VA & DoD still can’t transfer your health records
The Washington Times reports that after all of these years, the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs still can’t seamlessly transfer your health records when you leave the service. Congress has mandated that they work out a system to do that quickly – their solution was to have the military hand you a compact disc to hand carry to the VA with your records in portable data format (.pdf). They’ve spent billions and billions of dollars on electronic processes, but they can’t get it right;
Last year, the Pentagon issued a final request for bids for an $11 billion contract to replace its obsolete electronic health record system and improve data-sharing between it and the VA. However, both branches of the government seem to be moving down different modernization paths.
[…]
“The two departments have engaged in a series of initiatives intended to achieve electronic health record interoperability, but accomplishment of this goal has been continuously delayed and has yet to be realized,” the GAO said in its report. “The ongoing lack of electronic health record interoperability limits VA clinicians’ ability to readily access information from DOD records, potentially impeding their ability to make the most informed decisions on treatment options, and possibly putting veterans’ health at risk.”
[…]
Mr. McDonald told Congress earlier this year that the administration’s $4.1 billion budget request for fiscal 2016 would make progress in efforts to more easily share health records with the Defense Department by “enhancing and modernizing VA’s electronic health record, enhancing data security and achieving health data interoperability with the Department of Defense.”
Walinda West, a VA spokeswoman, highlighted several initiatives the department is working on to better work with the Defense Department, including a joint committee to institutionalize sharing and collaboration, an agreement to share health care resources and a congressionally authorized fund to enhance collaboration from 2003.
Well, you know, that’s because this email thing is a brand new process and we’re not sure that we’ve worked the bugs out of it yet. For the amount of money they’ve spent, they could have run a dedicated line the mile or so from the Pentagon to the VA’s Vermont Avenue office building and faxed the things – but you know, that fax machine thing is brand new technology, too.
For the billions of dollars that they’ve spent on an electronic system, they could send your records by taxi or bike messenger…or by burro…between the two buildings.
When I retired in 1994, the Army told me that they’d send my records to the VA. A few weeks after I retired, I got a call from the VA at my home to tell me that they got my records and would I please come in and begin the evaluation process with a doctor. How did they ever do that? More importantly, why can’t they do it that way again?
Category: Big Pentagon, Veterans' Affairs Department
Speaking of VA and DoD, drink up … Today is National Beer Day!
Can’t believe you missed this, MCPO. Get another cup of coffee. (smile)
What… I… did he… where…
Why? Just… why?
Hey, he said it was National Beer Day. How better to celebrate National Beer Day than mit einem guten deutschen Trinkhorn!
Bit of TAH history: MCPO posted that one and it’s sister-video, Das Beer Boot, here a couple of years ago. They’re a freaking riot, and I couldn’t believe he didn’t post one of them with his Beer Day comment above. I was pulling his chain about that. (smile)
They will get the electronic transfer system up to date only when it becomes obsolete.
My experience was a nightmare.
Somewhere between Ft. Carson and Walter Reed, my records were “misplaced”.
Home on con leave from there, so my 214 was mailed.
Wrong social security number.
While I was getting that straightened that out, Walter Reed received my records.
With no record of me being discharged, they didn’t know what to do with them and sent them back to Carson.
Took me almost 3 years to get that mess straightened out.
If they had allowed me to hand carry them from Carson, that shit wouldn’t have been so bad.
My point is the problem is not just DoD to VA transfer, but transfer of info from one place to another in the government in general. I know it’s not quite as bad anymore due to technology, but it has also become worse in some ways.
I sure have been hearing too much about missing e-mails.
If I could only find Elaine Ricci I would make her the majority shareholder of my company and use advanced distribution statistics, derived stochastics and probability theory to perfect my Carrier Pigeon Document Transfer empire while not forming transactions on manufatcurers’ differentiation. We could find lots and lots of tails. Oh the contracts we could get!
Protest denied!
I received a letter from the VA stating I am not married and they are reducing my disability to single unmarried 2006 rate for single because that’s the last time I told them I was married. As late as 2014 I filled out the same form they sent with this letter. Interestingly enough I’ve only been married once , 1970 and still married. I’ve been in VA health care since 1993. So from my regional VA to Georgia, they can’t transfer the information between their own buildings, let alone different agencies.
I’m having the same problem, even though I’ve sent them the documentation they need to add my wife and child, followed with other paperwork to substantiate my other two (both of which have since turned 18 but are enrolled in school full time).
They still recognize me as a single veteran, and they haven’t touched my application in E-Benefits either.
It’s sad that a commercial online tax service can retrieve my records for the current and previous year but the VA and DoD can’t unfuck themselves enough to just let me hand carry my records from one to the other.
April 15 is just around the corner. Any day now we will have the latest story about how the IRS processed fraudulent returns sent 1500 refund checks of OUR MONEY to the same address in Lichtenstein or some bullshit.
About that CD. The VSO that works the disability stuff for retirees told me to print out all of the documents on the CD and bring those. I’m sure that they will go to the VA only to be scanned again.
I have lots of Veterans as patients. Not once in fifteen years has the VA responded to a request of medical records so I can tell what they have done to my patient.
