VA Software Could Help Establish Affordable EHR Systems Worldwide

[David Derauf]

 VA Software Could Help Establish Affordable EHR Systems Worldwide

November 22, 2004

Open-source software based on the Department of Veterans Affairs' VistA system could be a "low-cost building block" for a nationwide electronic health record system, Federal Computer Week reports. The 20-year-old software also could become the foundation for affordable EHR systems around the world, said Maury Pepper, a computer consultant and chair of WorldVistA, an organization that works to make health care technology more affordable with VistA-based systems.

CMS officials want to use VistA to spur EHR adoption with VistA-Office EHR, a public domain version of the software, Federal Computer Week reports. The VistA-Office software will provide physicians and clinicians with several VistA applications as well as new modules, such as a patient registration system, said Capt. Cynthia Wark, a Public Health Service nurse and action deputy director of the information systems group at CMS' Office of Clinical Standards and Quality.

The VistA-Office software is available for free, but physicians will have to pay a license fee to use programming language and database management systems when the final version is released, Federal Computer Week reports (Brewin, Federal Computer Week, 11/22).

In related news, a not-for-profit trade association, the VistA Software Alliance, has been created to expedite the adoption of EHRs in private sector health care organizations using VistA software. Founding directors of the group include Document Storage Systems, Hewlett-Packard, InterSystems and Perot Systems (VistA Software Alliance press release, 11/19).

David D Derauf MD MPH
Executive Director
Kokua Kalihi Valley

 

 

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