VA, Citing Taxpayer Savings, Seeks Open Source EHR

The Veterans Affairs Department has started to move toward an open source model to modernize its acclaimed VistA electronic health record (EHR) system. VA expects to begin conversion to an open source iteration of VistA (Veterans Integrated Systems Technology Architecture) by summer, said VA Secretary Eric Shinseki in an April 1 announcement that it will release a draft document requesting vendors to offer proposals.

VistA’s legacy technical architecture makes for difficult and expensive maintenance and upgrades, VA said. Over the past year, VA has examined the implications for moving to open source for VistA and is convinced that it is the best model for veterans and taxpayers, said Roger Baker, VA CIO. 

“Our primary goal is to re-ignite the innovative processes that made VistA such a great EHR system. We also want to ensure that vendors of proprietary products can easily and confidently integrate their products with VistA to make them available for VA to purchase and use in our facilities,” he said in the VA announcement.

The department has pledged to deploy to all its facilities the open source version of VistA once it awards a contract for what it calls a custodial agent: an organization which has experience in establishing and operating an open source community, its processes and resulting products.