Houston Confirms VistA GUI-Scheduling Has Landed

While coming equipped with powerful text-based scheduling capabilities, the private-sector VistA and WorldVistA(tm) Electronic Medical Record system communities have long wanted but lacked a Graphic User Interface scheduling front end. Ignacio Valdes, MD, MS reports "The wait is over. Sam has done it."

Sam Habiel is a skilled software engineer for the Indian Health Service (IHS). The IHS runs an electronic medical record system RPMS that branched from its Veterans Affairs VistA parent system some years ago. In that branch, GUI-scheduling was a must so IHS built one some years ago.  Doctor Valdes was seeking a better scheduling user-interface for his staff at the hospital he works at: "The staff at the hospital is capable, hard-working and usually work under demanding conditions. Most find the text-based scheduling user interface to be use able but not optimum. The community has been talking about doing GUI-scheduling for the last 5 years and have made some false-starts towards it." After spending time together at the June 2009 VistA Community Meeting in Bethesda, Maryland Valdes impressed upon Habiel the need and Habiel responded by bringing the RPMS GUI-scheduling over to WorldVistA in a 3 week sprint.

"Yes, it's teeming with bugs, but it works!" Habiel in Washington state wrote on the VistA Hardhats email list. Valdes, who lives in Houston, Texas responded: "Roger Sam, Houston confirms on a fresh install that GUI scheduling has landed." and posted a screenshot here. Calling it a "very significant event. Not only does this add GUI-scheduling, it also enables .Net client programming." and "Many small steps for a software engineer, one giant leap for VistA." Valdes notes that this will greatly broaden the reach of VistA, facilitating its use in ambulatory care. "This community owes a debt of gratitude to Sam Habiel."