I worked at the VA for a number of years supporting this system at one of the medical centers. A lot of very talented and very dedicated VA employees built this system side by side with their users. Every software package had input from their users every step of the way, version by version. The doctors, nurses, social workers, etc. continuously went back and forth with the developers fine tuning what features they needed etc. Their users loved it so much that they went to bat for it when the mainframe folks at VA tried to kill it years ago. (See my link below for more info on this.) Originally it was called DHCP, or Decentralized Hospital Computer Program, and later named VISTA. This system is written by federal employees using a language called M (or MUMPS.) MUMPS is like PERL in that it is not stored compiled, can be run from a command line, etc.
Later on SAIC wrote VA and got a copy of all this software for the cost of the media and sold it back to DoD as CHCS, or Composite Health Care System, to run the DoD hospitals, FOR TWO BILLION DOLLARS US$. ANYONE can write to the VA under the FOIA and get a complete set of the software for the cost of media and shipping.
This software is used by a number of other institutions, including Indian Health Service (IHS), and even a country in Europe (can't remember the name off the top of my head) runs their entire national health care system on it. Some VA folks even flew out on their own vacation time and set it up for them.
The VA has been ahead of the private sector hospital industry in medical data processing for years (DHCP is nothing new - has been around for a long time developing into its current state.) For example, VA had paperless medical charts long before any private sector hospital did.
If you want to know more about the real story behind this, go to www.hardhats.org and read about the community supporting this. This website has been up for quite a while now. Combine this with the worldvista site and you will have a pretty good picture of the project and how it came to be.
Yeah, but while NIS touted its ad-blocking, cookie blocking, etc. features, it came with preset "allow" rules for a long list of advertizers.
On top of that if you wanted to upgrade you had to uninstall the previous version, which removed the changes you made (such as blocking those slime^H^H^H^H^Hethical businessmen NIS had so thoughtfully enabled sending you ads) and when you installed the new version, it of course re-installed those nasty "permit" rules.
I stopped using it because I felt it was dishonest to say you are selling me ad blocking and then have a list of companies (who probably paid NIS) who are pre-approved to send you ads etc. Now I use CA's firewall/av/ad blocking which also blocks web bugs and does not sell you out by preconfiguring certain sites to be able to send you ads.
Symantec/Norton lost all of my trust because of this and I could not recommend that anyone use their products. If they would do this to you, what else would they do without telling you? This behavior is right up there with Intuit's adware requirements in Quicken which breaks Quicken if you remove the adware.
Has any one taken a look to see if the old rumors that Win2K is more stable because it uses open source code is true? If so, would that make Microsoft in violation of the GPL?
So based on the info in his article, all you have to do to stop this is create an entry in your/etc/hosts file pointing sitefinder.verisign.com to a non-answering ip address such as 127.0.0.1 (assuming you are not running a web server on your desktop.) Once BIND is fixed comment it out.
The VA did a lot more than just creating VA FileMan. They developed and continue to improve a complete suite of applications to manage every aspect of a Hospital or Clinic.
And since this is written by public employees, it is in the public domain, as in FREE. Since it is written in M(aka MUMPS) you are provided with full source code.
The DoD liked the code so much they bought it from a company called SAIC (who got the code for free) and paid SAIC $2B (two billion dollars) for it.
The VA calls it VISTA (used to be called DHCP) and DoD calls it CHCS. you can read about it at www.hardhats.org.
One of the things that make this software unique is that from day one, all of the features have been driven by the various specialists (i.e. doctors, nurses, lab techs etc.) making it highly relevant to their respective jobs.
This package includes a paperless medical record (which was implemented in a number of VA facilities several years ago), full HIPPA compliance, full ability to bill Medicare, other insurance companies, etc. using HICFA forms and DRG/ICD9/CPT codes with analysis and optimization.
This same software is used by at least one country in Europe to run their entire medical care system.
This software has been in development for many years and was started long before the private sector even began to look at comprehensive computerization of hospital/medical care.
You are a bit late. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has been developing a fully integrated suite of applications to run its entire system of hospitals for years, and since it was done by public employees, it is available for free to anyone. It is written in M (or MUMPS) so you always get the source code. This package, called VISTA (used to be called DHCP) runs every aspect of their hospital system, from counting calories in your breakfast to full reporting to Washington, DC, and includes a true paperless medical record. The package has had HIPPA in mind for several years, long before the private sector started becoming concerned with it. And yes, it can bill Medicare as well as insurance companies using DRG's, CPT, etc. In fact, SAIC got a full copy of everything from the VA a few years ago and sold it back to the Department of Defense for $2B (two Billion dollars) and called it CHCS (Composite Health Care System.) If you want to find out more about it go to http://www.hardhats.org/ and all the info is there, including links to get the software from the VA. The package is so good, there are other countries which use it for their national health care system. This suite was driven from the bottom up by the users in each area of the hospital, so the Nurses decided what the Nursing package needed, the Psychiatrists decided what the Psychiatry package needed, etc. Read the site - it is impressive!
Slashdot Mirror
So if the MPAA reverse engineers the encryption on P2P clients, can they be prosecuted under the DMCA?
