VA’s Efforts to Modernize

Appearing before the House Committee on Appropriations http://appropriations.house.gov, Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies on May 3, 2017, Secretary of Veterans Affairs www.va.gov David J. Shulkin discussed the VA’s efforts to address EHR interoperability and IT modernization.

As Secretary Shulkin explained “Today, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) www.va.gov/health, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) www.benefits.va.gov, and the Department of Defense (DOD) www.defense.gov share more medical information than any public or private healthcare organization in the country.”

The Secretary talked about how the VA developed and deployed the Joint Legacy Viewer (JLV).The JLV is a web-based user interface that provides clinicians with an intuitive display of DOD and VA healthcare data on a single screen.

Today, the JLV is available to all clinicians in every VA facility and able to access the health records of Veterans on Active Duty, and Reserve Service members from the VA, DOD, and any third party providers who participate in HIEs where a patient has received care.

Secretary Shulkin told the Subcommittee, that the VA will complete the next iteration of the VistA Evolution Program called VistA 4 in 2018. VistA 4 will bring improvements in efficiency and interoperability and will provide a safe efficient healthcare platform for providers and veterans.

VistA evolution funds have enabled investment in systems and infrastructure to support interoperability, networking, infrastructure sustainment, continuation of legacy systems, and other efforts such as clinical terminology standardization. These investments are critical to the maintenance and deployment of the existing and future modernized VistA and essential to operational capability.

The VA is questioning whether the path forward is to continue with VistA, or shift to an EHR platform commercially available, or perhaps to a combination of both systems so the investments in technology will continue to deliver value for veterans and VA providers. According to Secretary Shulkin, the VA will make a decision in July 2017