VistA History

The origins of OnDemandCARE™ are actually the origins of a product now known as VistA.

The following list highlights the chronology of the most significant events in the evolution of VistA:

  • The concept that eventually became VistA was initiated and planned at the beginning of the 1970s by the National Center for Health Services Research and Development of the U.S. Public Health Service (NCHSR&D/PHS).
  • The program was launched in 1978 with the deployment of the initial modules in about twenty VA Medical Centers.
    • The program was named the Decentralized Hospital Computer Program (DHCP) in 1981.
    • In December of 1981 DHCP was written into law as the medical-information systems development program of the VA.
    • It was established at the beginning of the 1980s that the VA software was legally in the public domain
    • In parallel with the VA’s DHCP development, the Indian Health Service deployed a similar system throughout their hospitals and clinics as the Resource and Patient Management System (RPMS).
      • RPMS emphasized the integration of outpatient clinics into the system
        • Many of its elements were re-incorporated into the VA system.
  •  VistA systems therefore included elements from both RPMS and DHCP.
  • The name VistA was adopted by the VA in 1994, when they renamed DHCP.
  • Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the VistA system, the Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS) interface, and unlimited ongoing updates (500–600 patches per year) are provided as public domain software.
    • This was done by the US government in an effort to make VistA available as a low cost electronic medical record system (EMR / EHR) for non-governmental hospitals and other healthcare entities. 

For an in depth history of the VistA software go to the WorldVistA and/or Wikipedia websites at: