Theresa Cullen

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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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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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28th VistA Community Meeting: VistA Community Coming Together

Years of efforts dedicated to unifying the VistA community as well as VistA code development effort bore fruit during the 28th VistA Community Meeting (VCM) on January 17-19 in Sacramento, CA.  This year's conference became a transition to a closer collaboration between the VistA community, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and the non-profit OSEHRA organization. In effect, the conference was more of a workshop where the participants briefed each other on the latest technical developments as well as strategic efforts to increase collaboration.

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29th VistA Community Meeting: Details of Upcoming Technical Conference

The upcoming 29th VistA Community Meeting (VCM), to take place June 2-4 at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, is shaping up as a breakthrough gathering of technical experts on VistA and community members. The conference is bringing senior leaders from several US Federal Government agencies, including the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Indian Health Service (IHS) together with technical leaders of the VistA community to collaborate on improving the VistA and RPMS EHRs.

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Are The Keys To Interoperable Health IT Hidden Outside The Health Care Field?

Billy Mitchell | FedScoop | September 24, 2014

To build a truly modern and interoperable health care system, some leading health IT experts think critical answers may be hidden in industries typically thought to be unassociated with health care...

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EHR debacle leads to paper-based care for Coast Guard servicemembers

Darius Tahir | Politico | April 25, 2016

The botched implementation of an electronic health records system sent Coast Guard doctors scurrying to copy digital records onto paper last fall and has disrupted health care for 50,000 active troops and civilian members and their families. Five years after signing a $14 million contract with industry leader Epic Systems, the Coast Guard ended its relationship with the Wisconsin vendor, while recovering just more than $2.2 million from the company. But it couldn’t revert back to its old system, leaving its doctors reliant on paper.

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Global OpenHIE Community to Hold 2019 Conference in Ethiopia

Press Release | Regenstrief Institute | October 29, 2019

The OpenHIE community will hold its second annual community meeting November 4-8, 2019 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Between 200 and 300 individuals are expected to attend with the ultimate goal of development and efficient and effective operation of national and regional health information exchanges. OpenHIE, short for Open Health Information Exchange, is a global, mission-driven collective dedicated to improving the health of the underserved through open, collaborative development of implementation tools and to supporting country-driven, large-scale health information exchange. Read More »

HIMSS14: Open Health Presentations at Annual Health IT Conference

As we outlined in our earlier article, "HIMSS14 Annual Conference and Exhibit Opening with Open Source," open source software as well as collaboration and interoperability in health information technology (HIT) has reached break out levels and the HIMSS conference in Orlando, Florida. Below are some of the conference presentations related to open health. Note the large number of presentations the award-winning VistA EHR developed by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and its derivative RPMS developed by the Indian Health Service (IHS). Read More »

HIMSS14: Report on Open Source Health IT Tracks at the HIMSS Conference in Orlando

I am writing from the floor of the HIMSS14 conference in Orlando, Florida. This has been so far an incredibly exciting conference as the core principles of open source in healthcare that I have been working on for more than a decade are now becoming mainstream. One sees this all over the conference with presentations, discussions, and exhibits around open source software, such as VistA, as well as other keys "open" concepts such as interoperability, open data/data liquidity, open innovation, and collaboration. And in addition, it has been good to catch up with so many friends.

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Hurricanes Harvey and Irma Draw the Line - Time for the US to Embrace Open Source Emergency and Disaster Response

For nearly 20 years now the global open source community and applications have been a keystone to disaster relief efforts around the world. The enormous number of disaster relief applications and knowledge that has been developed through all these years, should, and needs to be leveraged in the current crisis. For that reason, Open Health News is starting a series of articles to highlight some of the most important solutions. A substantial portion the open source applications for emergency and disaster response that exist are actually already on the news website in the form of articles and resource pages.

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OpenMRS Conference in Uganda Redefines Global Health IT Collaboration

Hundreds of developers and health experts gathered in Uganda this past December to attend the OpenMRS Implementers conference. This event has in many ways redefined the global health IT landscape. This is the first OpenMRS conference that has been officially sponsored by the government of a nation, setting the stage for future conferences that can bring together open source developers and government officials to build national health IT solutions. Read More »

OpenMRS Holds World Wide Summit in Singapore

OpenMRS held its first annual World Wide Summit for interested participants and contributors (including developers and implementers) in Singapore from December 8-14, 2015. The World Wide Summit meeting is designed to create a collaborative global space to share and discuss work and ideas about OpenMRS, showcase innovative development that has occurred over the last year, and support an OpenMRS Hackathon. This first annual summit was planned to build, support and grow the OpenMRS community as well as the OpenMRS software suite. The conference was attended by over 100 participants from 6 continents. There were more than 50 sessions by close to 30 speakers.

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OpenMRS Releases 2015 Annual Report

Press Release | OpenMRS | February 25, 2016

OpenMRS®, a free and open source health IT software platform built by volunteers around the world, is marking the start of its second decade by releasing its first annual report for 2015. The document highlights the achievements of the open source community in the past year, improvements to the OpenMRS software, and lays out the strategic goals for 2016...OpenMRS started in a single clinic in Western Kenya ten years ago. Since then it has grown into a global health IT solution with implementations in more than 80 countries and translations into multiple languages. Based on documented reports, OpenMRS is currently in use in 1,149 locations around the world.

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OpenMRS Releases 2016 Annual Report - Shows Explosive Growth of Open Source EHR

Press Release | OpenMRS | March 23, 2017

OpenMRS®, a free and open source health IT software platform built by volunteers around the world, is marking the start of its second decade by releasing its second annual report, for 2016. The document highlights the achievements of the open source community in the past year, improvements to the OpenMRS software, and lays out the strategic goals for 2017. For over 10 years, people around the world have leveraged OpenMRS to improve health status and achieve health equity through the use of health information technology. OpenMRS is a global leader in open technologies and open standards in healthcare...

Oroville Hospital CEO Outlines How VistA Can Help Hospitals Survive the HITECH Act and Obamacare

Press Release | Oroville Hospital | February 21, 2014

Robert Wentz, President and CEO of Oroville Hospital, was one of the keynote speakers at the 28th VistA Community Meeting (VCM) in Sacramento, CA. Wentz's presentation, titled “Obamacare: a provider's perspective. An opportunity for VistA and private sector Hospitals,” outlined the clear advantages of using the VistA EHR as the United States moves towards a new health system based on Obamacare...Wentz detailed in his presentation why VistA is the best option for private hospitals in the US that want to stay in business under the new rules created by Obamacare. Wentz described the major changes currently taking place in the healthcare industry as a result of Obamacare, both in terms of financial issues as well as patient/consumer side...Wentz laid out how Vista coupled with a reshaping of how care is delivered can sustains hospitals through the changes that Obamacare will bring to the healthcare system...

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