GAO: Pentagon, VA Struggle To Share Medical Information
CongressDailyAM
June 23, 2006
Efforts to standardize the sharing of health information across the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments lack a clear integration plan, according to GAO.
Appearing Thursday before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Federal Financial Management Subcommittee, Linda Koontz, director of information management issues at GAO, said in written testimony that despite some progress made on two demonstration projects to exchange laboratory results and patient health information, the agencies have failed to develop a clearly defined management plan.
The Pentagon and the VA have been working for the past eight years to develop the capability to exchange e-health information, National Journal's Technology Daily reported.
The exchange project, which enables the real-time sharing of allergy, laboratory, outpatient and radiology information, is being tested by Defense and all VA treatment facilities, Carl Hendricks, chief information officer for the military health system at the Defense Department, said the second project, which facilitates the sharing of lab order entries and results, is being tested at several Defense and VA sites.
Still, the departments have incurred delays to share patient data and have not yet fully populated repositories to store the data for future e-health systems, according to GAO.
