Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

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I’m Very PTSD Aware

Bob Brewin | Nextgov | June 24, 2013

Both the Army and the VA want us all to be aware that this is PTSD Awareness month and do something about it. Read More »

Join the M Revolution

Luis Ibáñez | OpenSource.com | February 2, 2012

M is a multi-user, strongly imperative language designed to manipulate and control massive databases. It is used in the high availability, high reliability niche of the computer market—which includes banking and hospitals. It provides simple data abstractions, in which all data values are strings of characters, and all data can be structured as multiple dimensional arrays. M data structures are sparse, using strings of characters as subscripts. M is itself a language combined with a database engine

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Joining Forces to Heal Invisible Wounds

John M. Oldham, M.D. | Psychiatric News | February 3, 2012

...I was privileged to be invited to a meeting on January 10 at the White House concerning a remarkable initiative launched by First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden, called “Joining Forces.” Dedicated to improving public education about “the invisible wounds of war,” this effort is particularly focused on families of returning soldiers suffering from PTSD, TBI, and combat-related depression.

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Joint EHR Costs Skyrocketed To $28 Billion, DoD Says

Jennifer Bresnick | EHR Intelligence | July 11, 2013

Physicians spending a paltry twenty or thirty thousand dollars on their EHR implementations can take comfort in the fact that they don’t have to foot the bill for the recently abandoned joint VA-DoD EHR system, which would have cost the taxpayers $28 billion, according to Frank Kendall, undersecretary of Defense for acquisitions. Read More »

Joint iEHR Spending Was Focused On Service Contracts

Susan D. Hall | FierceEMR | November 26, 2013

The bulk of spending on the joint EHR proposed by the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs went to support service contracts in 2012, according to a new report from the Interagency Program Office (IPO), the agency in charge of modernizing the Military Health System's EHR software. Read More »

Jon Stewart On The VA’s Hand-Cranked Disability Claims File System

Bob Brewin | Nextgov | April 5, 2013

Last night, in his second “Daily Show” episode focused on the Veterans Affairs Department, comedian Jon Stewart illustrated the disability claims backlog -- which stands at 885,068 this week -- with a look at the Veterans Benefits Administration office in Winston-Salem, N.C., where mountains of paper files threaten the structural integrity of the building and the safety of employees. Read More »

Jon Stewart Weighs in on Defense-VA E-Health Record Standoff

Bob Brewin | NextGov | March 29, 2013

Stewart hammered home the lack of compatibility between AHLTA and VistA -- well known inside the Beltway -- to his national audience. “These two programs are unable to communicate with each other,” Stewart said, paused, and added, “I swear to you this is true -- how insane is this complication?” Read More »

Joseph Dal Molin: Implementing VistA Internationally

Staff Writer | Nuffield Trust | July 5, 2012

In this slideshow Joseph Dal Molin, President of the E-cology Corporation and Chairman of WorldVistA, outlines Jordan’s health system and its approach to implementing VistA, an open-source electronic health record. Read More »

Kendall: DoD 'May End Up With A VistA Derivative'

Molly Bernhart Walker | GovernmentHealthIT | May 23, 2013

As the Defense Department seeks a commercial solution for its electronic health record, it may end up with something akin to the Veterans Affairs Department's Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture, or VistA, after all. Read More »

Kenneth W. Kizer and Peter J. Groen: W.Va. a Leader in Health Info

Kenneth W. Kizer and Peter J. Groen | The Charleston Gazette | March 17, 2009

West Virginia has quietly become a national leader in the use of health information technology, particularly in the area of "open-source" electronic health record solutions that are used by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Indian Health Service. These high-value systems...have been adapted and are being used in a number of innovative ways to improve the health of West Virginians. Read More »

Key Lawmaker Wants To Ban VA Bonuses For Five Years

Bob Brewin | Nextgov | May 8, 2013

The chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee proposed legislation that would ban all bonuses for senior executives in the Veterans Affairs Department for the next five years. The move by Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., is in response to VA’s disability claims backlog and patient deaths in VA hospitals. Read More »

Kitware To Develop A Universal Healthcare Exchange Language Infrastructure

Press Release | Kitware | April 19, 2013

Kitware is pleased to announce the award of $149,983 in Phase I SBIR funding from the U.S. Army for the development of an adaptive healthcare exchange language for interaction between patients and healthcare organizations. Read More »

Lack Of Funding, Clout Didn't Deter Kolodner From Tackling ONC's Top Spot

Joseph Conn | Modern Healthcare | April 10, 2014

Dr. Robert Kolodner had his eyes wide open when he took the top spot at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at HHS.  He knew that his predecessor, Dr. David Brailer, had asked in vain for billions of dollars to help subsidize the cost of EHRS to hospitals and physicians, federal money he thought ONC needed.

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Lake City Veteran: VA Won't Cover Acupuncture Treatment

Sade Malloy | First Coast News | April 26, 2013

A Lake City veteran said acupuncture is the only way to get his life back as he deals with excruciating pain after losing his leg. Acupuncture is a form of Chinese medicine centered around tiny needles that when placed throughout the body are believed to restore health and remove energy imbalances... Read More »

Lawmaker Slams VA For 'Big Brother' Surveillance

Bryant Jordan | Military.com | April 12, 2013

The chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee has filed legislation requiring Department of Veterans Affairs' hospital personnel to have the consent of a patient or other authorized party before setting up surveillance cameras in the veteran’s room. Read More »