Lawmakers Set to Grill Defense, VA on Health Records U-Turn

The House Veterans’ Affairs Committee plans to hold a hearing on Wednesday, Feb. 27, on the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments’ Feb. 6 decision to drop plans to develop a $4 billion integrated electronic health record and instead pursue less expensive technologies to make their respective systems more interoperable.

The hearing -- “Electronic Health Record U-Turn: Are VA and DoD Headed in the Wrong Direction?”  -- probably will not be warm and fuzzy based on comments about  the decision to abandon the joint health record posted on the committee website from key congressmen and senators.

Committee Chairman Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., said, “The decision by DoD and VA to turn their backs on a truly integrated electronic health record system is deeply troubling…. Previous attempts by DoD and VA to use disparate computer systems to produce universal electronic health records have failed, and unfortunately it appears they are repeating past mistakes.”...