Re: Pressure Points

[John Gage]

I didn't know you worked at my hospital! As a number of people have pointed out, making VistA handle CPT codes is the *good* work. Recreating VistA is the *bad* work.

I overheard a discussion among the categorical medicine internsI was
supervising Friday pm in the outpatient area.

They were grumbling about having to come back to the University Hospital and
it's SMS/Semiens Envision system and having to leave CPRS/VistA at the VA.
Then when one of them said he had heard it was free they were outraged that
we didn't have it at the University Hospital! I had to go into a limited
discussion of the difficulties of carving out the CPT codes and encrypted
parts for FOIA. I didn't even get into the interface creation and data
dictionary harmonization parts.

But, I told them to talk it up among their colleagues. This is the kind of
pressure that will eventually force CIOs to look at open-source medical
software.

Maybe we will be shamed into it by our young colleagues who download
software from the web all the time!