Gates Tells Jon Stewart He 'Failed' On Joint Health Record

Robert Gates failed to overcome the turf wars have prevented development of an integrated electronic health record to serve both the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments, the former Defense secretary told comedian Jon Stewart.

Gates said he and VA Secretary Eric Shinseki agreed on the need for a joint record, but faced bureaucratic pushback. “At the end of the day, Shinseki and I simply could not get the technical people to abandon their turf consciousness and their insistence on owning their own system and not combining the two,” he said Wednesday on the Daily Show.