VA's e-Health records could be national model

The nation's hospitals and doctors have been slow to adopt electronic health records, but new federal government money and incentives are on the way from Congress and the Obama administration.

The question is how to make it all work effectively. One option may be to take a closer look at the  Department of Veterans Affairs.  Nextgov.com reports that an open-source version of the Veterans Health Information System and Technology Architecture (VistA) may provide the platform for e-health networks nationwide and provide a variety of applications that can be easily shared among clinicians. Experts say the open system costs one-tenth of the price of commercial health IT software, offers ease of use and a lot of flexibility.

For more on adopting the VA e-Health system:
- see this nextgov.com article