Why don't more hospitals use the VA EMR?

[cpants]

It's by far the best EMR I have used, and from what I've read it's one of the cheapest to implement.

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[deleted87716]

It's by far the best EMR I have used, and from what I've read it's one of the cheapest to implement.

I can think of a lot of reasons.

VistA was designed for the VA system, and requires modification to work elsewhere.

There is no central support infrastructure, and no corporate "backing" for the software. Essentially, it's free to download, but the government won't help you fix any problems that you encounter.

Modified versions of VistA are being sold and supported by a handful of third-party vendors, but they don't have much of a track record at this point.

The ongoing costs of supporting an EMR installation generally far exceed the cost of implementation. It remains to be seen whether VistA is really any cheaper in the long run than any other system.

 

[MOHS_01]

He's probably not talking about VisA -- he's probably talking about CPRS. It's simple, functional, and adequate -- but there are better ones out there.

I had originally hoped that they would make this open source or nominally priced and available to all, but, alas, that is not to be. This is not necessarily because I like it -- but it would go a long way in showing some sort of good faith on the part of the government (as opposed to the mandate to purchase an expensive product with no way of recovering that cost outlay policy that is currently being pursued).

 

[deleted87716]

He's probably not talking about VisA -- he's probably talking about CPRS. It's simple, functional, and adequate -- but there are better ones out there.

CPRS is just a Windows GUI on top of VistA.

 

[MOHS_01]

CPRS is just a Windows GUI on top of VistA.

I know -- I meant to address that but got a phone call. Sans VistA, CPRS has the functionality of a screensaver. I do not believe that the interface was being made available to the public, however -- or was it?

 

[deleted87716]

I know -- I meant to address that but got a phone call. Sans VistA, CPRS has the functionality of a screensaver. I do not believe that the interface was being made available to the public, however -- or was it?

Yes, they just renamed it to OpenVista CIS: https://medsphere.org/community/project/openvista-cis

 

[clueless1]

I dunno...I hate the Vista system. It's hard to read labs, getting the info you want in an easy-to-understand way is sometimes tough, and everyone just copies/pastes every note ad infinitum, propagating errors and erroneous information to the point where I frequently don't trust half of what's on there anyway. I've seen much better EMR's in individual hospital systems throughout my career to this point...

 

[serimeri]

I hate drudging up old threads but my friend is going somewhere where they use this. Does this EMR allow you to sign charts at home?

I use Epic and have always been able to do work at home because of it. Thanks