VA's Baker: Modernize Rather than Replace VistA

The Department of Veterans Affairs won't be trying to replace VistA anymore, but instead will be looking for ways to improve the powerful EMR system via open-source collaboration with the private sector.

"Let's be clear, in my view, VA over the last 10 years has tried to replace VistA. I don't think that's possible. It would be like Microsoft trying to replace Windows with not an evolutionary product, but with something brand new, but it has to come out and it has to be better the day it's introduced," VA CIO Roger Baker says in a in-depth interview with FierceGovernmentIT. "That, basically, was the criteria for what VA was trying to do. That program was called HealtheVet. I have stepped VA away from HealtheVet, and what we're now looking at is how do we continue the evolution of VistA.

"It is the best electronic health record system in the United States, at this point, especially if you focus on it from a patient-care standpoint. So, how do we then get back to moving the innovation forward in VistA, and that's really what the whole open-source campaign is all about."