Past Executives

WorldVistA Past Executives

K.S. Bhaskar, Former Director, President

Bhaskar is President of YottaDB LLC, in Malvern, Pennsylvania, where he manages the YottaDB software. (YottaDB on Linux is an open-source implementation of MUMPS and is part of the open-source free software stack for VistA.) By training and inclination he is an engineer, with degrees in electrical engineering and computer science, although he also holds a masters in business administration. He holds five U.S. patents, has written a number of technical articles, and has presented at technical conferences. He cofounded WorldVistA, serving as director from March 1, 2003 to March 14, 2004, and rejoined the board October 20, 2005, before retiring June 1, 2009.

Peter Bodtke, Former Treasurer and Vice President
Peter is a senior business analyst. He received a Master of Science Information Systems from Steven Institute of Technology where he studied information management and project management. Active in the VistA community since 2006, his contributions to WorldVistA range from delivery manager of the VistA Demo Appliance to preparing press releases and marketing collateral. Other activities include: coordinating the community public conference calls, managing membership services and supporting community meetings.

Peter Groen, Former Vice President Government Liaison

Peter recently retired from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He was the Director of the Health Information and Technology Sharing (HITS) program. He served in the federal government for over 33 years and occupied a number of senior Information Technology (IT) management positions within VA Headquarters and in the field. He served as the Director of the Medical Information Security Service, Director of VHA Telecommunications Services, Deputy Associate CIO for the Veterans Health Administration, as well as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the VA Medical Centers in Atlanta and Columbia S.C. He served as the national project manager for the VA Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS) as well as the VA Internet and VHA Intranet Redesign projects. Prior to coming to the VA, he also served in the U.S. Navy for six years. He was a supervisor of the Combat Information Center aboard the guided missile destroyer, U.S.S. Sellers DDG-11. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree from Clemson University and a Masters of Public Administration (M.P.A.) from The Pennsylvania State University. During his long federal career, he received numerous awards for outstanding performance and special contributions. He served five years as an adjunct faculty instructor at the University of South Carolina and is currently on the faculty of the Computer & Information Sciences Department at Shepherd University in West Virginia. He has been published in a number of journals and books over the years, primarily with a focus on information technology in healthcare.

Matt King, Former Chairman

Matthew King, MD is the Chief Medical Officer of Clinica Adelante, Inc, a community health center in the Phoenix, Arizona area. He obtained his Medical Degree from University of Washington, School of Medicine in 1989. He is board-certified in Family Medicine and completed his internship and residency at the Ventura County Family Medicine Residency Program. Before accepting the Clinica Position, Dr. King practiced a full spectrum of Family Practice in Okanogan, Washington, including Hospital and ER care, Obstetrics, Geriatrics and Pediatrics. Dr. King has been a computer hobbyist and open source advocate for many years and has experience with the Linux operating system, MySql, OpenOffice.org, Python and Perl. More recently, he has studied VistA and GT.M. In August 2007, Clinica Adelante, Inc, successfully brought WorldVistA EHR into production, using Linux and GT.M. His passion is using technology to improve Healthcare quality and patient outcomes."

Art Koga, Former Director

Art was the President and CEO of Blue Cliff, Inc., a software consultant and development company providing support to healthcare providers, institutions, and companies with the installation, configuration and customization of electronic medical records and project management/cost accounting system. He had over twenty years of experience with the electronic information services industry, was the Director of Telehealth Projects at the Pacific Telehealth and Technology Hui and served as the Executive Director of the Hawaii Information Network Corporation. His professional experiences included over twenty-five years of experience in government as an educator and administrator with the Hawaii State Department of Education, Policy Fellow at the U.S. Department of Education, and Legislative Analyst at the Hawaii State Legislature. In the mid 1980’s, he began training in Zen and served as the President of the Institute of Zen Studies in Hawaii.

Chuck Link, Former Board Member

Chuck Link is a Contracting Officer Technical Representative for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, working at the field office in Birmingham, Alabama. He has been a member of the VistA community for twenty years, and spent nine of those years working on VistA's Pharmacy applications. He is one of the Hardhats Volunteers, and served on the MUMPS Development Committee (MDC) for ten years. Link served as chairman of the MDC's Subcommittee 16 (Object-Oriented Language), and in that role led a working group in its biweekly conference calls and quarterly meetings, out of which grew the OpenVistA project and WorldVistA itself. He works at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs's Field Office in Birmingham, Alabama. Link was one of the founders of WorldVistA, and later served as a Director of WorldVistA during 2003.

Rick Marshall, Former Chief Technical Officer, Director

Is a VistA consultant in Seattle, Washington and has been programming VistA since 1984. He formerly served as a VistA computer specialist with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA): seven years of local support and development and twelve years of national development, including major work on both the TaskMan and FileMan packages for VistA. He has also written technical documents, including the 1995 Standard M Pocket Guide, and taught classes in FileMan and Kernel for more than a decade. He was a director of the M Technology Association for four years and vice chair of the MUMPS Development Committee, served as WorldVistA President, and cofounded WorldVistA.

Bob Miller, Former Board Member

Dr. Miller was an associate professor of pathology and biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and director of its pathology data systems unit. He was a member of the WorldVistA board from 2003 to 2005.

Stan Saiki, Former Board Member

Stanley Saiki was the Director of the Pacific Telehealth and Technology Hui (Hui), at Tripler Army Medical Center and the Director of Clinical Informatics at the VA Honolulu. He spearheaded research projects related to data warehousing, clinical telemedicine, and electronic medical record development. He served as Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Hawaii. In 1998 through 2000, he served as the Director of the University of Hawaii Telemedicine Project where he coauthored the UH Telemedicine Curriculum. He also authored database applications. In his role as Director of the Hui, he helped fund the development of OpenVistA, and later served as a Director of WorldVistA during 2004.

Kevin is a family physician in private practice in Greeneville, Tennessee.  His received his medical degree from Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, California.  Residency training in Family Medicine was at Florida Hospital in Orlando, Florida, followed by a fellowship in FP Obstetrics, also at Florida Hospital.  He has a long-term interest in computer science, and has turned to VistA as a medical records solution for his office practice.  He has installed, supported, and extended VistA for over five years with active daily use.  He is a private CPRS developer using Delphi Pascal and has created the TMG-CPRS product.  He also works with server-side Mumps code development and offers occasional contract programming services for VistA.  His vision is for VistA to be widely available to physicians in small office practices for an affordable amount.  This segment of the medical community has traditionally underserved, as for-profit corporations pass them by and target lucrative hospital contracts.