DOD, VA prepare recommendation on joint EHR for late March, official says

The Veterans Affairs and Defense departments are preparing to make a recommendation by late March on a joint strategy for managing their electronic health records, a senior VA official said today.

The joint strategy has been in development for several months and has considered several options, including possibly creating a single joint digital record system or maintaining some separate elements with common data standards, applications or interfaces, among other choices, Roger Baker, assistant secretary for information and technology at the VA, said today.

“The focus is on principles right now,” Baker said in a conference call with reporters.

Although DOD and VA executives have been working together on the feasibility of creating a single joint EHR system, it's premature to say a single record system is the sole focus of the recommendations, Baker said.

“We will provide the [department] secretaries with a recommendation on how to move forward together,” Baker said. “It is not necessarily one specific decision… It is premature to say it is one EHR.”