And yet since I became a civilian years ago, ALL my medical records are available online (system developed by GE, IIRC) meaning if I am sick out of state and go to the hospital, they punch a few buttons, BOOM. Instant access to my entire medical history since I got out.
I scanned all my paper documents and directly uploaded the contents of my CD. And of course kept a copy on my hard drive as well. Claim just closed and it worked like a charm.
I was just wondering if some bright kid out there can come up with some kind of secure portal? You know, something to share information between agencies, that should be using the same Government computer systems? I bet that person could use the 11 billion. /sarc
I bet a 12-year old could make an App for our phones that would work better than both medical systems combined.
Extremely funny, but oh so true.
I had to make a copy of all my records myself, print them out and give a copy to the VA rep helping me submit my claim. that’s the only way my records got the the VA for processing.
So some poor shmo’s in the VA are spending all their time scanning documents in from vets because the two top dipshits can’t get their organizations to prioritize this system being upgraded.
First they have to want to. We can’t even get there, much less to actual solutions to problems which are not in their best interests to address.
Bureaucrats. Can’t live without them, but trying to live with them is about as easy as herding cats.
When I retired (’94) one stop on the out process was the VA rep. She told me there were problems with the system so made copies of all of my medical records, certified them and gave me the originals. The VA has been happy with the copies since then, originals are in a safe.
VA clinicians, especially those in C&P exams, rarely review DoD records anyway.
That is how they get away with downgrading claims.
Then they just blame the VBA when called out who in turn blames the VHA all the while nothing is done.
It’s not just the Feds, every large IT project the state of Colorado has attempted, including their version of Obamacare, has been a delayed, over-budget disaster. As John Stossel says, there’s just about nothing that the government does that the private free market can’t do better, quicker, and cheaper.
I’ve worked in IT for almost 20 years and have done dozens of similar projects, for FAR less than the billions they’ve wasted. My most expensive project was $1.5 million (including hardware) for a large financial company, on time and within budget and still running 15 years later.
Yep. When it comes to IT projects, the Good Idea Fairly seems to love visiting government agencies pretty much across the board, regardless of whether they’re Federal, State, or local.
NEVER expect competence or efficiency from Government!
I am confused, although I shouldn’t be given the government’s love of overlapping agencies. Why are there medical corps in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, VA, Public Health Service, IHS, and other alphabet soups?
The PHS is a uniformed service with Navy style ranks and uniforms. I say give them the mission of military and VA medicine. Public Health Service Officers attend the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences so training for overseas adventures and unpleasantness is available. Transfer all of the Doctors, Dentists, Nurses, Corpsmen, Dentalmen, Medics, Technicians, and what else to the PHS.
In 1982ish almost all Air Force Veterinarians were transferred to the Army so such a transfer has been successfully done.
One medical service equals one records system.
Couple of problems with that, dennis.
For starters: the USPHS Commissioned Corps only has about 6,800 personnel. They’re all uniformed. The VHA (the part of the VA that manages and provides healthcare services) has nearly 280,000 employees – and they’re all civilians. Good luck getting all their doctors to pass qualification and accept a USPHS commission. Also, good luck on getting Congress to authorize another 280,000 personnel in uniform. And good luck in recruiting enough new bodies annually if they’re all in uniform.
Also, the USPHS Commissioned Corps also provides various other medical care and crisis response services today. So you’d be changing their mission hugely.
Finally, I’m leery of combining the VA and DoD medical systems. At 280,000 personnel, the VA medical system is likely larger than the medical care systems of all 3 services combined. I’m guessing their management would end up running the combined system – and that a lot of bases/posts/camps/stations would lose their medical facilities as a result. Not sure that’s such a good option, given what I’ve seen of the VA’s medical leadership recently.
well, if you want the emails to work, I understand there is a blank server at the Clinton residence.
That would eliminate a levels of bureaucracy that would make the filing system easier and more efficient. It would result in the elimination of jobs and some GS employee wouldn’t get a raise for having an office of a larger size. A senator would lose support from a union that would result in another senator being elected. Government fraud, waste, and abuse would be reduced and we can’t have that can we!
I haven’t even started thinking about the programming mess that would result trying to make the systems compatible, because god forbid if they go with a reputable company with a high success rate.
I took the liberty of mapping out a route between the Pentagon and VA Headquarters on Google Maps. You can find it here: http://preview.tinyurl.com/nhj3qsq
Looks to be a 15 minute drive. Just get the records loaded onto a convoy of big trucks, then drive ’em into DC and unload. Get the file clerks at Vermont Avenue to file them appropriately.
Oh, and it’s more than just a mile or so. Google Maps says 4.2 miles. ;o)
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/w0ptjz/the-red-tape-diaries—veteran-benefits
It is a government problem, especially with the bid system. Nothing needs to be created, there are systems out there, EPIC being the best, o Cadillac version, then there is Allscripts…. If they VA and DoD would just buy epic, all would be well. Instead, they have this stupid system where they describe what they want and let companies say they can deliver, then award a contract to one of them, who will in turn never deliver….
We have patients from the VA, and when we do get records, they are printed from what looks like a dot matrix printer….