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REPUBLICAN PRESS RELEASE

May 8, 2007

Electronic Medical Records Sharing Between DoD and VA

By For More Information Contact Jeff Phillips at (202) 225-3527

Washington, D.C. — Since 2000, the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs has held at least sixteen hearings in order to push the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to share critical medical information on patients being seen or transferred to VA.

Today, the committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations met yet again to assess the progress made by VA and DoD and its current status on the long term project of electronic medical information sharing. The need for both departments to share medical data is imperative in order to help ensure high quality health care for active-duty military personnel and veterans.

“Our staff and members have visited many VA and DoD Medical Centers. Of particular interest are the four VA poly-trauma centers where servicemembers sustaining severely disabling injuries are being cared for while still in service, as well as after discharge. We have frequently heard the concerns of VA doctors and medical personnel at these facilities that the information they are receiving isn’t timely enough, or missing critical information needed to properly treat these severely injured and disabled servicemembers,” said subcommittee Ranking Member Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.).

Billions have been spent throughout the past twenty years by VA and DoD working on independently stove-piped electronic medical records systems that would provide better care to those serving on the front line of our nation’s efforts for freedom. Yet, neither to date seems to work together in a coordinated effort of care.

“As Yogi Berra said, “This is déjà vu all over again.” For twenty plus years, VA and DOD have been less than enthusiastically addressing this problem, yet there is no solution in sight. In fact, the witnesses today could not give us any sort of a firm deadline when they expect an interoperable electronic medical records system to be up and running. This foot-dragging and bureaucratic passing of the buck is unacceptable. In the past twenty years, entire cities have been built on the sands of the Dubai peninsula; all while these two agencies spend billions of taxpayer dollars with little results to show for their efforts. This Subcommittee will not accept the same tired excuses – we expect action and results. I look forward to working with the Committee to ensure that VA and DoD develop a system that allows the seamless transition of medical records. Our soldiers and veterans deserve nothing less,” Brown-Waite said.

“The DoD has seven separate medical legacy systems, and none of them can communicate with the VA systems. Traumatic Brain Injury is the signature wound for our troops engaged in the global war on terror. Although DoD is screening returning troops for TBI and other injuries, the VA is not getting these vital records. Even though the President directed, with Executive Order 13410 in August 2006, the VA and DoD to develop a computer-based system for sharing medical records by January of 2007, the representatives of the VA and DoD at today's hearing could not provide a date for achieving this directive. DoD is studying the feasibility of a shared inpatient record and hopes to have that study done by 2008. This is tragic and scandalous; our troops deserve far better,” said Congressman Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.).

“The movement of this information between the two departments is vital to the safety and well-being of our veterans and military active duty servicemembers as they transfer between the two agencies and become as fully integrated back to civilian life as possible,” Brown-Waite said.

After two decades, the goal still remains the same, that finally, there will be a system that will permit the exchange of critical medical information that is interoperable, bi-directional, and occurs in real-time.

“The care for those who serve our country does not stop at the exit door of DoD, but continues through the doors of VA, and the hand off between the two medical systems should be seamless, not a fumble. Our nation’s heroes deserve no less,” Brown-Waite said.

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Larry Scott

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