Re: Federal office VistA coming

[Dr Molly Cheah]

We hear its Cache, right? The question is: Will WorldVistA port it to GT.M?
Will not be suprised if M21 will also port it as well. 
http://www.m21.uk.com/mission.php. In their mission statement -

We hope M21 heralds a new era for M.
The M legacy is known to those who have dealt with it over the last 
four decades. A great tool for delivering quality systems, resilient 
and capable of handling enormous users and transactions.

M was probably the most understated product to have such a long life 
in computing. Coming from a caring, sharing community it lacked one 
necessary ingredient for success - a marketing department.

Intersystems provided that and did a great job to repackage M and 
apply professional marketing to what was becoming an anorak product.

Their drive to incorporate all M implementors under their one umbrella 
showed a business acumen new to the M world.

Ironically the final take-over of Micronetics may have turned the tide 
against M. Many users felt that a monopoly situation from a relatively 
minor player in the database market would be retrograde. Some users 
felt that they were being pushed into Cach� through unjustified price 
rises and lack of support for the products they were comfortable with. 
Others felt that development of M as a product and the structure of 
the M community was now governed by one commercial organisation.

In short the previous M situation was reversed and it would be 
interesting to know whether M has declined in real terms over the last 
few years.

Recognising this situation and the opportunities for a commercially 
oriented organisation with a legacy in, and love of, M we have 
launched a new implementation of M.

We would not feel insulted if it were seen as a middle-road between 
Cach� and open source M. We recognise that there are many who would 
like the bells and whistles of Cach� and are happy to pay for them. We 
also recognise that open-source M has a role to play in continuining 
the M tradition and also providing a real source of M for those 
willing to invest the time and resource to it.

We would differentiate ourselves by offering a high quality 
implementation of M at a price that means we can maintain a support 
and administration structure for a world-wide distribution of M21.

Molly
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
.