Tennessee looks to VistA for new Medicaid IT system

With its DOS-era IT system approaching obsolescence, the Tennessee Department of Health is looking to build a new Medicaid IT system with the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture, the VistA open source platform.

“Though innovative when it was first implemented more than 20 years ago,” the Tennessee Department of Health’s Patient Tracking Billing Management System “is incredibly inefficient today,” said commissioner John Dreyzehner, MD. “The current system, centered on paper documents, is cumbersome and does not allow information to be shared efficiently.”

In its $577 million budget request for the 2013-2014 fiscal year, the agency is asking the Tennessee General Assembly for $9 million to build a new Medicaid system using VistA...VistA is appealing, Dreyzehner said, partly because of its open source license. “Its regular updating of features is also a plus as patient tracking needs and system requirements evolve,” he added...