Open Source Electronic Health Record Alliance (OSEHRA)

See the following -

A New Era for our Military Health System

Dan Garrett | The Healthcare Blog | November 11, 2014

PwC’s proposed solution, called the Defense Operational Readiness Health System (DORHS), seeks to bring innovations from the commercial marketplace to the military health system by using technology that is seamless, proven and reliable. With team members DSS, Inc., Medsphere Systems Corporation, MedicaSoft and General Dynamics Information Technology, PwC’s goal is to enable every healthcare professional to provide the finest medical care possible to members of the military...

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Been there, Done that, Doesn’t Work: Veterans Health Administration IT goes back in time

If you have an interest in the worlds of economics, healthcare or technology, here’s a story that’s emerged this month that is worth noting for the record books. In the US, amidst the chaos of the Trump administration, yet another mistake has been made this month. For the record, it is worth noting that the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Veterans Health Administration (VHA) ended up with a contract for a large IT solution for the next 10 years worth about $10 billion as of May 2018. On the face of it that may appear to be unremarkable news: just another big expensive contract for an IT system. Yet there is a part sad/part silly dimension to it that is well worth flagging up at this point.

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DoD EHR Contract: Open Source Vs. Commercial

David F. Carr | Information Week | October 31, 2014

Pricewaterhouse Coopers and partner firms urge Department of Defense to consider open source VistA for EHR contract, vying against IBM/Epic and other commercial contenders. Read More »

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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HIMSS15: DSS and LiveData Announce Activities at Annual HIMSS Conference, New HX360 Companion Event

Press Release | DSS, Inc., Jeff Robbins, LiveData | April 8, 2015

LiveData today announced its participation in a range of activities at the annual HIMSS conference. As part of its HIMSS15 presence, CEO Jeff Robbins will also be a panelist at HX360, a new initiative co-developed by HIMSS and AVIA. The company also said that CEO Robbins and other LiveData executives will be available for a limited number of one-on-one interviews. Read More »

HIMSS18: Key Exhibitor Booths for Open Solutions, Collaboration, and Interoperability

The annual gargantuan HIMSS conference is back at Las Vegas with over 40,000 participants, over a thousand exhibitors, and more than 600 presentations. As we saw last year in Orlando, more than half of the conference presentations are focused on applications based on open source such as FHIR and Blockchain, and a great emphasis on open solutions for interoperability. With so many presentations and exhibits, it is impossible to provide a full overview. Below are a few of some of the most interesting exhibits of open solutions this year.

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HIMSS2015: OSEHRA to Exhibit at Annual HIMSS Conference in Chicago

Press Release | OSEHRA | April 10, 2015

The Open Source Electronic Health Record Alliance (OSEHRA) will return as an exhibitor at the Healthcare Information and Management Society (HIMSS) Annual Conference and Exhibition from Monday, April 13 through Wednesday, April 15, 2015, in Chicago, Illinois...During the three-day conference, OSEHRA will showcase significant achievements at Booth 7530.  Attendees will learn of the successes, challenges, and lessons gained from the institutionalization of VistA within VA, the support of the domestic private sector market, and the international implementations of VistA by the UK and Jordan. 

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Is The 1.5+ Trillion Dollar HITECH Act a Failure?

Hopefully, the public statements made by President Obama and Vice President Biden will lead to a public debate over the monumental problems that the HITECH Act and proprietary EHR vendors have caused the American people. While the press continues to report the figure of $35 billion as the cost of implementing EHRs, that figure does not tell the entire story. Perhaps the next step is to provide accountability and transparency. That would start with firm numbers regarding the real costs of EHR implementations forced on an unprepared healthcare system by the HITECH Act.

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Key Architect of VA’s Open Source Strategy Elected Chairman of the Board of OSEHRA

Press Release | OSEHRA | October 17, 2016

The Open Source Electronic Health Record Alliance (OSEHRA) announced today that Mike O’Neill, CEO of MedicaSoft, has been elected Chairman of the OSEHRA Board of Directors. O’Neill, an architect of VA’s open source strategy and a thought leader in the open source community, has served several years on the Board and was most recently re-elected in September 2015 as a representative of OSEHRA’s Organizational Members.  He assumed the Chairmanship on October 6.  “It is an honor to be chosen for this role,” said O’Neill.  “This is an exciting time for OSEHRA, with the new Federal Government policy on open source reaffirming our mission and impact.”

Major Players Bid For Slice Of Federal Health Records Pie

John K. Higgins | ECommerce Times | September 30, 2014

Four teams of contractors so far have indicated they want in on the DoD's massive electronic health records program. While each of the teams presents formidable resources in healthcare IT, to some degree no group has a complete, ready-to-go, solution, said IDC's Scott Lundstrom...

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Medsphere and Silver Hill Hospital Partner to Enhance Discharge Summary, Interoperability, in OpenVista EHR

Press Release | Silver Hill Hospital, Medsphere | March 12, 2015

-MedsphereSystems Corporation and Silver Hill Hospital this week introduced an improved Discharge Summary module as the most recent innovation of Medsphere’s OpenVista® electronic health record (EHR) built specifically for behavioral health hospitals. Designed in close collaboration with clinicians at Silver Hill, OpenVista Discharge Summary (DSum) both automates the summary creation process and gives Silver Hill clinicians greater control over how the final discharge summary looks and what patient information it includes.

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Medsphere Joins ProSphere in VA VistA Enhancement Project

Press Release | Medsphere | July 28, 2015

Medsphere Systems Corporation...today announced that the company is partnering with ProSphere Tek to develop File Manager (FileMan) version 23. FileMan, VA VistA’s core data management utility, enables the operation of VistA applications and modules, all working with integrated data. Medsphere will focus specifically on enhancing FileMan to develop VistA’s fundamental data architecture and internal data management. “We appreciate the trust both ProSphere and VA have shown in Medsphere’s VistA experience and expertise, especially with regard to FileMan,” said Medsphere President and CEO Irv Lichtenwald.

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Medsphere Makes Key Code Contribution to OSEHRA VistA EHR Core

Press Release | OSEHRA, Medsphere Systems Corporation, VistA Expertise Network | November 21, 2014

Medsphere Systems Corporation (MSC) has contributed its latest version of FILEMAN to the Open Source Electronic Health Record Alliance (OSEHRA) code repository.  FILEMAN 22.2 is arguably the single most important component of the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA), and is one of the largest open source contributions to date. Read More »

Obama and Biden Blast EHR Vendors for Data Blocking

As they are winding their terms in office, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden dropped a stink bomb on the health IT industry. Speaking at different events on Friday, January 9th, the President and Vice President both criticized proprietary electronic health record (EHR) vendors as the primary obstacle to the success of their administration’s health care strategy. This is the highest level acknowledgment so far of the serious impact that “lock-in” EHR software vendors are having on America’s medical infrastructure and the ability of physicians to provide medical care.

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Open Source Electronic Health Records For Education And Training

In spite of being very involved in the field of Health Informatics I only recently became aware of VistA for Education (VFE), which has all of the aforementioned attributes of an  excellent solution for EHR education purposes. VFE was developed as a result of a grant from the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) to supplement the ONC Health Information Technology (HIT) curriculum. Electronic health records (EHRs) are more than just the electronic equivalent of paper-based health records. Electronic health data is easier to search, share and archive, compared to paper records. Additionally, EHRs can be embedded with clinical decision support to alert and remind physicians of patient safety and preventive medicine measures.

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