Government Accountability Office (GAO)
See the following -
Roger Baker: Why VA's Electronic Health Record Mega-Project is Failing
The Department of Veterans Affairs currently is reassessing its $16 billion-plus Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) effort. Faced with productivity and patient safety issues in its initial pilot site, further rollouts of the EHRM have been paused by VA Secretary Denis McDonough. And while VA has not yet announced the details of the actions it will take to correct the EHRM program, those actions must include addressing the program's fundamental problems, not just the readily apparent quality and productivity problems surfaced at the pilot site. Read More »
- Login to post comments
Sharing Records Called Key To VA Health Care
...A July audit by the Defense Department's inspector general found that the Defense Department failed to make proper records transfers to the VA. In the Army, 77 percent of records transferred in 2013 were not timely and 28 percent were not complete, the audit said...
- Login to post comments
Shinseki: VA to move forward with electronic records
Veterans Administration Secretary Eric Shinseki insisted at an April 15 congressional hearing that the VA will move forward on a joint electronic health records system with the Defense Department, even as Pentagon officials are pausing to review their approach. Read More »
- Login to post comments
Smaller Deal On E-Health Record Angers Capitol Hill
The Obama administration pared back its plan to develop a single, integrated, electronic health- record system for the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs due to shrinking defense budgets and rising costs. Read More »
- Login to post comments
Sorry VistA, DoD's health record won't be open source
The Defense Department's next electronic health record will not be based on the open source architecture that supports the Veterans Affairs Department's EHR. A change to the Defense Healthcare Management System Modernization solicitation narrowed down the field of contractors vying for the $11 billion program – eliminating the only proposed solution built on the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture, or VistA.
- Login to post comments
The Last Battle: Efforts To Provide Mental Health Care For War Veterans Falling Short
The last battle of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is being fought at home. And in 2012, the military and the VA have done more than ever to respond to the anguish of men and women who are haunted by war...But there is little evidence that the tide has turned in the battle. Read More »
- Login to post comments
The New Bioterrorism? The Hacked Medical Device
A time-and-technology challenged FDA, proliferation of software-controlled medical devices in and outside of hospitals, and growth of hackers have resulted in medical technology that’s riddled with malware. Furthermore, lack of security built into the devices makes them ripe for hacking and malfeasance. Read More »
- Login to post comments
The Obamacare Insurance Exchange Train Is Already Coming Off The Rails
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) raised eyebrows across the country last month when he publicly fretted about an Obamacare “train wreck” as the Administration rushes to implement the many provisions of the law that take effect in 2014. Read More »
- Login to post comments
The Sorry State Of Veterans' Health Care
Here is a sad lesson in government waste. Since 2008, the Departments of Defense (DoD) and Veterans Affairs (VA) have spent over $1 billion to create an integrated electronic health record (iEHR). Four years and $1 billion later, not a single line of code has been implemented. Read More »
- Login to post comments
The State Of The CIO
Last year, on the 15th anniversary of the Clinger-Cohen Act becoming law, the Government Accountability Office released a rather gloomy status report on the agency CIO role. GAO found that most CIOs were responsible for just five areas of IT and information management out of 13, and they often lacked the authority to make key decisions about recruiting and IT investments. Read More »
- Login to post comments
This Electronic Health Record's Cost Has Jumped 2,233 Percent
Costing 2,233 percent more than originally estimated, the Defense Health Agency’s electronic health record -- designed to be used in combat -- leads a motley pack of major Defense Department automated information systems whose costs have soared by mind-boggling percentages into the billions of dollars, according to government report.
- Login to post comments
Threat Matrix: Malware And Hacking Pose Dangers To Medical Devices
'We’re starting to attach medical devices to electronic health records, and they’re not secure.' Read More »
- Login to post comments
Time For Hard HITECH Reboot
...The Government Accountability Office reports that there is a lack of strategy, prioritized actions, and milestones in HITECH. HIT interoperability is recognized as being limited at multiple levels. And resultantly, the benefits of HIT that depend on a combination of adoption, interoperability, and health information exchange as table stakes are elusive...
- Login to post comments
Too Many Agencies Rely On Costly, Ineffective Training
A new report by the Government Accountability Office points out that many federal training programs are duplicative, costly and/or ineffective, and that governmentwide virtual training may be agencies’ best solution to centralizing training and saving money. Read More »
- Login to post comments
Treasury Prints Money, HHS Burns It
Like invasive vines, so-called improper payments seem totally resistant to agency efforts to cut them down. You won’t find it on the home page, where most agencies put only happy news, but Health and Human Services has warned improper payments through Medicaid are rising fast. They’ll hit an estimated 11.5 percent this year, or $30 billion. The rate last year was 9.8 percent. The dollars were about $15 billion in 2013...
- Login to post comments