VA Releases Open Source Policy Memorandum

The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has just made public an executive policy memorandum that mandates a thorough evaluation of "Open Source Software (OSS) solutions when [the] VA acquires software." The policy also calls for the Federal agency to consider the use of open source "development practices when VA develops software." The release of this policy places the VA as the leader in government agencies innovating through the use of open source software.

The policy was officially adopted last year, on November 4th, but according to an inside source, the VA has been unable to make an official public announcement. According to the source, the regular meetings that the VA holds with the press, where such a policy would normally be presented, are consumed by hostile questions from a press corps primarily focused on "the VA scandal." Thus the opportunity for a rational discussion with the press of the VA’s open source strategy, and how it plans to use open source to fix the VA’s software acquisition processes, has still not taken place.

The policy was drafted based on extensive comments provided by the community and government contractors in the past year, as well as extensive discussion with the open source community during last year's OSEHRA Summit. That Summit, which took place last September, was covered in detail by Open Health News in this article. During the Summit, VA’s CIO Stephen Warren gave a detailed presentation on the VA’s open source strategy during a half-day session that also included Red Hat’s CEO Jim Whitehurst.

Stephen WarrenThe VA’s open source strategy will be discussed again at this year’s upcoming OSEHRA Summit to take place in Bethesda, MD, July 29-31. Warren will again be one of the keynote speakers at the conference and Rick Avila, who played a critical role in the drafting of the VA’s open source strategy, will provide details on the policy in one of the breakout sessions. We should point out that for this year's Summit OSEHRA has expanded the focus of the conference. It reached out to other major open source projects and organizations in the health sector, asking them to participate in the Summit, as decribed by Dr. Seong Ki Mun, President and CEO of OSEHRA, in this article.

The VA is the first Federal government agency to fully embrace the Obama’s Administration US Digital Services initiative and the new Technology FAR (TechFAR) by focusing on open source solutions. The VA policy memorandum explicitly mentions the US Digital Services Playbook as reference manual for the adoption of open source in the agency.

OSEHRA has played a critical role in the development of the Administration’s open source policy. OSEHRA is the first open source code repository organization set up to coordinate the development of a public/private collaboration between a US government agency and an open source community.

This is of great benefit to both the private sector and the government as the private sector is able to receive updates to the VA’s open source VistA EHR as the government releases them, and the VA is able to bring some of the significant improvements to VistA being developed in the private sector. There are now more than 1,000 installations of VistA outside of the VA in the private sector, US states (New York, Tennessee, Idaho, and others), as well a large number of foreign countries.

The Open Source Advantage

The impact of the VA’s policy memorandum will extend far beyond the agency. Currently more than two dozen Federal government agencies are studying OSEHRA as a model for their own agencies. The VA’s own open source policy memorandum clearly articulates why the adoption of open source is a good idea. It states that “VA recognizes that there are numerous potential advantages to utilizing and relying upon Open Source Software (OSS) solutions in support of VA's mission.”

According to the policy memorandum, “Potential advantages of OSS solutions” include:

• Lower development costs
• Lower licensing costs
• Lower maintenance costs
• Faster introduction of community developed innovations
• Higher software quality
• Increased openness and transparency

Following the approval of the open source policy memorandum, VA staff at the Office of Information & Technology (OI&T) has been busy developing “guidance and materials for conducting a comprehensive evaluation of software systems for acquisition.” According to the policy memorandum, “this guidance will contain a set of OSS development practices to be considered when VA conducts software development projects including a minimum set of OSS development practices to be applied to all new software development projects.”

This year’s OSEHRA Summit is certain to be an extraordinary opportunity to find out more details of the VA’s open source strategy and see how it is working.

Appendix

VA Open Source Policy Memorandum

Department of Veterans Affairs
Memorandum

DATE: NOV 0 4 2014
FROM: Executive in Charge and Chief Information Office, Office of Information and Technology (005)
SUBJ: Consideration of Open Source Software (VAIQ# 7532631)
TO: Under Secretaries, Assistant Secretaries, and Other Key Officials

1. The intent of this policy is to establish requirements to thoroughly evaluate Open Source Software (OSS) solutions when VA acquires software and consider the use of OSS development practices when VA develops software.
2. VA recognizes that there are numerous potential advantages to utilizing and relying upon Open Source Software (OSS) solutions in support of VA's mission. Potential advantages of OSS solutions include: lower development costs; lower licensing costs; lower maintenance costs; faster introduction of community developed innovations; higher software quality; and increased openness and transparency.
3. Effective January 1, 2015, planning and execution of all VA software projects will consider ass solutions in addition to proprietary software solutions when acquiring software systems. The considerations outlined above will be evaluated and documented in addition to current software evaluation metrics, resulting in a comprehensive analysis of advantages and disadvantages when conducting software acquisitions. In addition, all VA software development projects, whether performed by VA or with the support of contractors, will consider the use of OSS development practices.
4. Throughout 2015, guidance and materials for conducting a comprehensive evaluation of software systems for acquisition, including the considerations outlined above, will be coordinated by OI&T Product Development. This guidance will contain a set of OSS development practices to be considered when VA conducts software development projects including a minimum set of OSS development practices to be applied to all new software development projects.
5. For additional information, please refer to the following sources:

• VistA Open Source Initiative, VAIQ 7239949, June 6, 2012
• Open Source VistA Deployment, VAIQ 7256522, August 31, 2012
• Modifications to Standardized National Software, VA Directive 6402, August 28,2013
• U.S. Digital Services Playbook (http://plavbook.cio.gov)

If you have any questions, please contact me at 202-461-6985 or have a member of your staff contact, Julie Harvey, at 727- 502-1381 or email [email protected].