Open Health News
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Paul Biondich - One Million Reasons to Celebrate our Amazing OpenMRS Community…
Today, I’m thrilled to announce that OpenMRS, Inc. received a $1 million dollar donation from the Pineapple Fund. This donation came as a product of a competitive application process, awarded to initiatives that demonstrate international-scale impact and novel, innovative ways of solving society’s most vexing problems. We are looking forward to using this generous donation to further support our strategic goals, and to increase the long-term sustainability of the OpenMRS community. Stay tuned for more specifics about this important contribution in the days to come.
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Regarding Open Source, Security, and Cloud Migration, Old Prejudices Die Hard in Health Care
Although the health care industry has made great strides in health IT, large numbers of providers remain slow to reap the benefits of a “digital transformation”. Health care organizations focus on what they get paid for and neglect other practices that would improve care and security. At conferences and meetings year and after year, I have to listen to health care leaders tediously explode the same myths and explain the same principles over and over. In this article I'll concentrate on the recent EXPO.health conference, put on in Boston by John Lynn's Healthcare Scene, where the topics of free and open source EHRs, security, and cloud migration got mired down in rather elementary discussions.
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Rep. Burgess' Office Releases Draft Interoperability Bill for Discussion
The office of Rep. Michael Burgess, MD (R-TX) released a draft of the interoperability bill that they have been working for the past several months on Friday. Rep. Burgess, one of the few physicians in Congress, has been working very hard with his staff to come up with legislation that can fix the current Health IT "lock-in" crisis. This is a bipartisan effort that has full backing from the top leadership in Congress. The staff is seeking input from the Health IT community on the draft bill. Burgess's office will take comments on the draft through March 13. Rep. Burgess' staff was kind enough to provide Open Health News with a copy of the draft legislation. We have posted the entire draft bill as is below and will be writing some our thoughts over the next few days.
State University of New York at Albany Launches VistA EHR Studies Program
The Albany Campus of the State University of New York (SUNY) has launched a new VistA EHR Studies program—the most comprehensive one of its kind in the United States. The program, which began on March 24, provides students the basis to learn and manage VistA’s fast-growing open source electronic health record (EHR) system. The decision to launch the full program follows a successful pilot course taught at the university this past fall. Read More »
The Growing OpenEMR Business Community
The OpenEMR community has been very active over this past year. This 'open source' electronic medical record (EMR) system continues to be enhanced by developers around the globe, the number of healthcare providers that have installed and begun using the system (over 15,000 sites world-wide) continues to grow, and a fairly robust business community of companies offering services and support is now in place. Read More »
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US Defense Think Tank Calls for DoD to Adopt the Open Source VistA EHR and Avoid Closed and Proprietary EHRs.
One of the most prestigious U.S. defense think tanks, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), issued a white paper Thursday calling on the Department of Defense (DoD) to replace their existing dysfunctional “vendor-lock” medical records system with an electronic health records system (EHR) that is "extensible, flexible and easy to safely modify and upgrade as technology improves and interoperability demands evolve." The white paper warns that a "closed and proprietary" commercial EHR - such as the ones offered by Epic, Cerner or Allscripts - will lead to "vendor-lock” and isolation of health data. Read More »
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Using Open Technology To Build a Biodefense Against the Coronavirus
As the number of US cases of the coronavirus rises, how will healthcare professionals be able to tell the difference between which panicked patients with similar symptoms has what? Even if the patient hasn't traveled to Wuhan or China recently, what if they sat at a Starbucks with someone who did? With the incubation time-lag before symptoms appear, who would even know? The challenge of monitoring 330 million people for infectious disease outbreaks is daunting. Take the flu as an example. During the last flu season which, as already discussed, was not as complex as this year's season, approximately 35.5 million Americans had flu symptoms, 16.5 million received medical care, 490,600 were hospitalized and 34,200 died.
