Ignacio Valdes Implementation Log/Episode1

Do What and Why?

Jul 11 2008, 4:28 pm

Hello all,

I have received the go-ahead from Intracare leadership to implement

VistA at Intracare myself. I have been asked to create a log or a

guide to do this so here goes. I'm going to think out loud:

The perennial question of Which VistA? reoccurs. After some hunting on

http://worldvista.org I found: http://worldvista.org/World_VistA_EHR

which probably isn't a very good page since it leads you to this:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=193652&package_...

really confusing page with about 12 different files to download. Which

one? Had to call David Whitten who could not give me an answer just

yet because he was at the airport. Then I found this page:

http://worldvista.org/Software_Download which lead me to the more

reasonable this page:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=193652 but I'm

still confronted with 2 choices that I do not know which one to get so

I'm going to go with the February 1st one. Uh-oh, that puts me back

into 12 different files to download page, none of which are obvious as

'the one' to download and install.

Feedback for VistA community:

1) If I wasn't part of this community, have good contacts and

persistent I would have already quit.

2) Website and sourceforge are confusing, not very helpful for

choosing 'the one' VistA to install.

3) Really need a pointy clicky installer for Linux and Windows. Even

Plone has that now.

Stay tuned. If anyone can point to me where to go next, that would be great.

-- IV

2. Greg Woodhouse

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:31:52 -0700

> 1) If I wasn't part of this community, have good contacts and

> persistent I would have already quit.

I think I would have, too. Things are pretty confusing right now. Let's hope

they don't stay that way.

2) Website and sourceforge are confusing, not very helpful for

> choosing 'the one' VistA to install.

Hmm... Maybe someone can comment on the role of WorldvVstA EHR and its

relationship to other offerings out there.

3) Really need a pointy clicky installer for Linux and Windows. Even

> Plone has that now.

I agree.This seems to be a bit of a touchy subject, and I've found

suggestions that there should be an installer (GUI or not) are met with

strong resistance. Certainly, creating an installer would be a non-trivial

exercise, and I can understand that there is a lot of flexibility in how

VistA can be installed and configured, but that hardly seems like a

compelling reason not to create an installer. Honestly, I wonder if there is

simply no consensus on how to proceed. A secondary issue is versioning and

source code control. Unfortunately, this is another area where the necessary

consensus is missing.

3. K.S. Bhaskar

Local: Fri, Jul 11 2008 6:43 pm

Subject: Re: [Hardhats] Re: The Intracare Implementation Log Episode 1

I wonder if there is a confusion between *installing* VistA and

• configuring* VistA. Installing VistA is truly simple - with a SemiVivA

Lite, for example, it is one command. Configuring VistA for a

production environment is still way more complicated than it needs to

be. However, ultimately, configuring VistA is going to be harder than

installing an office suite or an operating system, since it must be

configured to the "business rules" (yes, I hate that term, as Greg does)

of the practice, and the complexity of configuring VistA for a clinic

will be broadly comparable to the decisions to be made when setting up a

practice.

-- Bhaskar

4. kdtop3@gmail.com

Bhaskar, I would like to respectfully disagree. It is "easy" once you

figure out which of the many disks to download. Is it Viva? Is it

SemiViva? The WorldVistA needs to have a big button that says

"Download now" and have that down the version that they need to start

using the system, not a demo version.

I agree with Greg that there is resistance to getting a do-it-yourself

version ready for users. I get the idea that we want people to go to

installers. But even that is confusing. Where is the clear direction

of how to contact one? And I have heard that those that have reached

installers are being quoted unreasonable rates to install the system

for them.

If we are wanting to get the product out the door, it doesn't seem to

look that way.

Kevin

5. I, Valdes

No confusion. Installing is one step, configuring another. Thinking

out loud about my experience, WorldVistA, the hardhats community and

http://worldvista.org website needs to simplify and have a much

clearer and easier pathway on that critical first step. Check out

http://plone.org/products/plone. Simple and clear. that page services

the casual installer and the real techies. One can now have a Plone

server and website up in 10 minutes with point and click. It wasn't

always that way and took years for the community to get there. It is a

vast improvement.

-- IV

6. Nancy Anthracite

There is a wiki, and the folks that have access to the WorldVistA web site are

limited, in number and in bandwidth, but the wiki at http://vistapedia.net

can be edited by many, many people. We could use some help with

straightening out this problem . One a wiki page got it straight, it would

be a lot less work to copy that page to the WorldVistA site than to write it

from scratch . We would appreciate the help.

The Sourceforge site naming "convention" is a mess, and we know it. To change

the name of a file on Sourceforge, you have to upload it. The uploads can

really be a bear with these large files, and once the upload fails, you have

to start it again with a file with a different name, or wait 24 hours and try

again. These uploads of several large files can keep the uploader tied up

for countless hours, and if you had a naming convention in mind when you

started, it is blown out of the water by the time you finish.

That said, we think a nice html page explaining what is what with links to the

correct file is the answer, but there are so many pressing things to deal

with that nobody has done it yet, so we really would love to have someone

take that on as a project.

7. I, Valdes

Why not put it all onto the WorldVistA website? How big is it? -- IV

8. Nancy Anthracite

These files are big and the bandwidth on Sourceforge is huge.

9. Sam Habiel

I agree; took me a while to figure out who's what--Viva, Vivita,

SemiViva, VOE, FOIA, OpenVista, and the list goes on. I was going to

answer this question, but, where did WorldVista/VOE 1.0 go? There is a

source of confusion, and it's simple: there are two sourceforge

websites, both called WorldVista! Talk about confusing...

http://sourceforge.net/projects/worldvista-ehr/

http://sourceforge.net/projects/worldvista/

Anyways, the first one has the released WV EHR. If you are good at

GT.M and Vista, install GT.M from its own website, configure it, then

download the Global and the Routines (there's a zip file for that) and

extract those in their respective directories, etc etc. Nancy has a

good guide on how to do that. That's the approach I prefer because I

get to do the entire set-up myself, and I could fix problems with it

since I did it.

If you want a ready environment to start with, go with the SemiViva

Lite. It has GT.M and WorldVista already configured so that you can

start rolling... SemiViva Pro needs more work on your part to

configure GT.M. Disclaimer: I haven't tried the SemiViva lately.

Sam

10. Nancy Anthracite

If you would like it, there is a script here that will download the files for

you and do and install VistA on a Debian or Debian derivative system.

http://opensourcevista.net:8888/NancysVistAServer/WVEHR-VOE1.0-Install/

Or you can use these instructions to install it on Cache. Download the

Cache.dat and readme file from the WorldVistA EHR site on Sourceforge for

that.

http://opensourcevista.net:8888/NancysVistAServer/InstallingVistAWithSingleUserVersionCache5.2.doc

--

Nancy Anthracite

11. I, Valdes

How about Fedora 9? -- IV

12. Nancy Anthracite

I think you will have to change the script to useradd instead of adduser for

Fedora.

13. Nancy Anthracite

and also I don't think Fedora will use apt

14. r...@rcresearch.us

Fedora uses yum.

15. Rick Jung

My name is Rick Jung and I'm the COO of Medsphere. In an attempt to assist the

market in objectively answering precisely this question Medsphere has undertaken

the effort to compare the various VistA offerings available. A detailed document

will be posted for comments in the near future.

If you'd like a preview feel free to call me. My direct line is 949.297.8182

Regards,

Rick Back to Log Homepage