VA Eyes Cash Prizes To Generate Ideas For New Health Record

The Veterans Affairs Department plans to develop its next generation electronic health record through challenges and cash prize competitions, a tactic that proved successful on previous projects such as one to provide patients with online access to their health records.

In a notice posted on the federal contracting website FedBizOps.gov last Thursday, VA said it plans to use competitions authorized by the 2010 America COMPETES Act  (America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science) to run challenges for the next generation of the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture, known as VistA Evolution. The new version is to replace the original version of VistA in use since the 1980s.

VA said VistA Evolution will “promote improved outcomes in quality, safety, efficiency, and satisfaction in healthcare for Veterans and their family members through supporting patient-centered team-based care, enhancing clinical reasoning, and providing Electronic Health Record (EHR) system interoperability with the DoD and other healthcare partners.”