Roger Baker

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OSEHRA 2012 Open Source EHR Summit Opens to Capacity Audience - Live Blog

The 1st Annual Open Source EHR Summit & Workshop opened to a capacity audience of nearly 400 participants today at the Gaylord National Conference center at National Harbor in Maryland today This is the conference held by Open Source Electronic Health Records Agent (OSEHRA) organization, the custodial agent of the code for the U.S Department of Veteran's Affairs' (VA) open source VistA EHR. The conference has a packed agenda with more that 30 speakers. We will be blogging live from the conference with a few bits and pieces and will follow up with a more extensive set of articles later on.

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2012 Open Source Think Tank Conference Exec Summary Released

The much awaited report on the 2012 Open Source Think Tank conference in Napa, CA has just been released. The Executive Summary of the report is available here. This report is of great significance as a significant portion of this year's Think Tank was focused on the open source strategy of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

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28th VistA Community Meeting to Feature Top VistA Leaders

Former VA CIO Roger Baker, Oroville Hospital CEO Robert Wentz, and the VA's current CIO, Stephen Warren, will be addressing the 28th Vista Community Meeting (VCM) in Sacramento, CA in what promises to be one most important conferences of the VistA community to date. The conference, which takes place January 17-19 at the UC Davis School of Medicine campus in Sacramento, CA, will feature a stellar cast of Health IT leaders. In addition to Baker, Wentz, and Warren, keynote conference speakers include Dr. Seong Ki Mun, Chairman of OSEHRA, Howard Hays, CIO of the Indian Health Service (IHS), Theresa Cullen, Chief Medical Informatics Officer (CMIO) of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), Stephen Oxley, Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of the Central Regional Hospital in North Carolina, and Denise LeFevre, CIO of Oroville Hospital.

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3 Ways DoD And VA Are Accelerating Patient Data Exchange Via iEHR

Tom Sullivan | Government Health IT | February 6, 2013

Whereas the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments are working toward a joint iEHR that would, come 2017, wrap all patient data into a single record accessible to clinicians in both departments, DoD Secretary Leon Panetta and VA’s Secretary Eric Shinseki pushed their staffs to accelerate data exchange and interoperability where they can now, rather than waiting. Read More »

A Look Back At Roger Baker’s Work At The Veterans Affairs Department

Jimmy Daly | FedTech | April 3, 2013

The government community will miss Baker’s leadership and charisma. Read More »

Agency App Development Could Be 'a Little Bit Painful,' Says Baker

Molly Bernhart Walker | FierceGovernmentIT | June 6, 2012

As agencies begin to roll out more internal and citizen-facing mobile applications, there will be "a ton of lessons learned," said Roger Baker, chief information officer of the Veterans Affairs Department. "It's going to be a little bit painful occasionally," Baker added June 4 at the Management of Change conference. Read More »

Another Senior VA Official Steps Down

Patrick Dickson | Stars and Stripes | April 29, 2013

Veterans Affairs deputy secretary W. Scott Gould has resigned. The news was first reported by Federal News Radio. VA Secretary Eric Shinseki put out a statement via the department’s web site... Read More »

Baker Leaves VA With A Sharper Focus On IT

David Stegon | FedScoop | February 18, 2013

There are many federal information technology events that happen in Washington, D.C., but few are truly memorable. One of those was the morning of Oct. 8, 2009, when Roger Baker [...] took to the stage at an INPUT event in Tysons Corner to a standing room crowd of more than 700 industry executives just to see him talk. Read More »

Baker’s Three Tiers of IT Savings

David Stegon | FedScoop | August 20, 2012

Roger Baker, the chief information officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs, manages one of the largest information technology budgets in the federal government, but he’s also one of the best at finding ways to become more efficient... Read More »

Bipartisan Bill Would Slash iEHR Funding

Erin McCann | Government Health IT | May 16, 2013

Members of Congress are lauding a bipartisan bill that limits funding for an integrated electronic health record system between VA and DoD and requires aggressive progress updates from both agencies, which have, in recent months, come under fire for the dilatory pace at which they're moving forward with the iEHR. Read More »

Blue Button Goes Viral: UnitedHealthcare Promotes Importance of Personal Health Records to Millions of Enrollees

Press Release | UnitedHealthcare | July 5, 2012

UnitedHealthcare has launched its Blue Button, implementing a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services program that enables millions of plan participants to access and print their personal health records with the simple click of a blue button. Read More »

Budget Authority And Executive Titles Come In For Scrutiny In IT Reform Debate

Joseph Marks | Nextgov | January 22, 2013

Government chief information officers without authority over their agencies’ technology spending are like “toothless tigers,” former Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., testified Tuesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee he once chaired. Read More »

Can An Open Source Electronic Health Record Ever Be Ready For Prime-Time?

Zina Moukheiber | Forbes | August 29, 2012

In October, the Open Source Health Record Agent (OSEHRA) will hold its first summit, bringing together the government and open source developers, two radically different camps united in their goal to improve a lauded electronic health record in need of a face lift—the Veterans Affairs’ VistA. “We believe open source will help us innovate quickly,” says Mike O’Neill who sits on the board of OSEHRA, and is senior advisor to the Director, Veterans Affairs Innovation Initiative.

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Congress & GAO Take Aim At DOD-VA Health Records Program

Amber Corrin and Camille Tuutti | FCW | March 7, 2013

When the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments last month announced a change of course in a long-awaited joint health records program, it sparked concerns at the Government Accountability Office. Now, the program faces further challenges from Capitol Hill. Read More »

Cost Of Integrated Defense-VA Health Record Jumped To $12 Billion

Bob Brewin | Nextgov | February 28, 2013

The estimated cost of developing an integrated electronic health record for the Defense and Veterans Affairs Departments spiraled to nearly $12 billion by last September, VA Chief Information Officer Roger Baker said in a press call this morning. The mounting costs led top leaders of the two departments to call a halt to the joint effort on Feb. 5. Read More »