WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded a contract to enable providers to share elements of a patient's electronic health record on mobile devices in addition to three other contracts under its latest VA Innovation Initiative (VAi2) competition. The VA's goal is to use new technologies to improve the quality of veterans' patient care.
VAi2 is designed to tap the talent, ideas and expertise of employees, academia, and the private sector to help solve VA healthcare challenges. The Industry Innovation Competition was the third competition launched by VAi2 and is the first to involve the private sector, VA said in an announcement Feb. 4.
"These investments reflect our continued commitment to transforming VA into a 21st Century department that leads the nation in high quality healthcare," said VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.
They represent the first of nearly two-dozen more awards to be made in the coming months.
[Read about other VA initiatives: VA centers test mobile tech for home-based nurses; and VA, Indian Health Service outline new plan for improving care with IT.]
Technology that lets providers wirelessly review, share, and respond to cardiology data on mobile devices so they can respond more quickly to patient needs will be deployed at the Washington DC VA Medical Center by mVisum, Inc., of Camden, N.J., according to Jonah Czerwinski, VAi2 director.
At the same hospital, Agilex Technologies, Inc, of Chantilly, Va., will explore the ability for extending elements of VA's Vista medical record to electronic devices to enable patient search, demographics, laboratory data, medications, allergies, appointments, and problem lists to be displayed. Agilex will also integrate clinic schedules and secure messaging into the device.
At the McGuire VA Medical Center's Polytrauma Clinic in Richmond, Va., MedRed, LLC, of Washington, D.C., will test a software tool that helps healthcare providers more easily share new and innovative treatment strategies for veterans being treated for traumatic brain injury.
And Venture Gain, LLC of Naperville, Ill., will pilot at the George E. Wahlen VA Medical Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, a next generation system of wearable sensors combined with software analytics to predict and prevent complications for patients diagnosed with heart failure.
With VAi2, VA has made $80 million to test technology applications developed through competitions to find innovative solutions for VA.
