iEHR Will Be in Place 4 to 6 Years From Now, Says Baker

A joint, integrated electronic health record between the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs should be in place 4 to 6 years from now, said VA Chief Information Officer Roger Baker during a May 27 press call. VA Secretary Eric Shinseki announced an agreement between the two departments to merge their separate EHR systems into one new system, since dubbed the iEHR, earlier this year.

iEHR will be a combination of shared code and standards, Baker said. Some applications will definitely be utilized by both departments, such as pharmacy software, laboratory software, and an enterprise service bus, Baker added. "I believe the intention is to get to the point where there is a single repository for all the data related to an individual's medical record, whether that data was generated in DoD or in VA," he said.