In an effort to modernize its health IT infrastructure, VA awarded Leidos a $29-million task order contract funding a year of work.
The Department of Veterans Affairs recently awarded Leidos a task order under the Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology Next Generation contract vehicle.
Systems Made Simple, a Leidos Innovations Corporation company, could receive up to $29 million if the company utilizes all one-year period of performance options. According to a recent press release, the task order calls for a one-year base period of performance as well as two one-year options.
Leidos will carry out its work under the T4NG program in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The program, which offers IT services ranging from technical services to systems engineering solutions, is geared toward modernizing VA health IT infrastructure. Specifically, the program is geared toward readying the VA to fully support the Repositories Program, an integral component of reaching government objectives for patient health data exchange and interoperability between government agencies.
The contract is the latest confirmation of the company’s ability to supply adaptable health IT infrastructure for government agencies at a time when VA is eager to optimize and modernize its health data exchange capabilities.
Health data exchange and interoperability between VA, the Department of Defense, and other external government agencies has been lacking in the past.
With the help of Leidos under this task order, the Administrative Data Repository, Health Data Repository, VA/DoD Identity Repository, and Veterans Information Solution will receive the necessary support, development, maintenance, and implementation planning for all existing and developing technologies.
“We look forward to continuing to provide innovative information technology solutions to the VA and continuing to support their efforts to share health data inside the agency, with the DoD, and other external partners,” said Leidos Health Group President Jon Scholl. “This program is vitally important to enabling the VA to provide the best care to our nation’s Veterans, and we’re proud to support our customer’s most important mission.”
Leidos spearheaded the bid including Cerner Corporation that won the DoD EHR modernization contract. Industry experts consider Cerner to be the likeliest candidate to meet health IT infrastructure for the expected commercial EHR technology to replace VistA at VA.
In a recent Black Book survey, Cerner was named the EHR company best suited to meet the needs of the Trump Administration’s VA initiatives judging by its high level of performance in handling four of the administration’s most pressing issues. Other EHR vendors participating in the survey included Epic, Allscripts, MEDITECH, and athenahealth.
In the summer of 2015, a partnership between Leidos, Cerner, and Accenture won the bid for a DoD EHR modernization contract. While Leidos was the prime contractor for the award, Cerner reaped the advantages of being part of the bid alongside the IT company.
Cerner’s success in meeting the requirements of the Trump Administration’s four primary initiatives compounded with its 2015 partnership with Leidos is good news for the EHR company in regards to its chances of becoming the official EHR system for the federal agency.
Given the successful partnership between Leidos and Cerner at the Military Health System, the VA EHR replacement project could end up with the two working together again to assist both the federal agency and DoD to achieve the interoperability and health information exchange objectives set by Congress many years ago. The homegrown VA EHR system was deemed more trouble than it’s worth and is most likely to be abandoned in favor of new off-the-shelf EHR system.
While Cerner is rumored to be the most likely candidate to provide VA with a commercial EHR replacement system, an official announcement on the federal agency’s decision is not expected until July.
Date:April 18, 2017