WorldVistA Newsletter January 2006 The Directors and Officers of WorldVistA would like to take this opportunity to wish the VistA community best wishes for 2006 and provide a summary of last year's activities as well as an update on our plans for 2006. Last year was a very busy year for WorldVistA. 2005 saw an explosive growth of interest in VistA, and we are confident that this is only the beginning. The following is a summary of highlights from last year:
? VistA-Office EHR Project - The VistA-Office EHR project generated hundreds inquires from vendors and other organizations interested in learning more about VistA and VOE. The bulk of our time and energy had been devoted to responding to these enquiries and satisfying the objectives and evolving demands of the VOE project. ? Foundation building - The bulk of our work was devoted to "foundation building" and as such has had little visibility. The VOE project has provided the time and resources for us to put in place the tools and processes necessary to implement a software management life cycle which is much more in synch with the VA's "patch stream" process than a "release" based model. As many of you know VistA is continuously improved by the VA through a steady stream of incremental enhancements and fixes rather than "releases" ? Community Meeting, Boston - We held a very successful and well attending community meeting in Boston, graciously hosted by InterSystems in the spring. ? Reorganization of the Board - WorldVistA transitioned into a new phase of maturity when it won the opportunity to participate in the VOE project. This, plus our own self reflection and feedback solicited from members and partners, clearly indicated that WorldVistA needed to change to be able to respond effectively to the opportunities and challenges of our new role and responsibilities while continuing to meet the need of our expanding community. A key decision was to establish a clear separation between "governance" and "execution". Most of the operational action has been shifted from the WorldVistA Board of Directors to an executive level, leaving the Board responsible for long-term strategy and oversight but not responsible for daily operation. Our previous structure, although well suited to our "early growth" phase, became unwieldy and did not scale well. Our new structure establishes a more scalable, project-oriented model at the operational level providing for both better accountability and clearer authority. Maury Pepper chairs the new Board. K.S. Bhaskar, Joseph Dal Molin, Larry Landis and Rick Marshall are the other Board members. The executive team members are: Joseph Dal Molin as Interim President & VP Business Development, K.S. Bhaskar as Chief Operating Officer, Rick Marshall as Chief Technology Officer, Larry Landis as Chief Information Officer, Dave Whitten as Treasurer, Colin Smith as VP Special Projects, and Chris Richardson as corporate Secretary. Our planning for 2006 is on going and currently WorldVistA's key goals for 2006 include: 1. Implement the software management life cycle and migrate away from the release-based model for the majority of improvements and fixes to a continuous incremental enhancement stream. A key part of this is to continue to strengthen the formal relationship we have established with the VA through the VOE initiative. 2. Expand sources of funding and implement the sustainability plan developed as part of the VOE project. 3. Add VPE and Fileman 23 to the VistA code base 4. Implement a membership program and attract a significant number of individual and organizational members. 5. Organize one major VistA Community Meeting as well as a number of smaller meetings as possible throughout the year. 6. Dramatically increase the number of people associated with WorldVistA by providing opportunities to participate and benefits of membership. For development, we plan to set up a technical meritocracy (along the lines of organizations such as the Apache Software Foundation.) Once again, we would like to wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2006, and we look forward to a great year for the VistA community. Maury Pepper Joseph Dal Molin ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD SPLUNK! http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=103432&bid=230486&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list Hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
