AHLTA
See the following -
A 40-Year 'Conspiracy' at the VA
Four decades ago, in 1977, a conspiracy began bubbling up from the basements of the vast network of hospitals belonging to the Veterans Administration. Across the country, software geeks and doctors were puzzling out how they could make medical care better with these new devices called personal computers. Working sometimes at night or in their spare time, they started to cobble together a system that helped doctors organize their prescriptions, their CAT scans and patient notes, and to share their experiences electronically to help improve care for veterans...
Butler Selected to lead DOD-VA iEHR Efforts
Barclay Butler, a senior health IT manager in private and military sectors, has been named to lead the interagency office that will coordinate the deployment of the VA-DOD integrated electronic health record (iEHR). Butler became director of the Interagency Program Office effective Feb. 27, according to a Defense Department memo and confirmed by the Veterans Affairs Department. Read More »
Cerner, Leidos, Accenture Plan Joint Bid for Defense EHR Contract
Cerner Corp. has entered an alliance with experienced government contractors Leidos and Accenture Federal Services to make a play for the multibillion-dollar contract to build, install and configure a replacement electronic health-record system for the Defense Department's health system. Read More »
Defense Health Records Meltdown
I have confirmed that AHLTA, the Defense Department's electronic health record system, experienced an "enterprise-wide" shutdown that lasted most of the day Tuesday. Read More »
Defense-VA Integrated Electronic Health Record Could Use Commercial Cloud
The technical blueprint for the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments integrated electronic health record makes the security and privacy of patient information the first priority of the joint system planned for deployment in 2017, backed by rigid clinician access control systems and secure patient identity systems.
Did Jon Stewart Foil the Pentagon's Health Records Plan?
I’m picking up strong signals that the Military Health System abruptly scrapped plans to upgrade its electronic health record -- the Armed Forces Health Longitudinal Technology Application, or AHLTA -- as senior Defense Department officials lean toward adopting the Veterans Affairs Department’s EHR -- the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture, known as VistA. Read More »
DOD, VA Announce Joint Health Record Milestone
The Defense and Veterans Affairs departments announced a milestone in their effort to combine their health records in what will become the world’s largest electronic system by 2017, the secretaries of both departments announced here today.
DoD, VA Will Use Service-Oriented Architecture in Joint EHR
The ever-evolving, contentious effort to merge the electronic health records of the Department of Defense and the Veterans Affairs Department just took another step forward. Mark Goodge, chief technology officer of the Military Health System, announced that the integrated electronic health record (iEHR) will use common services applications rather than a single proprietary system, accordin Read More »
DoD/VA EHR Integration and Interoperability Conference
The Institute for Defense and Government Advancement (IDGA) announces the DoD/VA EHR Integration and Interoperability scheduled for September 16-18, 2013 in Arlington, VA. Read More »
Hagel mulls putting Defense Dept. on VistA
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told Congress this week that he is investigating the possibility of switching the military's health records to the Veteran Administration's VistA to deal with long-running interoperability issues between the two systems. Read More »
Hagel Opts for Commercial Electronic Health Record Software
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel opted to run procurements for commercial electronic health record software, which will “likely” include software based on the system used by the Veterans Affairs Department. The move is considered a blow to VA and a boon to the healthcare information technology industry, multiple sources said. Read More »
In Military Care, a Pattern of Errors but Not Scrutiny
Since 2001, the Defense Department has required military hospitals to conduct safety investigations when patients unexpectedly die or suffer severe injury. The object is to expose and fix systemic errors, often in the most routine procedures, that can have disastrous consequences for the quality of care. Yet there is no evidence of such an inquiry into Mrs. Zeppa’s death.
Internal watchdog blasts DoD's health IT efforts
The Defense Department's current approach to achieving health record interoperability with the Veterans Affairs Department is "manifestly inconsistent" with White House directives to adopt and use open data standards, according to a memo from the Pentagon's top systems evaluator. Read More »
IT workarounds at VA-DoD health facility costly
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 »
Jon Stewart Weighs in on Defense-VA E-Health Record Standoff
Stewart hammered home the lack of compatibility between AHLTA and VistA -- well known inside the Beltway -- to his national audience. “These two programs are unable to communicate with each other,” Stewart said, paused, and added, “I swear to you this is true -- how insane is this complication?” Read More »