DoD, VA EHR Projects Must Focus On Interoperability

The Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs must not lose sight of the ultimate goal of interoperability in their pursuit of their electronic health record systems, lawmakers said in passing the 2014 Omnibus Appropriations Act in the House on Wednesday.

To help ensure this, lawmakers included funding restrictions designed to keep the spotlight on interoperability, reports Nextgov.

"The evolution and/or procurement of new health record systems is an important project for the departments to undertake, but it will end up being a futile exercise if the result is not the development of systems that will be interoperable, defined as the ability to exchange computable information electronically," according to the VA section of the bill.