The U.S. Army is looking for a vendor to deploy WorldVistA EHR, an open source version of the Veterans Affairs Department's VistA medical record system, for the Iraq Ministry of Defense. It will connect with the government's healthcare system to enhance patient record-keeping and improve the level of healthcare in Iraq.
The WorldVistA EHR is used elsewhere in the Middle East, such as at the National Cancer Institute of Cairo University in Egypt, and in Jordan's national health system.
The primary location for training and EHR use in Iraq is the Al Muthana Military Hospital in Baghdad, according to an Oct. 14 announcement on the Federal Business Opportunities website. The hospital, which opened in 2009, offers care for medical conditions requiring hospitalization, emergency care, initial wound surgery, and post-operative treatment.
The EHR system servers will be installed and technical training will occur at testing and production areas other than the hospital but within Baghdad, according to the notice. Under the contract, the vendor will provide system configuration, integration, implementation, as well as functional user, management and technical training.
The United States government will not supervise or control the contractor, who is responsible to the Iraqi government.
According to the contract plans, within 60 days of its award, the vendor will develop requirements, purchase all the necessary equipment, train in Arabic up to 100 clinical and administrative personnel on the EHR system and other technical staff to establish and maintain WorldVistA software and hardware. The vendor will also install servers at a staging area with connectivity to the hospital, while the Iraqi Defense Network will be extended to user/client locations, making the WorldVistA system operational in the testing environment.
The contractor will then transition the database to the production server and provide on-site technical assistance for 60 more days.
