Are VA and Defense Chopped Liver?
By
Bob Brewin
That's the assumption I made after viewing today's meeting of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, which had an in-depth discussion on President Obama's national health IT plan. Somehow they ignored electronic health record systems that cover 9.2 million patients in the Defense Department and another 6.1 million at VA.
That's the assumption I made after viewing today's meeting of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, which had an in-depth discussion on President Obama's national health IT plan. Somehow they ignored electronic health record systems that cover 9.2 million patients in the Defense Department and another 6.1 million at VA.
Add those two figures together, and you end up with electronic health record systems that cover roughly 5 percent of the population -- and probably are the largest systems in the world.
Although the process has been slow and painful, Defense and VA have gradually increased during the past few years the amount of patient data they can share between their two EHR systems.
Since exchange of patient information is key to the development of a nationwide health IT system, one wonders why the council folks did not invite Roger Baker, chief information officer at VA, and Charles Campbell, the Military Health System's CIO, to share their insights.
Maybe they are skedded for the next council gabfest.