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Beauregard Memorial Hospital implements Medsphere Systems OpenVista EHR

Medsphere Systems Corporation, the provider of open source healthcare enterprise solutions, announced that Beauregard Memorial Hospital, a 60 bed, acute care and community hospital in DeRidder, Louisiana, will implement Medsphere's OpenVista electronic health record (EHR) solution to improve clinical outcomes through automated patient care and enhanced communication. As a rural, acute and primary care facility, Beauregard is on track to fully and meaningfully deploy OpenVista by June 2010 and become eligible for financial incentives as outlined by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

"As one of many small, rural hospitals in the U.S., we are excited to demonstrate how a hospital of our size can afford to fully implement an electronic health record system. With the strong commitment from our healthcare providers and Medsphere's support, we are excited to offer our patients high-quality healthcare supported by proven health technology," said Ted Badger, CEO at Beauregard Memorial Hospital. "OpenVista and Medsphere's associated support services comprise the most efficient path to meaningful use and federal stimulus funding. The Ecosystem we're building will change the way healthcare is provided in this country, and Beauregard shared that vision with us from the first time we met,"  said Michael J. Doyle, president and CEO of Medsphere.

The flexibility offered by open source technology enables Medsphere to provide a portfolio of clinical transformation services by tailoring OpenVista to the specific needs of Beauregard. The hospital offers general medical and surgical care for inpatient, outpatient and emergency room patients, and participates in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Open source healthcare IT solutions have gained momentum nationally in 2009, starting with West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller's (D-WV) recent call for the public funding and use of proven open source EHRs to improve patient care. The Rockefeller bill, called the Health Information Technology Public Utility Act of 2009, would require the federal government to develop standards for an interoperable health IT system and create an open source electronic health records solution available to all healthcare providers at little or no cost.

OpenVista is the commercialized version of the VistA EHR created and developed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) over 20 years ago and credited with helping turn the agency into a national leader in quality patient care. Using open source code available from the VA through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), OpenVista can be implemented much more quickly and cost-effectively than comparable vendor proprietary solutions.

Source: Medsphere Systems Corporation