Defense, VA halfway to full EHR interoperability: GAOBy Joseph Conn / HITS staff writer
Posted: July 29, 2009 - 11:00 am EDT
The healthcare organizations of the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments have met three of six objectives toward achieving what they have self-defined as “full interoperability” between their respective electronic health-records systems and “partially achieved planned capabilities” in the other three. However, those and the joint management program overseeing the project still need “additional work” to meet a Sept. 30 deadline, according to the Government Accountability Office.
The congressional watchdog, in a 35-page report, said the DOD/VA Interagency Program Office “is not yet effectively positioned to function as a single point of accountability for the implementation of fully interoperable EHR systems or capabilities between DOD and VA.”
And yet, the GAO counts as mission accomplished three interoperability objectives—demonstrating initial network gateway operability plus the sharing of social history and physical exam data. What remains, according to the GAO, is the movement of periodic health assessment data from Defense computers to the VA, an expansion of the Defense's computer system to at least one additional inpatient-care site each operated by the Army, Air Force and Navy; and demonstration of an initial capability for scanning service members' paper documents into a EHR and sharing those electronically with the VA.
Efforts to build an interface between the computer systems of the VA and Defense Department and allow them to talk to one another date back at least to the Clinton administration and have consumed at least $148 million, according to the GAO. Aside from the money spent, the lack of interoperability between the vast two healthcare systems is even more curious since the military's core inpatient IT system was cloned from the VA's system at a cost to the taxpayers of more than $1 billion.
In a recent interview, the VA's new assistant secretary for information and technology, Roger Baker, said the VA and Defense departments would meet the Sept. 30 target date for interoperability set in a 2008 defense authorization law, but noted that interoperability was "a word big enough to drive three trucks through." |
发表于 2009-8-1 21:59:14
发表于 2009-8-3 08:46:54