Both departments have recently made moves to ensure that the core capabilities for the interoperable health record will be in place by then, said Rear Adm. Greg Timberlake, program director of the DOD/VA Interagency Program. He spoke yesterday at the Government Health IT conference.
For example, he said, DOD awarded a contract in April to expand CliniComp’s Essentris systems for an inpatient module for DOD’s AHLTA EHR, which had mainly been an outpatient and population health application. DOD plans to roll out the module to its hospitals through 2010.
VA already has its Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) outpatient and inpatient clinical medical record system.
“It [the interoperable EHR] has to be consistent with the nationwide health information network model, with the federal health architecture, and well-defined standards that can be accepted between the two departments and then out with the rest of the nation,” Timberlake said.
VA also has made improvements and expanded the availability for electronic questionnaires and self-assessment forms, said Joseph Gardiner, acting director for the VA/DOD Health Information Sharing Directorate at the Veterans Health Administration, who also spoke at the conference. The expansion of the forms and questionnaires will have to be added to AHLTA, as well as a capability by both to receive the information, he said.
The existing Bidirectional Health Information Exchange, developed incrementally by both departments since 2004, will be incorporated into the shared EHR. It provides an interface that connects the departments’ individual clinical data repositories so physicians can exchange readable data in text on pharmacy and allergy data, lab and radiology results, vital signs and patient histories.
In the future, VA and DOD have agreed to collaborate on the development of a virtual lifetime electronic record that would include health, benefits and personnel data. It would use a common services approach that would allow for single sign-on to authorize users, and would also provide identity management and records portability.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Mary Mosquera
Quelle/Source: Government Health IT, 05.06.2009
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