Veterans Health Administration (VHA)

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OSEHRA 2012 Open Source EHR Summit Opens to Capacity Audience - Live Blog

The 1st Annual Open Source EHR Summit & Workshop opened to a capacity audience of nearly 400 participants today at the Gaylord National Conference center at National Harbor in Maryland today This is the conference held by Open Source Electronic Health Records Agent (OSEHRA) organization, the custodial agent of the code for the U.S Department of Veteran's Affairs' (VA) open source VistA EHR. The conference has a packed agenda with more that 30 speakers. We will be blogging live from the conference with a few bits and pieces and will follow up with a more extensive set of articles later on.

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VA Joins NATE and the Blue Button for Consumers (NBB4C) Trust Bundle

Press Release | National Association for Trusted Exchange | June 9, 2016

The National Association for Trusted Exchange (NATE) today welcomed its newest member, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). By joining NATE and participating in the NATE Blue Button for Consumers (NBB4C) Trust Bundle, VA is demonstrating its commitment to enabling its Veterans to send their health data to the consumer-facing application (CFA) of their choice. 

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2013 Most Wired

Matthew Weinstock | Hospitals & Health Networks (H&HN) | July 1, 2013

H&HN's 15th annual survey shows U.S. hospitals have made big strides in laying the foundation for robust clinical information systems. The next step: harnessing IT for the real work of improving care delivery. Read More »

28th VistA Community Meeting to Feature Top VistA Leaders

Former VA CIO Roger Baker, Oroville Hospital CEO Robert Wentz, and the VA's current CIO, Stephen Warren, 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, Wentz, and Warren, keynote conference speakers include Dr. Seong Ki Mun, Chairman of OSEHRA, Howard Hays, CIO of the Indian Health Service (IHS), Theresa Cullen, Chief Medical 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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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

Arthur Allen | Politico | March 19, 2017

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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A New View Of VistA

Ewan Davis | E-Health Insider | July 10, 2013

In a guest column, VistA sceptic Ewan Davis argues the US open source system might have something to offer the NHS – but not if it becomes an open source NPfIT. Read More »

A paperless NHS? Swapping best practice and ideas with the US Veteran Health Administration to make it happen

Press Release | 2020health, 3Millionlives | March 13, 2013

If the NHS is serious about going digital it should continue to build on an existing partnership with the VHA and continue to revolutionise healthcare, says the report "Making connections - A transatlantic exchange to support the adoption of digital health between the US VHA and England’s NHS" developed jointly by the VHA, 3Millionlives and published by 2020health. Read More »

Accelerating Identification and Tracking of Pandemic Disease Outbreaks

A national biosurveillance program requires the collaboration of multiple federal, state and local agencies to provide a comprehensive view of a health-related event. Bitscopic's Praedico™ biosurveillance platform breaks down the data barriers among organizations with an extensible architecture that can incorporate any kind of data. The platform also delivers high performance by incorporating the latest technologies such as big data, NoSQL databases, and machine learning. Read More »

Alaska Telehealth Bill Would Allow Phone, Online Prescribing Visits

Joseph Conn | Modern Healthcare | May 7, 2014

Alaska may soon allow physicians to write prescriptions for many medications without an initial face-to-face encounter between the prescriber and the patient. A bill to allow the remote prescribing process passed on the final day of the state legislative session April 25 and is awaiting the signature of Alaska Republican Gov. Sean Parnell...

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Alert Overload Causing Docs To Miss Abnormal Test Results

Marla Durben Hirsch | FierceEMR | March 5, 2013

Follow up failures continue to occur in outpatient settings even when physicians receive electronic alerts of abnormal test results, according to a new study in JAMA Internal Medicine. Read More »

All VA Medical Centers Named to the 2013 “Most Wired” Hospitals List

Gail Graham | VAtage Point | July 22, 2013

This year, we were honored to have VA, representing all of its 151 VA medical centers, named to the 2013 “Most Wired” Hospitals list. The list is the result of a national survey aimed at ranking hospitals which are leveraging health information technology (HIT) in new and innovative ways. Read More »

An Open Source Vision

Geraint Lewis | Health Service Journal (HSJ) | April 12, 2012

A campaign is attempting to bring VistA, an open source IT system, to the NHS. Why should you consider it? Read More »

Are The Keys To Interoperable Health IT Hidden Outside The Health Care Field?

Billy Mitchell | FedScoop | September 24, 2014

To build a truly modern and interoperable health care system, some leading health IT experts think critical answers may be hidden in industries typically thought to be unassociated with health care...

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At VA, All 2015 IT Budget Roads Lead To VistA

Tom O’Keefe | Government Health IT | August 25, 2014

Thanks to the bipartisan agreement authorizing approximately $16 billion to help veterans avoid the problems with health care that have long plagued the Department of Veterans Affairs, the bulk of VA IT support is headed largely in one direction...VA spending has been focused on development of its own electronic health record system: VistA (Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture)...

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