Medsphere And Indian Health Service Reach Accord On Multi-Year Contract For Healthcare Network Services
CARLSBAD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Medsphere Systems Corporation, the leading provider of Open Source healthcare IT solutions, today announced a five-year agreement with the federal government's Indian Health Service (IHS) to provide support, maintenance and development for the agency's Resource Patient Management System (RPMS) electronic health record (EHR) solution. The new contract extends and expands the existing relationship between Medsphere and IHS and continues uninterrupted IT support for healthcare among native populations.
Under the terms of the $9.7 million contract, Medsphere will provide support, training and development for VueCentric®, a graphical user interface (GUI) framework used in hundreds of healthcare facilities nationwide serving Native American and Alaska Native populations. Within the IHS healthcare delivery network, VueCentric serves as the GUI for RPMS and enables a modular approach to the configuration of disparate application views in a single tab for a group of users or a single user. As part of the contract, Medsphere will provide user support for assigned RPMS applications and develop interfaces between RPMS and third-party applications.
Medsphere plans to include VueCentric in a growing portfolio of Open Source healthcare tools and is in the process of cataloging and removing non-open components before release. OpenVista, Medsphere's flagship offering, is a commercialized version of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' VistA solution, which was developed over more than 20 years ago and is now in use at healthcare facilities and care delivery organizations across the country.
"This contract award underscores Medsphere's diverse technical strengths, innovative technologies and successful past performance for IHS," said Michael J. Doyle, president and CEO of Medsphere. "We are pleased to continue working with IHS and to help support the ground-breaking work it continues to achieve in public health."
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) recently named Cherokee Indian Hospital, which employs VueCentric and RPMS, a 2008 Davies Award recipient in public health for excellence in the implementation and use of health information technology. The Cherokee Indian Hospital Authority is operated by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and is a power user of RPMS in both ambulatory and inpatient settings.
The roots of VueCentric can be found in the VA's Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS). VueCentric is designed to be easily deployed and incorporates functionality from applications created in different environments. Built as a technical infrastructure and not an end-user application, VueCentric integrates and displays components of both commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) applications and those from VistA/RPMS. The result is an easy-to-use, intuitive Windows-based desktop that provides easy access to RPMS and VistA systems.
About Indian Health Service
The Indian Health Service (IHS), an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, is responsible for providing federal health services to American Indians and Alaska Natives. The provision of health services to members of federally-recognized tribes grew out of the special government-to-government relationship between the federal government and Indian tribes. This relationship, established in 1787, is based on Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, and has been given form and substance by numerous treaties, laws, Supreme Court decisions, and Executive Orders. The agency is the principal federal healthcare provider and health advocate for Indian people and its goal is to raise their health status to the highest possible level. IHS currently provides health services to approximately 1.5 million American Indians and Alaska Natives who belong to more than 557 federally recognized tribes in 35 states.
About Medsphere and OpenVista
As a disruptive force in healthcare information technology, Medsphere is revolutionizing the industry by delivering commercially supported Open Source software based on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' proven VistA EHR. The product of 20-plus years of development and more than $8 billion invested, VistA enabled the transformation of the VA into the nation's most efficient and clinically effective healthcare organization. Currently VistA contains roughly 2.1 billion clinical documents, 2.76 billion orders, and 1.51 billion images. As the commercialized version of VistA, Medsphere's OpenVista is a portfolio of products and professional services for hospitals, clinics and integrated delivery networks. OpenVista is currently used by over 20,000 individuals, including 2,500 physicians and contains hundreds of thousands of medical records. Medsphere addresses healthcare's capital constraints through an innovative business model:
A unique subscription-based pricing model minimizes upfront costs. The Healthcare Open Source Ecosystem and Medsphere.org portal coordinate a unique grassroots community of customers/subscribers, partners and developers driving OpenVista innovation and providing a parallel development and support structure.
Medsphere's experienced team of healthcare technology professionals and unique suite of implementation tools deliver a fluid transition to a comprehensive healthcare information technology solution.
Founded in 2002, Medsphere is backed financially by Azure Capital Partners, Thomas Weisel Venture Partners and EPIC Ventures (formerly the Wasatch Venture Fund). Medsphere clients include Midland Memorial Hospital, Midland, Texas; West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (WV DHHR); Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County, Rock Springs, Wyoming; Lutheran Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York; and the federal government's Indian Health Service. For more information, visit http://www.medsphere.com and http://www.medsphere.org.
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