VA Seeks New Patient Scheduling System

The Veterans Affairs Department has kicked off the contracting process to develop its new patient scheduling system, a follow-up to a nine year, $167 million project that collapsed in March 2009 and led VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to call for a review of all the department's information technology projects by February 2012.

VA frankly acknowledged the problems with the original project in a request for information for the new medical scheduling system project released in December 2011. The department said the original project was marred by lack of planning, competition and detailed requirements, and was plagued by poor internal oversight.

The new scheduling system will be built on the department's Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture. It will be open source software, according to VA, and will be delivered in increments...