EHR Interoperability, Innovation At The VA: Peter Levin Q&A

Following last week’s news that the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense (DoD, VA) would abandon their joint development of an integrated EHR (iEHR), the focus for both departments turns to making their EHR systems interoperate, which has some taking umbrage with the decision. The two agencies now find themselves in the same situation as many users of legacy health IT systems across the country, albeit at a much larger scale considering the number of facilities they operate and patients they serve.

Last month, we spoke with Peter Levin, Senior Advisor to the Secretary and Chief Technology Officer at the VA, about the obstacles in the way of achieving true interoperability between the VA and other systems. Although there are significant technical obstacles to be resolved, Levin reveals that the top challenge actually comes down to transforming attitudes about health IT to accommodate changing time and technology...