DOD, VA Health Record Effort Makes Notable Progress

The Defense and Veterans Affairs departments are “in a better place now than we have ever been” in their effort to blend their electronic health records, said Navy Capt. Michael Weiner, deputy program manager and chief medical officer for the Defense Health Information Management System.

Speaking as part of a panel on June 2, Weiner, who is also a physician, said that while the technical aspects of integrating such massive and data-rich systems are daunting enough, there’s a non-technological hurdle as well.

“When I started in medicine, I was hand writing my own notes, and I was pretty happy,” he said. “The market penetration [of EHR systems] today shows that a lot of physicians are pretty happy hand writing their own notes.”