The Veterans Affairs last week made a set of contract announcements that gets the ball rolling on its joint venture with the Defense Department to build a lifetime electronic benefits and health record for military service members and their families.
The contracts set up management services for the Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record (VLER) project as well as solicit firms to evaluate communities where the VLER could be tested.
President Obama last year identified the VLER, which would carry all administrative and medical information of military service members from the day they enter service throughout their lives as veterans, as a priority for the administration.
In the first deal, VA said it will award a $3.9 million contract to Avow Consulting Partners Inc., a small Oak Hill-Va.-based firm that specializes in project management, to help manage the Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record (VLER) project.
Under the contract, Avow will design, develop and provide program management services for VA's VLER Enterprise Program Management Office over a total of three and one-half years beginning Feb. 26.
In a typical program management services contract, a vendor coordinates funds and staff across the program's individual projects, manages risk to the program and assures that outcomes are met on schedule and within budget.
In a separate announcement, VA also said it is looking for vendors to conduct performance evaluations of health "communities" it will identify to operate pilot tests of early versions of a VLER system.
The VA and DOD have already chosen San Diego as the first "VLER Health Community," where VA and commercial healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente have announced a pilot project to begin sharing electronic health information facilities. DOD will begin participating in the next few months, according to announcements made last earlier this month.
Four more communities will be added in the next few months to start VLER pilots, with up to up to six communities beginning tests by October, according to the announcement.
VLER Health Communities will be evaluated on their cost and quality outcomes, the completeness of data in the patient summary of care records and the contribution of non-VA summary records, according to the announcement Jan. 12.
The chosen vendor should also be able to assess the effect that access to patients' summary of care records has on physician workflow and quality of care.
VA said it is seeking vendors interested in performing the evaluations of the pilots. Responses are due by Jan. 26. A contract, when it is published and awarded, will begin in April and continue for up to three years.
