Re: Federal office VistA coming

[will ross]

Also wondering aloud, who is the vendor poring over the code for CMS?
And what is the relationship between the CMS "VistA-Office" code 
wrangling already underway and the recently closed RFP for J2EE work on 
the "VA-VistA" codebase? Are these separate or coordinated projects?

[wr]
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On 3 Dec 2004, at 4:10 PM, Tomlinson, Steven B wrote:
Wondering out loud (as I am prone to do) does anyone know if the CMS
software is going to be distributed for the Intersystems Cache M or 
GT.M?


-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of
Joseph Dal Molin
Sent: Friday, December 03, 2004 1:42 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Federal office VistA coming
Ironically the VSA founders did not include Sanchez/Fidelity,
who thanks
to the foresight and intestinal fortitude of K.S. Bhaskar
open sourced
GT.M for Linux and x86 platforms.... which IMHO is the pebble in the
pond that led a new and invigorated VistA community.
J.
Daniel L. Johnson wrote:
Dear All,
One of the entertaining -- and maddening -- characteristics
of the open
software arena is that it on one hand permits people distributed in
space and time to cooperate constructively and efficiently
while on the
other hand it makes it easy for people with essentially
similar goals to
energetically fork projects and ideas (inefficiently).
As you may know, the US bureaucracy managing Medicare is launching a
massive campaign to promote primary care office-based HIT
(healthcare
information technology, not assault).
This effort includes yet another VistA effort (sigh) which
as far as I
know is developmentally independent of all other efforts to
bring VistA
into the office arena.  However, as scripture says, "he that is not
against us is for us" and I surely hope this optimistic mantra is
correct here.
Quoting a recent journal, "The VA and the Centers for Medicare &
Medicaid Services (CMS) plan to release a version of VistA
tailored to
medical practices in mid-2005.  The new software,
VistAOffice EHR, will
be released into the public domain."
Barbara Boykin is chairman of the VistA Software Alliance.
(I am so glad
that the VSA accepts the traditional meaning of "man" as
hu-man and not
"male".  It just makes the English so much less Gordian.)
The web site is: http://www.vistasoftware.org/
This organization has a nine--member BOD; the "founding
board members"
are Document Storage Systems, Inc, Hewlett-Packard,
InterSystems Corp,
Medical Alliances, Inc., Medsphere Systems Corp (a friendly
face, eh?),
Oleen Healthcare Info. Mgt., Perot Systems Corp., and Sea
Island Systems
(another friendly face).
Beginning Oct 1, 2004, CMS will begin an intense effort to interest
primary care docs in adopting HIT through the state PROs
(professional
review organizations, the non-profit, physician-led
corporations that
for about 30 years have contracted with CMS, the agency
formerly known
as HCFA, to fulfill Medicare's legal obligation to review
health care
quality.
Each PRO will be required to constructively aid physician offices in
choosing and installing HIT systems during the 8th Scope of
Work, which
runs from 1 October 2005 through 30 September 2007, and
will be graded
on the number of offices successfully implementing systems.
 (I speak as
a trustee of the Wisconsin PRO.)
Whether we are frustrated or thrilled by the details of
this effort, it
*is* an opportunity to encourage the development and use of publicly
available, licence-free software in the physician offices of the US.
Best wishes for a pleasant and peaceful finale to 2004.
Dan Johnson md
Menomonie, WI
.

<Tomlinson, Steven B.vcf>
[wr]
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will ross
technology project manager
suite 206
216 west perkins street
ukiah, california 95482
[voice]  707.272.7255
[fax] 707.462.5015
http://www.phoenixpm.org
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