients better and reducing costs. 

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MUMPS is here to stay as the computer language for the Veterans Affairs Department’s electronic health record system — at least for the immediate future, said Roger Baker, VA's assistant secretary for information and technology.

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The Military Health System is actively pursuing alternatives to AHLTA, its electronic medical record system.  MHS officials have already received the recommendations of Booz Allen Hamilton, the consultant it commissioned to study whether the Defense Department should switch to a system that more closely resembles the Veterans Affairs Department’s Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA).

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Fedscoop published a blog from VA CTO, Peter Levin and Lauren Bailey, on the topic of Open Source EHRs. Having followed and participated in this long journey, it is rewarding to see the clear progression over the last one and half years towards what will ultimately be a massive, perhaps the largest ever, open source project. The progression and acceleration in the VA's, largely Roger Baker's thinking on open source is evident.  According to them, it is clear the VA is using all outlets to prepare, explain and educate the public on its thinking about open source and modernization.

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