A business unit of Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett-Packard has been awarded a contract from the Veterans Affairs Department for five years and a maximum of $543 million to procure and deploy a physical-assets management system across 152 VA medical centers nationwide.

“The quality of veteran care and improving the delivery of our healthcare services are the driving forces behind implementing the (real-time location system) solution,” Kimberly Brayley, director, RTLS Project Management Office at the Veterans Health Administration, the VA's healthcare arm, said in a news release. “Leveraging state-of-the-art technology allows VA to decrease operational costs and increase efficiencies, satisfaction and quality healthcare delivery."

HP Enterprise Services will serve as the prime contractor on the indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract to provide “program management, operations planning, implementation management, hardware and software, and site readiness,” according to the statement.

Under an initial regional contract awarded last February, RTLS implementations are nearly complete in two VA hospitals with three more installations under way.