CMS Inks $230 Million IT Contract

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has awarded a $230 million health IT contract to Computer Sciences Corp. for migrating key IT systems to a new service-oriented architecture.

CSC will consolidate three groups of applications in designing and developing the architecture for CMS, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services. The application groups are for the Standard Data Processing System, Value Based Purchasing and End Stage Renal Disease. The company also will support the "collection, analysis, reporting and management of claims, clinical, survey and project data from Medicare and Medicaid providers," according to a CSC news release.

"CSC has worked closely with CMS for more than a decade and we are pleased to offer an evolutionary road map to transform its existing legacy applications into a service-oriented platform," said Dr. Robert Wah, vice president and chief medical officer of CSC's North American Public Sector. He predicted that upgrading and consolidating systems "will improve quality of care and save money."

The agreement is technically a task order under a 2007 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. After a six-month base period, CMS will have the option to renew the contract for six one-year periods.

CSC's partners on the contract include 2020 Company of Falls Church, Va., and General Dynamics Information Technology's ViPS, in Baltimore, Md.