VA plans to tap original bidders for canceled software contract

The Veterans Affairs Department plans to select a new vendor from the pool of original bidders to develop software vital to creating an integrated electronic health record (iEHR) with the Defense Department. The new contractor will replace ASM Research, the company first awarded the $102.6 million contract VA abruptly terminated Tuesday due to conflict-of-interest concerns.

VA will "make another best-value selection based on the remaining offerors in the competition" for the contract originally awarded to ASM in January, according to spokeswoman Josephine Schuda. She did not say when the new vendor would be selected.

The department awarded ASM the contract for the iEHR enterprise service bus, which manages the flow of electronic health record data, through a task order under its multivendor, $12 billion Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology, or T4, contract. T4 is an umbrella contract designed to provide a range of IT services. Industry sources told Nextgov that Harris Corp., SAIC, SRA International and 7 Delta, a disabled veteran-owned small business, submitted competing bids for the service bus contract.

VA Chief Information Officer Roger Baker said in an interview with Federal Times in early February that he viewed the enterprise service bus as "the heart of the iEHR." He added the ASM software would ensure any application could communicate with any database in the iEHR.