Moving the open source agenda require that NHS Trust submit Expressions of Interests (EoI) for open source projects under NHS England’s £260 million Technology Fund by the deadline on 31th July. Over recent weeks I’ve been persuaded that there would be real value for the patients, the NHS and the UK health informatics industry in the creation of a UK version of an open-source EHR, and VistA would be a good place to start.
Excellent article. Open source Electronic Health Record (EHR) solutions like VistA, RPMS, OpenEMR, OpenMRS, etc.are definately viable alternatives that deserve further exploration. There are also many other other high quality open source health IT solutions for public health, PHR, HIE, research, disaster management, etc. that may also be useful to the NHS - see OHN Resource Knowledgebase. One thing I've noticed as other countries have started to use VistA (e.g. India, Jordan, Mexico) is that they install the 'core' software, then hire consultants to train staff in their country, and finally produce a derivative version of VistA that meets the unique needs of their countries. This also has the added benefit of being a job creator for their economy. - Peter Groen, Senior Editor, OHN