March 19, 2024

Acknowledgments

 

This post is an open letter to the larger VistA ecosystem, inside VA and out.

It acknowledges that it was current and former VA technologists; doctors, nurses and technicians; staff; reform administrator Kenneth W. Kizer; volunteers; and patients, who gave America, VistA.

It recognizes that without the example of VistA, envisioning; structuring; and assembling (from the mandates and subsidies created by the Affordable Care Act and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act), a NHS and VTHN, to implement in the private sector, what VA achieved in the public sector (including cost savings; delivery system reforms; and improved outcomes), would be almost impossible to accomplish. And because the VA’ example has validated the “socio-technical” health information technology collaboration model recommended by the CMU technical report—WE THANK YOU!

Also, as Project76/NHS does not share with the VistA ecosystem virtual community an information technology background, Project76/NHS is particularly indebted to James Herbsleb, Claudia Muller-Birnand, W. Ben Towne for their scholarship and authorship of the Carnegie Mellon University, Institute for Software Research – School of Computer Science, technical report, The VistA Ecosystem: Current Status and Future Directions and, to the University’s Software Engineering Institute for its partial funding of that effort.

Also, Project76/NHS is indebted and thankful to American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council-VistA Working Group members, too many to list, for their dispassionate and expert witness in their “VistA Modernization Report: Legacy to Leadership”.

Also, Project76/NHS is indebted and thankful to:

Finally, notwithstanding the great extent to which Project 76 executive decisions, health reform tactics and HIT strategic outlook have been informed by the CMU and ACT reports, I would be remiss not to acknowledge the influence of: my discussions and collaboration with New America Foundation(NAF) Senior Research Fellow, Phillip Longman; his book, Best Care Anywhere: Why VA Healthcare is Better than Yours (BK Publishing); and of his recent in-house “Concept Paper” (for NAF) in support of a “Vista Total Health Network” (a construction he has come to refer to as a “Civilian VA”).

 

 

 

 


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