Defense, VA to launch shared e-record system

The Veterans Affairs and Defense departments have started work on a uniform registration system that will enroll all service members in the VA upon entry into the military, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said at a House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing this week.

Shinseki said the system will rely on a single electronic record shared by both departments to handle delivery of benefits and medical care. The collaborative effort, launched with the support of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, is designed to simplify the transition of military personnel to civilian status and ensure the availability of medical data to support the care of patients shared by VA and Defense.

At the hearing, Shinseki conceded that he "has not made much headway" in whittling down VA's claims backlog. In a report last July, the committee estimated the number of disability compensation claims at nearly 630,000, with almost a quarter of these pending for longer than six months. In its 2009 budget request, VA estimated it would have a backlog of 872,000 claims this year. But the committee has concluded that the number could exceed 1 million, due to veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq leaving active duty.

Shinseki said that for now he is taking a "brute force" approach to the backlog by hiring more claims examiners to speed processing. Two hundred have been hired since the star of the year, for a total of 11,300 examiners.

Shinseki said VA has kicked off developing a paperless claims processing system that will go into testing next year. Full deployment is planned for 2012.

President Obama has proposed a 2010 VA budget of $113 billion -- up $15 billion, or 16 percent, from 2009. That's the largest budget increase in the department's history, according to Shinseki.

He said the budget includes funding to support a reliable and accessible IT infrastructure, a high-performing IT workforce, and modernized information systems flexible enough to meet both existing and emerging service delivery requirements. That includes development of an electronic health record system known as HealtheVet.

Shinseki declined to provide details on VA's budget until its official release in April, but Carl Blake, legislative director of Paralyzed Veterans of America told lawmakers that VA needs an IT budget of $2.7 billion in 2010, up $200 million from its 2009 IT budget.

Blake recommended that $130 million of the 2010 VA technology budget be allocated for systems at the Veterans Benefits Administration. Kerry Baker, assistant national legislative director of Disabled American Veterans, blamed Congress in part for the lack of advanced IT systems at VBA. Baker said, "In spite of undeniable needs, Congress has steadily reduced funding for VBA initiatives over the past several years," he testified. "In fiscal year 2001, Congress provided $82 million for VBA-identified IT initiatives. In fiscal 2002, it provided $77 million; in 2003, $71 million; in 2004, $54 million; in 2005, $29 million; and in 2006, $23 million."

Centralization of IT programs under VA's chief information officer also has stifled development of VBA systems, Baker said. He urged legislators to ensure adequate finding for the agency's projects, including paperless processing, online benefits applications, data integration across business lines, quality assurance programs and employee training.