The Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded a $4.5 million contract to Ray Group International LLC, to refactor or reorganize the legacy code of VA’s VistA electronic health record system into modular components.
The contract supports VA’s Open Source Electronic Health Record Agent (OSEHRA) community to modernize VistA for open source and to contribute to the VA-Department of Defense integrated electronic health record (iEHR).
Besides refactoring the legacy MUMPS codebase, Tampa, Fla.-based RGI will also develop open, standardized interfaces that make component functions and services accessible, according to an Aug. 15 announcement in Federal Business Opportunities.
Refactoring the entire code base is a monumental task so RGI will focus on the application layer and the refactoring of one module to start. The contract is for one year with four more optional years available.
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These and other tools are critical to VA’s testing and deployment of open source VistA and services that will make it easier for developers to write new applications for clinicians to use.
OSEHRA is a nonprofit organization that aims to accelerate innovation in EHR software. The custodial agent for the open source community must approve software code for integration into the evolving VistA code base and interoperability of complimentary software.
