[openhealth] Re: Open VistA Community Proposal
I couldn't agree more with what Matt said. Perhaps it's incumbent upon us to provide some examples/whitepapers/proof/etc of how the VA will benefit from this proposed relationship. It's very likely that they do not understand that the virtuous spiral which worked so well inside the VA to develop DHCP/VISTA can be extended to include a larger domain and all will benefit. - Original Message - From: Matthew King To: open-ehealth-collaborat...@googlegroups.com Cc: Hardhats ; openhealth@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 12:42 PM Subject: Re: Open VistA Community Proposal Awesome Fred! I have a list of things, but Nancy will have a better one, so I will defer to her. I also think Nancy would make a great point person on our side of the arrangement. On the other hand, a small list of key actionable items is preferable to an exhaustive laundry list. IMHO, the most important piece by far is the recognition inside the VA that partnering with the outside community is a real benefit to their mission, which is ONLY to the veterans. Until that is internalized with some document, it will be hard for the VA to have a consistent interface with the community and any gains can be lost with a simple change in personnel at any one of many levels. By establishing that benefit in some official way, MOUs and other agreements with be much easier and gains will be easier to sustain. We desperately need the complete VEHU site and the ICD lexicon (OK, I couldn't resist putting at least a couple of things in.) matt On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 1:29 AM, fred trotter fred.trot...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, At the CONNECT conference, Brian Behlendorf, Kolodner and several other VA employees who might wish not to be named helped me get a 2 minute audience with the CTO of the VA Peter Levin. We exchanged information and agreed to email. The very fact that there is a CTO of all of the VA, rather than just seperate departments is a huge development, this is a tacit acknowledgement that the VA is a technology creating organization (what a CTO does) rather than a technology managing organization (what a CIO does). A few days later I sent him a typical (for me) rant, with about ten links to the various things I have written about the VA and VistA. I told him that I though the attempt to proprietary portions of the code was a bad idea and that the centralization of the development of VistA (as opposed to other VA IT functions) was a bad idea. If any of you have read my blog you can have a pretty good idea of what I put in the email. I basically complained about every failing of the VA that I have heard at the WorldVistA or other FOSS conferences. I tried to have a more positive tone than my standard over-inflammatory style at the prompting of Nancy (thanks for that) and other more calming voices. The response that I got back was amazing. He essentially said that he agreed with many of my points, and even sent me some of his own writing that correlates with some of the ideas in my letter. His one criticism was that I was not -asking- for something that he could act on. He specifically asked for a shorter actionable proposal to fix the problems between the VistA community outside the central VA and the VistA community inside the central VA. So what do we want from the VA? I can think of several very specific things that I might include in a response. I will throw them out here for community comment and then send a letter based on the consensus (if there is one) on the issue. Here is what I would like to see the VA do. a.. Create a bridge-person: Create a role to interface between VistA-inside and VistA-outside. Fill that role with someone who is capable of speaking VistA and open source. Someone like Brian Behlendorf, a federal employee who serves as the community manager for the CONNECT project. That person would be expected to go to WorldVistA conferences etc etc and provide a face for this collaboration. b.. Overturn the moratorium of local VA hospital VistA development. c.. Reinvest in local VA hospital VistA instances. Centrally managed instances of VistA, with locally deployment. Flawed VistA modules from one hospital should not take down the VistA instance of another hospital. d.. Empower the bridge-person with a VistA Community Portal. That portal should provide the following services: a.. Allow for the submission of improved VistA components back into the VA, to be evaluated as Class III code for possible adoption by local VA hospitals. b.. Those submissions should always be public unless they are security issues, and then they should be made public immediately after being confirmed-patched/denied-ignored c.. Publish a list of approved licenses for contributing VistA components back (probably from proprietary friendly licenses like Apache, Mozilla,
Re: [openhealth] Suppressing Sensitive Info From Free Text
can-of-worms 1. How good does it have to be? Is 5% leakage of sensitive information OK? 2. Another view: ALL of the information is sensitive. 3. Another view: The patient MUST have input as to who can see what. /can-of-worms - Original Message - From: Will Ross To: openhealth@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, March 02, 2007 10:58 AM Subject: [openhealth] Suppressing Sensitive Info From Free Text I'm looking for a tool to suppress sensitive information (e.g., HIV status, etc.) from free text clinical notes prior to allowing the notes to be published from a protected, physician-only area into general circulation patient records for the clinic. What existing FOSS solutions are available? With best regards, [wr] - - - - - - - - will ross chief information officer mendocino health records exchange 216 west perkins street, suite 206 ukiah, california 95482 usa 707.462.6369 [office] 707.462.5015 [fax] www.mendocinohre.org - - - - - - - - Getting people to adopt common standards is impeded by patents. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, BCS, 2006 - - - - - - - - [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Re: [openhealth] CCHIT biased towards proprietary software??
It worries me when a single organization is in a position to set the criterion for certification and set the price. If being certified is required as entry to some markets, then the organization is in a position similar to a government regulator. To break up this monopoly, I would suggest that others must be allowed to compete for your certification dollars -- all following the same standard criterion. They can compete based on price, service and whatever else appeals to the customer. -mlp- - Original Message - From: Fred Trotter [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: openhealth@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 5:29 PM Subject: Re: [openhealth] CCHIT biased towards proprietary software?? It sounds like there is little consensus for having any special status for open source software. Certainly not enough to warrant a group letter. Are there any more thoughts on how much a certification should cost? -FT Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/openhealth/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [openhealth] [Fwd: [GPCG_TALK] Open Source Software: A Primer for Health Care Leaders]
Tim, I'd be interested to hear why you feel that way about the report. I have read comments by others praising it. Perhaps they have missed something. -mlp- - Original Message - From: Tim Churches [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: openhealth@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 11:15 PM Subject: [openhealth] [Fwd: [GPCG_TALK] Open Source Software: A Primer for Health Care Leaders] This report (see below for URL) may be of interest to subscribers of this list. I haven't read the entire document, but a glance at the section titled Licensing for Open Source reveals that the authors don't understand what they are talking about. Sigh. Nice cover art, though. Tim C Open Source Software: A Primer for Health Care Leaders Forrester Research March 2006 As information technology in the health care industry evolves from an administrative tool for billing and bookkeeping to a clinical tool for improving the quality and efficiency of health care, the scope of information sharing is expanding beyond the walls of individual institutions. Achieving this level of integration will require that software models overcome a host of technical obstacles, and that they are accessible, affordable, and widely supported. This report examines the development and distribution of open source software, a well-established software development model—and a potential solution to the looming challenges of integration—characterized by collaboration among individuals and organizations with common interests, sharing intellectual property, and a commitment to standards. It explores open source basics, including the advantages open source presents, and how it works. The report also offers industry perspectives, explores the potential impact on EMR systems and regional health information networks, and compares open source to traditional, proprietary software. While not heralding the end of commercial software vendors, the report concludes that conditions are ripe for open source solutions to take root in health care, and that it will likely become the standard for capturing, sharing, and managing patient information to support quality care. It also notes that health care businesses have the opportunity to take the lead and drive the shift to this new model. Document Download (325K) Open Source Software: A Primer for Health Care Leaders http://www.chcf.org/topics/download.cfm?pg=ihealthfn=OpenSourcePrimer%2Epdfpid=453202itemid=119091 ___ Gpcg_talk mailing list Gpcg_talk@ozdocit.org http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/openhealth/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
