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srsly?

You're claiming VISTA as being the most state-of-the-art EMR on the planet? Based on MUMPS?

I'll grant that it's probably the most mature and stable EMR on the planet. But for most state-of-the-art, I'd probably have to go with an integrated Cerner Millennium installation.

That is just as stupid a statement as disagreeing that Linux is not state-of-the-art operating system because it based on C, an old language created in the 1960's (just like MUMPS is)

If MUMPS wasn't a good language, it would have disappeared. Since it has been around just as long as C, and flourished in its own niche, you just sound like an idiot saying that it isn't state-of-the-art.

unless the only measure of "state-of-the-art" is glitzy GIFs and screens. I think its crazy to say glitzy is better than proven software that saves lives. I'll take a good doctor with a good medical computer system, even it it is based on "old" technology any day over a good doctor that has to fight the "new" technology just to find out my vital signs.

Now, I work at the VA which has the most advanced, state of the art electronic medical record system on the planet, and I defy anyone to point to a large scale health care system that has one that's really better in the aggregate. So, here at the VA we don't have the same barriers to adoption that private sector hospitals consider as the great majority of our patients are with us for life, so there is value in tracking them for the long term. I certainly don't agree with the private sector barriers philosophically, but practically speaking I understand the thought processes.

srsly?

You're claiming VISTA as being the most state-of-the-art EMR on the planet? Based on MUMPS?

I'll grant that it's probably the most mature and stable EMR on the planet. But for most state-of-the-art, I'd probably have to go with an integrated Cerner Millennium installation.

Like it or not, your medical information is going to become electronic. Microsoft isn't the first company to propose an Electronic Health Record -- not by far. The Cerner Corporation, for example, has been working modernize the health record since 1980. There are at least two universities in the U.S. which host a major in Medical Informatics, a program specifically designed to produce experts in this very subject.

Try to fight the Electronic Health Record is like trying to fight the use of computers in any other field -- it's inevitable.

This article is informative and all, but it doesn't give us techies much insight on the companies that are providing the IT behind these major healthcare organizations. There are a handful of major vendors out there, and a lot of smaller ones. These vendors not only create jobs in their cities, but require the facilities that use the software to hire teams of tech savvy individuals. Only a small percentage of hospitals are using Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and the process for health care organizations to convert from paper charts can sometimes take years. These roll outs give a lot of jobs to consultants too. I'm really surprised the article didn't mention that. I was trying to think of some good links I could give you all that would list some major vendors, but I can't think of what would be fair since I work for a vendor that supplied a software to a number of the healthcare organizations mentioned in the article.

Here's a link to HIS talk though, it's a forum for those of us in the healthcare IT industry.

http://histalk.blog-city.com/

If you read it you'll see a lot of company names repeated, in alphabetical order here are a few of the big ones that come to mind (difinitely not a comprehensive list): Cerner, Epic Systems Corp., GE Healthcare, McKesson,

You can lock down your servers, your network, etc. But as you imply, insiders are the big threat.

To avoid insider abuse at hospitals, doctors' offices, etc., you need to let insiders you're watching everything they do. This isn't "big brother", it's common sense. You can't necessarily lock everyone out of everything, but if they know you're looking they'll more likely play by the rules.

An article about the Michigan health system (they use the P2 Sentinel product from Cerner and SenSage) was informative, a useful case study. They monitor insiders, and everybody's happier.

You can lock down your servers, your network, etc. But as you imply, insiders are the big threat.

To avoid insider abuse at hospitals, doctors' offices, etc., you need to let insiders you're watching everything they do. This isn't "big brother", it's common sense. You can't necessarily lock everyone out of everything, but if they know you're looking they'll more likely play by the rules.

An article about the Michigan health system (they use the P2 Sentinel product from Cerner and SenSage) was informative, a useful case study. They monitor insiders, and everybody's happier.

"we're like the Microsoft of healthcare IT, basically" Ahh, the true quote of someone who works for Cerner.

but without software to run on that cluster, what's the point?

Software companies that have customers who demand 24 x 365 availability write the software that runs on OpenVMS. A few examples are listed below:

http://www.cerner.com/public/
http://www.idx.com/
http://www.hosp.misyshealthcare.com/Products/
http://www.epicsys.com/

If you are creating fat clients, .NET is the way to go, most likely. If you want web based, J2EE has a lot of open-source compenents you can use to get your application networked via HL7
HAPI is a java-based open source HL7 library:
http://hl7api.sourceforge.net/
JEngine can quickly route HL7 messages to & from your application:
http://jengine.org/
If your software is open source, or you can use open source components, OpenEMR can give you a leg up for clinical demographic and medical data management. It's neither .NET nor J2EE, rather it is PHP/MySQL
http://www.openemr.net/index.php

If you will be interfacing to large hospitals or medical centers, you will most likely bump into Cerner http://www.cerner.com/ or McKesson HBOC http://www.mckesson.com/homeflash.html. While these companies are a bit out of scope for your question, you might want to reserach them as they are the biggest players in the field. Good luck, it is an interesting time in the health care IT field.

Cerner, one of the largest vendors in the clinical marketplace, is porting to Java and Websphere right now. Their java base product should hit in 2006.

Think about the reasons they would choose Java. If they go with .net then they are tied to a M$ OS and M$ tools. By developing in Java they can run on M$, Linux, UNIX, OS/390. Their code will scale and will port when one or more of the platforms is no longer popular or effective.

So you need to ask yourself. Are you targeting low hanging fruit or planning to grow and have your code grow with you?

I can't remember where i read about it, but it must've been here.. there are actually IP Phones made by one company that are wearable. Their primary market is hospitals. Ah yes, a quick google found me the product link.