Matthew, Community Health Centers here in Iowa/Nebraska are on a similar quest to find or develop an EHR tailored to our particular needs. I have a longstanding bias toward VistA and have recently been blessed/cursed with a mandate to move forward with an installation here in Council Bluffs. I dream of our work becoming a reference implementation for the rest of the 10-20 other sites in our two states... and then on to world domination. :-)
---------- Original Message ----------- From: "Matthew King" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "Linda Gorey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Manuel Ferreiro" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > The Community Health Centers in AZ are forming the Arizona Integrated > Network (AIN) to formally integrate information technology services, > financial management, and clinical initiatives. We are have included > VistA Office in our EHR evaluation. Last Wednesday we met in Page, AZ > and I was shocked when one of the lead collaborators to the CMS project > (by conference call) basically concluded her VistA product > evaluation by saying she couldn't recommend it. Her reasons included > poor interfacing capabilities, out-dated language (M) and missing > modules needed for community health centers. She also believed the > costs to implement and support it would pretty much offset any > software cost savings. (She did say it was wonderful for the VA.) [jlz] Although confirmation is very difficult to obtain, the CMS sponsored development of VistA Office for West Virginia CHC's seems to have suffered from inadequate input from medical providers. Whether that trap can be avoided here in Council Bluffs remains for us to determine. It is clear to me that the real contribution from the VA is NOT VistA so much as the methods developed within the VA bureaucracy. We have a better shot at succeeding if we concentrate on that open development model and grow our own expertise from within... rather than relying on CMS... or anyone else to gift us with some sort of turn-key solution. > . > . > During the discussions this became clear: > > 1) Everybody has an opinion of VistA, of most of it based on > incomplete or faulty information. [jlz] The AAFP EHR list is particularly useless in this regard. > 2) Commercial Vendors have a lot of influence on the decision-makers > in my health-care setting. [jlz] It is tempting to conclude that CMS is being lobbied or pressured by the vendors. Real information may or may not dissipate that impression. Meanwhile it may depend on how one feels about the insurance industry or the drug industry. Generally, I find CHC doctors a bit radicalized by the close- up experience of serving the medically under-served. We are generally ready to believe that something is being screwed up behind the scenes. > 3) Our IT experts really don't understand Mumps or Open Source > philosophy or software. They either feel threatened or that it is not > reliable or compatible enough to run in our health-care environment. [jlz] The knowledge to make VistA work... including adapting it to many different settings, is available from WorldVistA. But there is much more to do. and to learn. regards, jlz ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is sponsored by: Tame your development challenges with Apache's Geronimo App Server. Download it for free - -and be entered to win a 42" plasma tv or your very own Sony(tm)PSP. Click here to play: http://sourceforge.net/geronimo.php _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list Hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
