The VA and DoD currently run two of the largest healthcare systems in the world, those health systems though have had a rocky ride in terms of service. There have been ongoing issues integrating the Veterans Affairs health system and the Department of Defense health system. Now, however, there may be some hope that the two agencies will be able to share patient information through electronic health records.
The re-compete of the Integrated Electronic Health Record (iEHR) System Integration contract from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Department of Defense (DoD) Interagency Program Office (IPO) has been awarded to Systems Made Simple, Inc. Under this contract, SMS will provide systems integration and engineering support for executing the iEHR initiative.
Through the iEHR project the IPO aims to create data interoperability through a single, common health record between all VA and DoD medical facilities. The contract will enable these healthcare providers to access the health information of veterans and active military members across their lifetimes and leverage longitudinal patient records for determining treatment plans.
This is technically the second time this contract has been awarded to Systems Made Simple, they first won the award in 2012, but had to compete again in an open bid process. The current award falls under the National Institutes of Health Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center’s Chief Information Officer, Solutions and Partners 3 (CIO-SP3) small business contract vehicle.
Systems Made Simple is tasked with increasing interoperability between the two agencies, crafting a plan for building out a service oriented architecture (SOA), and creating a common patient data standard for both agencies. Systems Made Simple is a Veteran-owned business.
