Monday, August 5, 2013

Joint Electronic Health Record Program Off

Jim Fausone
Veterans Disability Lawyer

 
We have written about this before, the need for VA and DOD to be able to communicate on the medical records front.  It seemed that DOD and VA recognized the importance of this issue and were working on a joint solution.  Now we learn the joint project is off.  Both departments, including an interagency program office created to oversee joint electronic health records initiatives, spent more than $1 billion on their most recent efforts to build a joint system.  The project costs have reportedly ballooned from an estimated $4 billion to $12 billion. 
 
DOD is going to look to a commercial solution to Electronic Health Records (HER).  The need to coordinate with VA still exists.  Will the commercial solution be able to communicate seamlessly with VA's system. We are told it will but the DOD system may cost $16 billion. We are not left with a great deal of confidence in the new direction.  The problem of lack of coordinated EHR may continue for years.


 

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