Leon Panetta

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Integrated Health Record Effort Adds To VA's Troubles

Amber Corrin | FCW | May 2, 2013

The Integrated Electronic Health Record (iEHR) program is not the Department of Veterans Affairs' only lightning rod, but it is a major one. Officially in the works since 2011, the records-sharing program took root after 15 years of discussion and cooperation between the two agencies to share military members' health data. Read More »

Integrated Health Record Tests DoD's Agile Acquisition Aspirations

Jared Serbu | FederalNewsRadio.com | August 31, 2012

A year later, Dr. Barclay Butler was appointed to direct the Interagency Program Office (IPO) that will coordinate DoD and VA's activities. And he's come to the conclusion that development of the Integrated Electronic Health Record (iEHR) just isn't compatible with the traditional DoD acquisition system.
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Integrated VA-DoD Health Record at Least Five Years Away

Tom Philpott | JDNews.com | July 27, 2012

House committees on armed services and veterans affairs held a joint hearing Wednesday to review details of President Obama’s plan to improve the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) for separating and retiring military members, with a kind of five-to-seven-day “reverse boot camp” available by late 2013 to smooth transition to civilian life and employment... Read More »

Internal watchdog blasts DoD's health IT efforts

Jared Serbu | Federal News Radio | April 22, 2013

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 »

Joe Conn-DoD Should Make Right Decision and Adopt VistA

Joe Conn | Modern Healthcare | February 12, 2013

I think what's needed now remains as obvious as it has for decades, which means Shinseki and Panetta got it only half right, because they were half wrong. There should be one EHR for the military and the VA, but it shouldn't be the just dispatched Frankenstein's EHR that was to be built out of custom-made and off-the-shelf parts. It should be VistA. The VA has a demonstrably superior EHR system, so the Defense Department brass should swallow their bureaucratic pride and adopt it. Read More »

Lost To History: Missing War Records Complicate Benefit Claims By Iraq, Afghanistan Veterans

Peter Sleeth and Hal Bernton | ProPublica | November 9, 2012

The loss of field records — after-action write-ups, intelligence reports and other day-to-day accounts from the war zones — has far-reaching implications. It has complicated efforts by soldiers like DeLara to claim benefits. And it makes it harder for military strategists to learn the lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan, two of the nation's most protracted wars.

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Panetta: Defense and VA Need to ‘Kick Ass’ to Improve Service to Veterans

Bob Brewin | NextGov | July 26, 2012

The bureaucracies in the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments hobble joint efforts to care for veterans, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told lawmakers at a House hearing Wednesday. Read More »

Prospects For Comprehensive Cyber Reform Are Questionable

Aliya Sternstein | Nextgov | February 7, 2013

Congress is unlikely to pass a comprehensive cybersecurity reform bill this year, largely because public concern about computer hacking doesn’t sway elections, a recently-departed House Homeland Security Committee senior aide said. Read More »

Shinseki: VA to move forward with electronic records

Amber Corrin | FCW | April 15, 2013

Veterans Administration Secretary Eric Shinseki insisted at an April 15 congressional hearing that the VA will move forward on a joint electronic health records system with the Defense Department, even as Pentagon officials are pausing to review their approach. Read More »

Smaller Deal On E-Health Record Angers Capitol Hill

Tom Philpott | JDNews.com | March 1, 2013

The Obama administration pared back its plan to develop a single, integrated, electronic health- record system for the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs due to shrinking defense budgets and rising costs. Read More »

Soldiers Waiting For Medical Discharge ‘Languish’ In Disability System

Bob Brewin | Nextgov | March 11, 2013

Years after the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments established a joint system in 2007 to speed up the medical discharge of troops, an Army inspector general report found active duty soldiers “continued to languish” in the system for 386 days and reserve and National Guard troops for 366 days. Read More »

Successful Hacker Attack Could Cripple U.S. Infrastructure, Experts Say

Erin McClam | NBC News | February 19, 2013

A report tying the Chinese military to computer attacks against American interests has sent a chill through cyber-security experts, who worry that the very lifelines of the United States — its energy pipelines, its water supply, its banks — are increasingly at risk. Read More »

Suicide 'Epidemic' In Army: July Was Worst Month, Pentagon Says

Anna Mulrine | The Christian Science Monitor | August 17, 2012

Even as the Afghanistan war winds down, suicides among troops are on the rise. Among all branches, the number is up 22 percent from a year ago, and July was the Army's worst month. Read More »

Suicides Outpacing War Deaths For Troops

Timothy Williams | New York Times | June 8, 2012

The suicide rate among the nation’s active-duty military personnel has spiked this year, eclipsing the number of troops dying in battle and on pace to set a record annual high since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan more than a decade ago, the Pentagon said Friday. Read More »

The Last Battle: Efforts To Provide Mental Health Care For War Veterans Falling Short

Greg Barnes and John Ramsey | FayObserver.com | September 26, 2012

The last battle of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is being fought at home. And in 2012, the military and the VA have done more than ever to respond to the anguish of men and women who are haunted by war...But there is little evidence that the tide has turned in the battle. Read More »