Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

See the following -

Evaluation Of The Lovell Federal Health Care Center Merger: Findings, Conclusions, And Recommendations

Press Release | Institute of Medicine | October 16, 2012

This report finds that initial implementation of the Lovell FHCC has provided important lessons about how to integrate VA and DoD health care services and has identified remaining obstacles that the departments could overcome to make such mergers more effective and less costly to implement. The IOM recommends that the VA and the DoD develop a comprehensive evaluation plan to objectively judge its success or failure, with measurable criteria, that would provide essential knowledge for both the Lovell FHCC and future endeavors.

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Everyone Needs A Blue Button

Becky J. Monroe | An Only Childs Journey Into Parent Care | January 19, 2013

Flash forward to today – January 18, 2013. Last night – mom fell and broke her hip. [...] I’ve been journaling during the whole visit (who knew there was this much stuff you could learn in 24 hours about health care) – but more pertinent – is what I learned about what I didn’t do and why I appreciate electronic health records and interoperability even more. Read More »

Executive Spotlight: Don Mestas, Harris VP On Healthcare Offerings, M&A Activity And Ongoing VA Work

David J. Barton | ExecutiveBiz | March 20, 2013

Don Mestas serves as vice president of government healthcare solutions at Harris Corp., where he manages the company’s business with the departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, Health and Human Services and other government customers. Read More »

Experts Examine Funding of Studies of Hospital Associated Bacterial Pathogens

Staff | Infection Control Today | February 28, 2012

Hospital-associated infections (HAIs) are associated with a considerable burden of disease and direct costs greater than $17 billion. The pathogens that cause the majority of serious HAIs are Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium difficile, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Enterobacter species, referred to as ESCKAPE pathogens. Read More »

Experts To Discuss Latest Advances In Veterans' Mental Health Treatment At Congressional Briefing

Press Release | American Psychological Association (APA) | July 22, 2013

Traumatic brain injury, phantom limb pain, depression, ptsd, among topics... Read More »

Experts Tout Blue Button As Enabling Information Exchange Between Medical Provider And Patient

Bill Toland | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | June 23, 2013

Get a group of tech-savvy physicians and electronic medical records experts in a room, ask them about the way forward, and the subject of the Blue Button is sure to come up. Read More »

Fate Of Veterans' Clinics In Limbo As Budget Cutting Looms

Staff Writer | The Associated Press | March 3, 2013

A veterans' health clinic in Brick, N.J., is in such disrepair that when the snow gets heavy, patients have to go elsewhere for fear the roof might collapse. Another in San Antonio has extensive mildew and mold problems that could prove a health hazard for employees and patients in the coming years. Read More »

Fed Health IT Spending: $6.5 Billion By 2016

Nicole Lewis | Information Week | December 28, 2011

Federal health IT spending will increase from $4.5 billion in 2011 to $6.5 billion in 2016, which represents a compound annual growth rate of 7.5%, according to a GovWin IQ research study released by Deltek. 

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Federal Health Care IT Spending Set to Grow

Angela Petty | The Washington Post | January 8, 2012

With money tight, congressional appropriators rarely insist that agencies spend money. Yet the omnibus spending bill passed Dec. 17 approved $100 million for a joint Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs effort to develop digital medical records — even though they missed deadlines for requesting the money. Read More »

Federal IT Budget To Increase In 2014

Patience Wait | InformationWeek | April 11, 2013

Federal IT spending will increase nearly 2%, to $82 billion, in the fiscal 2014 budget submitted by the White House on Wednesday. It's the first significant increase in federal IT spending in four years. Read More »

Federal Source Code Policy Requires Agencies To Share Code

Nathan Eddy | Information Week | August 9, 2016

The objective behind the White House's Federal Source Code policy is to ensure all agencies make custom-developed source code available for re-use across government. The aim is to make the government work more like developers in the private sector and to encourage sharing and collaboration. The White House officially released its Federal Source Code policy on Aug. 8, designed to support improved access to custom software code developed by or for the US government...

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FedPod: IT Update With VA CTO Peter Levin

David Stegon | FedScoop | October 24, 2012

Department of Veterans Affairs Chief Technology Officer Peter Levin gives a VA IT update and discusses OSEHRA, Blue Button and open source software. Read More »

Feds Look to Automate Blue Button

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee | GovInfoSecurity.com | August 14, 2012

The federal government is launching an initiative to make the increasingly popular Blue Button patient portal feature more automated. The goal is to provide patients with more ease and choices for securely downloading and transmitting their personal health information. Read More »

Feds Release Latest Version Of Connect

Joseph Conn | ModernHealthcare.com | February 13, 2013

The federal government has released its latest version of the open source Connect software platform for advanced health information exchange. Read More »

Feds Tout Blue Button, Push Patient Engagement

Joseph Conn | ModernHealthcare.com | September 10, 2012

Pushing the Blue Button was what a parade of government and private-sector health information technology leaders did—often and with gusto—during a series of panel discussions in Washington to kick off Health IT Week. Read More »