Robert Petzel

See the following -

Congress Probes Mental Health Services At VA

David Pittman | Medpage Today | February 13, 2013

Mental health services at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) don't seem to be improving despite increases of nearly 40% in both staff and budget in the last 6 years, a congressional committee charged Wednesday. Read More »

Defense And VA To Congress On Health Records: It's The Data, Not The Software

Bob Brewin | Nextgov | July 10, 2013

Top officials at the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments said Wednesday they will create a system to exchange standard clinical health data, which will allow the departments to develop a single, shared electronic health record without the need to build a joint system from scratch. Read More »

Department Of Veterans Affairs Issues 1,000 iPads To Aid Veterans And Caregivers

Michael Singer | TabTimes | July 29, 2013

A program to bring more than 1,000 iPads to the families of seriously injured Post-9/11 veterans is expected to provide improved health services to service men and women dealing with special conditions. Read More »

DOD Cooperation Accelerating VA Claims Handling

Karen Parrish | My San Antonio | July 16, 2013

Senior officials from the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs assured Congress July 10 that they are closing in on solutions that will alleviate the backlog of veterans' health benefit claims and streamline processing of current and future claims. Read More »

DoD, VA Address Healthcare Data Standardization Project

Elizabeth Leigh | ExecutiveGov | July 11, 2013

The departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs will develop a data management service that seeks to allow the agencies to seamlessly share electronic medical records, Nextgov reported Wednesday. Read More »

DoD, VA Reiterate Commitment To iEHR -- Again

Tom Sullivan | Government Health IT | February 28, 2013

After a morning of Congressional tongue-lashings Wednesday during a House hearing on iEHR, the Veterans Affairs and Defense Departments publicly issued a statement reasserting that they are jointly committed to working toward an iEHR endpoint similar to the project’s original goal. Read More »

Hagel And Shinseki May Rethink Integrated Health Record

Bob Brewin | Nextgov | March 20, 2013

I have picked up strong signals from multiple sources that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who took office on Feb. 27, has already met with Veterans Affairs chief Eric Shinseki, with the integrated electronic health record a key topic of their meeting. Read More »

Hearing Focuses On Health Data Exchange Plans Of Pentagon, VA

Staff Writer | iHealthBeat | July 11, 2013

At a House hearing on Wednesday, officials from the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs discussed their plans to develop a system to exchange standard clinical health data, rather than developing a joint electronic health record system as originally planned, NextGov reports. Read More »

Joint EHR Costs Skyrocketed To $28 Billion, DoD Says

Jennifer Bresnick | EHR Intelligence | July 11, 2013

Physicians spending a paltry twenty or thirty thousand dollars on their EHR implementations can take comfort in the fact that they don’t have to foot the bill for the recently abandoned joint VA-DoD EHR system, which would have cost the taxpayers $28 billion, according to Frank Kendall, undersecretary of Defense for acquisitions. Read More »

Longtime VA Researcher Receives Lasker-DeBakey Award

Press Release | Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) | October 11, 2012

Dr. Thomas E. Starzl, a long-time VA researcher often called “the father of human transplantation,” has received one of the world’s top awards for science from the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation. Read More »

The Defense-VA-Vendor Conference Nobody Wants You to Know About

Bob Brewin | Nextgov | May 1, 2013

An outfit called the Defense Strategies Institute will hold a conference in Alexandria, Va., May 15-16 on the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments’ planned integrated electronic health record featuring high ranking speakers from both departments. Any vendor who wants to attend can do so. But the media will be prohibited. Read More »

VA Named To The 2013 “Most Wired” Hospitals List

Tom Cramer | U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs | July 15, 2013

The Department of Veterans Affairs has been named to the 2013 ‘Most Wired’ hospitals list — an event that marks the first time that all VA medical centers nationwide have achieved the honor. Read More »

VA's $400K History Book Sidetracked By Crisis

Dennis Wagner | AZ Central | January 19, 2015

When the media, investigators and Congress exposed the Department of Veterans Affairs' broken and dishonest health-care system last year, VA officials were forced to postpone publication of a $400,000-plus history book that glowingly portrays the agency's achievements...

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What's wrong with IT at Veterans Affairs?

Frank Konkel | FCW | May 1, 2013

Projects are stalled, and top leaders have departed. Investigations and agency sources paint a bleak picture inside VA's IT office. Read More »