US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

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Google Joins VistA Team Proposing Open Source EHR for the Department of Defense

Google has thrown its hat into the EHR ring by joining the team led by PwC which is proposing that the Department of Defense (DoD) upgrade their current EHR to Defense Operational Readiness Health System (DORHS), a customized application built for the DoD and based on VistA, the open source EHR developed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)...Google’s participation has enormous implications for both the DoD’s EHR and to the healthcare industry as a whole. By choosing the open source EHR team, Google...has sent a clear message to the world that VistA is the best option for the DoD.

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Google, PwC Bidding for $11B DoD Health System Modernization Project

Jaikumar Vijayan | eWeek | January 18, 2015

When Google and PricewaterhouseCoopers announced a business partnership last October, they described the move as an effort to jointly compete for large projects leveraging PwC's consulting experience and Google's Cloud Platform technologies. Last week, the two companies followed through on that announcement with PwC including Google in a team that is bidding for a massive $11 billion health system modernization effort at the U.S. Department of Defense.

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Government IT contractor sues VA over Cerner Deal

Arthur Allen | Politico | August 23, 2017

CliniComp, a major Pentagon and VA electronic health records provider, is suing the Department of Veterans Affairs over Secretary David Shulkin's decision to offer a no-bid contract to Cerner to replace the agency’s VistA system. The suit brought Friday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims charges that the VA violated federal contracting law by making the June announcement without first conducting market research or assessing the cost of the contract. It demands that the judge restrain the VA from awarding the contract to Cerner until the protest is resolved.

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Governor O'Malley Joins Open Health IT Company, Amida Technology Solutions, as Advisor

Press Release | Amida Technology Solutions | July 7, 2016

Amida Technology Solutions, a Maryland-based open source software company, today announced the addition of former Governor Martin J. O’Malley as an Advisor. O’Malley joins distinguished public-sector leaders Michèle Flournoy, General John R. Allen, Sonal Shah, and Scott Gould in guiding Amida in the creation of software and services that will help NGOs, state and local governments, and private companies to solve their most complex data issues. Read More »

Hacking PTSD-Major Hackathon to take Place Sept. 25-27 in DC

Longview International Technology Solutions has organized a 36-hour hackathon that will take place starting on September 25th by inviting some of the country’s most talented computer science students (undergraduate through postgraduate) along with several corporate teams, to focus their imagination and skills on creating mobile solutions for veterans with PTSD. Students are coming from 59 schools, 18 states, and 4 countries. The event will be held near Washington DC in Annandale, Virginia, at the local campus of the Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC). It will take place at the Richard J. Ernst Community Cultural Center, part of the NOVA Annandale campus. The address is 8333 Little River Turnpike (more details at www.hackdc.com).

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Halamka's Advice to the Trump Administration

As I've listened to the confirmation hearings for cabinet nominees, I’ve realized that no one with healthcare IT expertise has yet been identified by the transition team. I continue to ask all my colleagues about any contact they’ve had with anyone advising the new administration - so far, no one has been asked anything by anyone related to healthcare IT. At this early time in the administration, it’s important to offer advice as to the priorities ahead for the next few years. What would I recommend to the new administration?

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Healthcare Services Platform Consortium Grows Exponentially - New Members Include VA, OSEHRA, and AEGIS

Press Release | Healthcare Services Platform Consortium | February 24, 2016

The Healthcare Services Platform Consortium (HSPC), a provider-led, multi-stakeholder initiative to launch a next-generation service oriented platform for healthcare, announced today several new members have joined the consortium during first quarter 2016. Among the new members are the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Open Source Electronic Health Record Alliance (OSEHRA), Cognitive Medical Systems, VigiLanz, Veratics, MedRed, InterSystems, AEGIS.net, American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) and The Center for Healthcare Transparency.

