VistA Community News

See the following -

Baker and Levin to Speak at WorldVistA Meeting

WorldVistA just announced that the VA's CIO, Roger Baker, and its CTO, Dr. Peter Levin, will both be speaking at the community's upcoming meeting in Fairfax, VA. The 23rd VistA Community Meeting will take place at George Mason University May 23-25.

Read More »

Beauregard Memorial Hospital running Medsphere's OpenVistA EHR system receives Stage 1 'Meaningful Use' reimbursement

Press Release | Medsphere Systems Corporation | June 12, 2012

Medsphere Systems Corporation and Beauregard Memorial Hospital today announced that Beauregard has received federal reimbursement for the licensing of Medsphere’s OpenVista® electronic health record (EHR). The payment of Stage One Meaningful Use funds to the DeRidder, Louisiana, hospital covers five-year total licensing costs for the OpenVista EHR. The affordability of OpenVista will enable Beauregard to use additional federal funds received for subsequent stages of the Meaningful Use program on other hospital initiatives.

Read More »

Bi-directional Health Information Exchange (BHIE) between VA & DoD

Michael Luby | Government Health IT | May 17, 2013

In a recent Daily Show episode, Stewart was highlighting the backlog, nearly 900,000 strong in VA claims, that is now taking about 273 days per claim to process. Stewart went on to state that the fact that VA and DoD electronic medical records “don’t talk to each other” was the centerpiece to the VA benefits problem.Well, Stewart was half right. Read More »

Blue Button Initiative Takes Off, Contest Winner Announced

Blue Button, an easy to use open source tool to access the “MyHealtheVet” Personal Health Record (PHR) that was publicly released in August of last year by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), has surpassed all expectations and is now being used by more than 425,000 veterans across the country. Read More »

Blue Mountain Hospital to Achieve Meaningful Use Through Implementation of Medsphere's OpenVista EHR System

Press Release | Medsphere, Blue Mountain Hospital, GT.M | September 16, 2009

-Proven Open Source Solution Goes Live in Months, Not Years, to Rapidly Improve Patient Care at New Regional Acute Care Facility Read More »

Burlington Hospital to Acquire Costly Proprietary EHR System

Like many others, Burlington Hospital chooses to buy $160 million proprietary electronic health record (EHR) system, versus considering the use of the award winning free and open source VistA system developed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The VA  was honored to have its integrated health care system of hundreds of hospitals and clinics on the '2013 Most Wired Hospitals' list for the first time ever. Read More »

Campaign for NHS VistA

The Campaign for NHS VistA is composed of a group of volunteers working to promote the use of the VistA electronic health record (EHR) system by the National Health Service (NHS) in England. They  volunteer their time and expertise to campaign for the NHS to use the VistA system for the benefit of patients. Read More »

Commercial Health Record Software Would Cost $16 Billion, Says VA

Bob Brewin | NextGov | May 12, 2011

If the Veterans Affairs Department replaced its existing Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture with commercial software, it would face a bill of $16 billion, Roger Baker, the department's chief information officer, told a House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing Wednesday.

By contrast, the open source software approach now planned by VA will allow the department to upg Read More »

CTO Peter Levin on the Blue Button and the open source VistA initiatives

Alice Lipowicz | Federal Computer Week (FCW) | March 28, 2012

As chief technology officer at the Veterans Affairs Department, Peter Levin leads efforts to modernize health records for veterans, create a joint record system with the Defense Department and tackle a backlog of claims related to Agent Orange exposure among Vietnam era veterans. He has made great strides in all those areas, but one initiative in particular has caught on beyond VA’s wildest expectations. Read More »

Defense and VA Will Make Commercial Software a Top Priority For Joint Electronic Health Record, Memo Says

Bob Brewin | NextGov | April 25, 2011

The Defense and Veterans Affairs departments will make the purchase of commercial software their first choice for development of a joint electronic health record, according to a March 25 internal memo signed by top officials in both departments. Read More »

Defense Official Backs Commercial Software for Joint Health Record

Bob Brewin | NextGov | April 8, 2011

Elizabeth McGrath, Defense deputy chief management officer, said Defense "will look first" at commercial software for the health record, followed by adoption of existing Defense and VA applications, with the last choice being in-house development. McGrath's emphasis on commercial software for the joint record conflicts with the open-source software approach backed by Shinseki and VA Chief Information Officer Roger Baker. 

Read More »

Defense/VA Health Record Decision Day?

Bob Brewin | NextGov | March 17, 2011

From Bob Brewin's Blog - I'm picking up medium strength signals that top managers at the Defense and Veterans Affairs Departments have a meeting this week -- possibly today -- on development of a single electronic health record for the two departments. The odds favor such an agreement -- which probably won't be announced until later this month -- with the VA VistA system used as the building block for the joint electronic record. But, I'm also told -- but cannot yet confirm -- that the entire Congressional delegation from a state that is the home to a major electronic health record company is trying to derail this and plans to modernize VistA using open source software.

Read More »

Do DoD changes signify last nail in iEHR's coffin?

Lloyd McCoy | Government Health IT | November 11, 2013

Seismic shifts in defense healthcare policy are complicating the government’s plans for portable and comprehensive electronic patient health records, with a rift forming between the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Veterans Administration (VA) over the right way to move forward. Read More »

Document Storage Systems, Inc. Announces Release of New vxVistA Open Source Version

Press Release | PR NewsWire | November 12, 2013

Software development and systems integration company, Document Storage Systems, Inc. (DSS, Inc.), today announced the release of the latest vxVistA Open Source version 2013.0. Read More »

DoD gives glimpse of imminent EHR procurement expectations

Tom Sullivan | Government Health IT | October 8, 2013

The Defense Department somewhat quietly announced that as part of its market research into an electronic health record system (EHRS) it will “host demonstrations” during the week of October 21 — and vendors have until the end of Wednesday October 9 to apply. Read More »