Software that was developed to care for Vietnam war vets is being adapted to make affordable healthcare information technology available worldwide.
A non-profit corporation called WorldVista plans on adapting the program called Vista (Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture) beyond the borders of the US to developing countries. Having a complete unified hospital information system has clear advantages when you are looking to computerize medical information but the implementation will not be without difficulty. This is certainly an ambitious and worthwhile project.
The Vista program is an open source system that was created by the US Department of Veterans Affairs and is being used in 170 hospitals and 600 clinics to keep track of thousands of Vietnam vets. The Indian health service and several other medical centers outside the US also use it. According to a BBC news report, one of the features of the software is its medication management capability which has reduced errors by 90%.
The WorldVista group is hoping to foster an international community of doctors and programmers who will work on the software and adapt it to their local needs.
Posted by rsk at December 20, 2003 09:48 AM