Use the VA's record system, and other letters

As a 30+ year veteran of the Veterans Affairs Department's VistA system and an Air Force veteran, I totally agree with your reporter (“The right and wrong decision,”) that the military should stop looking for off-the-shelf fixes, scrap their current system and implement the VA's VistA system.

I have had the privilege to implement the VistA system everywhere from the VA to the private sector and the international sector (Jordan) and have always received very complimentary comments for CPRS. From the unit clerks to the physicians, this is a system that they can and do use extensively for patient care.

Carolyn Kron

Chief information officer (retired)Amarillo (Texas) Veterans Affairs Medical Center

Lest anyone forget, healthcare was in the “cloud” long before anyone else (“Healthcare lags in moving to the cloud, survey finds,”).

Back in the '70-'80s, almost all HIT systems were run via hosted systems like SMS, McAuto and many other service providers. Then our tech gurus told us the better way to process data was via turnkey systems. So for some 20 years, that's what we did. Then they told us do it on personal computers and networks using the Internet.

Now they tell us go (back to) the cloud. That's the place to be. My guess is in about 10 years they will tell us we all should move back to turnkey high-powered personal systems called super-duper iPads.

Frank Poggio

The Kelzon GroupBarrington, Ill.