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:
- Dirty Medicine: How Medical Supply Behemoths Make America’s Health Care More Dangerous and Expensive
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”).