Open source software company Red Hat (NYSE:RHT), which has won its share of federal contracts, has been named one of the winners in a contest to develop a new appointment scheduling system for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
The Raleigh company was chosen as part of the HP Open Community team. According to the VA website, Health eTimes took first place, winning $1.825M; and OH Scheduler was second, winning a $705,000 prize.
The VA Medical Appointment Scheduling Challenge launched in January to encourage industry to develop open source and open application program interface (API)-based hospital scheduling applications to replace components of the VA’s own 25-year-old scheduling software. The VA has said it plans to use the results of the contest “to design final specification for an appointment scheduling system to be deployed nationally.”
The HP Open Community team’s winning submission included the use of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform and Red Hat JBoss BRMS, as well as Red Hat Consulting for system design, architecture, implementation and testing. By placing third in the VA Medical Appointment Scheduling Challenge, the HP Open Community team won $500,000. The team, including Red Hat, is donating the prize to various veterans service organizations.
“Industry and agency collaboration is essential because it brings the most innovative technology solutions to government to help cut costs and improve efficiency,” Paul Smith, vice president and general manager, Public Sector, Red Hat said in a statement. “The VA understands the benefits of these relationships and we appreciate the opportunity to display how open technologies can provide them with the confidence they need to better serve some of our most deserving citizens.”
