Few hospitals go paperless using free VA software

In a country where just 1.5 % of US hospitals have fully computerized records, West Virginia has created a paperless records system for its state-run hospitals and nursing homes serving the indigent elderly and mentally ill. The state did it on the cheap by using an electronic medical records system built by the Veterans Administration with taxpayer dollars, saving millions in software licensing fees charged by commercial software vendors. The VA software, known as VistA, is open-source software and it includes features such as a bar-coding system to track drug dispensations.