US Department of Defense (DoD)

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VA and VistA: Can they be fixed?

Aisha Chowdhry | FCW | July 27, 2016

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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VanRoekel Talks Firsthand Of Ebola-Plagued West Africa

Billy Mitchell | FedScoop | December 3, 2014

Steven VanRoekel, about two months into his detail as chief innovation officer of the U.S. Agency for International Development and its battle against Ebola, recently spent seven days in Ebola-stricken Liberia. Despite painting a disastrous and bleak picture of a region crippled by the epidemic, VanRoekel did say, in some ways, things were beginning to return to normal...

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VA’s CIO Stephen Warren on Serving Veterans

Dan Verton | FedScoop | August 18, 2014

In his first interview since a scandal involving secret waiting lists forced a change of leadership at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Stephen Warren, VA’s chief information officer, offers a candid assessment of the agency’s past and future technology plans. Read More »

Veterans Affairs: We want the DOD to pick us for its new EHR

Jennifer Bresnick | EHR Intelligence | March 14, 2014

The VA will be adding its competitive bid to a host of commercial offerings, said VA Secretary Eric Shinseki during a hearing this week, to give the DOD more options as it selects a new EHR system to replace the aging AHLTA suite. Read More »

VistA Is A Rival to Epic and Cerner in Major Deployments of EHR Systems

According to a recent article in Healthcare IT News, Intermountain Healthcare has just signed a multi-year contract to deploy Cerner electronic health record (EHR) systems. The article claims that "only two companies – Epic and Cerner – seem to be in competition for the large and complex deployments."  However, there is a third option that constantly goes unrecognized - the widespread deployment and use of the world reknowned 'open source' VistA system by large scale healthcare provider organizations in the U.S. and overseas. Read More »

VistA Marketing Ramps Up in Advance of DoD EHR Award

Molly Bernhart Walker | FierceGovernmentIT | January 14, 2015

A marketing campaign aimed at raising the profile of the Veterans Affairs Department's open source electronic health record is in full swing. A non-profit group founded through a VA contract to advance the department's Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture has stood up a website, Twitter account and LinkedIn group to promote VistA. Read More »

VistA, AHLTA, CHCS: An Evolving Alternative Roadmap to the Future

The obstacles to continue moving U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in a common direction with regard to their clinical IT systems are fairly well-known. Having made that statement, it may therefore seem strange that this blog suggests that a conceptually simple technical approach may have the potential to untie the Gordian knot that has defeated many previous efforts. The proposed approach is not some yet-to-be-developed technology that exists only on Powerpoint slides. In fact, the proposed approach is based on technology that has already been validated by the-powers-that-be – at taxpayer expense – and the official conclusion in the official report on file at the DoD(1) states unambiguously and explicitly that the technology works as claimed is scalable, and can handle very large M/Caché systems.

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Warren: VistA Is Here To Stay

Adam Mazmanian | FCW | March 20, 2015

The Pentagon eliminated a bid for an open-source health record solution based on the VISTA software developed by the Department of Veterans Affairs from its $11 billion electronic health record procurement, but that doesn't mean VA is going to shift gears in the future. "I do not see the VA moving away from VISTA," Steph Warren, acting CIO at the VA, said on a March 19 call with reporters. Read More »

We've been swindled

Paul Levy | Not Running a Hospital | June 24, 2015

...And the fraud is likely to be compounded.  The next step in the process is a forthcoming Department of Defense procurement of an EHR system to serve the military and its dependents, whether being treated at military healthcare facilities or other facilities in the communities in and around our bases and other military installations. As I understand, there is no language in this multi-billion dollar procurement that would require the vendor chosen to achieve interoperability with those EHRs in community facilities where the government will send its patients--or where they might end up for emergent care...

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Why DoD EHR Modernization Will Fail

Susan D. Hall | FierceHealthIT | April 10, 2015

As the U.S. Department of Defense zeroes in on determining which bidding group will be awarded the coveted contract to modernize its electronic health record system, Loren Thompson, COO at the nonprofit Lexington Institute, says the effort is doomed to fail. As evidence, he uses the words that Christopher A. Miller, the program executive overseeing the project, used in testimony before the Senate's defense appropriations subcommittee. Read More »

OSEHRA 2012 Open Source Summit

Event Details
Type: 
Conference
Date: 
October 17, 2012 - 8:00am - October 18, 2012 - 6:00pm
Location: 
Gaylord National Washington, DC
United States

The Open Source Electronic Health Records Agent (OSEHRA) will be hosting its First Annual Open Source EHR Summit & Workshop October 17 and 18, 2012, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland. OSEHRA is a non-profit organization dedicated to creating an open source ecosystem around the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) world-class EHR, VistA. Since its creation a year ago by the VA, the organization has grown rapidly and now has more than 1,000 members. Members include a large number of private companies that are engaged in implementing VistA private sector hospitals and clinics, as well as in the large number of foreign countries that are adopting VistA. These solution providers are also developing a whole range of  enhancements to the VistA core.

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Federal Health IT (FHIT) Innovation Event & Awards

Event Details
Type: 
Conference
Date: 
March 4, 2015 - 6:00pm - 9:00pm
Location: 
1776 DC - The Penthouse Washington, DC
United States

This event will be unlike any typical Federal government event. Held at 1776 DC, the premier startup incubator in DC, the first part of this event include a panel featuring three of the real leaders driving innovation across the Federal Health Space, with perspective from Military Health and VA to HHS. The second part of the evening will celebrate many of the most innovative programs and initiatives happening across the Federal Health IT (FHIT) space today as the FHIT Innovation awards are handed out. Winners will be selected by an evaluation panel that includes government, industry and the startup community. Finalists for the awards will be announced by February 18th. Read More »

11th DoD/VA and Gov Health IT Summit

Event Details
Type: 
Conference
Date: 
October 4, 2016 (All day) - October 5, 2016 (All day)
Location: 
Mary M. Gates Learning Center/United Way
701 N. Fairfax St.
Alexandria, VA 22314
United States

Defense Strategies Institute is proud to announce their 11th DoD/VA and Gov Health IT Summit occurring on October 4-5, 2016. With the central theme of “Advancing the Coordination of Health IT,” the Summit will bring together senior leaders from DoD, VA, HHS, Federal and State agencies, along with leaders from Industry and Academia that support them, for two days of Government briefings and informal discussions in their "Town Hall" setting in Alexandria, VA. DSI has created a Summit that will bring together a variety of stakeholders in order to build out two days of discussion and debates that tackle many of the areas involved in modernizing the DoD and VA health systems in order to provide better care to our warfighters and veterans.

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12th DoD/VA and Gov Health IT Summit

Event Details
Type: 
Conference
Date: 
May 31, 2017 (All day) - June 1, 2017 (All day)
Location: 
Mary M. Gates Learning Center Alexandria, VA
United States

Held since 2011, DSI’s  Health IT Summits are a unique forum that allows for personnel from DoD, VA, Federal and State agencies to convene in one location along with leaders from Industry and Academia that support them. As the healthcare industry continues to evolve to better suit the needs of the patient, the role of information technology will continue to be an integral part in the efforts to link innovative IT solutions with advanced lines of communication to achieve a patient centered health system that focuses on enhancing delivery of healthcare. Although delivering military health care in an efficient and cost-effective manner is important, the goal is to first and foremost build a health care system focusing on improving the overall the health of the patient. In the efforts to support this health care system, tremendous strides have been made from multiple organizations ranging from the DoD, VA, Government Agencies, Private Industry, and Academia.

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2018 ONC Annual Meeting

Event Details
Type: 
Conference
Date: 
November 29, 2018 (All day) - November 30, 2018 (All day)

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) will hold the 2018 Annual Meeting November 29-30, 2018 at the Washington Hilton in Washington, DC.  The 2-day meeting will gather approximately 1,200 health IT partners and will include a combination of plenaries and breakout sessions each day.  The plenary sessions will include keynote addresses and panel discussions.  

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