Defense-VA Electronic Health Record Stumbles At Chicago Hospital

Despite an investment of $100 million since 2009, the Chicago hospital managed jointly by the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments has not fully developed a joint electronic health record because officials haven’t been able to create a numbering system for prescriptions, the Institute of Medicine said in a report released today.

Information sharing at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center, a facility that serves the Navy’s Great Lakes Recruit Training Command and veterans, hit another shoal when the Navy insisted on a rigid security review for VA personnel, the IOM report revealed.

The main stumbling block in developing a joint health record for Lovell was the need for sequential numbering of prescription drugs in the two departments’ electronic systems -- AHLTA at Defense and the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture at VA, IOM reported.