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HIMSS14: Open Health Presentations at Annual Health IT Conference

As we outlined in our earlier article, "HIMSS14 Annual Conference and Exhibit Opening with Open Source," open source software as well as collaboration and interoperability in health information technology (HIT) has reached break out levels and the HIMSS conference in Orlando, Florida. Below are some of the conference presentations related to open health. Note the large number of presentations the award-winning VistA EHR developed by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and its derivative RPMS developed by the Indian Health Service (IHS). Read More »

HIMSS14: OSEHRA Organizes Open Source EHR Panel at the HIMSS Conference

OSEHRA has been invited to organize an Open Source EHR session at the 2014 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Annual Conference and Exhibition on Sunday, February 23 in Orlando, Florida.  More than 37,000 healthcare IT professionals, clinicians, executives, and vendors from around the world are expected to participate in the HIMSS conference. We are enthusiastic about engaging this community, especially with our unique session focused on user-driven innovations, interagency collaboration, and future investments. Our session will feature success stories from VistA users including Lutheran Medical Center, the North Carolina Department of Health, Oroville Hospital, and the College of St. Scholastica...

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HIMSS14: Report on Open Source Health IT Tracks at the HIMSS Conference in Orlando

I am writing from the floor of the HIMSS14 conference in Orlando, Florida. This has been so far an incredibly exciting conference as the core principles of open source in healthcare that I have been working on for more than a decade are now becoming mainstream. One sees this all over the conference with presentations, discussions, and exhibits around open source software, such as VistA, as well as other keys "open" concepts such as interoperability, open data/data liquidity, open innovation, and collaboration. And in addition, it has been good to catch up with so many friends.

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HIMSS20 - The Open Health Companies That Were Going to Participate

The HIMSS20 conference has been cancelled as a result of concerns due to the global spread of the coronavirus. Although the conference is not taking place, we have decided to publish a variation on our annual HIMSS conference Open Health Guide. Open Health News has published Open Health Guides to HIMSS conferences almost since our founding. They were widely read with thousands of reads each. So they are now a tradition for our publication and there were many great open health companies that were going to have exhibits at the HIMSS20 conference as well as presentations. Dominant health IT vendors spend over a billion dollars a year in PR and marketing for their lock-in solutions. Unable to match that kind of PR power, the annual HIMSS conference has been one of the few opportunities where Open Health companies have had to present their solutions to the world.

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HLN Releases New Version of Open Source Immunization Forecaster

Press Release | HLN Consulting | August 2, 2017

HLN Consulting has released a new version of the award winning Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE). ICE is a service-oriented, standards-based immunization forecasting software system that evaluates a patient's immunization history and generates the appropriate immunization recommendations. ICE can be used in Immunization Information Systems (IIS), Electronic Health Records (EHR), Health Information Exchanges (HIEs), and Personal Health Record (PHR) Systems. The release includes changes to the rules for several vaccine series, including Polio, Meningococcal ACWY, and Influenza.

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HLN's Open Source Immunization Forecaster Receives 2017 Upshot Award

Press Release | HLN Consulting | June 12, 2017

On June 6, 2017, HLN was awarded the 2017 Upshot Award for Excellence in Vaccine Supply, Access, and Use by the US Department of Health and Human Services National Vaccine Program Office (NVPO) for its ICE Open Source Immunization Forecaster. In the letter of award, Dr. Jewel Mullen, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health commented that, "HLN Consulting's efforts on the Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE) are impressive. This powerful tool-including its open-source nature and seamless integration into clinical workflows-holds great promise for improving clinical decision-support and ultimately vaccination rates. Thank you for daring to innovate, collaborate, and lead in an area that is not only complex, but constantly evolving."

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How the DOD's choice of EHR will impact providers

Heather Caspi | HelthcareDIVE | February 19, 2015

As the Department of Defense prepares to select a new electronic health record system, some are advocating that it go with an open-source solution—not just to benefit of the DOD but to use the $11-billion program to benefit the healthcare industry at large.

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How The VA and UL Created an Orchestrated Approach to Healthcare Cybersecurity Assurance

In today's high-risk Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) and cyber-warfare environment, one tool or individual line of cybersecurity solutions would likely not be able to satisfy the requirements for security and safety put forth by an HDO; hence, the aggregation of solutions branded as MedFusion was derived. The VA UL CRADA discovered that healthcare is strengthened in terms of security and safety of connectable medical devices through in-depth cybersecurity defense...Learning from the VA and UL cybersecurity research results, with respect to product-level management of vulnerabilities and threats to medical devices and their associated software algorithms, we can impact the quality of adoption of electronic health records and other data collection systems connected to the IoMT and consumers...

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