Hi Bruce, > Does anyone have a idea of where open source is going > in the U.S. Health and Human Services efforts to > promote universal ehr in the U.S.? I know there has > been (not surprisingly) some resistance from the > proprietary vendors, to early efforts to promote an > open source model.
I am WorldVistA's program manager for the HHS/CMS funded VistA-Office EHR effort and can tell you that the project is going full steam ahead. We have just entered the Beta field test phase and in parallel will be working on certifying VOE to meet the ONCHIT EHR certification standards. CMS has completely bought into the open source model of user driven, collaborative improvement and has decided that WorldVistA will become the open source "steward" for VistA Office. Concrete progress has been made in implementing the open source approach as we are about to integrate several community developed enhancements in VOE. We will also be sending code to the VA for inclusion in FOIA VistA to address requiements in the VA and achieves one of WorldVistA's long standing goals of establishing two way code sharing with the VA. Perhaps the most important element of our collaboration with the VA is synchronizing with their "patch stream" approach to fixing bugs and improving VistA. Last but not least, over the next few weeks we will be porting VOE to Linux as we have FOIA VistA, to make a full open source version avaialble for the server side. Will be glad to answer any other questions off list....unfortunately we will not be able to send anyone to the GSA meeting...but, coincidentally are organizing the next VistA Community meeting for late June at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh, PA.... that would also be a good opportunity to expose folks from PMS to the open source model and VOE? Cheers, Joseph .... Joseph Dal Molin VP, Businsess Development, WorldVistA www.worldvista.org 1.416.232.1206 Bruce Wilder wrote: > A few months ago, I posted a proposed resolution and > asked for comments, and many of you kindly reponded. > When this came up for debate on the floor of the > Pennsylvania Medical Society House of Delegates, here > was an unsuccessful movement to remove all the > references to open source, but it was adopted without > amendment, but only for referral for decision by the > Board of Trustees. It was not adopted by the House of > Delegates (except for referral), primarily because > most of the Delegates did not really have an > understanding of what open source is. What follows is > what was officially adopted for referral for decision > by the Board. > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > RESOLUTION 05-404: ELECTRONIC HEALTH RECORDS (EHR) > > Resolved, That the Pennsylvania Medical Society > support law and public policy that promotes [sic] the > implementation of open source, cross-platform > interoperability standards; and be it further > > Resolved, That the Pennsylvania Medical Society > promote the availability of open source Electronic > Health Records (EHR) applications that meet the > requirements and goals of the Administration, to both > institutional providers and individual practitioners; > and be it further > > Resolved, That the Pennsylvania Medical Society > promote the development of EHR applications that are > compatible with an open source operating environment > or environments; and be it further > > Resolved, That the Pennsylvania Medical Society > promote the development of EHR applications and > standards of interoperability that permit the maximum > protection of personal health information that is > technically achievable, ABOVE AND BEYOND the > requirements of the HIPAA of 1996. > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Does anyone have a idea of where open source is going > in the U.S. Health and Human Services efforts to > promote universal ehr in the U.S.? I know there has > been (not surprisingly) some resistance from the > proprietary vendors, to early efforts to promote an > open source model. >
