Welcome to a web site dedicated to fostering a virtual community for the worldwide users of the VISTA software!

At VistA's very core, represented by the shops on the left, you have all the tools and materials you need to build an economical, efficient, scaleable and integrated system. Add the VistA applications and you have a complete healthcare system.

Are you interested, but new to VistA? Read about Hardhats, VistA and DHCP.  Do you already know a little about VistA and want to learn more? Read on.

News and Recent Events     (most recent first)

• 2007 WIRED News Rave Award - Congratulations to WorldVistA and Hardhats members, K.S. Bhaskar,
  Joseph Dal Molin and Maury Pepper for receiving this award. This is an honor for WorldVistA and a tremendous boost for the VistA community.
  
  According to the Rave site: "Recipients of the eighth annual Rave Awards will be announced in the May issue of WIRED Magazine, on newsstands April 24, 2007 and on wired.com the same day. Winners will be celebrated at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco on April 27, 2007."
  
  
• VA Takes the Lead in Paperless Care - Computerized Medical Records Promise Lower Costs and Better Treatment (news article)
  
  
• VA Wins Harvard's Prestigious Innovations Award - "This Award is sponsored by the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and is administered in
  partnership with the Council for Excellence in Government." (press release)
  
  
• Mailing List has moved - The Hardhats mailing list moved, in early August 2006, from SourceForge to Googlegroups. This was done to provide a more reliable service and members are finding that the browser interface, for those that choose to use it, is easier to navigate. For more on how to join the list, follow this link.
  
  
• VistA in the News - The media reported that the VA's top quality patient care can partly be attributed to their hospital information systems (we know it as VistA).
  
  
• VistA Demo- The VistA Demo, found at the http://www.va.gov/vista web site, can now be run on your own machine. Send an email to Nancy Anthracite for instructions about where to download it for use on a Windows machine with a demo version for Caché™ from Intersystems. A version for use with Linux and GTM can be found on the WorldVistA site at http://sourceforge.net/projects/worldvista.
  
  
• Chapter 2 for the VistA Install - Starting CPRS.
  
  
• VA Technology: A Federal Threat to Private Sector Health Care IT? - Article in iHealthBeat.org.
  
  
• Health IT connectivity hinges on VA software - So goes the claim in the article in Modern Physician. Thanks to a sharp Hardhat for bringing this to our attention.
  
  
• VistA in Rural Hospitals - an article at NewsForge explores the issues of opensource solutions in rural hospitals.
  
  
• Vista Lite - A potentially huge development for the use of the VistA outside the federal government has been announced in the form of VistA Lite. A co-operative effort among several government agencies is preparing a version of VistA for easier adoption by the public sector. Here is an article from the CMS division of Health and Human Services.
  
  
• VPE version 12 - VPE now offers support on GT.M. It has been tested by several early adopters, so it is now time to release to the rest of us.
  
  
• VPE Commands Cheatsheet - Thanks to Jim Confer for sharing his handy VPE cheatsheet of neat VPE keystrokes and features.
  
  
• HHS exploring VistA - A recent Health Affairs article, Federal Health Information Policy: A Case Of Arrested Development, mentions "...HHS is exploring how to make VistA, the VA CPR, and a CPR developed by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) available on an open-source basis to physicians and hospitals that cannot afford commercial installions...".
  
• (more news....)

Learning More...

First, don't make the mistake of thinking VistA is an all or nothing proposition.   It is a very large collection of software and only a portion of it may be relevant to your needs and that is okay.

One of the easiest ways to begin exploring VistA and its potential for you, is to explore this web site. Another is to order the media or go online to get every bit of VistA that can be released to the public via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).  Its contents are readily accessed using your favorite browser.

Once you have a handle on what VistA is and how you might benefit from it, feel free to ask questions on the Hardhats mailing list. Hardhats is a user community that we hope you will find surprisingly friendly and helpful.

Now start browsing....