VistA EHR

See the following -

Ebola in the United States: Short on Accountable 'Open' Information, Effective Systems Planning and Decision Making

Events in the present Ebola crisis prompt unease that the United States deployment of Web based, standardized population health and biosurveillance information services is fragmented, incomplete and insufficient, prompting me to write this blog. The United States has made significant progress in public health and medical preparedness since the 9/11 terrorist attacks; yet, poorly interconnected information systems add to our vulnerability to planning and response to viruses like Ebola or enviro virus EV-D68 that threaten the health of large populations. Today, a gap exists between information technology specialists and public health programmatic or scientific personnel. 

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Electronic Health Records: First, Do No Harm?

David F. Carr | InformationWeek | June 26, 2014

EHRs are commonly promoted as boosting patient safety, but are we all being fooled? InformationWeek Radio investigates. Read More »

FDA Issues RFQ for Large Scale EHR Study - Wants to Leverage VA's Open Source VistA EHR and Database for Research

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday issued a Request for Quotation (RFQ) for a large-scale electronic health record (EHR) system. This RFQ is very important as the objective is to develop a platform to support a critical project by the FDA's Division of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics (DBB) "to conduct research to assess the safety and surveillance of FDA regulated products through the FDA adverse event reporting systems..." Adverse drug reactions are one of the leading causes of death in the US, thus finding which drugs cause negative interactions is of vital importance. The project requires "use of the large electronic medical record (EMR) system..." The project is going to leverage the largest, most comprehensive, and clinically relevant medical records database, that of the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

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FIS Releases Major Upgrade to GT.M - the Leading Open Source "NoSQL" Platform in Healthcare

Press Release | FIS Global | March 29, 2016

FIS has just released a major upgrade to GT.M. GT.M is the database of record and “NoSQL” application development & deployment platform at some of the largest real-time core-banking and electronic health record systems deployments around the world. With its source code available under a free / open source software (FOSS) license, GT.M has been downloaded over 135,000 times from its primary site, is bundled with selected applications, and can be installed on contemporary Debian/Ubuntu systems with sudo apt-get install fis-gtm.

Google, PwC Bidding for $11B DoD Health System Modernization Project

Jaikumar Vijayan | eWeek | January 18, 2015

When Google and PricewaterhouseCoopers announced a business partnership last October, they described the move as an effort to jointly compete for large projects leveraging PwC's consulting experience and Google's Cloud Platform technologies. Last week, the two companies followed through on that announcement with PwC including Google in a team that is bidding for a massive $11 billion health system modernization effort at the U.S. Department of Defense.

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Hacking PTSD-Major Hackathon to take Place Sept. 25-27 in DC

Longview International Technology Solutions has organized a 36-hour hackathon that will take place starting on September 25th by inviting some of the country’s most talented computer science students (undergraduate through postgraduate) along with several corporate teams, to focus their imagination and skills on creating mobile solutions for veterans with PTSD. Students are coming from 59 schools, 18 states, and 4 countries. The event will be held near Washington DC in Annandale, Virginia, at the local campus of the Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC). It will take place at the Richard J. Ernst Community Cultural Center, part of the NOVA Annandale campus. The address is 8333 Little River Turnpike (more details at www.hackdc.com).

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Healthcare Has Cost Problems, but IT and EHRs Do Not Have to be One of Them

I’m proud to lead a group of intelligent and energetic technology professionals committed to developing a robust healthcare IT system that is (1) easy for clinicians to use, (2) improves patient health and (3) doesn’t bankrupt hospital budgets. We think any sustainable system must have those three key requirements. And how is healthcare doing thus far? The EHRs available today are developing rapidly. Vendors are making frequent and impactful improvements to improve system usability. Clinicians are getting better at maximizing the contribution healthcare IT makes to patient health and safety. It’s not hard to see how healthcare IT can meet the first two requirements and broadly contribute to improved healthcare.

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HIMSS14: Annual Conference and Exhibit Opening with Open Source Session

The 2014 Annual HIMSS Conference & Exhibition opens today in Orlando, FL. (February 23-27).  The more than 37,000 attendees can notice an important and growing breakthrough for the health IT industry.  For the first time, HIMSS invited OSEHRA to hold a four hour session today beginning at 12:45 pm, Convention Center 203C.  The day’s formal OSEHRA session, among the traditional industry businesses, marks a breakthrough recognition for the emerging benefits and impacts that open source solutions and their many new models of business are generating around the globe. 

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HIMSS14: OSEHRA Organizes Open Source EHR Panel at the HIMSS Conference

OSEHRA has been invited to organize an Open Source EHR session at the 2014 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Annual Conference and Exhibition on Sunday, February 23 in Orlando, Florida.  More than 37,000 healthcare IT professionals, clinicians, executives, and vendors from around the world are expected to participate in the HIMSS conference. We are enthusiastic about engaging this community, especially with our unique session focused on user-driven innovations, interagency collaboration, and future investments. Our session will feature success stories from VistA users including Lutheran Medical Center, the North Carolina Department of Health, Oroville Hospital, and the College of St. Scholastica...

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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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HIMSS19: Open Source Software for Disaster Preparedness and Response

Although not officially listed as a track at the HIMSS19 conference, there are a series of very important presentations on the use of open source software for disaster preparedness and response. This is a critical topic that we have covered extensively in Open Health News. As we detailed in this article, there was a major failure in being able to provide victims of Hurricane Harvey, as well as Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria with access to their medical records. Few emergency medical responders could access their records either. The two success stories that came out of the hurricanes were two open source electronic health record (EHR) systems, OpenEMR and the VA's open source VistA EHR.

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HIMSS20 - The Open Health Companies That Were Going to Participate

The HIMSS20 conference has been cancelled as a result of concerns due to the global spread of the coronavirus. Although the conference is not taking place, we have decided to publish a variation on our annual HIMSS conference Open Health Guide. Open Health News has published Open Health Guides to HIMSS conferences almost since our founding. They were widely read with thousands of reads each. So they are now a tradition for our publication and there were many great open health companies that were going to have exhibits at the HIMSS20 conference as well as presentations. Dominant health IT vendors spend over a billion dollars a year in PR and marketing for their lock-in solutions. Unable to match that kind of PR power, the annual HIMSS conference has been one of the few opportunities where Open Health companies have had to present their solutions to the world.

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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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HLN's Open Source Immunization Forecaster Receives 2017 Upshot Award

Press Release | HLN Consulting | June 12, 2017

On June 6, 2017, HLN was awarded the 2017 Upshot Award for Excellence in Vaccine Supply, Access, and Use by the US Department of Health and Human Services National Vaccine Program Office (NVPO) for its ICE Open Source Immunization Forecaster. In the letter of award, Dr. Jewel Mullen, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health commented that, "HLN Consulting's efforts on the Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE) are impressive. This powerful tool-including its open-source nature and seamless integration into clinical workflows-holds great promise for improving clinical decision-support and ultimately vaccination rates. Thank you for daring to innovate, collaborate, and lead in an area that is not only complex, but constantly evolving."

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