The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has replaced ASM Research with Harris Corp. as the contractor for a crucial component of the joint VA-Department of Defense (DoD) electronic health record system, according to NextGov.
Last month, the VA issued a stop-work order to ASM, which had been awarded a $102 million contract to build the ESB in January. NextGov cites sources as saying that ASM, based in Fairfax, Va., lost the contract "because one or more of the company's subcontractors had inside, nonpublic information about the procurement when it was put out for bid."
Harris' contract is worth $80.3 million, NextGov says.
The article points out that Harris will deliver the software that it builds to the VA-Defense Interagency Program Office. Barclay Butler, who was named to head that office in February, was formerly a Harris executive.
The middleware component to be developed by Harris, known as an enterprise service bus (ESB), will be the "heart of the iEHR," VA Chief Information Office Roger Baker told Federal Times in a recent interview. It will allow various parts of the future system to communicate with one another, as well as with VA and DoD data stored in data centers.
In an interview with InformationWeek last summer, VA CIO Peter Levin said that the ESB would also enable private sector vendors to plug applications into the lifelong EHR for military personnel and veterans.
To learn more:
- read the NextGov article
- see the Federal Times piece
- check out the InformationWeek story