The end of the VistA EHR may be approaching, as David Shulkin, the Department of Veterans Affairs undersecretary for health, said at a Senate hearing on Wednesday the agency is probably going to look for a commercial, off-the-shelf replacement, reports Politico.
VA CIO LaVerne Council floated the idea of boxing the VistA platform in March, but the decision to do so appears to be more solidified now.
"I have a lot of respect for VistA but it's a 40-year-old product," Ms. Council said in the report. "Looking at what technology can do today that it couldn't do then — it's a lot."
An agency spokesperson told Politico the VA will keep VistA through 2018 and will then start creating a cloud-based platform. However, an anonymous former VA health IT official expressed concerns and doubts about implementing any new system in the agency. "The problem is that the VA bureaucracy and processes tend to get in the way of success," he told Politico.
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