VaaS and the Interoperability Imperative: Making Legacy Work Like the Future
Interoperability is no longer a future-state ambition for the VA. It’s a present-day requirement.
Whether it’s connecting community care providers, syncing data across VISNs, or coordinating between Cerner and VistA systems, seamless data exchange is critical for safe, effective care. And yet, that goal has remained frustratingly out of reach, largely due to the complexity and fragmentation of VistA’s legacy architecture.
This is where VistA-as-a-Service (VaaS) begins to show its real value.
By centralizing VistA in the cloud and standardizing it across facilities, VaaS doesn’t just modernize infrastructure. It lays the groundwork for the kind of interoperability VA clinicians and OIT leaders have been demanding for years.
The Cost of Fragmentation
While VA VistA instances largely share a common codebase, years of local configurations, site-specific workflows, and differing data practices have introduced enough variability to complicate integration efforts. These nuances, more about operational divergence than code drift, can make even VISN-level reporting or national data sharing more labor-intensive than expected.
Now consider extending that interoperability to external systems like:
- Cerner Millennium, at early EHRM deployment sites
- The Joint Health Information Exchange, connecting with DoD and community providers
- Specialized clinical platforms in genomics, pharmacy, or disease surveillance
- Mobile health applications used directly by Veterans
Without a cohesive data layer or abstraction point, each of these connections requires careful mapping and custom handling. And when one side changes? You’re often redoing the integration work. Not because the core systems are incompatible, but because their edges aren’t standardized.
VaaS flips the model by creating one secure, API-ready VistA backbone, and connect everything to that.
VaaS as an Interoperability Engine
By delivering VistA through a service model – centrally hosted, standardized, and governed – VA can achieve:
- Unified interfaces: Connect once to the cloud-based VistA instance and reuse that connection across the enterprise
- Modern APIs: Expose HL7, FHIR, and other industry standards natively from a cloud platform (not retrofitted onto legacy systems)
- Near real-time data sharing: Eliminate delays and batching through secure, automated data feeds
- Streamlined Cerner-VistA coexistence: Create a bridge where legacy and modern systems can safely share and retrieve information
This isn’t wishful thinking. VA has already moved all VistA instances into the VA Enterprise Cloud. The data is there. The need is urgent. VaaS is the connective tissue that can make legacy systems work like modern platforms.
What It Looks Like in Practice
Let’s say a community provider sees a Veteran for a cardiology consult. That provider documents the visit in their EHR. The VA needs to:
- Ingest that record into the Veteran’s profile
- Notify the care team at the VistA site
- Trigger appropriate follow-up workflows or prescriptions
In a traditional setup, that might involve:
- Manual data entry
- File uploads or faxes (yes, still)
- Delays in updating clinical systems
- A FHIR-based API receives the record in real time
- Bitscopic’s BDAP normalizes the data
- The updated information is pushed into the VistA record instantly and securely
And if that Veteran later transfers to a Cerner site? The record travels with them because the two systems are no longer walled gardens. They’re connected through shared services, not duct tape.
Bitscopic’s Role: Making Interoperability Plug-and-Play
We’re not the EHR. We’re the enabler. And that’s exactly what VA needs.
With tools like HL7 PASSPORT, we make integration with VistA:
- Faster to implement
- Easier to manage
- Fully compliant with VA standards (TRM, HIPAA, etc.)
Our platform is designed to abstract the complexity of VistA and present clean, normalized data to any application that needs it – be it Cerner, a specialty module, or a research database.
And because our architecture is cloud-ready, we’re already operating in the kind of environment that VaaS requires. We don’t need to retrofit. We’ve been building for this future all along.
The Big Picture: One Patient, One Record, Everywhere
Interoperability isn’t just a technical goal. It’s a clinical necessity.
Veterans move. They access care from VA sites, private hospitals, and specialists across the country. Their records shouldn’t be fragmented based on which EHR a facility uses.
VaaS gives the VA the infrastructure to deliver on the promise of truly integrated care – not just internally, but across the entire care ecosystem.
Bitscopic brings the tools and the expertise to make that happen.
Coming Up Next…
In Blog 3, we’ll explore how VaaS unlocks modular innovation – from microservices to plug-and-play decision support. The future isn’t just about maintaining what we have. It’s about building what’s next, on a platform that’s already working.
Want to explore how Bitscopic’s VistA integration tools can simplify interoperability in your region? We’d love to connect.