I worked at the VA for a number of years supporting this system at one of the medical centers. A lot of very talented and very dedicated VA employees built this system side by side with their users. Every software package had input from their users every step of the way, version by version. The doctors, nurses, social workers, etc. continuously went back and forth with the developers fine tuning what features they needed etc. Their users loved it so much that they went to bat for it when the mainframe folks at VA tried to kill it years ago. (See my link below for more info on this.) Originally it was called DHCP, or Decentralized Hospital Computer Program, and later named VISTA. This system is written by federal employees using a language called M (or MUMPS.) MUMPS is like PERL in that it is not stored compiled, can be run from a command line, etc.
Later on SAIC wrote VA and got a copy of all this software for the cost of the media and sold it back to DoD as CHCS, or Composite Health Care System, to run the DoD hospitals, FOR TWO BILLION DOLLARS US$. ANYONE can write to the VA under the FOIA and get a complete set of the software for the cost of media and shipping.
This software is used by a number of other institutions, including Indian Health Service (IHS), and even a country in Europe (can't remember the name off the top of my head) runs their entire national health care system on it. Some VA folks even flew out on their own vacation time and set it up for them.
The VA has been ahead of the private sector hospital industry in medical data processing for years (DHCP is nothing new - has been around for a long time developing into its current state.) For example, VA had paperless medical charts long before any private sector hospital did.
If you want to know more about the real story behind this, go to www.hardhats.org and read about the community supporting this. This website has been up for quite a while now. Combine this with the worldvista site and you will have a pretty good picture of the project and how it came to be.
Yeah, but while NIS touted its ad-blocking, cookie blocking, etc. features, it came with preset "allow" rules for a long list of advertizers.
On top of that if you wanted to upgrade you had to uninstall the previous version, which removed the changes you made (such as blocking those slime^H^H^H^H^Hethical businessmen NIS had so thoughtfully enabled sending you ads) and when you installed the new version, it of course re-installed those nasty "permit" rules.
I stopped using it because I felt it was dishonest to say you are selling me ad blocking and then have a list of companies (who probably paid NIS) who are pre-approved to send you ads etc. Now I use CA's firewall/av/ad blocking which also blocks web bugs and does not sell you out by preconfiguring certain sites to be able to send you ads.
Symantec/Norton lost all of my trust because of this and I could not recommend that anyone use their products. If they would do this to you, what else would they do without telling you? This behavior is right up there with Intuit's adware requirements in Quicken which breaks Quicken if you remove the adware.
Caveat emptor
Has any one taken a look to see if the old rumors that Win2K is more stable because it uses open source code is true? If so, would that make Microsoft in violation of the GPL?
So based on the info in his article, all you have to do to stop this is create an entry in your /etc/hosts file pointing sitefinder.verisign.com to a non-answering ip address such as 127.0.0.1 (assuming you are not running a web server on your desktop.) Once BIND is fixed comment it out.
The VA did a lot more than just creating VA FileMan. They developed and continue to improve a complete suite of applications to manage every aspect of a Hospital or Clinic.
And since this is written by public employees, it is in the public domain, as in FREE. Since it is written in M(aka MUMPS) you are provided with full source code.
The DoD liked the code so much they bought it from a company called SAIC (who got the code for free) and paid SAIC $2B (two billion dollars) for it.
The VA calls it VISTA (used to be called DHCP) and DoD calls it CHCS. you can read about it at www.hardhats.org.
One of the things that make this software unique is that from day one, all of the features have been driven by the various specialists (i.e. doctors, nurses, lab techs etc.) making it highly relevant to their respective jobs.
This package includes a paperless medical record (which was implemented in a number of VA facilities several years ago), full HIPPA compliance, full ability to bill Medicare, other insurance companies, etc. using HICFA forms and DRG/ICD9/CPT codes with analysis and optimization. This same software is used by at least one country in Europe to run their entire medical care system.
This software has been in development for many years and was started long before the private sector even began to look at comprehensive computerization of hospital/medical care.
You are a bit late. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has been developing a fully integrated suite of applications to run its entire system of hospitals for years, and since it was done by public employees, it is available for free to anyone. It is written in M (or MUMPS) so you always get the source code. This package, called VISTA (used to be called DHCP) runs every aspect of their hospital system, from counting calories in your breakfast to full reporting to Washington, DC, and includes a true paperless medical record. The package has had HIPPA in mind for several years, long before the private sector started becoming concerned with it. And yes, it can bill Medicare as well as insurance companies using DRG's, CPT, etc. In fact, SAIC got a full copy of everything from the VA a few years ago and sold it back to the Department of Defense for $2B (two Billion dollars) and called it CHCS (Composite Health Care System.) If you want to find out more about it go to http://www.hardhats.org/ and all the info is there, including links to get the software from the VA. The package is so good, there are other countries which use it for their national health care system. This suite was driven from the bottom up by the users in each area of the hospital, so the Nurses decided what the Nursing package needed, the Psychiatrists decided what the Psychiatry package needed, etc. Read the site - it is impressive!