WorldVistA develops and supports the global VistA community.

VistA: VistA is the largest integrated hospital software package in the world, and hospitals and clinics in many countries depend on it to manage such things as patient records, prescriptions, lab results, and other medical information. The use of VistA has been proven to improve patient treatment outcomes in many ways, including by reducing medical errors and by ensuring that clinicians can easily access all clinically relevant patient information. The U.S. government originally developed VistA for use in veterans' hospitals, so it is public domain. This means you already own VistA, no matter which country you call home.

WorldVistA: We formed WorldVistA to help make healthcare information technology more affordable and more widely available both within the United States and internationally. WorldVistA extends and improves VistA for use outside its original setting through such activities as developing packages for pediatrics, obstetrics, and other hospital services not used in veterans' hospitals. WorldVistA also helps those who choose to adopt VistA successfully master, install, and maintain the software. As the group of VistA adopters and programmers grows, we work to develop it into a collaborative, consensus-based, open-source community.

OpenVistA: A priority project for our community is the development and deployment of OpenVistA. Historically, running VistA has required adopters to pay licensing fees for the systems on which it runs: the programming environment (MUMPS) and the operating system underneath (such as Microsoft Windows or VMS). The OpenVistA project will help its adopters eliminate these fees by allowing VistA to run on the GT.M programming environment and the Linux operating system, both of which are open source and free. By reducing licensing costs, OpenVistA frees up money to be spent on medicine, medical professionals, and other resources more likely to directly improve patient care. Like all WorldVistA projects, the OpenVistA project not only provides adopters with the software itself but also transfers knowledge and expertise and builds long-term mutual support relationships between adopters and the rest of the worldwide VistA community.

We invite you to learn about the VistA software and to join our community.