VA starts its search for health systems tech integrator

The Veterans Affairs Department has embarked on market research efforts to aid its development of a contract to hire an integrator that can connect various systems across VA’s Community Care Network.

CCN is the department’s program for connecting veterans with health providers in their own communities when VA cannot provide timely or accessible care in its own facilities. CCN’s scope covers medical visits, behavioral health, urgent and emergency care, specialty surgeries, dental, and pharmacy needs.

In a Sept. 10 sources sought notice, VA describes its need for a health systems technology integrator to help establish enterprise integration and data capabilities for operating across different systems.

VA describes its current environment as defined by three concurrent large-scale transitions, including its dual electronic health record operations. VA is deploying the Oracle Cerner EHR with an eye toward full reach for sometime during the 2030s, while continuing to operate the legacy VistA record at the majority of facilities.

The department is also consolidating its CCN structure from five regional networks into two, plus migrating from legacy financial systems to a new Integrated Financial and Acquisition Management System.

VA envisions the integrator as the main party responsible for responsible for connecting all of the department’s clinical, administrative, financial, and CCN environments into a common operating model.

The request for information also includes a series of questions for industry to consider in putting together their responses, which set no page limit for company information but do cap the technical information at 50 pages.

VA is interested in how respondents validate transactions that cross organizational boundaries and systems the respondent does not control, have previously worked with multi-payer and federal systems, and details on capabilities in training and capability transfer.

Lack of control is a key element of VA’s market research as the RFI makes clear that VA plans to maintain ownership over the target architecture, data model and underlying intellectual property.

Responses to the RFI are due by 12 p.m. Eastern time on Oct. 2.