{"id":59122,"date":"2015-04-07T08:00:10","date_gmt":"2015-04-07T12:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=59122"},"modified":"2015-04-06T18:20:18","modified_gmt":"2015-04-06T22:20:18","slug":"va-dod-still-cant-transfer-your-health-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=59122","title":{"rendered":"VA & DoD still can’t transfer your health records"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Times<\/a> reports that after all of these years, the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs still can’t seamlessly transfer your health records when you leave the service. Congress has mandated that they work out a system to do that quickly – their solution was to have the military hand you a compact disc to hand carry to the VA with your records in portable data format (.pdf). They’ve spent billions and billions of dollars on electronic processes, but they can’t get it right;<\/p>\n

Last year, the Pentagon issued a final request for bids for an $11 billion contract to replace its obsolete electronic health record system and improve data-sharing between it and the VA. However, both branches of the government seem to be moving down different modernization paths.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

\u201cThe two departments have engaged in a series of initiatives intended to achieve electronic health record interoperability, but accomplishment of this goal has been continuously delayed and has yet to be realized,\u201d the GAO said in its report. \u201cThe ongoing lack of electronic health record interoperability limits VA clinicians\u2019 ability to readily access information from DOD records, potentially impeding their ability to make the most informed decisions on treatment options, and possibly putting veterans\u2019 health at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Mr. McDonald told Congress earlier this year that the administration\u2019s $4.1 billion budget request for fiscal 2016 would make progress in efforts to more easily share health records with the Defense Department by \u201cenhancing and modernizing VA\u2019s electronic health record, enhancing data security and achieving health data interoperability with the Department of Defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walinda West, a VA spokeswoman, highlighted several initiatives the department is working on to better work with the Defense Department, including a joint committee to institutionalize sharing and collaboration, an agreement to share health care resources and a congressionally authorized fund to enhance collaboration from 2003.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, you know, that’s because this email thing is a brand new process and we’re not sure that we’ve worked the bugs out of it yet. For the amount of money they’ve spent, they could have run a dedicated line the mile or so from the Pentagon to the VA’s Vermont Avenue office building and faxed the things – but you know, that fax machine thing is brand new technology, too.<\/p>\n

For the billions of dollars that they’ve spent on an electronic system, they could send your records by taxi or bike messenger…or by burro…between the two buildings.<\/p>\n

When I retired in 1994, the Army told me that they’d send my records to the VA. A few weeks after I retired, I got a call from the VA at my home to tell me that they got my records and would I please come in and begin the evaluation process with a doctor. How did they ever do that? More importantly, why can’t they do it that way again?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Washington Times reports that after all of these years, the Pentagon and the Department of … VA & DoD still can’t transfer your health records<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[237,143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-big-pentagon","category-veterans-affairs-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}