VA wants 100,000 staff to take tablets

The US Department of Veterans Affairs is looking to implement a nationwide plan that will inlcude giving up to 100,000 healthcare workers tablet computers.

The VA is the largest integrated healthcare system in the US, serving 5.4m veterans out of 7m eligible current and former service members.

In procurement documents, it says that providing efficient information technology for healthcare workers is key to delivering benefits and services to its members, and that this information should be made available efficiently at the point-of-care.

To achieve this goal, the department is to give its physicians and nurses mobile devices, which will connect to its own secure network.

It has asked interested suppliers to demonstrate they can provide a service supporting an initial 10,000 mobile devices, with the possibility of scaling this up to 100,000.

The system will enable users to securely connect the devices to the department’s enterprise network, but also provide VA managers with information on how they are being used.

It will also create a dedicated application store to house VA enterprise-specific applications based on Apple’s mobile operating system.

The proposed contract, understood to be the largest of its kind, would require the successful contractor to provide operations, maintenance and training support for the device infrastructure.

Rather than opting for one of the three major mobile operating platforms, the VA is asking suppliers to provide equal numbers of both Windows, Android and Apple-based tablets.

It wants 20 of each of these to be provided within the first proof-of-concept period, which will run for one year initially, but may be extended to four.

The system will be hosted at a federal data centre and use cloud computing within strict security guidelines.