The Veterans Affairs Department officially launched Aug. 30 a central body dubbed the "custodial agent" to oversee open source electronic health record projects.

The body, now going by the official name of the Open Source Electronic Health Record Agent, or OSEHRA (pronounced "oh- sarah"), is meant to be the first step in creating an open source successor to VA and Defense Department EHRs. Code for the VA system--known as VistA--has long been available as an open source download, but the VA has never before intended to incorporate outside changes to the code.

The joint DoD and VA successor system, the iEHR, "when we get done, will be in the open source," VA Chief Information Officer Roger Baker told reporters during an Aug. 30 call.

The DoD and VA posted online Aug. 22 a special notice encouraging vendors "to develop or modify their potential solutions to fit into an open architecture model."

"If they want to be in that category of having the DoD and VA use their standard as a common standard and potentially promulgated across the country, we think a really good way to do that would be to make certain that it's either in the public domain or in an open source vehicle with appropriate widely-available licensing," Baker said.

The iEHR will rely on an enterprise service bus for data portability, Baker also said. The ESB "will be the absolute heart of the EHR, because that's how all of the various modules will plug together," he added.

For more:
- go to the OSEHRA website
- listen to the Aug. 30 Roger Baker press call

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