The Open Service Electronic Health Alliance (OSEHRA) www.osehra.org, a nonprofit organization supporting the open source community of users, developers, service providers, and researchers is determined to advance EHR software and related health information technology. Also OSEHRA hosts software repositories for applications such as VistA and Blue Button.
OSHERA’s vision is to use their collective resources to enable users to work with developers, solution providers, and policy makers in order to evaluate a wide range of software innovations, lower product development costs, achieve faster times to market, and drive adoption of open source EHR technology.
Recently, it was announced that the Department of Veterans Affairs www.va.gov has released their open source policy. The policy was actually signed in November of 2014 but its public release was repeatedly delayed and was finally released the beginning of June.
The VA’s open source strategy related to health IT in both the public and private sector will be highlighted at OSEHRA’s 4th Annual 2015 Open Source Summit to be held at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center in Maryland July 29 to 31, 2015. Secretary of the VA Robert A. McDonald as keynote speaker for the Summit will speak on the morning of July 30th.
Another leader in the field, LTG (ret) James B. Peake, M.D. Chairman of the OSEHRA Board of Directors and former Secretary of the VA, notes, “As we approach the fourth anniversary for the Summit, we are grateful to the VA for their continued support of open source.”
Plenary sessions include presenters form the VA, HHS, State of Wyoming, plus others that will cover topics on policy, analytics, and payment reform. This year, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan will describe its rollout of VistA, an initiative by which Jordan has embraced an open source strategy to deploy a robust and cost-effective national EHR system.
In addition, attendees will hear panel discussions from experts in the field on how to access both domestic and international market opportunities, how to collaborate on global state-of-the-art solutions for EHRs, PHRs, developments in population health analytics, modernizing VistA, VistA tools and technology, clinical and open source innovations, interoperability standards, and mobile health.
About 400 industry leaders, federal and state government officials, academics, clinicians, developers, and researchers are going to participate in the 2015 Summit with representatives coming from countries all over the world.
The Summit is being sponsored by DSS the returning Conference Sponsor, as well as InterSystems, ASM Research, PwC, BITS, GT.M, Kitware, KRM Associates, MSTI, and Technatomy.
To register or to find out about sponsorships, go to www.osehra.org.