VA

See the following -

Integrated VA-DoD Health Record at Least Five Years Away

Tom Philpott | JDNews.com | July 27, 2012

House committees on armed services and veterans affairs held a joint hearing Wednesday to review details of President Obama’s plan to improve the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) for separating and retiring military members, with a kind of five-to-seven-day “reverse boot camp” available by late 2013 to smooth transition to civilian life and employment... Read More »

Internal Memo from CIO Roger Baker Sets Oct. 1 Deadline for Open Source Transition at VA

Open Health News has just obtained a copy of an internal memo sent by VA CIO Roger Baker to all the "Under Secretaries, Assistant Secretaries and other Key Officials," of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), where he sets a deadline of October 1, 2012 to implement the VA's open source initiative for VistA.

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Is GitHub Government’s Next Big Thing?

Luke Fretwell | FedScoop | June 6, 2012

With recent attempts from the White House to bring a more agile approach to government technology, U.S. Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel’s “Shared First” initiative, released in December, coupled with the federal government’s new digital strategy, the door may slowly be opening to a more widespread public sector collaborative coding environment, such as the one provide by San Francisco-based startup GitHub.

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IT workarounds at VA-DoD health facility costly

Molly Bernhart Walker | FierceGovernmentIT | June 27, 2012

The Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago is the first attempt to fully integrate the Veterans Affairs and Defense departments' healthcare facilities, but delayed progress on information technology is proving costly, finds a June 26 Government Accountability Office report (.pdf). Read More »

IT Workarounds Complicate DOD and VA Health Center Effort

Staff Writer | Federal Computer Week | June 29, 2012

The Veterans Affairs and Defense department's efforts to integrate healthcare facilities has hit a snag. The two medical centers involved in the first full-scale attempt, involving the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago has had a hard time blending its IT, according to a Government Accountability Office report. Read More »

IU Scientist to Lead Study on the Use of Telehealth to Assist Veterans with Mild Brain Injury

Press Release | Indiana University | June 26, 2012

An Indiana University researcher has received a grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to develop a new assessment mechanism that will improve long-distance care for military veterans with mild traumatic brain injury. The system will be piloted at five hospitals serving veterans and active-duty soldiers in the South and Midwest, including the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

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Lawmakers Vote to Create VA Burn Pit Registry

Rick Maze | Air Force Times | June 29, 2012

Over objections from the Veterans Affairs Department, a House panel voted Friday to create a registry of people exposed to toxic fumes and chemicals from open burn pits while deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Read More »

Mobile Milestones: Blue-Button Health Data For Everyone

Elaine S. Povich | AOL Government | August 10, 2012

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is trying to do for the public what the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) did for veterans by building on the VA's popular "Blue Button" application, allowing patients to get their medical records electronically on their mobile devices. Read More »

N.Y. Health Info Exchange Partners with VA

Joseph Conn | ModernHealthcare.com | August 1, 2012

The Buffalo, N.Y.-based HealtheLink regional health information exchange organization has linked up with the Veterans Affairs Western New York Healthcare System to facilitate interoperability of patient medical records between private-sector providers and the VA. Read More »

Navy Seeks Real-time Location System for All Hospitals

Bob Brewin | Nextgov | June 7, 2012

The Navy Bureau of Medicine in May kicked off a procurement to acquire a Wi-Fi based Real-Time Locations System that will track high-value medical equipment at 19 hospitals and hundreds of medical clinics worldwide.

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OSEHRA & EHR: Finding Value in Open Source EHR

Kyle Murphy | EHRIntelligence.com | July 16, 2012

With federal funding and the support of the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD), OSEHRA challenges the US government’s traditional approach to publishing technology, “the museum approach.” According to Mun, in this method the government produces a technology, releases it to the public, and leaves it to users to continue its development.  The establishment of OSEHRA represents a novel approach by the US government that embraces open source innovation.
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Panetta, Shinseki Acknowledge Frustration in Streamling Military Health Care

Staff Writer | Washington Post | July 26, 2012

Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki acknowledged Wednesday that they have been frustrated by departmental bureaucracy in their attempts to streamline military health care for severely wounded service members. Read More »

Powerful New VA Scanner Targets Brain Research, Veterans' Health

Victoria Colliver | Las Cruces Sun-News | August 3, 2012

The San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center is adding a new, $8 million magnetic resonance imaging machine, which will join an arsenal of some of the most powerful research scanners in the world. Read More »

Q&A: Harris CEO Jim Traficant on the 'genius' vision of open source in VA and DoD iEHR

Tom Sullivan | Government Health IT | June 11, 2012

By fostering an open source ecosystem around their joint iEHR, the DoD and VA are not only tapping into less expensive software and development, but also training industry on how to work with them,  sparking innovation and, ultimately, reaping the rewards of those IT advancements.

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Q&A: What the NwHIN Folks are Learning from DoD and VA Open Source eEforts

Tom Sullivan | Government Health IT | March 14, 2012

The DoD and VA are employing open source in their mammoth joint iEHR to an extent the federal government has not previously attempted – and among the agencies keeping a close eye on that is ONC. Read More »