Decentralized Hospital Computer Program (DHCP)

See the following -

EHR And The VA: Part I – History

Kathy Tong | EHR Intelligence | April 19, 2013

One of the earliest EHR pioneers was the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The VA started its shift from a paper-based to computer-based records system in the 1980s (ideas for it were discussed a decade earlier). Called the Decentralized Hospital Computer Program (DHCP), the system was designed to bring consistent, standardized patient data into a locally centralized repository. Read More »

Hagel lauded as early VA EHR protector

Joe Conn | Modern Healthcare IT | January 11, 2013

In 1981, Hagel, then age 35 and a former Army sergeant who received two Purple Hearts for wounds in Vietnam, was fresh from the campaign of newly elected President Ronald Reagan. He provided some badly needed political support for the rebel programmers, who had collectively begun to see themselves as members of the VA's “Underground Railroad.” Read More »

Open-Source EHR: Benefits And Drawbacks

Charles Settles | HealthWorks Collective | August 14, 2014

As open-source software’s popularity grows, health IT has been slow to join the rising tide, even though EHRs were born open-source. What are the pros and cons of open-source EHR software?...

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VistA Evolution: What's Wrong With this Picture?

The VA has begun awarding a number of very high-value contracts under the umbrella of the VistA Evolution initiative (eg to ASM Research/Accenture), but in my opinion, there are problems looming on the horizon.  From what I understand about the direction that these projects are taking (with encouragement, it seems, from within the VA), there’s a real risk that we’ll see a repeat of previous attempts to modernize VistA, the result of which was very expensive failure with essentially nothing to show for it.  The losers, if this happens, are not only US taxpayers: it’s the Veterans whose future welfare depends on VistA4 being a success.

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