The Department of Veterans Affairs www.va.gov is now partnering and participating in the “Implementation Network for the VA-Partnership to Increase Access to Lung Screening” or referred to as (VA-PALS). This three year project to be funded by the Bristol-Meyers Squibb Foundation, is a strategy to deploy VistA-based lung cancer screening management software at ten VA Medical Centers.
As explained by Don Hewitt, Vice President Business Operations at the “Open Source Electronic Health Record Alliance” (OSEHRA), “The VA-PALS Implementation Network” includes Paraxial and the VistA Expertise Network (VEN), which are two software development organizations with long standing relationships with OSEHRA.”
The VA-PALS Implementation Network is now collaborating with OSEHRA to develop VA-PALS software as an OSEHRA Open Source Project. Work is underway to set up a development environment and repository structure to accommodate the project.
The first project call has been scheduled for September 20, 2017 at 1pm Eastern Time and calls will continue each week at that time. To register, go to the VA-PALS Project Group Page at https://www.osehra.org/groups/va-pals-open-source-project-group.
Also, the OSEHRA September Innovation webinar to be held on September 19, at 3pm Eastern Time will discuss VA-PALS. Paraxial and VEN will provide a project overview and answer questions on how the community can participate.
Go to https://www.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=2942 for the Veterans Administration press release announcing VA-PALS.