Nancy Anthracite
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28th VistA Community Meeting: VistA Community Coming Together
Years of efforts dedicated to unifying the VistA community as well as VistA code development effort bore fruit during the 28th VistA Community Meeting (VCM) on January 17-19 in Sacramento, CA. This year's conference became a transition to a closer collaboration between the VistA community, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and the non-profit OSEHRA organization. In effect, the conference was more of a workshop where the participants briefed each other on the latest technical developments as well as strategic efforts to increase collaboration.
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A 40-Year 'Conspiracy' at the VA
Four decades ago, in 1977, a conspiracy began bubbling up from the basements of the vast network of hospitals belonging to the Veterans Administration. Across the country, software geeks and doctors were puzzling out how they could make medical care better with these new devices called personal computers. Working sometimes at night or in their spare time, they started to cobble together a system that helped doctors organize their prescriptions, their CAT scans and patient notes, and to share their experiences electronically to help improve care for veterans...
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Big Tech Should Stay Out of Healthcare
...The use of digital technology in health care has enormous promise, to be sure. But, as the Wall Street Journal's coverage of Google's Project Nightingale revealed, there is also a potential dark side to these projects. Ascension, it noted, "also hopes to mine data to identify additional tests that could be necessary or other ways in which the system could generate more revenue from patients, documents show." That detail raises a key question that's largely overlooked in our health care debates: should the drive to maximize corporate revenues determine how health information technology develops and becomes integrated into medical practice, or should that be determined by medical science and the public?...An alternative path exists. In the 1970s, the Veterans Affairs Administration (VA) developed VistA, an open-source code system that was the country's first EHR system... Read More »
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Is iEHR Really Dead?
Is the highly-anticipated joint iEHR that the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs have been working on ready for a burial? Or not? Read More »
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OSEHRA 2014 Summit to Rock EHR World
The world of electronic health records (EHRs) is going to be rocked next month as the Open Source Electronic Health Record Alliance (OSEHRA) holds its third annual summit in Bethesda, Maryland. After four years of quietly building a organization to promote VistA and open source in healthcare, as well as a central host for the core VistA code, OSEHRA is now emerging as a major force in the world of EHRs. The conference has become a gathering place for not just the VistA community but for major health IT players in the federal government, including the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and Indian Health Service (IHS), and major forces in the open health field. The three-day conference will feature more than 120 speakers addressing 90 separate sessions. Read More »
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VA and VistA: Can they be fixed?
pivoting away from VistA, the agency's homegrown electronic health record system, would be a major shift for the VA. Former VA CIO Roger Baker said VistA is the only EHR designed by doctors, not technologists. "That is the real power of VistA, and it remains the real power of VistA," he added. The system, rooted in 1970s code, is designed to assist doctors in their daily work. Providers at the various VA medical facilities nationwide customize it for their specific needs.
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VA and VistA: Can They Be Fixed?
The Department of Veterans Affairs is rushing to make changes to its IT infrastructure and systems before the next administration enters the White House. And skeptical lawmakers, oversight bodies and outside experts are cautiously optimistic about the eventual outcomes. The key words, though, are "cautiously" and "eventual"...
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VA to Employees: Zip your lips
VA TO EMPLOYEES — ZIP YOUR LIPS ON EHRs: Some VA IT officials Arthur [Allen] has spoken to this week got emails instructing them to sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding the Cerner deal with the agency. The emails were directed to people who “have been selected to participate in the planning for an electronic health acquisition,” and it prohibits them from discussing “all data, information and software” related to the purchase.
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VA's IT chief announces plans to resign
Sad to see Baker go is Dr. Nancy Anthracite, president of WorldVistA, a not-for-profit organization promoting the use of an open-source version of VistA, which predates and operates independent of OSEHRA...Baker “understood the potential for huge benefit from a two-way exchange of code and open communication with the open-source community. We were astounded when he was successful in bring OSEHRA to life...
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VA, Defense ditch plans for common EHR
The long march to interoperability between the electronic health-records systems of the Veterans Affairs Department and the Department of Defense passed yet another milestone Tuesday as the secretaries of both announced they were scrapping a 5-year-old plan to achieve exchange capabilities by creating a single, common EHR for both healthcare systems.
OSEHRA 2013 Open Source Summit
The 2nd Annual OSEHRA Summit & Workshop will be held September 4-6, 2013, in N. Bethesda, Maryland. OSEHRA Summit 2013 will include pre-conference tutorials on Open Source Software and Agile Software development concepts, technology and certification practices, followed by two days of Plenary Sessions and Educational Workshops keynoted by industry, academic and governmental leaders. The Summit is not just for the open source VistA community, but to everyone interested in learning more about Open Source and Agile Software development and furthering the convergence of emerging business models, Health Informatics, DoD/VA integrated Electronic Health Records (iEHR), public-private health information exchange, and more.
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28th VistA Community Meeting
Former VA CIO Roger Baker and Oroville Hospital CEO Robert Wentz will be addressing the 28th Vista Community Meeting (VCM) in Sacramento, CA in what promises to be one most important conferences of the VistA community to date. The conference, which takes place January 17-19 at the UC Davis School of Medicine campus in Sacramento, CA will feature a stellar cast of Health IT leaders. In addition to Baker and Wentz, conference speakers include Dr. Seong Ki Mun, Chairman of OSEHRA, Howard Hays, CIO of the Indian Health Service (IHS), Theresa Cullen, Chief Medial Informatics Officer (CMIO) of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), Stephen Oxley, Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of the Central Regional Hospital in North Carolina, and Denise LeFevre, CIO of Oroville Hospital.
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30th VistA Community Meeting
The VistA community is holding its 30th VistA Community Meeting at the UC Davis Sacramento Campus January 16-18. The meeting is going to be addressed by a wide range of speakers, from current and former top officials of the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and Indian Health Service (IHS), to leading innovators for the Vista and RPMS EHRs. The goal of these meetings is to create a collaborative conference where VistA Community can network and collaborate, i.e., to share ideas and work, with the objective of moving VistA & the VistA community forward. UC Davis School of Medicine, is providing the facilities for the meeting.
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31st VistA Community Meeting
The VistA community is holding its 31st VistA Community Meeting at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. The meeting is going to be addressed by a wide range of speakers, from current and former top officials of the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), to leading innovators for the Vista and RPMS EHRs. The goal of these meetings is to create a collaborative conference where VistA Community can network and collaborate, i.e., to share ideas and work, with the objective of moving VistA & the VistA community forward.
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OSEHRA 2015 Open Source Summit
The Open Source Electronic Health Record Alliance (OSEHRA) is pleased to announce that registration for its 2015 Open Source Summit: Community-Powered Healthcare IT Solutions, to occur July 29-31 at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center, is now available. “In its fourth year, we are delighted that our annual Summit has grown exponentially in both size and significance,” said Dr. Seong Ki Mun, President of OSEHRA. “With an impressive technical program, respected plenary speakers, and unfettered access to open source leaders, the 2015 Summit is certain to draw a diverse and enthusiastic community of participants.
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