VHA and HHS Pilot Underway

The pilot project named the Veteran Initiated Coordination & Transformation of Rural Health Information Exchange or referred to as VICTOR-HIE is underway. The project is a collaboration between the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and their Office of Rural Health (ORH), the Office of the National Coordinator for HIT within HHS, plus non VHA rural community health partners.

The goal of the pilot program is to improve quality and care coordination for rural veterans using the VA’s “My HealtheVet Blue Button” to enable the exchange of health information so veterans can use both VHA and non-VHA providers for healthcare. Today, it is common for veteran patients to receive care from both the VHA and community providers.

The current pilot is currently functioning at participating VHA facilities in Iowa, Florida, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, and North Dakota with plans for four additional facilities to join in coming months.

Veterans can now generate a Continuity of Care Document (CCN). The CCN provides a consolidated summary of important health information such as allergies, medications, and recent laboratory results. It is available in XML and PDF format which allows for both paper-based and electronic transfer of the veteran’s health information.

The VHA project is working with HHS grantees, including Health IT Regional Extension Centers to educate rural and highly rural veterans on how to share their CCN document with their non-VA providers. It also helps rural hospitals and clinics incorporate the information received from the VHA into their own non-VHA EHR system.

The final step will be to perform process and outcome evaluations to determine whether non- VHA hospitals and doctors used the health information and whether the pilot project had a positive impact on medication management and if the pilot reduced the likelihood of non-VA providers ordering duplicate labs.

Source: VHA Office of Rural Health December 2013 newsletter at www.ruralhealth.va.gov/news