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VA Releases Open Source Policy Memorandum
The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has just made public an executive policy memorandum that mandates a thorough evaluation of "Open Source Software (OSS) solutions when [the] VA acquires software." The policy also calls for the Federal agency to consider the use of open source "development practices when VA develops software." The release of this policy places the VA as the leader in government agencies innovating through the use of open source software.
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VistA is Going Places, and Also Staying Put
The Veterans Health Administration's hospital software, VistA, is a computing legend. Few pieces of software have become the subject of a popular book (Best Care Anywhere), won repeated awards for their usability, or been credited with a 180-degree turn-around in an organization's quality. But VistA is getting long in the tooth, and many--including now the VA itself--are questioning whether it's time for something new.The speculations aren't just about VistA. They extend to all health care software of that generation, including the industry's leading electroinc health record (EHR) system--Epic--and the venerable Intermountain Healthcare.
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Luis Ibáñez to be Interviewed in vxJourney Program
Luis Ibáñez, one of the best known advocates of open source solutions in healthcare will be interviewed Thursday, May 1, by Fabian Lopez in the popular vxJourney weekly webinar. Ibáñez a contributing author to Open Health News as well as other publications, in particular Opensource.com, will talk about the VistA course that he has been teaching at the State University of New York at Albany.
This article, written by Ibáñez outlines the backround and story behind the course. The interview will provide a golden opportunity for those who wish to learn more about the SUNY project. Read More »
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Roger A. Maduro Discusses Special Report-VistA: The EHR of Record
Have you ever heard the following questions...Does anyone other than the VA use VistA?.... and by the way, how many VA healthcare facilities are there? Where else is it installed? Who else uses VistA, or one of its derivatives?
Roger A. Maduro, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Open Health News (OHNews) will discuss the special report, VistA: The EHR of Record during an interview with Fabian Lopez, host of the popular vxJourney weekly webinar. Maduro will also discuss the VistA Installations GIS map & Database v1.0. This map developed with real data provided by users and companies related to the implementation and development of VistA. It shows where the award-winning open source VistA EHR has been implemented. Be ready to be surprised by this great effort.
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Ibáñez to Discuss Teaching the RDF Framework for use in Medical Data Sharing During vxJourney Program
Luis Ibáñez, one of the best known advocates of open source solutions in healthcare will be interviewed Wednesday, May 14, by Fabian Lopez in the popular vxJourney weekly webinar. Ibanez will be discussing the importance of teaching the Resource Description Framework (RDF) in college courses. RDF is a framework that facilitates the consistent representation of data and is a core element of what is called the Semantic Web. It's use in the context of sharing medical information is highly relevant for personal EHRs, health care exchanges, patient registries, and public health research.
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Adding Value to VistA legacy systems
Eddie Brito, Manager of vxVistA Administrative Products will be giving a presentation on the benefits and enhancements to VistA provided by several add on applications. Brito's talk will be hosted by Fabian Lopez during his popular vxJourney webinar series. Brito will talk about the following VistA enhancement applications:
- vxPatient Picture provides a patient picture capture process that will improve the service level to your customers and will provide an extra layer of validation and verification to improve the quality of care.
- vxPatient Search Tool allows clinicians to identify and isolate text data within a patient’s record in real time.
- vxImmunizations allows clinicians to document all immunizations, including actual dosages, CVX codes, and manufacturer of immunizations.
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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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OSEHRA 2016 Open Source Summit
Looking to gain expertise in both public and private sector open source health IT? Want to collaborate on global state-of-the-art solutions for electronic health records, and population health tool development? Need access to domestic and international market opportunities? Then OSEHRA’s 5th annual Open Source Summit, held just outside of Washington, DC from June 27-29, 2016, is the place for you. Nearly 400 industry leaders, federal and state government officials, academics, clinicians, developers, and researchers participated in the 2015 OSEHRA Open Source Summit—with representation from the United States, Canada, India, Jordan, Mexico, Romania, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. Do not miss your opportunity to join them this year!
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