DSS joins Open Health Tools Foundation
- 23 January 2009
DSS Inc., a leading US VistA developer has joined the Open Health Tools Foundation and announced it will open source the code for its vxVistA electronic health record (EHR) framework.
DSS says that with the move it has effectively removed the greatest obstacle to collaboration in the VistA community by providing their enhanced version of VistA under a commercially-friendly open source license that can be used to unite the VistA community.
In a statement Mark Byers, president and CEO of DSS, said "VistA deployments in the private sector have demonstrated that VistA can provide private hospitals and clinics with the highest quality Electronic Health Record in the shortest amount of time — for a fraction of the cost of competing products."
He added: “"We can lower the cost of health care while significantly increasing the quality of that care by implementing VistA across the United States."
The release includes commercial enhancements for non-U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs healthcare providers.
VistA is the open source EHR software developed by the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and widely used within its healthcare facilities.
VxVistA is a commercial implementation of an enhanced version of VistA. DSS says that since 1993 it has added over 100 enhancements to the VistA core.
DSS has also applied for membership in the Open Health Tools (OHT) Foundation. OHT is the leading non-profit organization for open source health care projects.
Skip McGaughey, executive director of Open Health Tools said, "We are very excited about DSS joining OHT and making such a significant contribution. The VistA technology has been used by millions of people and is the established benchmark for the industry. We are looking forward to helping DSS bring this technology to a worldwide community."
Byers explained, "DSS has been looking for an approach for the past two years to provide an open source version of vxVistA. OHT presented us with the kind of approach
The OHT Foundation is modeled after the Eclipse Foundation, one the most successful open source projects today. VxVistA will be released under the Eclipse Public License (EPL). By using the EPL, all members of the VistA community, including competitors, will be able to use vxVistA as the core framework for their products and innovations.
Open Health Tools CEO Skip McGaughey said, "Open source is all about collaboration and is increasingly being recognised as the currency in the new economy. This project is all about meeting an industry need and promoting standards to solve complex interoperability problems in health care."
