VA Edges Closer to Rollout of New Health Record Platform

The Department of Veterans Affairs is edging closer to full deployment of a web-based modular electronic health record platform that promises to build on improvements in interoperability within VA and between VA and the Defense Department. Officials hope to have the Enterprise Health Management Platform up and running by the end of this summer. EHMP is a dynamic, web-based way to organize, display, search, filter and share patient data from VA's open-source VistA health record. EHMP provides a virtual space to develop and deploy specialized health and wellness applications for use by VA providers.

The goal of EHMP is to create "a state where we have a veteran-centric record" that allows doctors and veterans to access medical information on demand, said David Waltman, chief information strategy officer at VA's Veterans Health Administration, during a demo for reporters at VA's Washington headquarters. "The interoperability between the VA and the [DOD] record system exceeds any electronic health record systems that are anywhere in the nongovernment environment," he added.

EHMP also lets users customize the interface -- which displays information on patients' clinical encounters, vital signs, medication history, lab results, allergies and medical conditions -- to allow doctors to spend more time interacting with patients. Waltman estimated that 110,000 users at VA facilities have access to the Joint Legacy Viewer, a system developed by the DOD/VA Interagency Program Office. He called JLV "a great incremental improvement" that provided the "pipes" that allow developers to work much faster now that the interoperability groundwork has been laid...