A unified electronic health record (EHR) solution between the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is in the works, a solution that will give doctors unlimited access to a veterans’ full health records and history.
According to an article published by MilitaryTimes.com, “The new solution will compile data from service records so it can be accessed years later by doctors at DoD, VA, and in the private sector, providing clinicians with a full picture of veterans’ medical history and driving faster, smarter connections between military service and health outcomes. Republicans, Democrats, and veterans want this change, and we are on the way to realizing this dramatic improvement.”
As a first step in accomplishing this goal, the President’s administration created the “Office of Electronic Health Record Modernization (OEHRM)” in order to oversee the transition. At the same time, the DoD led a team to begin implementing a new electronic health record system that would cover more than 9.6 million service members and their beneficiaries.
Lawmakers say that they are on schedule to begin implementing the new EHR solution at three VA medical centers in Washington state by April of 2020. The first EHR solution deployment by the VA will be in Seattle, American Lake, and Mann-Grandstaff medical centers. These locations were chosen as initial operating sites in alignment with DoD’s deployment schedule.
Although the first three locations will launch in 2020, the new EHR solution has a 10-year contract which calls for a “rolling implementation schedule through 2027, one that will move about a dozen hospitals to the new solution each year starting in 2021, along with dozens of associated VA clinics.”
To learn more about the new electronic health record (EHR) solution, click HERE.
Relevant pages: Veterans Disability