The areas I am describing have good stable power and networks, just a lot of people traveling through the areas on their way to somewhere else. Information needs to be gathered on these folks about their needs and where they are planning to go, if they have cell phones and their numbers, email accounts, any other means of contact that a person might have.
These people need information and need to leave tracks as to where they are headed. They need to find areas that canhelp them with their health needs, medications, treatment, therapy, where they might be needed (if they have special skills), Need to find other members of their families that have gotten separated. They need shelter, and food, clean clothes, and work to support themselves, communications with their banks. Their needs are many and varied. VistA can be useful in adapting to this kind of spectrum of problems to be solved, and all be on the same systems. The VistA model needs to be able to interface with various other agency systems to interchange information. VistA has done this many times in the past. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nancy Anthracite" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, September 09, 2005 1:19 PM Subject: Re: [Hardhats-members] VistA Community Call follow up - VistA for Katrina survivor EHR needs They need power and we would need to be able to set up a network for them. Communications we could probably do without if a team were there to do the setup, training, etc. Power could be just a way to keep the laptops charged and the network working, but it is power or some sort, none the less. This is a great idea that we need to work the bugs out of if we are going to be a help and not a hindrance in this effort. On Friday 09 September 2005 02:25 pm, Chris Richardson wrote: Bhaskar; To further this effort, I called Rick Marshall and discussed it briefly with him. The concern was for the feelings of the CMMS folks (and rightly so). There was also concern about the logistics of getting the system set up and running. How would we train the folks to use the tool. The install at present is not totally turn-key and there is significant setup for the healthcare providers to get established in the system. I also spoke with Dr. Nancy Anthracite and she indicated that the learning curve was too steep for these folks who are already pretty burned out. Personnel would have to be sent in to train, setup, and trouble-shoot the systems. She recommended that if there was a location which had power and communications and expressed a desire to have the help, that this would be the only way thatthis thing could work. I recommended that we consider Magnolia, AR. I know someone down there who is involved in the recovery effort. It is a community of about 10,000 with an evacuee population of about 500. Perhaps we need to contact the Red Cross for other suggestions for a location we could help with. There would be a need for individuals to go to these locations to help install and trouble-shoot the situation and do some training. We can also be on the look-out for VA-trained folks from the New Orleans area. There are a lot of VA employees who are still unaccounted for in the storm area. I see that there are some other EMR packages going into the areas down there and it would be interesting to see how they fare. We could sit on the side-line and be spectators or we could be participants. I would prefer we got involved. >From Mike Ginsburg's email of this date. "Looks like an EHR effort is already underway! >From Computerworld: Allscripts, Medem Offer Free E-health Records To Katrina Evacuees http://www.computerworld.com/newsletter/0,4902,104503,00.html?nlid=AM " ----- Original Message ----- From: "K.S. Bhaskar" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, September 09, 2005 10:58 AM Subject: [Hardhats-members] VistA Community Call follow up - VistA for Katrina survivor EHR needs > At the VistA Community call today, we discussed the potential benefits > of a widely available pre-configured VistA system for the electronic > medical records of a dispersed and likely mobile community of survivors > putting their lives back on track. It was suggested that the beta > version of VistA Office EHR could fit the bill, and my action item was > to contact Joseph Dal Molin and Maury Pepper of WorldVistA as a conduit > to CMS to seek approval for such a release of the beta software. > > I left voice mail for Joseph and spoke with Maury. Maury is not averse > to approaching CMS for permission, but expressed some concerns about the > plan. Maury's concern is that making available a number of laptops/PCs > with a pre-configured VistA, whether it is a beta of VOE or another > VistA (e.g., Hui OpenVistA) loaded on them would not necessarily be > useful without the people trained to use the systems. It would be one > thing for a group of ex-VA employees, for example, going around with > these laptops, but without appropriate training, VistA may not be useful > in general. > > I promised him that I would start a discussion thread, so that people on > the call and in the community could respond to this concern. He > (correctly, in my opinion) said that we were more likely to get a > receptive ear from CMS if there was a coherent plan of action. > > Maury, if I have mischaracterized our discussion in any way, please > speak up. Thank you very much. > > -- Bhaskar > > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference & EXPO > September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices > Agile & Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects & Teams * Testing & QA > Security * Process Improvement & Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf > _______________________________________________ > Hardhats-members mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference & EXPO September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices Agile & Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects & Teams * Testing & QA Security * Process Improvement & Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members -- Nancy Anthracite ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference & EXPO September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices Agile & Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects & Teams * Testing & QA Security * Process Improvement & Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference & EXPO September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices Agile & Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects & Teams * Testing & QA Security * Process Improvement & Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
