VHA Bar Code Project Stalled

Waaaay back in 2004, the Veterans Health Administration kicked of a bar code project to label patients' specimens and blood intended for transfusion, a rather nifty use of technology to ensure, for example, that a patient with type O blood instead of type A.

In 2006, the VHA purchased new bar code scanners to do the job, and the agency approved the purchase of software and personnel to support the project. Testing began at 16 medical facilities that had Wi-Fi networks to link the lab and blood information collected by the scanners to a database.

But the inspector general at the Veterans Affairs Department said in a report released on Thursday that the rollout of the lab and blood bar code system got lost in the centralization of VA's information technology in 2006.

Since then, the IG said, progress on the bar code expansion project has "virtually stopped." The auditor also said, "This is an important patient safety project and it should be kept on schedule until completed."

I guess this amounts to just one more important task tossed in the lap of the new VA CIO, Roger Baker.