Q&A: Streamlining the Transition to a Well-Maintained and Modernized VA Health Care System with VistA-as-a-Service (VaaS)
As the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) works to maintain and modernize its health care infrastructure, one of the key challenges is managing the transition from the legacy VistA system to the new Oracle Health Federal electronic health record or EHR (Cerner Millennium).
In the following Q&A, David Whitmer, vice president for federal operations at DSS, explains the benefits of VistA-as-a-Service (VaaS), a cloud-based solution designed to maintain and modernize VistA during this critical transition. VistA stands for Veterans Health Information Systems and Technoloy Architecture.
The following has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: Let’s start at the top. What is VistA-as-a-Service (VaaS)?
David: VistA-as-a-Service, or VaaS, is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering that DSS has developed to support the VA in modernizing and maintaining its legacy EHR system, VistA, during the transition to the new Oracle Health Federal EHR.
VaaS is designed to host, operate, and maintain all active VistA instances in a cloud infrastructure, ensuring the system’s functionality and interoperability with Oracle Health’s Millennium system. This offering is a critical part of the VA’s effort to reduce costs, improve efficiencies, and ensure the seamless delivery of care for Veterans during this period of transition.
Q: Why is VaaS highly important and needed for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)?
David: VistA has been the backbone of the VA’s health care system for decades, and it remains operational and vital for care delivery across the VA network. However, the VA is transitioning to a new EHR system, Oracle Health Millennium, and during this multi-year process, it’s crucial that VistA remains functional and interoperable with the new system. Many VistA functions will remain after the Oracle Health deployment and the maintenance of that legacy system and drawdown can best be achieved by industry.
VaaS is necessary because it provides a cost-effective, scalable solution to maintain VistA while reducing disruptions to care. It also helps the VA shift from internal maintenance to a more efficient, outsourced service model, freeing up resources to focus on the implementation of the new EHR.
Q: What are the benefits of VaaS from a technology perspective?
David: VaaS modernizes release management by reducing release cycles from months to just days, which speeds up the delivery of new features and bug fixes. By hosting VistA in the cloud, VaaS ensures the VA’s systems align with modern deployment standards, allowing for seamless scaling as demand changes.
In addition, VaaS maintains interoperability between VistA and the new Oracle Health Millennium system, ensuring that all data and patient records remain fully accessible across both systems. With a SaaS-based model, VaaS enables rapid updates and quick deployment of enhancements and fixes to VistA.
Q: How can VaaS help with the reduction in full-time employees at the VA?
David: VaaS plays a critical role in reducing the need for the VA to employ hundreds of full-time employees for software development, testing, and support. Currently, the VA employs approximately 900 FTEs for these functions and spends around $1.1 billion dollars.
VaaS allows much of this workload to be shifted to a single managed service provider, which significantly reduces the number of government employees needed for system maintenance. The VA can then reallocate its staff to focus on more critical Veteran-facing functions, such as modernization efforts or improving clinical outcomes.
Q: How can VaaS help the VA enhance efficiency?
David: VaaS enhances efficiency in several ways. First, it reduces operational costs by leveraging cloud infrastructure and providing a single point of accountability for all legacy system maintenance. This eliminates redundancies and inefficiencies in the current system.
Second, VaaS enables VA Office of Information and Technology staff to focus on the EHRM rollout rather than managing legacy systems, streamlining operations and allowing for faster progress on key projects. Finally, VaaS provides improved interoperability, which leads to better data sharing between systems, further enhancing operational efficiency.
Q: Tell us about the strong past performance of DSS when it comes to providing this kind of support to the VA.
David: DSS has a long history of supporting the VA, with our software applications being used at every VA medical center across the nation. We offer extensive integration capabilities across the VistA ecosystem and provide standards-compliant interoperability solutions for connecting with Oracle Health environments. We are VistA experts and have worked closely with VA staff, contractors, and stakeholders for years to ensure our solutions meet their specific needs.
We own nearly half of the VistA APIs used by the VA, and we have deep integration with critical VA systems like Financial Management, Identity Access Management, and Central Fee. With this experience, we are uniquely positioned to lead the VistA-as-a-Service transition and ensure that the VA can maintain and modernize its legacy systems efficiently, without disruption.
We would like to thank David for sharing his insights with us! To learn more about VaaS, please click here.