VistA & Open Source EHR Systems in Florida and the Caribbean

The installation and use of 'open source' electronic health record (EHR) systems have continued to spread across Florida and many other islands and nations across the Caribbean.  See the map of healthcare facilities running some variant of the open source VistA electronic health record (EHR) system in the region.

In the state of Florida , all of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare facilities are continuing to use the well known, award winning VistA System. VA healthcare facilities (i.e. hospitals, outpatient clinics, nursing homes) using VistA include the:

• Bay Pines VA Medical Center
• Boca Raton VA Clinic
• Bradenton VA Clinic
• Brooksville VA Clinic
• Broward County VA Clinic
• Cape Coral VA Clinic
• Clermont VA Clinic
• Daytona VA Clinic
• Deerfield Beach VA Clinic
• Delray Beach VA Clinic
• Eglin VA Clinic
• Fort Pierce VA Clinic
• Hollywood VA Clinic
• Homestead VA Clinic
• Jacksonville VA Clinic
• Tampa VA Medical Center
• VA/DoD Joint Clinic
• Key Largo VA Clinic
• Key West VA Clinic
• Kissimmee VA Clinic
• Lake City VA Medical Center      
• Lakeland VA Clinic
• Lecanto VA Clinic
• Leesburg VA Clinic
• Marianna VA Clinic
• Miami VA Clinic
• Miami VA Medical Center
• Naples VA Clinic
• New Port Richey VA Clinic
• Gainesville VA Medical Center
• Ocala VA Clinic
• Okeechobee VA Clinic
• Orange City VA Clinic
• Orlando VA Medical Center
• Palatka VA Clinic
• Palm Harbor VA Clinic
• Panama City VA Clinic
• Pembroke Pines/Hollywood VA Clinic
• Port Charlotte VA Clinic
• Saint Augustine VA Clinic
• Sarasota VA Clinic
• Sebring VA Clinic
• St Lucie VA Clinic
• St. Petersburg VA Clinic
• Stuart VA Clinic
• Tallahassee VA Clinic
• The Villages VA Clinic
• Vero Beach VA Clinic
• Viera VA Clinic
• Zephyrhills VA Clinic
• West Palm Beach VA Medical Center

The following are other Federal, State, and local community healthcare facilities in Florida currently using other derivatives of the VistA system, e.g. CHCS, RPMS, OpenVistA, vxVistA, WorldVistA.

• U.S. Naval Hospital Jacksonville
• Eglin AFB Medical Facility
• 325th Medical Group  - Tyndall AFB  
• U.S. Naval Branch Health Clinic - Key West
• U.S. Naval Hospital Pensacola
• 1st Special Operations Medical Group - Hurlburt Field

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) operates over 100 clinics across the U.S. and around the world. They use the AHLTA electronic health record (EHR) system that interacts with the CHCS system.  These facilities are in the VistA Installations GIS Map& Database v.1.0  but may not all be listed in the above table.

Caribbean & Central America

The installation and use of 'open source' electronic health record (EHR) systems have also slowly spread into U.S. Territories and nations across the Caribbean and Central America, e.g. Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Mexico. 

All of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare facilities in U.S. Territories across the Caribbean are using the well known, award winning VistA System. VA healthcare facilities (i.e. hospitals, outpatient clinics, nursing homes) using VistA include the:

• San Juan VA Medical Center
• Arecibo VA Clinic
• Guayama VA Clinic
• Mayaguez VA Clinic
• Ponce VA Clinic
• Utuado VA Clinic
• Saint Croix VA Clinic
• Saint Thomas VA Clinic

The following are other Federal, State, and local community healthcare facilities in the Caribbean currently using other derivatives of the VistA system, e.g. CHCS, RPMS, OpenVistA, vxVistA, WorldVistA.

•  U.S. Naval Hospital Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

Finally, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) issued a report in 2010 entitle "Benefits and Costs of Electronic Medical Records: The Experience of Mexico’s Social Security Institute (IMSS)". It provides a summary of the installation of IMSS VistA in 58 hospitals across Mexico and provides many valuable 'lessons learned' from their efforts to adapt

• VistA installed in 58 IMSS Hospitals in Mexico

VistA to their environment. Open Health News (OHN) is still trying to get an accurate list of all the hospitals running VistA to include in the VistA Installations GIS Map & Database. Only a few of the sites have been entered so far.

See the map of all healthcare facilities running some variant of the open source VistA electronic health record (EHR) system across Florida, the Caribbean, and around the world. 

Finally, other popular 'open source' EHR systems in use across Florida and the Caribbean include OpenEMR and OpenMRS. It has been estimated that there are more than 5,000 installations of OpenEMR in physician offices and other small healthcare facilities across the U.S. serving more than 30 million patients. Further, conservative estimates by the OpenEMR Organization(OEMR)  indicate that OpenEMR is installed in over 15,000 healthcare facilities around the world, translating into more than 45,000 practitioners using the system serving approximately 90 million patients.  As of 2012, OpenMRS was in use at over 100 facilities in more than 30 countries and had been used to record over 2 million patient records around the world. They have a number of installations in Haiti and Central America. See map of OpenMRS installations.

Don't forget to read other articles about 'open source', 'open data', 'open access', and 'open standards' in Florida, Mexico, and Central America that have been posted on Open Health News (OHN).

Open Health News (OHN) plans on releasing a comprehensive report on the VistA Market in September with detailed information on VistA deployments state-by-state across the U.S., as well as in countries overseas, e.g. India, Jordan, Mexico.  Also, Peter Groen, Senior Editor at OHN, will be presenting more on the subject and the associated VistA Installations GIS Map & Database v.1.0 at the upcoming OSEHRA Summit meeting.