The clock is ticking for the military’s on-again, off-again plan for EHR interoperability. The 2014 National Defense Authorization Act, finalized by Congress on Wednesday, demands a detailed plan from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense outlining how exactly they will achieve adequate health information exchange. Now the provenance of the Interagency Program Office (IPO), the integrated EHR project has brought little more than problems to the military health system since its inception.
While the Department of Defense has started to move forward with its choice for a new EHR system, its legacy Armed Forces Health Longitudinal Technology Application (AHLTA) looks like it might stick around until at least 2018. That might present a problem for the DOD, which is now required to deploy a modernized EHR and prove full interoperability with the VA no later than December 31, 2016. The new bill instructs the two departments to implement the following features:
• Real time HIE between the VA’s VistA application and the DOD’s EHR pick• An integrated display of data or a single EHR system shared between the two departments• Applications built on national standards and open architecture that facilitate information sharing with the private sector• “Aggressive” life-cycle sustainment planning and continuous improvement of applications• The ability of providers and patients to download, view, share, and create their own uploaded personal health data
The instructions comprise the first detailed direction from Congress on how to complete the iEHR project, which has so far cost more than a billion dollars without producing results. After waffling for years about the right way to make the VA and DOD interoperable, a series of Congressional hearings has shown that lawmakers are fed up with the lack of cooperation and stalled progress.
An outline of how the two departments plan to complete these objectives must be presented to Congressional subcommittees no later than January 31, 2014, which doesn’t give VA Secretary Eric Shinseki or Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel much time to pull the program together. The departments will also need to issue a quarterly financial report and written notification to Congress when asking for additional funding over $5 million. Source
