VA launches a healthcare data mapping project

The Veterans Affairs Department has kicked off a pilot project to map the data in its Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) to a new open healthcare data dictionary developed by 3M Company.

VA Chief Information Officer Roger Baker told reporters in March that VA and the Defense Department plan to use a common data dictionary as a key component of the integrated electronic health record the two departments will share. Initial deployment of the iEHR is scheduled for 2014.

In a request for information posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website last week, VA said it was looking for a contractor to help it map or convert VistA data elements at its Salt Lake City hospital to 3M Company’s open-source Health Data Dictionary.

VistA includes a computerized patient record system and 130 other clinical, financial, and administrative packages, of which approximately 80 contain variable numbers of clinical VistA data elements. VA said some of the packages contain standardized data elements, but most contain data that is either locally customized or completely created at local sites.

VA said it will provide the contractor selected for the Salt Lake City work with an extract of that hospital’s VistA data elements. The contractor is expected to determine which VistA files, fields and data elements in the extract are clinical in nature and eligible for mapping to the open source dictionary and describe those findings in a report.

The VistA Mapping Analysis Report will explain, for example, which files should be mapped, such as a hemoglobin test report in a clinical file, as well as those that should not be mapped.

The contractor is expected to map 6,000 clinical files to standard medical databases contained in the open source Health Data Dictionary. The department wants a complete analysis within 40 days of contract award.

3M said its Health Data Dictionary contains over 36 million clinical terms, concepts and elements.