VA plans emerging tech center for healthcare
By Mary Mosquera
Thursday, August 27, 2009
The Veterans Affairs Department wants to build an advanced research center dedicated to prototyping new health technologies, including systems to manage privacy and security to foster health information exchange and improve the quality of veterans’ healthcare.
The VA asked firms to submit proposals for building an “Emerging Health Technologies Advancement Center,” to be based in San Diego, Calif., to assess technology that would become available within five years, conduct tests of commercial and prototype software and participate in pilots and proofs of concept.
VA issued the request-for-proposals on the Federal Business Opportunities Web site. Responses are due Sept. 11.
Among the pilots, RFP said the center would demonstrate prototype software for personal identity verification as well as work on health information interoperability based on standards from the Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel.
That project would build on a previous VA security pilot using VA’s HealtheVet, VA’s Web portal to veterans’ healthcare services and benefits, according to the Aug. 20 RFP.
In another pilot, center would demonstrate a software interface for the Electronic Patient Consent Directive Pilot, in which veterans could sign patient consent directives electronically.
Veterans receive 75 percent of their healthcare from non-VA providers, according to the notice. Consequently VA and non-VA providers must be able to exchange pieces of a veteran’s health record to get a complete medical picture of any patient care episode. The RFP said VA wants to develop a system to house consumer preferences and organizational policies related to approving or rejecting requests for such records.
The technology center would also support security and privacy work on another VA pilot related to its participation in the nationwide health information network (NHIN) project, according to the RFP.
