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FEDERAL MANAGERS DAILY REPORT |
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VA and Defense continue to expand the sharing of medical information but after nearly a decade of trying, they still lack comprehensive medical records and have a long way to go, GAO has said before the House VA oversight subcommittee. Subcommittee chair Harry Mitchell, D-Ariz., said that while VA and DoD appear to have made more progress in the past 12 to 18 months than in the previous decade, "there is no reason why, in this day and age, DoD and VA cannot electronically share the information necessary to treat our service members and veterans," adding, "we should not have to wait any longer." In the long-term, the systems are being designed to share standardized, readily useable data though an interface between data repositories. According to GAO-08-207T, the repositories have been developed -- the departments have started populating them -- and the interface between the repositories has been implemented at seven VA and DoD sites, allowing, for example, computable outpatient pharmacy and drug allergy data to be exchanged. GAO called the interface a milestone achievement, though it was quick to add much remains to be done. For example, aside from extending the current capability throughout VA and DoD, the departments must still agree to standards for the remaining categories of medical information, populate the data repositories with this information, complete the development of the two modernized health information systems, and transition from their existing systems, the report said. It said that in the near-term, the departments have been working to share information in their existing systems, and that they have completed an effort to allow the one-way transfer of health information from DoD to VA when service members leave the military, as well as ongoing demonstration projects to exchange limited data at selected sites, one of which allows two-way data transfer. VA and DoD are now expanding the sharing of additional medical information by using this interface to link other systems and databases, GAO said. |
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