EHR Unity in Iraq

Joseph Conn | Modern Healthcare | September 10, 2010
U.S. Army Col. Drew Kosmowski said the Iraqis are fully onboard with plans to install VistA throughout their military and civilian healthcare systems. The advent of VistA could mean that disparate factions in Iraq might move one tiny step closer toward national unity.

In May, Kosmowski says, he and the Iraqi surgeon general, Brig. Gen. Samir Abdullah Hassan of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, met in Jordan with Joseph Dal Molin and Feras Kamal, both directors of the not-for-profit WorldVistA organization, to discuss Iraqi healthcare IT needs.  Iraq long has had healthcare relationships with its western neighbor, and the country could be the Jordanian IT enterprise's first customer outside the kingdom, Kosmowski says.