VA, DoD To Finalize Joint EHR Standard

The Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense are close to an agreement on a common standard for electronic health records (EHRs), a move that should drastically improve how the agencies share patient data, the VA's chief information officer told a congressional committee last week.

VA CIO Roger Baker said the two departments are weeks away from agreeing on a "single electronic health record." He made his comments in testimony before the House Veterans Affairs Committee during a Feb. 17 meeting about the VA's 2012 budget request.

"I believe that will happen... in the next month or two, and that will be a substantial push forward," he said. "I believe the two departments have never had a greater opportunity to nail this down and nail it shut."

The two departments have been widely criticized for the lack of interoperability between their health information systems and the difficulty it creates for sharing patient information between them.