12/03/2014    Michael L. Brody, DPM

What's the Use of Meaningful Use? (H. David Gottlieb, DPM)

I have been involved part-time in the VA system
for over 25 years and have been using CPRS and
VistA since it was implemented at my VA facility.

In reference to all the posts about CPRS (VistA)
the EHR System used by the VA Systems, I would
like to point a few things out:

*It is freely available for download to anybody.
In fact, the very first EHR I installed at home
when playing with systems was VistA
*The backend runs on Linux servers and was not
built for Windows computers
*The front end CPRS is written in Delphi and is
built to run on Windows computers
*I believe that the system at the VA is one of the
best EHR systems available today.
*I do not feel that this is a good system for a
podiatry office.

If you are comfortable with Linux and using a
command line then it is easy to install and run.
But then the question is "Who are you going to
call? " when something breaks. With every program
things can go wrong and especially with a EHR
system you need support. The next question is who
is going to teach you how to use the system?
VistA is a very robust and powerful enterprise
level EHR. Many large teaching hospitals have
implemented this software and it works great for
them. Many companies are doing very well
installing the software, training the staff to use
the software, and supporting the software.

The government has made the program free and it
works great, but the government is not going to
set up a support desk and training desk for you.
You can download it at http://www.hardhats.org/.
There is an extremely active community who
contributes to the code and uses the program.
Even if you go with VistA and CPRS you will want
to have training and support and you will probably
want to pay somebody for that service. The
government has provided us with a free fully
functional EHR system, They just do not provide
us with training and support for that software.

That leaves you with three choices
1 ) Use VistA and CPRS from the free download
without training and support and accept the risks
associated with that situation
2 ) Use VistA and CPRS and pay somebody to train
you and support you
3 ) Use another software package and pay somebody
for the software and training and support.

In my opinion, the most important factor is does
the software support the business of your
practice. A number of years ago, before I became
involved in Podiatry Specific EHR systems I was
involved in the Hardhats community and I had VistA
installed on one of my computers. It ran just
fine. I then made the decision that it was in the
best interest of my practice to have a commercial
software package that was built for a podiatry
office and that is when I became involved in
podiatry-specific EHR programs.

Michael L. Brody, DPM, Commack, NY

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