Dave makes a very important point...VistA needs to be able to, and can, integrate with other systems...and while a fully integrated system as Ignacio points out is much easier to work with the reality is that in most cases migration requires several steps. Secondly VistA doesn't have all the bases covered...e.g. obstetrics and pediatrics are not in VistA but are in its derivatives in the Indian Health Service and in the DoD system. It also does not have financials that would be up to what is necessary in most hospitals.
Joseph On Sat, 2003-01-04 at 10:15, David Forslund wrote: > At 09:47 AM 1/4/2003 -0500, John Gage wrote: > >It was Sherlock Holmes, I believe, who said, "Eliminate the impossible, > >and whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth." > > > >As I survey the field of open source medical software, I see the > >impossible with one improbable exception: VistA. > > > >I hypothesize that unless the open source community embraces VistA > >(embraces meaning starts throwing coding resources at it big time) that > >there will never be open source medical solutions. Not at the rate things > >are going now. > > > >At our hospital it was Cerner versus VistA. Cerner won. Had there been a > >vibrant, interested, critically massed open source community surrounding > >VistA, VistA would have won. > > > >Please recall that VistA is installed in every VA hospital and is beloved > >by users. Please recall also that today the VA is acknowledged to be at > >the forefront of patient safety initiatives, for example, barcode scanning > >of medications at the point of care. > > > >Should the open source community really ignore this open source initiative > >in medicine because it isn't C++ or Java? Should the open source > >community pretend that VistA is just another front end/back end/other end > >that can be connected with everything else with .Net or CORBA? > > Why should this be ignored? VistA can already be connect with CORBA: > http://www.esitechnology.com/library/downloads/esiobjects/EOdescription.asp > > At one time a CERNER engineer said they were implementing all of the OMG > CORBA interfaces, but I've not seen > evidence of this in their commercial offerings. > > We should be able to have full interoperability between CERNER and VistA so > that one could build a federated medical record system with both. One > should not have to use only one system in all hospitals. We all will be > losers if this is the result. Integrating heterogeneous systems is needed > if we are to really succeed in healthcare. I think the open source > community needs to take the lead in this area. > > Dave > > >You make the call. Patients are dying while you decide (ref IOM, etc.). > > > >(This posting is loosely in response to Dan's posting) -- Joseph Dal Molin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> e-cology corporation
