RE: Greenbelt, MD meeting; VistA rollout plan template

[Peter . Groen2]

All of the flag waving aside, the VA developed and has been using VistA (formerly known as DHCP) for two decades now and continues to be committed to the continued enhancement and use of the system. The VA is not a commercial firm and has never made any effort to 'market' VistA to others. Because some 50% of all clinicians in the US receive some measure of their training at VA medical centers, because we have strong affiliations with over 100 medical schools across the country, the system gets seen and used by an awful lot of folks. In addition, the system was adopted and modified by the US Department of Defense and the Indian Health Service to meet their needs and is used in hundreds of their facilities across the world. The software is made available to anyone who wants it thru the Freedom Of Information Act to the public domain.  However, again I must emphasize that the VA is not a private company and makes no effort to market this system. It has simply been an extremely cost beneficial system that meets the needs of our organization and will for many years to come.

 

Studies showing VistA is cost beneficial, improves quality of care, etc. There have been numerous articles and studies over the years produced nationally and locally, from clinical perspectives, administrative perspectives, technical, etc. but unfortunately the VA has not established a major repository of these since we don't market or hype the product. We certainly did the CBA and ROI studies needed back in the early 1980's to obtain the budget to initially develop and implement DHCP that satisfied senior VA management, Congress and GAO. We did comparative studies with the three or four private sector solutions that were implemented in some VA hospital in the 1980's and showed that the VistA system was more effective and cost beneficial and these were public records. JCAHO has looked closely at the VA and VistA and the system has been roundly praised, various awards have been received for VistA Imaging and our VistA Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS), and their are numerous internal management, patient quality, safety, research, and other studies done related to VistA that don't usually get collected and published outside the agency.  We have an annual CPRS Conference where many of these internal studies are presented and shared, so they might be available.

 

VistA has moved out into the public domain and is being used in various countries. There is a Finnish version of VistA, a German translation, Arabic, French, Spanish... and a number of hospitals in various countries use VistA. In the USA, some states have acquired and use VistA in their public health system facilities, e.g. Washington State. Recently Samoa implemented VistA and many others are looking closely at it as organizations are starting to emerge in the private sector or Open Source community which can support the system, e.g. www.medsphere.com, www.hardhats.org, etc. For some more detail on the VA VistA system you can go directly to the VA web site at http://www.va.gov/vista_monograph/

 

There seems to be a growing audience of fans of VistA and I apologise for some of their overly enthusiastic and somewhat protective comments about the system. The system is of tremendous value to the VA, we are commited to continually enhancing it in accordance with our HealtheVet-VistA long range IT strategy and plans, and will continue to make it available to the public domain as required by law.  However, we are not a private company that is in any way marketing a product and trying actively to get others to use it.

 

If you would like some more specific information, feel free to contact me at my email address above. Thanks.

 

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 9:04 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Greenbelt, MD meeting; VistA rollout plan template

John et al:

  <<Then I guess I'm somewhat surprised that the US government isn't
actively solving the health information technology problem that has
been so eloquently described on numerous occasions ("one jumbo jet
crashing every day") with the lowest cost, best piece of software for
the job.  After all, if the government pays for healthcare, it can also
actively exert control over its quality.>>

Forgive me if this has already been answered on this list.  You assert that VistA is the best piece of sofware for the job (especially well suited for addressing the patient safety issues).  What is the basis for this claim?  Can you point me to the studies that have been done and published that support this assertion?

Just out of curiosity, can anyone from the VA disucss the total life cycle costs for the development and maintenance of VistA and point me to the Return on Investment Analysis for the system and what the current ROI is calculated to be?  If we are to make a strong business case for the use of open source in general and VistA in particular then this kind of data is very useful. 

Thanks

DaveR